فصلنامه ادبیات عرفانی و اسطوره شناختی
سال نوزدهم شماره 70 (بهار 1402)

Ritual drinking of wine is rooted in the rite of sacrifice and is a modified form of blood drinking. Over time, the blood drinking ritual has been replaced by the wine drinking. There is an association between blood and wine, and red wine is more similar to the blood of the sacrifice than anything else. According to what is mentioned in Persian narrative poetry texts, due to the importance and position of the kings, wine drinking was often held in their memory. After the kings, there were heroes in whose honor the most wine drinking rituals were held, because they were supporters of royal glory, national independence and defense of people against foreigners. Recommending to drink wine in memory of heroes and elders (before war and after death) is an invitation to a ritual, and it has an effect on their afterlife destiny and is the cause of attracting the spiritual and spiritual power of wine drinkers. The present research, by using descriptive-analytical method and referring to Persian narrative poetry texts (written till 7th A.H. century), attempts to show that ritual drinking of wine is a modified way of drinking the blood of a victim in primitive rituals. The results of the research show that collective wine drinking in battlefield and banquet of kings, heroes and elders is a kind of non-bloody offering to the spirit of the departed; collective wine drinking leads to longevity, health and prosperity. It causes the spiritual union of wine drinkers with the soul of the departed.

The myth-ritual theory is based on the anthropological perspective and believes that the life of myth is related to the presence of religion. According to the theory, every myth is an interpretation of a religious ritual and an oral narration of a ritual. In the passage of time, rituals are transferred to epic texts and thus represent the function of repeating archetypal values. The findings of the present research show that "the hero's trial", which has been the subject of many epics in the world, is one of the clear examples of representation as well as repetition of myths; it opens a way for man to return to the eternal time and place; and it causes the hero to become strong by knowing "the rituals of learning of secrets". The current research was done with analytical-comparative method and based on the myth-ritual theory. The presence of the ritual of "the hero's trial" in Persian epics (composed in the Islamic period) refers to a religious ritual and tells how the ritual was established in ancient times by gods and heroes. Examining some of the epics makes it possible to clarify how these trials were conducted and, in addition, it also provides the ability to classify them.

The present study examines three mythological symbols of blood, plant and long hair, which are related to mythological characters who become martyrs, in contemporary Persian novels. To achieve this goal, first the symbols are examined in the story of Siyāvash in Shānāmeh, and then the transformation of these mythological symbols in three contemporary novels is analyzed. The statistical population of the research is the story of Siyāvash in Shānāmeh and three novels Suvashun, Bewilderment (Heirani) and His Ego (Man-e-oo) that have been selected by the purposeful sampling method. The present research, by using the descriptive-analytical method, aims to state that the mythological symbols (blood, plant and long hair) have been changed and reproduced in all three novels under the influence of the culture and internal relations of the society. The results, while confirming the regeneration of these mythological symbols in Persian contemporary fiction, show that despite the temporal, spatial and positional differences, their structure remains the same, but the components, context and semantic function undergo transformation and according to the elements of change, fracture and integration have been reproduced.

Analyzing human nature is one of the most basic philosophical, religious and sociological issues. Also, knowing the characteristics of spiritual man and the ways to achieve happiness is one of the main topics in mystical schools. Many scholars and mystics - both in the West and in the East - have addressed this issue and reached different results. In the present essay, by using descriptive-comparative method, the intellectual systems of Jalāl-al Din Rumi and Wayne Dyer are studied on the issue of "spiritual man" and the common thoughts of these two thinkers are explained. The research findings show that the similarities between their views are much more than the differences. This is due to Dyer's great influence from Rumi's teachings and shows that their intellectual source, that is mysticism, is the same. The main point of commonality between the two is the concept of "unity of being" and the most important difference is the issue of "belief in divine punishment".

Belief in the descent of the soul to the material realm and its return to its higher state and homeland is the core of the teachings of the Gnostic School as well as Islamic mysticism. This belief is manifested in two allegorical stories: “The Hymn of the Pearl” and “Exiled in the West: The Mystical Narration of Shihab Al-Din Suhrawardi's Recital of the Occidental Exile” The former is a reflection of Gnostic epistemological thoughts and the latter being an expression of Suhrawardi's intellectual-philosophical system. By a comparative analytical approach and using library method, the present article tires to decipher these two stories to depict the basic worldviews of Gnosticism and Suhrawardi through these two treatises, to reread the commonalities and differences between them, and in this way, achieve achievements by comparing and intertextually examining the two stories. Despite the great intellectual differences between these two worldviews, the findings of the research show many commonalities. Among the common themes of two stories, we can refer to spiritual nostalgia, East-West worldview, the presence of an old man and a spiritual guide, being informant, as well as the symbolic and mythological structure of both stories. Themes such as the return and the second birth, the Divine intervention in all things, and the non-dualistic worldview, that are referred in Exiled in the West, are the differences between the two stories.

Alexander is one of the most important and ambiguous mythological characters of Iranian history and culture that has undergone extensive changes and taken new forms under the influence of grand epistemological narratives (archi-myth) in the Greek, Iranian and Islamic worlds. One of the efficient cultural strategies of Muslims is the use of archi-myths by borrowing them from the myths of other nations in order to explain and confirm religious concepts and teachings. The results of the present research show that the poverty of mythological contents among the Arabs of the pre-Islamic period, the rise of the translation movement in the first A.H. centuries, the emergence of the second wave of Hellenism and Alexander's mythical behaviors paved the way for the formation of a new personality of Alexander in the Islamic world, and Alexander was introduced as Dhu al-Qarnayn in the interpretation texts of Quran. In the world of Islam, the myth of Alexander did not have a clear concept at first, but it gradually found its own characteristics and through the generally religious codes, it reached an independent concept in the middle ages, which has continued with changes until now. By using analytical-comparative method, the present research at first attempts to examine "archi-myths" and then to find why Alexander, as a archi-myth, has been center of attention for Muslims.