FREDA BEDI CONT'D (#4)

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Part 1 of 2

III. The Sixth Discourse; on the Persians
by Sir William Jones
Delivered 10th February, 1789

-- III. The Sixth Discourse; on the Persians, by Sir William Jones, Delivered 10th February, 1789, from Asiatic Researches; or Transactions of the Society Instituted in Bengal For Inquiring Into the History and Antiquities, The Arts, Sciences, and Literature of Asia, Volume II, 1788 P. 36-53

-- ZEND-AVESTA, WORK OF ZOROASTRE, Containing the Theological, Physical & Moral Ideas of this Legislator, the Ceremonies of the Religious Worship he established, & several important features relating to the ancient History of the Persians: Translated into French on the Original Zend, with Notes; & accompanied by several Treatises specific to clarifying the Matters who are subject to it. By M. ANQUETIL DU PERRON, of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions & Belles-Lettres, & Interpreter of the King for Oriental Languages. FIRST VOLUME. SECOND PART, Which includes the Vendidad Sade (i.e. I'zeschnè, the Vispered & the VENDIDAD itself), preceded by the Notices of the Zend Manuscripts, Pehlvis, Persians & Indians, deposited by the Translator in the Library of King; Titles & Summaries of Articles & c. both. Volumes of this Work; & of the VIE DE ZOROASTRE: With a plate engraved in intaglio. 1771

-- Oupnek'hat [Four Upanishads], by Anquetil Duperron. 1802

Gentlemen,

I turn with delight from the vast mountains and barren deserts of Turan over which we travelled last year with no perfect knowledge of our course, and request you now to accompany me on a literary journey through one of the most celebrated and most beautiful countries in the world; a country, the history and languages of which, both ancient and modern, I have long attentively studied, and on which I may without arrogance promise you more positive information, than I could possibly procure on a nation so disunited and so unlettered as the Tartars: I mean that, which Europeans improperly call Persia, the name of a single province being applied to the whole Empire of Iran, as it is correctly denominated by the present natives of it, and by all the learned Muselmans, who reside in these British territories. To give you an idea of its largest boundaries, agreeably to my former mode of describing India, Arabia, and Tartary, between which it lies, let us begin with the source of the great Assyrian stream, Euphrates, (as the Greeks, according to their custom, were pleased to miscall the Forat) and thence descend to its mouth in the Green Sea, or Persian Gulf, including in our line some considerable districts and towns on both sides of the river; then, coasting Persia, properly so named, and other Iranian provinces, we come to the delta of the Sindhu or Indus; whence ascending to the mountains of Cashghar, we discover its fountains and those of the Jaihun, down which we are conducted to the Caspian, which formerly perhaps it entered, though it lose itself now in the sands and lakes of Khwarezm: we next are led from the sea of Khozar, by the banks of the Cur, or Cyrus, and along the Caucasean ridges, to the shore of the Euxine, and thence, by the several Greecian seas, to the point, whence we took our departure, at no considerable distance from the Mediterranean. We cannot but include the lower Asia within this outline, because it was unquestionably a part of the Persian, if not of the old Assyrian, Empire; for we know, that it was under the dominion of CAIKHOSRAU; and DIODORUS, we find, asserts, that the kingdom of Troas was dependent on Assyria, since PRIAM implored and obtained succours from his Emperor TEUTAMES, whose name approaches nearer to TAHMURAS, than to that of any other Assyrian monarch. Thus may we look on Iran as the noblest Island, (for so the Greeks and the Arabs would have called it), or at least as the noblest peninsula, on this habitable globe; and if M. BAILLY had fixed on it as the Atlantis of PLATO, he might have supported his opinion with far stronger arguments than any, that he has adduced in favour of New Zembla: if the account, indeed, of the Atlantes be not purely an Egyptian, or an Utopian, fable, I should be more inclined to place them in Iran than in any region, with which I am acquainted.

It may seem strange, that the ancient history of so distinguished an Empire should be yet so imperfectly known; but very satisfactory reasons may be assigned for our ignorance of it: the principal of them are the superficial knowledge of the Greeks and Jews, and the loss of Persian archives or historical compositions. That the Greecian writters, before XENOPHON [430 BC-355 BC], had no acquaintance with Persia, and that all their accounts of it are wholly fabulous, is a paradox too extravagant to be seriously maintained; but their connection with it in war or peace had, indeed, been generally confined to bordering kingdoms under feudatory princes; and the first Persian Emperor, whose life and character they seem to have known with tolerable accuracy, was the great CYRUS, whom I call, without fear of contradiction, CAIKHOSRAU; for I shall then only doubt that the KHOSRAU of FIRDAUSI was the CYRUS of the first Greek historian, and the Hero of the oldest political and moral romance, when I doubt that LOUIS Quatorze and LEWIS the Fourteenth were one and the same French King: it is utterly incredible, that two different princes of Persia should each have been born in a foreign and hostile territory; should each have been doomed to death in his infancy by his maternal grandfather in consequence of portentous dreams, real or invented; should each have been saved by the remorse of his destined murderer, and should each, after a similar education among herdsmen as the son of a herdsman, have found means to revisit his paternal kingdom, and having delivered it, after a long and triumphant war, from the tyrant, who had invaded it, should have restored it to the summit of power and magnificence. Whether so romantic a story, which is the subject of an Epic Poem, as majestic and entire as the Iliad, be historically true, we may feel perhaps an inclination to doubt; but it cannot with reason be denied, that the outline of it related to a single Hero, whom the Asiatics, conversing with the father of European history, described according to their popular traditions by his true name, which the Greek alphabet could not express: nor will a difference of names affect the question; since the Greeks had little regard for truth, which they sacrificed willingly to the Graces of their language, and the nicety of their ears; and, if they could render foreign words melodious, they were never solicitous to make them exact; hence they probably formed CAMBYSES from CAMBAKHSH, or Granting desires, a title rather than a name, and XERXES from SHIRUYI, a Prince and warrior in the Shahnama, or from SHIRAHAH, which might also have been a title; for the Asiatic Princes have constantly assumed new titles or epithets at different periods of their lives, or on different occasions; a custom, which we have seen prevalent in our own times both in Iran and Hindustan, and which has been a source of great confusion even in the scriptural accounts of Babylonian occurrences: both Greeks and Jews have in fact accommodated Persian names to their own articulation; and both seem to have disregarded the native literature of Iran, without which they could at most attain a general and imperfect knowledge of the country. As to the Persians themselves, who were contemporary with the Jews and Greeks, they must have been acquainted with the history of their own times, and with the traditional accounts of past ages; but for a reason, which will presently appear, they chose to consider CAYUMERS as the founder of their empire; and, in the numerous distractions, which followed the overthrow of DARA, especially in the great revolution on the defeat of YEZDEGIRD, their civil histories were lost, as those of India have unhappily been, from the solicitude of the priests, the only depositaries of their learning, to preserve their books of law and religion at the expense of all others: hence it has happened, that nothing remains of genuine Persian history before the dynasty of SASAN [224-651], except a few rustic traditions and fables, which furnished materials for the Shahnamah, and which are still supposed to exist in the Pahlavi language.

Dara I or Darab I was the penultimate king of the mythological Kayanian dynasty, ruling for 12 years. He was the son of Kay Bahman. Most accounts agree that Dara's mother was Humay Chehrzad, who had married her father, Kay Bahman. After Kay Bahman's death, Humay, who was pregnant with Dara, became the regent of the realm. Humay later hid the news of Dara's birth, and abandoned him on casket filled with expensive jewels on a river. The river has reported to have been the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Kor river in Fars, the Polvar river in Fars, or the Balkh river.

When Dara became older he eventually found his way back to Humay, who abdicated in his favor. Dara I was later succeeded by his son Dara II.

Dara I has been credited with the establishment of the Persian postal system, which is a reflection of [???] the introduction or restructuring of the postal system by the Achaemenid King of Kings, Darius I the Great (r. 522–486 BC). The last Kayanian kings were usually connected with western Iran, as demonstrated by reports of Dara I using Babylon as his residence. Most sources credit Dara I with the foundation of the city of Darabgerd in Fars, while a few consider Dara II to have been its founder.

According to later sources, Dara I had a son named Firuzshah [!!!], whose achievements are mentioned in the Firuz-nameh by Haji Muhammad Bigami.

-- Dara I, by Wikipedia

DĀRĀ(B) (1)

Dārā(b) I was the son of the Kayanid Bahman Ardašīr. According to most of the sources, his mother was Homā Čehrāzād, who married her own father, Bahman (Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VI, p. 352; Ṭabarī, I, p. 687; Balʿamī, ed. Bahār, p. 687; Masʿūdī, Morūj, ed. Pellat, I, p. 272; Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, p. 389; Meskawayh, p. 34; Gardīzī, ed. Ḥabībī, p. 15; Ṭarsūsī, pp. 10-11). In one tradition, however, this marriage was denied, and it was maintained that Homā died a virgin (Ebn al-Balḵī, p. 54). Nevertheless, the former version, which accords with the old Iranian tradition of next-of-kin marriage, is certainly authentic. According to this legend, Bahman died before Dārā was born and appointed Homā his regent. When Dārā was born she did not reveal the news of his birth but had him laid, together with precious jewels, in a casket and exposed on the river Euphrates (Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VI, p. 356; Ṭarsūsī, p. 11), the Tigris (Maqdesī, Badʾ III, p. 150), the Kor river in Fārs (Ṭabarī, I, p. 689), the Eṣṭaḵr (i.e., Polvār) river in Fārs (Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, p. 392), or the Balḵ river (Ṭabarī, I, p. 690). The child was found by a fuller (Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VI, p. 356; Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, p. 392; Mojmal, ed. Bahār, p. 54; Maqdesī, Badʾ III, p. 150; Ṭarsūsī, where his name is given as Hormaz) or a miller (Ṭabarī, I, p. 690; Balʿamī, ed. Bahār, p. 690), who called him Dārāb, because he was found in the water (āb) among the trees (dār;itfoṮaʿālebī, Ḡorar, p. 394; Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VI, p. 358; Ṭarsūsī, pp. 13-14; Balʿamī, ed. Bahār, p. 690: dār “hold, take”).

This story seems to be based on popular etymology. A similar etiological legend is told about Kawād, the founder of the Kayanid dynasty (Bundahišn, TD2, p. 231; Christensen, 1931, pp. 70-71; idem, 1933-35; Bailey, pp. 69 ff.). It belongs to a type of legend “which is generally associated with the change of dynasties, the end of an era, or a major shift of power” (Yarshater, p. 522; cf. Christensen, 1933-35). In spite of the discontent of his foster-father, who wanted the boy to become a fuller, Dārā, eager to receive an aristocratic education, was first handed over to scholars, who taught him the Avesta and its commentary (Zand o Estā); then he was trained in archery, horsemanship, polo, and similar skills. Dārā, who doubted his relationship to the fuller and was curious to find out his true origin, compelled the fuller’s wife to reveal his descent. As he was ambitious to reach high positions, Dārā entered the service of Rašnavād, Homā’s commander-in-chief (Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VI, pp. 358 ff.; Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, pp. 394 ff.; Maqdesī, Badʾ III, p. 150; Balʿamī, ed. Bahār, pp. 690-91; Ṭarsūsī, pp. 27 ff., with different details). Eventually Dārā was introduced to the queen, who after a reign of thirty years (thirty-two according to Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VI, p. 371 v. 312) abdicated in his favor.

Dārā reigned for twelve years (Bundahišn, TD2, p. 240; Ḥamza, p. 13; Mojmal, ed. Bahār, p. 55; Ebn al-Balḵī, p. 55; Dīnavarī, ed. Guirgass, p. 31; Masʿūdī, Morūj, ed. Pellat, I, p. 272). During his reign he fought with Šoʿayb, the Arab commander from the Qotayb tribe (Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VI, pp. 374-75; Ṭarsūsī, pp. 354-72). He also campaigned against Fīlfūs (Philip) of Rūm (i.e., Greece), who was defeated and compelled to pay tribute and agreed to marry his daughter Nāhīd (Šāh-nāma, Moscow, VI, p. 377; Ṭarsūsī, p. 380) or Halāy (Ṭabarī, I, p. 697) to Dārā. Although pregnant, she was soon sent back home because of her foul breath. In Rūm she bore Eskandar (Alexander; Šāh-nāma, Moscow, pp. 375 ff.; Dīnavarī, pp. 31-32; Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, pp. 399 ff.; Ṭabarī, I, pp. 696-97; Mojmal, ed. Bahār, p. 54; Ṭarsūsī, pp. 390 ff.). This last episode represents an obvious attempt to provide a link between Alexander the Great and the Persian royal house by making him a half-brother of Dārā II (Yarshater, pp. 522-23).

The introduction of the Persian postal system was attributed to Dārā I (Ṭabarī, I, p. 692; Ḥamza, p. 39; Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, p. 398; Gardīzī, ed. Ḥabībī, p. 16), apparently reflecting a historical fact: the introduction or reorganization of the postal system by Darius I the Great. The foundation of the city of Dārābgerd in Fārs was attributed to him in most of the sources (Ḥamza, p. 39; Ṭabarī, I, p. 692; Balʿamī, ed. Bahār, p. 692; Ebn al-Balḵī, p. 55; Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, p. 398; Gardīzī, ed. Ḥabībī, p. 16; Mojmal, ed. Bahār, p. 55; Ebn al-Balḵī, p. 55; Ṭarsūsī, pp. 353, 452; see Dārāb ii), though in some others Dārā II was credited with its foundation (Pahlavi Texts, ed. Jamasp-Asana, p. 22; Tārīḵ-e gozīda, ed. Browne, p. 99). Babylon was mentioned as his residence (Ṭabarī, I, p. 692; Masʿūdī, Morūj, ed. Pellat, I, p. 272), which shows the general tendency in the tradition to link the exploits of the last Kayanid kings with western Iran.

Dārā was supposed, according to the late sources, to have had a son called Fīrūzšāh, whose exploits are related in the popular Persian romance Fīrūzšāh-nāma, published under the title Dārāb-nāma by Ḥājī Moḥammad Bīḡamī (ed. Ḏ. Ṣafā, Tehran, 1339-41 Š./1960-62).

-- DĀRĀ(B) (1), by Encyclopedia Iranica

The annals of the Pishdadi, or Assyrian, race must be considered as dark and fabulous; and those of the Cayani family, or the Medes and Persians, as heroic and poetical; though the lunar eclipses, said to be mentioned by PTOLEMY, fix the time of GUSHTASP, the prince, by whom ZERATUSHT was protected: of the Parthian kings descended from ARSHAC or ARSACES, we know little more than the names; but the Sasani's had so long an intercourse with the Emperors of Rome and Byzantium, that the period of their dominion may be called an historical age. In attempting to ascertain the beginning of the Assyrian empire, we are deluded, as in a thousand instances, by names arbitrarily imposed: it had been settled by chronologers, that the first monarchy established in Persia was the Assyrian; and NEWTON, finding some of opinion, that it rose in the first century after the Flood, but unable by his own calculations to extend it farther back than seven hundred and ninety years before CHRIST, rejected part of the old system and adopted the rest of it; concluding, that the Assyrian Monarchs began to reign about two hundred years after SOLOMON, and that, in all preceding ages, the government of Iran had been divided into several petty states and principalities. Of this opinion I confess myself to have been; when, disregarding the wild chronology of the Muselmans and Gabrs, I had allowed the utmost natural duration to the reigns of eleven Pishdadi kings, without being able to add more than a hundred years to NEWTON'S computation. It seemed, indeed, unaccountably strange, that, although ABRAHAM had found a regular monarchy in Egypt, although the kingdom of Yemen had just pretensions to very high antiquity, although the Chinese, in the twelfth century before our era, had made approaches at least to the present form of their extensive dominion, and although we can hardly suppose the first Indian monarchs to have reigned less than three thousand years ago, yet Persia, the most delightful, the most compact, the most desirable country of them all, should have remained for so many ages unsettled and disunited. A fortunate discovery, for which I was first indebted to Mir MUHAMMED HUSAIN, one of the most intelligent Muselmans in India, has at once dissipated the cloud, and cast a gleam of light on the primeval history of Iran and of the human race, of which I had long despaired, and which could hardly have dawned from any other quarter.

Authorship

Several manuscripts have been discovered that identifies the author as Mīr Du'lfiqar Ardestānī (also known as Mollah Mowbad). Mir Du'lfiqar is now generally accepted as the author of this work.

Before these manuscripts were discovered, however, Sir William Jones identified the author as Mohsin Fani Kashmiri. In 1856, a Parsi named Keykosrow b. Kāvūs claimed Khosrow Esfandiyar as the author, who was son of Azar Kayvan.

-- Dabestan-e Mazaheb, by Wikipedia, by Wikipedia

Three different men have been identified as the author of Dābestān-e maḏāheb. In 1789 William Jones proposed Moḥsen Fānī Kašmīrī (d. 1081/1670), but subsequently Captain Vans Kennedy and William Erskine both independently rejected this identification. An entirely conjectural attribution to Āḏar Kayvān’s son and spiritual successor Keyḵosrow Esfandīār was put forth in 1856 by an Indian Parsi, Keyḵosrow b. Kāvūs, and this suggestion has been reiterated by Raḥīm Reżāzāda Malek, editor of the most recent edition (see below; II, pp. 58-67, quoted from Cama Oriental Institute, Bombay, ms. 300). Some historians and authors of biographical dictionaries, including Ṣamṣām-al-Dawla Šāhnavāz Khan (I, pp. 226-27; II, pp. 76, 392), Serāj-al-Dīn ʿAlī Khan Ārezū (Rieu, Persian Manuscripts II, p. 1081), Āzād Belgrāmī (p. 22), and Raḥm-ʿAlī Khan Īmān (p. 179) identified the author as Mīr Ḏu’l-feqār Ardestānī (ca. 1026-81/1617-70), better known under his pen name Mollā Mowbad or Mowbadšāh, and this attribution is now generally accepted. [???!!!]

-- Dabestan-E Madaheb, by Encyclopedia Iranica

The rare and interesting tract on twelve different religions, entitled the Dabistan, and composed by a Mohammedan traveller, a native of Cashmir, named MOHSAN, but distinguished by the assumed surname of FANI, or Perishable, begins with a wonderfully curious chapter on the religion of HUSHANG, which was long anterior to that of ZERATUSHT, but had continued to be secretly professed by many learned Persians even to the author's time; and several of the most eminent of them, dissenting in many points from the Gabrs, and persecuted by the ruling powers of their country, had retired to India; where they compiled a number of books, now extremely scarce, which MOHSAN had perused, and with the writers of which, or with many of them, he had contracted an intimate friendship: from them he learned, that a powerful monarchy had been established for ages in Iran before the accession of CAYUMERS, that it was called the Mahabadian dynasty for a reason, which will soon be mentioned, and that many princes, of whom seven or eight only are named in the Dabistan, and among them MAHBUL, or MAHA BELI, had raised their empire to the zenith of human glory. If we can rely on this evidence, which to me appears unexceptionable, the Iranian monarchy must have been the oldest in the world; but it will remain dubious, to which of the three stocks, Hindu, Arabian, or Tartar, the first Kings of Iran belonged, or whether they sprang from a fourth race distinct from any of the others; and these are questions, which we shall be able, I imagine, to answer precisely, when we have carefully inquired into the languages and letters, religion and philosophy, and incidentally into the arts and sciences, of the ancient Persians.

I. In the new and important remarks, which I am going to offer, on the ancient languages and characters of Iran, I am sensible, that you must give me credit for many assertions, which on this occasion it is impossible to prove; for I should ill deserve your indulgent attention, if I were to abuse it by repeating a dry list of detached words, and presenting you with a vocabulary instead of a dissertation; but, since I have no system to maintain, and have not suffered imagination to delude my judgement; since I have habituated myself to form opinions of men and things from evidence, which is the only solid basis of civil, as experiment is of natural knowledge; and since I have maturely considered the questions which I mean to discuss; you will not, I am persuaded, suspect my testimony, or think that I go too far, when I assure you, that I will assert nothing positively, which I am not able satisfactorily to demonstrate. When MUHAMMED was born, and ANUSHIRAVAN, whom he calls the Just King, sat on the throne of Persia, two languages appear to have been generally prevalent in the great empire of Iran; that of the Court, thence named Deri, which was only a refined and elegant dialect of the Parsi, so called from the province of which Shiraz is now the capital, and that of the learned, in which most books were composed, and which had the name of Pahlavi, either from the heroes, who spoke it in former times, or from Pahlu, a tract of land, which included, we are told, some considerable cities of Irak: the ruder dialects of both were, and, I believe, still are, spoken by the rustics in several provinces; and in many of them, as Herdt, Zabul, Sistan and others, distinct idioms were vernacular, as it happens in every kingdom of great extent. "Besides the Parsi and Pahlavi, a very ancient and abstruse tongue was known to the priests and philosophers, called the language of the Zend, because a book on religious and moral duties, which they held sacred, and which bore that name, had been written in it; while the Pazend, or comment on that work, was composed in Pahlavi, as a more popular idiom; but a learned follower of ZERATUSHT, named BAHMAN, who lately died at Calcutta, where he had lived with me as a Persian reader about three years, assured me, that the letters of his prophet's book were properly called Zend, and the language, Avesta, as the words of the Veda's are Sanscrit, and the characters, Nagari; or as the old Saga's and poems of Iceland were expressed in Runic letters: let us however, in compliance with custom, give the name of Zend to the sacred language of Persia, until we can find, as we shall very soon, a fitter appellation for it. The Zend and the old Pahlavi are almost extinct in Iran; for among six or seven thousand Gabrs, who reside chiefly at Yezd, and in Cirman, there are very few, who can read Pahlavi, and scarce any, who even boast of knowing the Zend; while the Parsi, which remains almost pure in the Shahnamah, has now become by the Intermixture of numberless Arabic words, and many imperceptible changes, a new language exquisitely polished by a series of fine writers in prose and verse, and analogous to the different idioms gradually formed in Europe after the subversion of the Roman empire: but with modern Persian we have no concern in our present inquiry, which I confine to the ages, that preceded the Mohammedan conquest. Having twice read the works of FIRDAUSI with great attention, since I applied myself to the study of old Indian literature, I can assure you with confidence, that hundreds of Parsi nouns are pure Sanscrit, with no other change than such as may be observed in the numerous bhasha's, or vernacular dialects, of India; that very many Persian imperatives are the roots of Sanscrit verbs; and that even the moods and tenses of the Persian verb substantive, which is the model of all the rest, are deducible from the Sanscrit by an easy and clear analogy: we may hence conclude, that the Parsi was derived, like the various Indian dialects, from the language of the Brahmans; and I must add, that in the pure Persian I find no trace of any Arabian tongue, except what proceeded from the known intercourse between the Persians and Arabs, especially in the time of BAHRAM, who was educated in Arabia, and whose Arabic verses are still extant, together with his heroic line in Deri, which many suppose to be the first attempt at Persian versification in Arabian metre: but, without having recourse to other arguments, the composition of words, in which the genious of the Persian delights, and which that of the Arabic abhors, is a decisive proof, that the Parsi sprang from an Indian, and not from an Arabian, stock. Considering languages as mere instruments of knowledge, and having strong reasons to doubt the existence of genuine books in Zend or Pahlavi (especially since the well-informed author of the Dabistan affirms the work of ZERATUSHT to have been lost, and its place supplied by a recent compilation) I had no inducement, though I had an opportunity, to learn what remains of those ancient languages; but I often conversed on them with my friend BAHMAN, and both of us were convinced after full consideration, that the Zend bore a strong resemblance to Sanscrit, and the Pahlavi to Arabic. He had at my request translated into Pahlavi the fine inscription, exhibited in the Gulistan, on the diadem of CYRUS; and I had the patience to read the list of words from the Pazend in the appendix to the Farhangi Jehangiri: this examination gave me perfect conviction, that the Pahlavi was a dialect of the Chaldaic; and of this curious fact I will exhibit a short proof. By the nature of the Chaldean tongue most words ended in the first long vowel like shemia, heaven; and that very word, unaltered in a single letter, we find in the Pazend, together with lailia, night, meya, water, nira, fire, matra, rain, and a multitude of others, all Arabic or Hebrew with a Chaldean termination: so zamar, by a beautiful metaphor from pruning trees, means in Hebrew to compose verses, and thence, by an easy transition, to sing, them; and in Pahlavi we see the verb zamruniten, to sing, with its forms zamrunemi, I sing, and zamrunid, he sang; the verbal terminations of the Persian being added to the Chaldaic root. Now all those words are integral parts of the language, not adventitious to it like the Arabic nouns and verbals engrafted on modern Persian; and this distinction convinces me, that the dialect of the Gabrs, which they pretend to be that of ZERATUSHT, and of which BAHMAN gave me a variety of written specimens, is a late invention of their priests, or subsequent at least to the Muselman invasion; for, although it may be possible, that a few of their sacred books were preserved, as he used to assert, in sheets of lead or copper at the bottom of wells near Yezd, yet as the conquerors had not only a spiritual, but a political, interest in persecuting a warlike, robust, and indignant race of irreconcilable conquered subjects, a long time must have elapsed, before the hidden scriptures could have been safely brought to light, and few, who could perfectly understand them, must then have remained; but, as they continued to profess among themselves the religion of their forefathers, it became expedient for the Mubeds to supply the lost or mutilated works of their legislator by new compositions, partly from their imperfect recollection, and partly from such moral and religious knowledge, as they gleaned, most probably, among the Christians, with whom they had an intercourse. One rule we may fairly establish in deciding the question, whether the books of the modern Gabrs were anterior to the invasion of the Arabs: when an Arabic noun occurs in them changed only by the spirit of the Chaldean idiom, as werta, for werd, a rose, daba, for dhahab, gold, or deman, for zeman, time, we may allow it to have been ancient Pahlavi; but, when we meet with verbal nouns or infinitives, evidently formed by the rules of Arabian grammar, we may be sure, that the phrases, in which they occur, are comparatively modern; and not a single passage, which BAHMAN produced from the books of his religion, would abide this test.

We come now to the language of the Zend, and here I must impart a discovery, which I lately made, and from which we may draw the most interesting consequences. M. ANQUETIL, who had the merit of undertaking a voyage to India, in his earliest youth, with no other view than to recover the writings of ZERATUSHT, and who would have acquired a brilliant reputation in France, if he had not sullied it by his immoderate vanity and virulence of temper, which alienated the good will even of his own countrymen, has exhibited in his work, entitled Zendavesta, two vocabularies in Zend and Pahlavi, which he had found in an approved collection of Rawayat, or Traditional Pieces, in modern Persian: of his Pahlavi no more needs be said, than that it strongly confirms my opinion concerning the Chaldaic origin of that language; but, when I perused the Zend glossary, I was inexpressibly surprised to find, that six or seven words in ten were pure Sanscrit, and even some of their inflexions formed by the rules of the Vyacaran; as yushmacam, the genitive plural of yushmad. Now M. ANQUETIL most certainly, and the Persian compiler most probably, had no knowledge of Sanscrit; and could not, therefore, have invented a list of Sanscrit words: it is, therefore, an authentic list of Zena words, which had been preserved in books or by tradition; and it follows, that the language of the Zend was at least a dialect of the Sanscrit, approaching perhaps as nearly to it as the Pracrit, or other popular idioms, which we know to have been spoken in India two thousand years ago. From all these facts it is a necessary consequence, that the oldest discoverable languages of Persia were Chaldaic and Sanscrit; and that, when they had ceased to be vernacular, the Pahlavi and Zend were deduced from them respectively, and the Parsi either from the Zend, or immediately from the dialect of the Brahmans; but all had perhaps a mixture of Tartarain; for the best lexicographers assert, that numberless words in ancient Persian are taken from the language of the Cimmerians, or the Tartars of Kipchak; so that the three families, whose lineage we have examined in former discourses, had left visible traces of themselves in Iran, long before the Tartars and Arabs had rushed from their deserts, and returned to that very country, from which in all probability they originally proceeded, and which the Hindus had abandoned in an earlier age, with positive commands from their legislators to revisit it no more. [???] I close this head with observing, that no supposition of a mere political or commercial intercourse between the different nations will account for the Sanscrit and Chaldaic words, which we find in the old Persian tongues; because they are, in the first place, too numerous to have been introduced by such means, and, secondly, are not the names of exotic animals, commodities, or arts, but those of material elements, parts of the body, natural objects and relations, affections of the mind, and other ideas common to the whole race of man.

Jamshid, also known as Yima, is the fourth Shah of the mythological Pishdadian dynasty of Iran according to Shahnameh.

In Persian mythology and folklore, Jamshid is described as the fourth and greatest king of the epigraphically unattested Pishdadian Dynasty (before the Kayanian dynasty). This role is already alluded to in Zoroastrian scripture (e.g. Yasht 19, Vendidad 2), where the figure appears as Yima [x], "radiant Yima", from which the name 'Jamshid' is derived.

Both Jam and Jamshid remain common Iranian and Zoroastrian male names that are also popular in surrounding areas of Iran such as Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Edward FitzGerald transliterated the name as Jamshyd. In the eastern regions of Greater Iran, and by the Zoroastrians of the Indian subcontinent it is rendered as Jamshed based on the Classical Persian pronunciation.

-- Jamshid, by Wikipedia

The Kayanians are a legendary dynasty of Persian/Iranian tradition and folklore which supposedly ruled after the Pishdadians each of whom held the title Kay (such as Kay Khosrow), meaning "king". Considered collectively, the Kayanian kings are the heroes of the Avesta, the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, and of the Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran.

As an epithet of kings and the reason the dynasty is so called, Middle [x] and New Persian kay(an) originates from Avestan [x] kavi (or kauui) "king" and also "poet-sacrificer" or "poet-priest". Kavi may have originally signified an insightful fashioner in Proto-Indo-Iranian, which later acquired a poetic aspect in Indic and warrior and royal connotation in Iranian.

In·dic: 1. Of or relating to India or its peoples or cultures. 2. Of or relating to the branch of the Indo-European language family comprising Sanskrit, the Prakrits, and their modern descendants, such as Bengali, Hindi-Urdu, and Punjabi. n. The Indic branch of Indo-European. Also called Indo-Aryan.

-- Indic, by The Free Dictionary

The word is also etymologically related to the Avestan notion of kavaēm kharēno, the "divine royal glory" that the Kayanian kings were said to hold. The Kiani Crown is a physical manifestation of that belief.

In Zoroastrianism

The earliest known foreshadowing of the major legends of the Kayanian kings appears in the Yashts of the Avesta, where the dynasts offer sacrifices to the god Ahura Mazda in order to earn their support and to gain strength in the perpetual struggle against their enemies, the Anaryas (non-Aryans, sometimes identified as the Turanians).

In Yasht 5, 9.25, 17.45-46, Haosravah, a Kayanian king later known as Kay Khosrow, together with Zoroaster and Jamasp (a premier of Zoroaster's patron Vishtaspa, another Kayanian king) worship in Airyanem Vaejah. The account tells that King Haosravah united the various Aryan (Iranian) tribes into one nation (Yasht 5.49, 9.21, 15.32, 17.41).

In Mandaeism

In Mandaeism, Book 18 of the Right Ginza lists several Kayanian kings, namely Kay Kawad, Kay Kavus (Uzava), Kay Khosrow, Kay Lohrasp, and Vishtaspa.

Sassanid legend

Towards the end of the Sassanid period, Khosrow I (named after the Kay Khosrow of legend) ordered a compilation of the legends surrounding the Kayanians. The result was the Khwaday-Namag or "Book of Lords", a long historiography of the Iranian nation [???] from the primordial Gayomart to the reign of Khosrow II, with events arranged according to the perceived sequence of kings and queens, fifty in number.

historiography: the writing of history, especially the writing of history based on the critical examination of sources, the selection of particular details from the authentic materials in those sources, and the synthesis of those details into a narrative that stands the test of critical examination. The term historiography also refers to the theory and history of historical writing.

-- Historiography, by Britannica

The compilation may have been prompted by concern over deteriorating national spirit. There were disastrous global climate changes of 535-536 and the Plague of Justinian to contend with and the Iranians would have found much-needed solace in the collected legends of their past.

Islamic legend

Following the collapse of the Sassanid Empire [224 to 651] and the subsequent rise of Islam in the region, the Kayanian legends fell out of favour until the first revival of Iranian culture under the Samanids. Together with the folklore preserved in the Avesta, the Khwaday-Namag served as the foundation of other epic collections in prose, such as those commissioned by Abu Mansur Abd al-Razzaq, the texts of which have since been lost. The Samanid-sponsored revival also led to the resurgence of Zoroastrian literature, such as the Denkard, book 7.1 of which is also a historiography of Kayanians. The best known work of the genre is however Firdowsi's Shahnameh "Book of Kings", which, though drawing on earlier works, is entirely in verse.

-- Kayanian dynasty, by Wikipedia

[admin]

Part 2 of 2

If a nation of Hindus, it may be urged, ever possessed and governed the country of Iran, we should find on the very ancient ruins of the temple or palace, now called the throne of JEMSHID, some inscriptions in Devanagari, or at least in the characters on the stones at Elephanta, where the sculpture is unquestionably Indian, or in those on the Staff of FIRUZ SHAH, which exist in the heart of India; and such inscriptions we probably should have found, if that edifice [Persepolis] had not been erected after the migration of the Brahmans from Iran [???], and the violent schism in the Persian religion, of which we shall presently speak; for, although the popular name of the building at Istakhr, or Persepolis, be no certain proof that it was raised in the time of JEMSHID [???!!!], yet such a fact might easily have been preserved by tradition, and we shall soon have abundant evidence, that the temple was posterior [after] to the reign of the Hindu monarchs: the cypresses indeed, which are represented with the figures in procession, might induce a reader of the Shahnamah to believe, that the sculptures related to the new faith introduced by ZERATUSHT; but, as a cypress is a beautiful ornament, and as many of the figures appear inconsistent with the reformed adoration of fire, we must have recourse to stronger proofs, that the Takhti JEMSHID was erected after CAYUMERS. [???]

Persepolis (romanized: Takht-e Jamshīd, lit. 'Throne of Jamshid') was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330 BC). It is situated in the plains of Marvdasht, encircled by the southern Zagros mountains, Fars province of Iran. It is one of the key Iranian cultural heritage sites and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979.

The earliest remains of Persepolis date back to 515 BC. The city, acting as a major center for the empire, housed a palace complex and citadel designed to serve as the focal point for governance and ceremonial activities. It exemplifies the Achaemenid style of architecture. The complex was taken by the army of Alexander the Great in 330 BC, and soon after, its wooden parts were completely destroyed by fire, likely deliberately.

The function of Persepolis remains unclear. It was not one of the largest cities in ancient Iran, let alone the rest of the empire, but appears to have been a grand ceremonial complex that was only occupied seasonally; the complex was raised high on a walled platform, with five "palaces" or halls of varying size, and grand entrances. It is still not entirely clear where the king's private quarters actually were. Until recently, most archaeologists held that it was primarily used for celebrating Nowruz, the Persian New Year, held at the spring equinox, which is still an important annual festivity in Iran. The Iranian nobility and the tributary parts of the empire came to present gifts to the king, as represented in the stairway reliefs. It is also unclear what permanent structures there were outside the palace complex; it may be better to think of Persepolis as only one complex rather than a "city" in the usual sense.

The exploration of Persepolis from the early 17th century led to the modern rediscovery of cuneiform writing and, from detailed studies of the trilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions found on the ruins, the initial decipherment of cuneiform in the early 19th century.

-- Persepolis, by Wikipedia

The building has lately been visited, and the characters on it examined, by MR. FRANCKLIN; from whom we learn, that NIEBUHR has delineated them with great accuracy: but without such testimony I should have suspected the correctness of the delineation; because the Danish traveller has exhibited two inscriptions in modern Persian, and one of them from the same place, which cannot have been exactly transcribed: they are very elegant verses of NIZAMI and SADI on the instability of human greatness, but so ill engraved or so ill copied, that, if I had not had them nearly by heart, I should not have been able to read them; and M. ROUSSEAU of Isfahan, who translated them with shameful inaccuracy, must have been deceived by the badness of the copy; or he never would have created a new king WAKAM, by forming one word of JEM and the particle prefixed to it. Assuming, however, that we may reason as conclusively on the characters published by NIEBUHR, as we might on the monuments themselves, were they now before us, we may begin with observing, as CHARDIN had observed on the very spot, that they bear no resemblance whatever to the letters used by the Gabrs in their copies of the Vendidad: this I once urged, in an amicable debate with BAHMAN, as a proof, that the Zend letters were a modern invention; but he seemed to hear me without surprise, and insisted, that the letters, to which I alluded, and which he had often seen, were monumental characters never used in books, and intended either to conceal some religious mysteries from the vulgar, or to display the art of the sculptor, like the embellished Cufic and Nagari on several Arabian and Indian monuments. He wondered, that any man could seriously doubt the antiquity of the Pahlavi letters; and in truth the inscription behind the horse of Rustam, which NIEBUHR has also given us, is apparently Pahlavi, and might with some pains be decyphered: that character was extremely rude, and seems to have been written, like the Roman and the Arabic, in a variety of hands, for I remember to have examined a rare collection of old Persian coins in the Museum of the great Anatomist, WILLIAM HUNTER, and, though I believed the legends to be Pahlavi, and had no doubt, that they were coins of Parthian kings, yet I could not read the inscriptions without wasting more time, than I had then at command, in comparing the letters and ascertaining the proportions, in which they severally occurred. The gross Pahlavi was improved by ZERATUSHT or his disciples into an elegant and perspicuous character, in which the Zendavesta was copied; and both were written from the right hand to the left like other Chaldaic alphabets; for they are manifestly both of Chaldean origin; but the Zend has the singular advantage of expressing all the long and short vowels, by distinct marks, in the body of each word, and all, the words are distinguished by full points between them; so that, if modern Persian were unmixed with Arabic, it might be written in Zend with the greatest convenience, as any one may perceive by copying in that character a few pages of the Shahnamah. As to the unknown inscriptions in the place of JEMSHID, it may reasonably be doubted, whether they contain a system of letters, which any nation ever adopted: in five of them the letters, which are separated by points, may be reduced to forty, at least I can distinguish no more essentially different; and they all seem to be regular variations and compositions of a straight line and an angular figure like the head of a javelin, or a leaf (to use the language of botanists) hearted and lanced. Many of the Runic letters appear to have been formed of similar elements; and it has been observed, that the writing at Persepolis bears a strong resemblance to that, which the Irish call Ogham: the word Agam in Sanscrit means mysterious knowledge; but I dare not affirm, that the two words had a common origin, and only mean to suggest, that, if the characters in question be really alphabetical, they were probably secret and sacerdotal, or a mere cypher, perhaps: of which the priests only had the key. They might, I imagine, be decyphered, if the language were certainly known; but, in all the other inscriptions of the same sort, the characters are too complex, and the variations of them too numerous, to admit an opinion, that they could be symbols of articulate sounds; for even the Nagari system, which has more distinct letters than any known alphabet, consists only of forty-nine simple characters, two of which are mere, substitutions, and four of little use in Sanscrit or in any other language; while the more complicated figures, exhibited by NIEBUHR, must be as numerous at least as the Chinese keys, which are the signs of ideas only, and some of which resemble the old Persian letters at Istakher: the Danish traveller was convinced from his own observation, that they were written from the left hand, like all the characters used by Hindu nations; but I must leave this dark subject, which I cannot illuminate, with a remark formerly made by myself, that the square Chaldaic letters, a few of which are found on the Persian ruins, appear to have been originally the same with the Devanagari, before the latter were enclosed, as we now see them, angular frames.

II. The primeval religion of Iran, if we rely on the authorities adduced by MOHSANI FANI, was that, which NEWTON calls the oldest (and it may justly be called the noblest) of all religions; "a firm belief, that One Supreme GOD made the world by his power, and continually governed it by his providence; a pious fear, love, and adoration of Him; a due reverence for parents and aged persons; a fraternal affection for the whole human species, and a compassionate tenderness even for the brute creation." A system of devotion so pure and sublime could hardly among mortals be of long duration; and we learn from the Dabistan, that the popular worship of the Iranians under HUSHANG was purely Sabian; a word, of which I cannot offer any certain etymology, but which has been deduced by grammarians from Saba; a host, and, particularly the host of heaven, or the celestial bodies, in the adoration of which the Sabian ritual is believed to have consisted: there is a description, in the learned work just mentioned, of the several Persian temples dedicated to the Sun and Planets, of the images adored in them, and of the magnificent processions to them on prescribed festivals, one of which is probably represented by sculpture in the ruined city of JEMSHID; but the planetary worship in Persia seems only a part of a far more complicated religion, which we now find in these Indian provinces; for MOHSAN assures us, that, in the opinion of the best informed Persians, who professed the faith of HUSHANG, distinguished from that of ZERATUSHT, the first monarch of Iran and of the whole earth was MAHABAD, a word apparently Sanscrit, who divided the people into four orders, the religious, the military, the commercial, and the servile, to which he assigned names unquestionably the same in their origin with those now applied to the four primary classes of the Hindus. They added, that He received from the creator, and promulgated among men, a sacred book in a heavenly language, to which the Muselman author gives the Arabic title of desatir, or regulations, but the original name of which he has not mentioned; and that fourteen MAHABADS had appeared or would appear in human shapes for the government of this world: now when we know, that the Hindus believe in fourteen MENU'S, or celestial personages with similar functions, the first of whom left a book of regulations or divine ordinances, which they hold equal to the Veda, and the language of which they believe to be that of the Gods, we can hardly doubt, that the first corruption of the purest and oldest religion was the system of Indian Theology, invented by the Brahmans and prevalent in these territories, where the book of MAHABAD or MENU is at this hour the standard of all religious, and moral duties. The accession of CAYUMERS to the throne of Persia, in the eighth or ninth century before CHRIST, seems to have been accompanied by a considerable revolution both in government and religion: he was most probably of a different race from the Mahabadians, who preceded him, and began perhaps the new system of national faith, which HUSHANG, whose name it bears, completed; but the reformation was partial; for, while they rejected the complex polytheism of their predecessors, they retained the laws of MAHABAD, with a superstitious veneration for the sun, the planets, and fire; thus resembling the Hindu sects, called Saura's and Sagnica's, the second of which is very numerous at Banares where many agnihotra's are continually blazing, and where the Sagnica's, when they enter on their sacerdotal office, kindle, with two pieces of the hard wood Semi, a fire which they keep lighted through their lives for their nuptial ceremony, the performance of solemn sacrifices, the obsequies of departed ancestors, and their own funeral pile. This remarkable rite was continued by ZERATUSHT; who reformed the old religion by the addition of genii, or angels, presiding over months and days, of new ceremonies in the veneration shown to fire, of a new work, which he pretended to have received from heaven, and, above all, by establishing the actual adoration of One Supreme Being: he was born, according to MOHSAN, in the district of Rai; and it was He, not, as AMMIANUS asserts, his protector GUSHTASB, who traveIled into India, that he might receive information from the Brahmans in theology and ethics. It is barely possible, that PYTHAGORAS knew him in the capital of Irak; but the Greecian sage must then have been far advanced in years, and we have no certain evidence of an intercourse between the two philoso phers. The reformed religion of Persia continued in force, till that country was subdued by the Muselmans; and, without studying the Zend, we have ample information concerning it in the modern Persian writings of several, who professed it. BAHMAN always named ZERATUSHT, with reverence; but he was in truth a pure Theist, and strongly disclaimed any adoration of the fire or other elements: he denied, that the doctrine of two coeval principles. supremely good and supremely bad, formed any part of his faith; and he often repeated with emphasis the verses of FIRDAUSI on the prostration of CYRUS and his paternal grandfather before the blazing altar: "Think not, that they were adorers of fire; for that element was only an exalted object, on the lustre of which they fixed their eyes; they humbled themselves a whole week before GOD; and, if thy understanding be ever so little exerted, thou must acknowledge thy dependence on the being supremely pure." In a story of SADI, near the close of his beautiful Bustan, concerning the idol of SOMANATH, or MAHADE'VA, he confounds the religion of the Hindus with that of the Gabrs, calling the Brahmans not only Moghs, (which might be justified by a passage in the Mesnavi) but even readers of the Zend and Pazend: now, whether this confusion proceeded from real or pretended ignorance, I cannot decide, but am as firmly convinced, that the doctrines of the Zend were distinct from those of the Veda, as I am that the religion of the Brahmans, with whom we converse every day, prevailed in Persia before the accession of CAYUMERS [myth: 8th or 9th Century B.C.], whom the Parsi's, from respect to his memory, consider as the first of men, although they believe in an universal deluge before his reign.

In the eighth century BC, Scythian warriors pursuing the Cimmerians rode south out of the steppes into the Near East in the area of northern Iran. They defeated the Cimmerians in the 630s and in the process conquered the powerful nation of the Medes, their Iranic ethnolinguistic relatives. As allies of the Assyrians, the Scythians fought across the Levant as far as Egypt. When they were defeated by the Medes in about 585 BC, they withdrew to the north and established themselves in the North Caucasus Steppe and the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea. They and their relatives built a huge empire stretching across Central Eurasia as far as China, including most of urbanized Central Asia, and grew fabulously rich on trade.1

The Scythians and other North Iranic speakers thus dominated Central Eurasia at the same time that their southern relatives, the Medes and Persians, formed a vast empire based in the area of what is now western Iran and Iraq. Though the Scythians were increasingly fragmented, and were probably weakened by the Persian capture of the prosperous and populous Central Asian countries of Bactria, Sogdiana, and others, they and other North Iranic-speaking relatives -- including their eastern branch, the Sakas -- continued to rule much of Central Eurasia for many centuries.2

To their south the prophet Zoroaster "reformed" the traditional religion of Media, Mazdaism, evidently around the time of Cyrus the Great [600 BC-530BC], who was half Mede and half Persian. Although the Scythians never adopted Zoroastrianism, they too were interested in religion and philosophy. We know of not one but two great Scythian philosophers, and both still have much to teach us.

ANACHARSIS THE SCYTHIAN

In about the forty-seventh Olympiad (592-589 BC), the age of Solon, he travelled to Greece and became well known for his astute, pithy remarks and wise sayings...For example, "He said he wondered why among the Greeks the experts contend, but the non-experts decide.

The Greeks regularly quoted this and other pithy sayings of Anacharsis, which taken together are unlike those of any other known figure, Greek or foreign, in ancient Greek literature. Though he was considered to be a Scythian, the Greeks liked him, and he was counted as one of the Seven Sages of Antiquity in Greek philosophy. His own literary works are lost, but his fame was such that other writers used him as a stock character in their own compositions....

The argument is also strikingly close to the second part of the argument about the Problem of the Criterion in the Chuangtzu. Exactly as in the genuine saying of Anacharsis and in the argument attributed to him by Sextus Empiricus, the Chinese argument specifically concerns the ability to decide which of two contending individuals is right:

If you defeat me, I do not defeat you, are you then right, and I am not? If I defeat you, you do not defeat me, am I then right, you are not? Is one of us right, one of us wrong? Or are both of us right, both of us wrong? If you and I cannot figure it out, then everyone will be mystified by it. Who shall we get to decide who is right? We could get someone who agrees with you to decide who is right, but since he agrees with you, how could he decide it aright? We could get someone who agrees with me to decide who is right, but since he agrees with me, how can he decide it aright? Therefore, neither I nor you nor anyone else can figure it out.

The explanation for the similarity of these two passages could well be that the author of the "Anacharsis" quotation given by Sextus Empiricus had heard just such an argument, directly or indirectly, from a Scythian. This would have been a simple matter during the Classical Age because many Scythians then lived in Athens, where a number of them even served as the city's police force. If it was a stock Scythian story, an eastern Scythian -- a Saka -- could have transmitted a version of it to the Chinese, so that it ended up in the Chuangtzu, which is full of stories and arguments of a similar character.

Whatever the explanation, the explicit Greek connection of this story with a Scythian philosopher known for pithy sayings having a clever argument structure clearly indicates that it is the kind of thing Scythians were expected to say. In view of the Chinese testimony, it seems likely that it was something that some Scythians actually did say.

GAUTAMA BUDDHA, THE SCYTHIAN SAGE

The dates of Gautama Buddha are not recorded in any reliable historical source, and the traditional dates are calculated on unbelievable lineages .... Scholars' continued insistence on following such dates anyway led to a 1988 conference devoted specifically to reconsideration of the dates of the Buddha, which however largely continued to take the fanciful, ahistorical, traditional accounts as if they were actual historical accounts ....

His personal name, Gautama, is evidently earliest recorded in the Chuangtzu, a Chinese work from the late fourth to third centuries BC. His epithet Sakamuni (later Sanskritized as Sakyamuni), 'Sage of the Scythians ("Sakas")', is unattested in the genuine Mauryan inscriptions or the Pali Canon. [However, it has been demonstrated that the caretakers of the Pali tradition systematically expunged references to various ideas and practices to which they objected, especially things thought to be non-Indian.] ... It is earliest attested, as Sakamuni, in the Gandhari Prakrit texts, which date to the first centuries AD (or possibly even the late first century BC).

It is thus arguable that the epithet could have been applied to the Buddha during the Saka (Saka or "Indo-Scythian") Dynasty [150 BCE–400 CE] -- which dominated northwestern India on and off from approximately the first century BC, continuing into the early centuries AD as satraps or "vassals" under the Kushans -- and that the reason for it was strong support for Buddhism by the Sakas, Indo-Parthians, and Kushans.

However, it must be noted that the Buddha is the only Indian holy man before early modern times who bears an epithet explicitly identifying him as a non-Indian, a foreigner. It would have been unthinkably odd for an Indian saint to be given a foreign epithet if he was not actually a foreigner.... There are also very strong arguments -- including basic "doctrinal" ones -- indicating that Buddhism had fundamental foreign connections from the very beginning, as shown below. It is at any rate certain that Buddha has been identified as Sakamuni ~ Sakyamuni "Sage of the Scythians" in all varieties of Buddhism from the beginning of the recorded Buddhist tradition to the present, and that much of what is thought to be known about him can be identified specifically with things Scythian.... we have no concrete datable evidence that any other wandering ascetics preceded the Buddha. The Scythians were nomads (from Greek [x]; 'wanderers in search of pasture, pastoralists') who lived in the wilderness, and it is thus quite likely that Gautama himself introduced wandering asceticism to India....

[Considering the mostly Anatolian [Turkey] origins of Greek philosophy, and the long domination of that region by the Medes and Persians, it must be wondered if the peripatetic tradition in Greek philosophy also reflects the Iranic penchant for wandering.]...

Buddha's teachings were unprecedented mainly because they opposed new foreign ideas -- the Early Zoroastrian ideas of good and bad karma, rebirth in Heaven (for those who were good), absolute Truth versus the Lie, and so on ....

Buddha therefore must have lived after the introduction of Zoroastrianism in 519/518 BC, when the Achaemenid ruler Darius I invaded and conquered several Central Asian countries and then continued to the east, where he conquered Gandhara and Sindh, which were Indic-speaking, in about 517/516 BC....

While, not surprisingly, the ordinary generic human contrast between truth and falsehood is found in the Vedas, the specifically Early Zoroastrian form of the ideas, including the result of following one or the other path, is completely alien to them. In the early Vedic religion, ritually correct performance of blood sacrifices was believed to be rewarded in this life, but the reward had nothing to do with one's virtuous actions or one's future in the afterlife....

Bronkhorst (2007: 358), remarks, "In the middle of the third century BC, it was Mazdaism, rather than Brahmanism, which predominated in the region between Kandahar and Taxila". ...

These specific "absolutist" or "perfectionist" ideas are firmly rejected by the Buddha in his earliest attested teachings, as shown in Chapter One. In short, the Buddha reacted primarily (if at all) not against Brahmanism, but against Early Zoroastrianism... [From (Bronkhorst's) discussion it is clear that even the earliest attested Brahmanist texts reflect the influence of Buddhism, so it would seem that the acceptance of Early Zoroastrian ideas in Gandhara happened later than the Buddhist rejection of them, but before the Alexander historians and Megasthenes got there in the late fourth century BC.] ... At the lower end of the chronological scale, the Buddha must have lived before the visit of the two best known and attested Greek visitors of the late fourth century, Pyrrho of Elis, who was in Bactria, Gandhara, and Sindh from 330 to 325 BC with Alexander the Great and learned an early form of Buddhism there, and two decades later than the ambassador Megasthenes, who travelled from Alexandria in Arachosia (now Kandahar) to Gandhara and Magadha in 305-304 BC and recorded his observations on Indian beliefs, including Early Buddhism and Early Brahmanism, in his Indica.

-- Prologue: Scythian Philosophy. Pyrrho, the Persian Empire, and India, Excerpt from Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter With Early Buddhism in Central Asia, by Christopher I. Beckwith

With the religion of the of Persians their philosophy (or as much as we know of it) was intimately connected; for they were assiduous observers of the luminaries, which they adored, and established, according to MOHSAN, who confirms in some degree the fragments of BEROSUS, a number of artificial cycles with distinct names, which seem to indicate a knowledge of the period, in which the equinoxes appear to revolve: they are said also to have known the most wonderful powers of nature, and thence to have acquired the fame of magicians and enchanters; but I will only detain you with a few remarks on that metaphysical theology, which has been professed immemorially by a numerous sect of Persians and Hindus, was carried in part into Greece, and prevails even now among the learned Muselmans, who sometimes avow it without reserve. The modern philosophers of this persuasion are called Sufi's, either from the Greek word for a sage, or from the woollen mantle which they used to wear in some provinces of Persia: their fundamental tenets are, that nothing exists absolutely but GOD: that the human soul is an emanation from his essence, and, though divided for a time from its heavenly source, will be finally re-united with it; that the highest possible happiness will arise from its reunion, and that the chief good of mankind, in this transitory world, consists in as perfect an union with the Eternal Spirit as the incumbrances of a mortal frame will allow; that, for this purpose, they should break all connexion (or taalluk, as they call it), with extrinsic objects, and pass through life without attachments, as a swimmer in the ocean strikes freely without the impediment of clothes; that they should be straight and free as the cypress, whose fruit is hardly perceptible, and not sink under a load, like fruit-trees attached to a trellis; that, if mere earthly charms have power to influence the soul, the idea of celestial beauty must overwhelm it in extatic delight; that, for want of apt words to express the divine perfections and the ardour of devotion, we must borrow such expressions as approach the nearest to our ideas, and speak of Beauty and Love in a transcendent and mystical sense; that, like a reed torn from its native bank, like wax separated from its delicious honey, the soul of man bewails its disunion with melancholy music, and sheds bunting tears, like the lighted taper, waiting passionately for the moment of its extinction, as a disengagement from earthly trammels, and the means of returning to its Only Beloved. Such in part (for I omit the minuter and more subtil metaphysics of the Sufis, which are mentioned in the Dabistan) is the wild and enthusiastic religion of the modern Persian poets, especially of the sweet HAFIZ and the great Maulavi: such is the system of the Vedanti philosophers and best lyric poets of India; and, as it was a system of the highest antiquity in both nations, it may be added to the many other proofs of an immemorial affinity between them.

III. On the ancient monuments of Persian sculpture and architecture we have already made such observations, as were sufficient for our purpose; nor will you be surprised at the diversity between the figures at Elephanta, which are manifestly Hindu, and those at Persepolis, which are merely Sabin, if you concur with me in believing, that the Takhti Jemshid was erected after the time of CAYUMERS, when the Brahmans had migrated from Iran, and when their intricate mythology had been superseded by the simpler adoration of the planets and of fire.

IV. As to the sciences or arts of the old Persians, I have little to say; and no complete evidence of them seems to exist. MORSAN speaks more than once of ancient verses in the Pahlavi language; and BAHMAN assured me, that some scanty remains of them had been preserved: their music and painting, which NIZAMI celebrated, have irrecoverably perished; and in regard to MANI, the painter and impostor, whose book of drawings called Artang, which he pretended to be divine, is supposed to have been destroyed by the Chinese, in whose dominions he had sought refuge, the whole tale is too modern to throw any light on the questions before us concerning the origin of nations and the inhabitants of the primitive world.

Thus has it been proved by clear evidence and plain reasoning, that a powerful monarchy was established in Iran long before the Assyrian, or Pishdadi, government; that it was in truth a Hindu monarchy, though, if any choose to call it CUSTAN, Casdean, or Scythian, we shall not enter into a debate on mere names; that it subsisted many centuries, and that its history has been ingrafted on that of the Hindus, who founded the monarchies of Ayodhya and Indraprestha; that the language of the first Persian empire was the mother of the Sanscrit, and consequently of the Zend, and Parsi, as well as of Greek, Latin, and Gothic; that the language of the Assyrians was the parent of Chaldaic and Pahlavi, and that the primary Tartarian language also had been current in the same empire; although, as the Tartars had no books or even letters, we cannot with certainty trace their unpolished and variable idioms. We discover, therefore in Persia, at the earliest dawn of history, the three distinct races of men, whom we described on former occasions as possessors of India, Arabia, Tartary; and, whether they were collected in Iran from distant regions, or diverged from it, as from a common centre, we shall easily determine by the following considerations. Let us observe in the first place the central position of Iran, which is bounded by Arabia, by Tartary, and by India; whilst Arabia lies contiguous to Iran only, but is remote from Tartary, and divided even from the skirts of India by a considerable gulf; no country, therefore, but Persia seems likely to have sent forth its colonies to all the kingdoms of Asia: the Brahmans could never have migrated from India to Iran, because they are expressly forbidden by their oldest existing laws to leave the region, which they inhabit at this day; the Arabs have not even a tradition of an emigration into Persia before MOHAMMED, nor had they indeed any inducement to quit their beautiful and extensive domains; and, as to the Tartars, we have no trace in history of their departure from their plains and forests, till the invasion of the Medes, who, according to etymologists, were the sons of MADAI, and even they were conducted by princes of an Assyrian family. The three races, therefore, whom we have already mentioned, (and more than three we have not yet found) migrated from Iran, as from their common country; and thus the Saxon chronicle, I presume from good authority, brings the first inhabitants of Britain from Armenia; while a late very learned writer concludes, after all his laborious researches, that the Goths or Scythians came from Persia; and another contends with great force, that both the Irish and old Britons proceeded severally from the borders of the Caspian; a coincidence of conclusions from different media by persons wholly unconnected. which could scarce have happened, if they were not grounded on solid principles. We may therefore hold this proposition firmly established, that Iran, or Persia in its largest sense, was the true centre of population, of knowledge, of languages, and of arts; which, instead of travelling westward only, as it has been fancifully supposed, or eastward, as might with equal reason have been asserted, were expanded in all directions to all the regions of the world, in which the Hindu race had settled under various denominations: but whether Asia has not produced other races of men, distinct from the Hindus, the Arabs, or the Tartars, or whether any apparent diversity may not have sprung from an intermixture of those three in different proportions, must be the subject of a future inquiry. There is another question of more immediate importance, which you, gentlemen, only can decide: namely, "by what means we can preserve our Society from dying gradually away, as it has advanced gradually to its present (shall I say flourishing or languishing?) state." It has subsisted five years without any expense to the members of it, until the first volume of our Transactions was published; and the price of that large volume, if we compare the different values of money in Bengal and in England, is not more than equal to the annual contribution towards the charges of the Royal Society by each of its fellows, who may not have chosen to compound for it on his admission: this I mention, not from an idea that any of us could object to the purchase of one copy at least, but from a wish to inculcate the necessity of our common exertions in promoting the sale of the work both here and in London. In vain shall we meet, as a literary body, if our meetings shall cease, to be supplied with original dissertations and memorials; and in vain shall we collect the most interesting papers, if we cannot publish them occasionally without exposing the superintendents of the Company's press, who undertake to print them at their own hazard, to the danger of a considerable loss: by united efforts the French have compiled their stupendous repositories of universal knowledge; and by united efforts only can we hope to rival them, or to diffuse over our own country and the rest of Europe the lights attainable by our Asiatic Researches.

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Vendidad
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/16/24

The Vendidad /ˈvendi'dæd/ or Videvdat or Videvdad is a collection of texts within the greater compendium of the Avesta. However, unlike the other texts of the Avesta, the Vendidad is an ecclesiastical code, not a liturgical manual.

Name

The name of the texts is a contraction of the Avestan language Vî-Daêvô-Dāta, "Given Against the Daevas (Demons)", and as the name suggests, the Vendidad is an enumeration of various manifestations of evil spirits, and ways to confound them. According to the divisions of the Avesta as described in the Denkard, a 9th-century text, the Vendidad includes all of the 19th nask, which is then the only nask that has survived in its entirety.

The Dēnkard or Dēnkart (Middle Persian: [x] "Acts of Religion") is a 10th-century compendium of Zoroastrian beliefs and customs during the time. The Denkard is to a great extent considered an "Encyclopedia of Mazdaism"[1] and is a valuable source of Zoroastrian literature especially during its Middle Persian iteration. The Denkard is not considered a sacred text by a majority of Zoroastrians, but is still considered worthy of study.

Name

The name traditionally given to the compendium reflects a phrase from the colophons, which speaks of the kart/kard, from Avestan karda meaning "acts" (also in the sense of "chapters"), and dēn, from Avestan daena, literally "insight" or "revelation", but more commonly translated as "religion." Accordingly, dēn-kart means "religious acts" or "acts of religion." The ambiguity of -kart or -kard in the title reflects the orthography of Pahlavi writing, in which the letter ⟨t⟩ may sometimes denote /d/.

Date and authorship

The individual chapters vary in age, style and authorship. Authorship of the first three books is attributed by the colophons to 9th-century priest Adurfarnbag-i Farrokhzadan, as identified in the last chapter of book 3. Of these three books, only a larger portion of the third has survived. The historian Jean de Menasce proposes that this survival was the result of transmission through other persons. The first three books were edited and in fact partially reconstructed, circa 1020, by a certain Ādurbād Ēmēdān of Baghdad, who is also the author of the remaining six books. The manuscript 'B' (ms. 'B 55', B for Bombay) that is the basis for most surviving copies and translations is dated 1659. Only fragments survive of any other copies.

The Denkard is roughly contemporary with the main texts of the Bundahishn.

The Bundahishn (Middle Persian: Bun-dahišn(īh), "Primal Creation") is an encyclopedic collection of beliefs about Zoroastrian cosmology written in the Book Pahlavi script.[1] The original name of the work is not known. It is one of the most important extant witnesses to Zoroastrian literature in the Middle Persian language.

Although the Bundahishn draws on the Avesta and develops ideas alluded to in those texts, it is not itself scripture. The content reflects Zoroastrian scripture, which, in turn, reflects both ancient Zoroastrian and pre-Zoroastrian beliefs. In some cases, the text alludes to contingencies of post-7th century Islam in Iran, and in yet other cases, such as the idea that the Moon is farther than the stars.

Structure

The Bundahishn survives in two recensions: an Indian and an Iranian version. The shorter version was found in India and contains only 30 chapters, and is thus known as the Lesser Bundahishn, or Indian Bundahishn. A copy of this version was brought to Europe by Abraham Anquetil-Duperron in 1762. A longer version was brought to India from Iran by T.D. Anklesaria around 1870, and is thus known as the Greater Bundahishn or Iranian Bundahishn or just Bundahishn. The greater recension (the name of which is abbreviated GBd or just Bd) is about twice as long as the lesser (abbreviated IBd). It contains 36 chapters. The Bundahisn contains characteristics that fall under the rubric of different forms of classifications, including both as an encyclopedic text and as a text similar to midrash [expansive Jewish Biblical exegesis using a rabbinic mode of interpretation prominent in the Talmud.].

The traditionally given name seems to be an adoption of the sixth word from the first sentence of the younger of the two recensions. The older of the two recensions has a different first line, and the first translation of that version adopted the name Zand-Āgāhīh, meaning "Zand-knowing", from the first two words of its first sentence.

Most of the chapters of the compendium date to the 8th and 9th centuries, roughly contemporary with the oldest portions of the Denkard, which is another significant text of the "Pahlavi" (i.e. Zoroastrian Middle Persian) collection. The later chapters are several centuries younger than the oldest ones. The oldest existing copy dates to the mid-16th century.

The two recensions derive from different manuscript traditions, and in the portions available in both sources, vary (slightly) in content. The greater recension is also the older of the two, and was dated by West to around 1540. The lesser recension dates from about 1734.

Traditionally, chapter-verse pointers are in Arabic numerals for the lesser recension, and Roman numerals for the greater recension. The two series' are not synchronous since the lesser recension was analyzed (by Duperron in 1771) before the extent of the greater recension was known. The chapter order is also different.

Content


Regions depicted in chap. VIII (11) "On the nature of the lands": the Kvanîras (or Khvanîras) [North Pole], Savah, Arzah, Fradadafsh and Vîdadafsh, and Vôrûbarst and Vôrûgarst regions

The Bundahishn is the concise view of the Zoroastrianism's creation myth, and of the first battles of the forces of Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu for the hegemony of the world. According to the text, in the first 3,000 years of the cosmic year, Ahura Mazda created the Fravashis and conceived the idea of his would-be creation. He used the insensible and motionless Void as a weapon against Angra Mainyu, and at the end of that period, Angra Mainyu was forced to submission and fell into a stupor for the next 3,000 years. Taking advantage of Angra Mainyu's absence, Ahura Mazda created the Amesha Spentas (Bounteous Immortals), representing the primordial elements of the material world, and permeated his kingdom with Ard (Asha), "Truth" in order to prevent Angra Mainyu from destroying it. The Bundahishn finally recounts the creation of the primordial bovine, Ewagdad (Avestan Gavaevodata), and Keyumars (Avestan Keyumaretan), the primordial human.

Following MacKenzie,[3] the following chapter names in quotation marks reflect the original titles. Those without quotation marks are summaries of chapters that have no title. The chapter/section numbering scheme is based on that of B.T. Anklesaria[4] for the greater recension, and that of West[5] for the lesser recension. The chapter numbers for the greater recension are in the first column and in Roman numerals, and the chapter numbers for the lesser recension are in the second column, and are noted in Arabic numerals and in parentheses.

I. (1) The primal creation of Ohrmazd and the onslaught of the Evil Spirit.
I A. n/a "On the material creation of the creatures."
II. (2) "On the fashioning forth of the lights."
III. n/a "On the reason for the creation of the creatures, for doing battle."
IV. (3) "On the running of the Adversary against the creatures."
IV A. (4) The death of the Sole-created Bovine.
V. (5) "On the opposition of the two Spirits."
V A. n/a "On the horoscope of the world, how it happened."
V B. n/a The planets.
VI. n/a "On the doing battle of the creations of the world against the Evil Spirit."
VI A. (6) "The first battle the Spirit of the Sky did with the Evil Spirit."
VI B (7) "The second battle the Water did."
VI C. (8) "The third battle the Earth did."
VI D. (9) "The fourth battle the Plant did."
VI E. (10) "The fifth battle the Sole-created Ox did."
VI F. n/a "The sixth battle Keyumars did."
VI G. n/a "The seventh battle the Fire did."
VI H. n/a "The 8th battle the fixed stars did."
VI I. n/a "The 9th battle the spiritual gods did with the Evil Spirit."
VI J. n/a "The 10th battle the stars unaffected by the Mixing did."
VII. n/a "On the form of those creations."
VIII. (11) "On the nature of the lands."
IX. (12) "On the nature of the mountains."
X. (13) "On the nature of the seas."
XI. (20) "On the nature of the rivers."
XI A. (20) "On particular rivers."
XI B. (21) The seventeen kinds of "water" (of liquid).
XI C. (21) The dissatisfaction of the Arang, Marv, and Helmand rivers.
XII. (22) "On the nature of the lakes."
XIII. (14) "On the nature of the 5 kinds of animal."
XIV. (15) "On the nature of men."
XIV A. n/a "On the nature of women."
XIV B. (23) On negroes.
XV. (16) "On the nature of births of all kinds."
XV A. (16) Other kinds of reproduction.
XVI. (27) "On the nature of plants."
XVI A. (27) On flowers.
XVII. (24) "On the chieftains of men and animals and every single thing."
XVII A. n/a On the inequality of beings.
XVIII. (17) "On the nature of fire."
XIX. n/a "On the nature of sleep."
XIX A. n/a The independence of earth, water, and plants from effort and rest.
XX. n/a On sounds.
XXI. n/a "On the nature of wind, cloud, and rain."
XXII. n/a "On the nature of the noxious creatures."
XXIII. n/a "On the nature of the species of wolf."
XXIV. (18-19) "On various things, in what manner they were created and the opposition which befell them."
XXIV. A-C. (18) The Gōkarn tree, the Wās ī Paṇčāsadwarān (fish), the Tree of many seeds.
XXIV. D-U. (19) The three-legged ass, the ox Haδayãš, the bird Čamroš, the bird Karšift, the bird Ašōzušt, the utility of other beasts and birds, the white falcon, the Kāskēn bird, the vulture, dogs, the fox, the weasel, the rat, the hedgehog, the beaver, the eagle, the Caspian horse, the cock.
XXV. (25) "On the religious year."
XXVI. n/a "On the great activity of the spiritual gods."
XXVII. (28) "On the evil-doing of Ahreman and the demons."
XXVIII. n/a "On the body of men as the measure of the world (microcosm)."
XXIX. (29) "On the chieftainship of the continents."
XXX. n/a "On the Činwad bridge and the souls of the departed."
XXXI. n/a "On particular lands of Ērānšahr, the abode of the Kays."
XXXII. n/a "On the abodes which the Kays made with splendor, which are called wonders and marvels."
XXXIII. n/a "On the afflictions which befell Ērānšahr in each millennium."
XXXIV. (30) "On the resurrection of the dead and the Final Body."
XXXV. (31-32) "On the stock and the offspring of the Kays."
XXXV A. (33) "The family of the Mobads."
XXXVI. (34) "On the years of the heroes in the time of 12,000 years."

-- Bundahishn, by Wikipedia

Structure and content

The Denkard originally contained nine books or volumes, called nasks, and the first two and part of the third have not survived. However, the Denkard itself contains summaries of nasks from other compilations, such as Chihrdad from the Avesta, which are otherwise lost....

Book 3

Book 3, with 420 chapters, represents almost half of the surviving texts. Jean de Menasce observes that there must have been several different authors at work, as the style and language of the collection is not uniform. The authors are however united in their polemic against the "bad religions", which they do not fail to identify by name (the prudent avoidance of any mention of Islam being an exception).

The majority of the chapters in book 3 are short, of two or three pages apiece. The topics covered in detail, though rare, frequently also identify issues for which the Zoroastrians of the period were severely criticized, such as marriage to next-of-kin (chapter 80). Although on first sight there appears to be no systematic organization of the texts in book 3, the chapter that deals with the principles of Zoroastrian cosmogony (Ch. 123) is the central theme around which the other chapters are topically arranged.

The last chapter of book 3 mentions two legends: one in which Alexander destroys a copy of the Avesta, and another in which the Greeks translate the Avesta into their own language.

Book 4

Book 4, the shortest (and most haphazardly organized) volume in the collection, deals primarily with the arts and sciences. Texts on those topics are interspersed by chapters explaining philosophical and theological concepts such as that of the Amesha Spentas, while other chapters deal with history and the religious contributions of Achaemenid and Sassanid monarchs.

Book 4 also contains an enumeration of works from Greece and India, and "reveals foreign influence from the 3rd century onward." The last chapter of Book 4 ends with a chapter explaining the necessity for practicing good thoughts, words and deeds, and the influences these have on one's afterlife.

Book 5

Book 5 deals specifically with queries from adherents of other faiths.

The first half of Book 5, titled the "Book of Daylamite", is addressed to a Muslim, Yaqub bin Khaled, who apparently requested information on Zoroastrianism. A large part of this section is summary of the history (from the Zoroastrian point of view) of the world up to the advent of Zoroaster and the impact of his revelations. The history is then followed by a summary of the tenets of the faith. According to Philippe Gignoux, the section "clearly nationalist and Persian in orientation, expressing the hope of a Mazdean restoration in the face of Islam and its Arab supporters."

The second half of Book 5 is a series of 33 responses to questions posed by a certain Bōxt-Mārā, a Christian. Thirteen responses address objections raised by Boxt-Mara on issues of ritual purity. The bulk of the remaining material deals with free will and the efficacy of good thoughts, words and deeds as a means to battle evil.

Book 6

Book 6 is a compilation of andarz (a literary genre, lit: "advice", "counsel"), anecdotes and aphorisms that embody a general truth or astute observation. Most of the compositions in book 6 are short didactic sentences that deal with morality and personal ethics.

Structurally, the book is divided into sections that are distinguished from one another by their introductory formulae. In the thematic divisions identified by Shaul Shaked, the first part is devoted to religious subjects, with a stress on devotion and piety. The second and third are related to ethical principles, with the third possibly revealing Aristotelian values. The fourth part may be roughly divided into sections with each addressing a particular human quality or activity. The fifth part includes a summary of twenty-five functions or conditions of human life, organized in five categories: destiny, action, custom, substance and inheritance. The fifth part also includes an enumeration of the names of authors that may have once been the last part of the book. In its extant form the book has a sixth part that, like the first part, addresses religious subjects.

Book 7

Book 7 deals [with] the "legend of Zoroaster", but which extends beyond the life of the prophet. The legend of Zoroaster as it appears in the Denkard differs slightly from similar legends (such as those presented in the contemporaneous Selections of Zadspram and the later Zardosht-nama) in that it presents the story of the prophet as an analogy of the Yasna ceremony.

The thematic and structural divisions  are as follows:

1. The span of human history beginning with Kayomars, in Zoroastrian tradition identified as the first king and the first man, and ending with the Kayanid dynasty. This section of book 7 is essentially the same as that summarized in the first part of book 5, but additionally presents Zoroaster as the manifest representation of khwarrah (Avestan: kavaēm kharēno, "[divine] [royal] glory") that has accumulated during that time.
2. Zoroaster's parents and his conception.
3. Zoroaster's infancy and the vain attempts to kill him, through to Zoroaster's first communication with Ohrmuzd and the meeting with Good Thought, the Amesha Spenta Bahman (Avestan: Vohu Manah).
4. Zoroaster's revelation as received during his seven conversations with Ohrmuzd; the subsequent miracles against the daevas; the revival of the horse of Vishtasp (Avestan: Vistaspa) and the king's subsequent conversion; the vision of Zoroaster.
5. The life of Zoroaster from Vistasp's conversion up to Zoroaster's death, including his revelations on science and medicine.
6. The miracles that followed Zoroaster's death
7. The history of Persia until the Islamic conquest, with an emphasis on several historical or legendary figures.
8. Prophecies and predictions up to the end of the millennium of Zoroaster (that ends one thousand years after his birth), including the coming of the first savior and his son Ushetar.
9. The miracles of the thousand years of Ushetar until the coming of Ushetarmah.
10. The miracles of the thousand years of Ushetarmah until the coming of the Saoshyant.
11. The miracles of the fifty-seven years of the Saoshyant until the frashgird, the final renovation of the world.
Book 8

Book 8

Book 8 is a commentary on the various texts of the Avesta, or rather, on the Sassanid archetype of the Avesta. Book 8 is of particular interest to scholars of Zoroastrianism because portions of the canon have been lost and the Denkard at least makes it possible to determine which portions are missing and what those portions might have contained. The Denkard also includes an enumeration of the divisions of the Avesta, and which once served as the basis for a speculation that only one quarter of the texts had survived. In the 20th century it was determined that the Denkard's divisions also took Sassanid-era translations and commentaries into account; these were however not considered to be a part of the Avesta.

Book 9

Book 9 is a commentary on the Gathic prayers of Yasna 27 and Yasna 54. Together, these make up Zoroastrianism's four most sacred invocations: the ahuna vairya (Y 27.13), the Ashem Vohu (Y 27.14), the yenghe hatam (Y 27.15) and the airyaman ishya (Y 54.1).

-- Denkard, by Wikipedia

Content

The Vendidad's different parts vary widely in character and in age. Although some portions are relatively recent in origin, the subject matter of the greater part is very old. In 1877, Karl Friedrich Geldner identified the texts as being linguistically distinct from both the Old Avestan language texts as well as from the Yashts of the younger Avesta. Today, there is controversy over historical development of the Vendidad. The Vendidad is classified by some as an artificial, young Avestan text. Its language resembles Old Avestan. The Vendidad is thought to be a Magi (Magi-influenced) composition.[1] It has also been suggested that the Vendidad belongs to a particular school, but "no linguistic or textual argument allows us to attain any degree of certainty in these matters."[2]

Some consider the Vendidad a link to ancient early oral traditions, later written as a book of laws for the Zoroastrian community. [3] The writing of the Vendidad began - perhaps substantially - before the formation of the Median and Persian Empires, before the 8th century B.C.E.. [???!!!]

In addition, as with the Yashts, the date of composition of the final version does not exclude the possibility that some parts of the Vendidad may consist of very old material. Even in this modern age, Zoroastrians are continually rewriting old spiritual material. [???][4]

In addition, as with the Yashts, the date of composition of the final version does not exclude the possibility that some parts of the Vendidad may consist of very old material. Even in this modern age, we are continually rewriting old material.

-- Zoroastrian Heritage, by K. E. Eduljee

The first chapter is dualistic creation myth, followed by the description of a destructive winter. The second chapter recounts the legend of Yima (Jamshid). Chapter 19 relates the temptation of Zoroaster, who, when urged by Angra Mainyu to turn from the good religion, turns instead towards Ahura Mazda. The remaining chapters cover diverse rules and regulations, through the adherence of which evil spirits may be confounded. Broken down by subject, these fargards deal with the following topics (chapters where a topic is covered are in brackets):

• hygiene (in particular care of the dead) [3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 19] and cleansing [9,10];
• disease, its origin, and spells against it [7, 10, 11, 13, 20, 21, 22];
• mourning for the dead [12], the Towers of Silence [6], and the remuneration of deeds after death [19];
• the sanctity of, and invocations to, Atar (fire) [8], Zam (earth) [3,6], Apas (water) [6, 8, 21] and the light of the stars [21];
• the dignity of wealth and charity [4], of marriage [4, 15] and of physical effort [4]
• statutes on unacceptable social behaviour [15] such as breach of contract [4] and assault [4];
• on the worthiness of priests [18];
• praise and care of the bull [21], the dog [13, 15], the otter [14], the Sraosha bird [18], and the Haoma tree [6].

There is a degree of moral relativism apparent in the Vendidad, and the diverse rules and regulations are not always expressed as being mystical, absolute, universal or mandatory. The Vendidad is mainly about social laws, mores, customs and culture. In some instances, the description of prescribed behaviour is accompanied by a description of the penances that have to be made to atone for violations thereof. Such penances include:

• payment in cash or kind to the aggrieved;
• corporal punishment such as whipping;
• repeated recitations of certain parts of the liturgy such as the Ahuna Vairya invocation.

Value of the Vendidad among Zoroastrians

Most of the Zoroastrians continue to use the Vendidad as a valued and fundamental cultural and ethical moral guide, viewing their teachings as essential to Zoroastrian tradition and see it as part of Zoroastrianism original perspectives about the truth of spiritual existence. They argue that it has origins on early oral tradition, being only later written.[5][6][7]

The emergent reformist Zoroastrian movement reject the later writings in the Avesta as being corruptions of Zarathustra's original teachings and thus do not consider the Vendidad as an original Zoroastrian scripture. They argue that it was written nearly 700 years after the death of Zarathustra and interpret the writing as different from the other parts of the Avesta.[8]

An article by Hannah M. G. Shapero sums up the reformist perspective:[9]

"How do Zoroastrians view the Vendidad today? And how many of the laws of the Vendidad are still followed? This depends, as so many other Zoroastrian beliefs and practices do, on whether you are a "reformist" or a "traditionalist." The reformists, following the Gathas as their prime guide, judge the Vendidad harshly as being a deviation from the non-prescriptive, abstract teachings of the Gathas. For them, few if any of the laws or practices in the Vendidad are either in the spirit or the letter of the Gathas, and so they are not to be followed. The reformists prefer to regard the Vendidad as a document which has no religious value but is only of historic or anthropological interest. Many Zoroastrians, in Iran, India, and the world diaspora, inspired by reformists, have chosen to dispense with the Vendidad prescriptions entirely or only to follow those which they believe are not against the original spirit of the Gathas."

Liturgical use

Although the Vendidad is not a liturgical manual, a section of it may be recited as part of a greater Yasna service. Although such extended Yasnas appears to have been frequently performed in the mid-18th century (as noted in Anquetil-Duperron's observations), it is very rarely performed at the present day. In such an extended service, Visparad 12 and Vendidad 1-4 are inserted between Yasna 27 and 28. The Vendidad ceremony is always performed between nightfall and dawn, though a normal Yasna is performed between dawn and noon.

Because of its length and complexity, the Vendidad is read, rather than recalled from memory as is otherwise necessary for the Yasna texts. The recitation of the Vendidad requires a priest of higher rank (one with a moti khub) than is normally necessary for the recitation of the Yasna.

The Vendidad should not be confused with the Vendidad Sadé. The latter is the name for a set of manuscripts of the Yasna texts into which the Vendidad and Visperad have been interleaved. These manuscripts were used for liturgical purposes outside the yasna ceremony proper, not accompanied by any ritual activity. The expression sadé, "clean", was used to indicate that these texts were not accompanied by commentaries in Middle Persian.

See also

• Avesta
• Avestan geography

Notes

1. Zaehner, Richard Charles (1961). The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism. New York: Putnam. p. 160ff.
Portions of the book are available online.
2. Kellens, Jean (1989). "Avesta". Encyclopedia Iranica. Vol. 3. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 35–44. p. 35
3. Ervad Marzban J. Hathiram. The significance and philosophy of the Vendidad Retrieved 14 January 2023
4. "Avestan, Iranian & Zoroastrian Languages". heritageinstitute.com.
5. "Importance of Vendidad in the Zarathushti Religion: By Ervad Behramshah Hormusji Bharda".
6. Ervad Marzban Hathiram Significance and Philosophy of the Vendidad Retrieved 14 January 2023
7. "Ranghaya, Sixteenth Vendidad Nation & Western Aryan Lands". http://www.heritageinstitute.com.
8. "AVESTA - The Scriptures of Zoroastrianism - Access New Age". March 18, 2021.
9. The Vendidad. The Law Against Demons Retrieved 14 January 2023

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Avesta/Vidēvdād

• Müller, Max, ed. (1880). "The Vendidad". The Zend-Avesta, Part I (SBE, vol. 4). Translated by Darmesteter, James. Oxford: OUP.

*******************

Vendidad: The Law Against Demons
by Hannah M.G. Shapero
7/5/95

The Vendidad is the latest book of the Avesta, the scriptures of Zoroastrianism. The word Vendidad is an evolution from "Vi- daevo-dato," which means "the law against demons." Through time this became "Videvdat," and then "Vendidad."

The Vendidad was written down between about 200 AD and 400 AD, either in the later years of the Parthian Empire or during the Sassanian Empire, the last Persian empire before the Islamic conquest. Even though its writing is late compared to the rest of the Avesta, the material it contains is much more ancient; some of it may date back to pre-Zarathushtrian times, and much of it comes from the age of the Magi, during the Achaemenid Persian Empire, 600-300 BC.

Most of the original Zoroastrian scriptures have been lost over the years due to destructive invaders such as Alexander, the Islamic Arabs, and the Mongols. The Avesta as it now stands consists of what was salvaged from these scriptures, saved in the memories of priests who kept the sacred words in oral tradition. The Vendidad is a late compilation of such material, probably set down in writing by many different authors and edited into one book.

Unlike the poetry of the Gathas and the various hymns in the Avesta, the Vendidad is in prose, although it is a highly rhetorical prose. Its language is Avestan, the ancient Iranian language of the Gathas and other prayers, but it is a much later variant of Avestan. Some scholars have speculated that the Avesta of the Vendidad seems to be a priestly usage of a language that is no longer living, hence there are many grammatical "mistakes" and structural changes from the language of the earlier hymns composed when Avestan was still a living language.

Most of the book is set forth in a structure of questions proposed by Zarathushtra to Ahura Mazda, the Wise God, and Mazda's answers. The rhetorical pattern of questions and answers is typical of orally preserved literature, as it is an aid to memory. This does not necessarily mean that any of the material in the Vendidad comes directly from the Prophet or from Ahura Mazda, nor that the Prophet wrote the Vendidad. The priests who preserved the teachings composed their text in Zarathushtra's name, a very old strategy for giving a newer text ancient authority. The question of whether any of the material in the Vendidad is really from Zarathushtra is impossible to answer, as the scriptures that might have given an answer to this question have been lost. But the Gathas of Zarathushtra, the only part of the Avesta truly attributed to the Prophet, contain many of the "seeds" of the stories, lore, and ideas found in the Vendidad, and there is quite a lot of continuity in spirit, if not in letter, between these two documents composed almost two millennia apart [???].

To the natural difficulties which obstruct the progress of sound science in the East, we add great difficulties of our own making. Bounties and premiums, such as ought not to be given even for the propagation of truth, we lavish on false texts and false philosophy.

[url]-- Minute by the Hon'ble T. B. Macaulay, by Thomas Babington Macaulay, February 2, 1835[/url]

But there is a great difference between the psychological outlooks of the two documents. Though Zarathushtra is very much aware of the reality of divine beings both good and evil, he deals mostly with abstract concepts in his Gathas. He may personify the great Attributes of God, the Amesha Spentas, but even they are abstract: Righteousness, Devotion, Dominion. His evil concepts are equally abstract: Greed, Violence, Wrath, and especially Deceit, which in the Avestan language is called druj.

In the Vendidad, the abstractions have all been personified, or "concretized." There is a whole universe of good and evil entities between human beings and the transcendent God Ahura Mazda. It is the world of "cosmic" dualism, where both the earthly and heavenly worlds are gathered into conflicting camps of Good and Evil. The Attributes of God are now beings resembling archangels, and all the evil concepts have been personified as demons. This is especially true for the demon of Deceit, Druj. In the Vendidad, Druj is a hideous demon of pollution associated with corpses. The world of the Vendidad is a world filled with spirits and demons, which can be affected by ritual actions. We will visit this world when we come to the ritual and purification laws of the Vendidad.

The Vendidad contains different types of material, which can be classified as mythological tales, "wisdom-literature," legal texts for both civil and religious situations, formulaic prayers for exorcism and ritual usages, and what might be called a "technical manual" for priests conducting Zoroastrian rituals of invocation and purification. The text is divided into 22 "Fargards," or sections, each with sub-sections and numbered paragraphs.

The Vendidad opens with mythological tales, or sacred stories. Fargard I gives a catalog of sacred geography, in which various regions of ancient Iran are paired with the particular demon that attacks them; not only is this actual geography but a kind of map of the spirit world as well. Fargard II tells the story of King Yima, the pre-historic king of Iran. He was warned that a deadly Ice Age would come upon the earth, and was instructed by Ahura Mazda to build a Utopian community called a var, isolated from the rest of the world. Yima brought there perfect breeding samples of each species of plant and animal along with a perfect community of people. Here, protected from the dreadful ice, the best of Earth was preserved. This myth is so much like the myth of Noah's Ark that many scholars think it was influenced by the Semitic sacred story.

The Vendidad also ends with sacred stories: in Fargards 19,20, and 21 we read of the temptation of Zarathushtra by many demons, the story of Thrita, the first healer, who was given knowledge of surgery, herbal remedies, and sacred healing prayers by the Amesha Spenta Kshathra, and finally, more sacred geography about the passage of the heavenly bodies and the heavenly waters through the sky.

The wisdom-literature of the Vendidad is interspersed throughout the book. It contains sage instructions about what is best in life, what is worst in life, and what the pious Zarathushtrian should do. The Vendidad recommends agriculture and husbandry as the best work in life, and family life and good eating as the best way to live. It also extols the virtue of holy study, and vehemently rejects teachers of heretical or foreign creeds. This endorsement of family, fertility, and feasting, and the rejection of heresy, is thought to be a reaction to the world-denying preaching of rival religions such as Manichaeism, Buddhism, and Christianity, all of which value fasting and celibacy. Such religious challenges date from the Sassanian era (250-650 AD) and give a clue as to when those Vendidad passages might have been written.

Other sections of the Vendidad, such as Fargards 10 and 11, contain instructions for the reciting of sacred formulas, or manthras. In the religious culture of the Vendidad, as in current Zoroastrianism, prayers are recited in Avestan. Not many people, then or now, understand Avestan; by the time of the Vendidad, it was a forgotten language, remembered by rote, understood only through cloudy translations. But the idea of Avestan words, especially the Gathas, as holy texts, remained central to prayer. The prayers had power as holy words even when the person praying did not know the content of the prayer.

In our modern culture, heavily influenced by Protestant Christianity, we may find it hard to conceive of a religious practice in which an untranslated prayer formula has its own intrinsic power to reach God. A prayer, for us, is only effective if it is in a familiar language, and understood and believed by the praying person. The modern reformers of Zoroastrianism share this attitude, and have long voiced their distaste for a prayer practice that relies on rote ritual utterances. Yet this is the conception of manthra prayer in the Vendidad's ancient tradition. This was not the case in the much earlier Gathas, where the language and content of Avestan prayers was still very much alive and familiar to Zarathushtra's early followers. A verse from the Gathas, in the Vendidad, has the power to exorcise demons or heal sickness, irrespective of its content being understood. It is a kind of holy spell, a talismanic utterance. The Vendidad contains lists of the proper Avestan verses to say, and when they should be said. This is part of the "technical manual" aspect of the book.

The greatest part of the Vendidad is taken up with legal texts. Most of the civil law of the Avesta was in the books that are lost, but a fragment of civil law is preserved in Fargard 4. This section deals with the various types of contracts, oaths, and property agreements, and the punishments for breaking these contracts. It also enumerates the different degrees of assault, from verbal threats to murder, and states the punishment for each act of violence; the penalties depend on how grave the assault is and how many times it has been committed.

Fargards 13 and 14 deal with the treatment and breeding of dogs. This is somewhere between civil and religious law. Dogs are regarded as the holiest of animals, almost equal to people. This is a natural attitude among people whose livelihood depends on herds of cattle and sheep, where herding dogs are essential helpers. Dogs also have spiritual powers, as described in Fargard 8. The presence and gaze of a dog is said to drive away evil spirits, and a dog is brought to a corpse and to the places the corpse has been, to puritfy them. The dog is a protector in both the physical and the spiritual world.

The legal texts concerning dogs cite many different situations in which dogs might be injured, and the punishment for the injury. Other cases concern breeding mother dogs, raising puppies, and protection against rabid dogs. Other animals are also covered in the Vendidad text, though their identity is no longer clear to modern readers. The "water dog" (possibly an otter) is especially sacred, and the man who kills one of these creatures must undergo punishment so severe and burdensome that many scholars think it could never have literally been carried out.

The rest of the legal texts of the Vendidad are what could be considered the Zoroastrian code of canon law. These are religious rules which apply to priests, rituals, and most especially maintenance of ritual purity.

We in the West are unfamiliar with ritual purity, unless we are Orthodox Jews. This concept has been interpreted in many ways. Anthropologists like Mary Douglas, in her book PURITY AND DANGER, interpret purity as the maintenance of categories, roles, and boundaries in society. Other, more "materialistic" scholars view rules of purity and pollution as the hygienic and medical lore of a pre-technological society. The rules make sense in the light of modern hygiene, and are given religious sanctions to induce people to follow them. Many of the rules of purity and pollution in the Vendidad actually are proper hygiene by our modern standards, but other rules only make sense when interpreted by the pre-scientific thinking of their day.

Many reformist Zoroastrians question whether Zarathushtra ever intended purity laws to be part of his religion. There is only one ambiguous passage in the Gathas which could refer to purity, but there are certainly no prescriptions of purity practices in the Gatha hymns such as are found in the Vendidad. Scholars note that many of the purity laws of the Vendidad are identical or very close to purity laws followed by upper-caste Hindus, which suggests that they go back to the pre-historic time when Iranians and Indians were one people. But even if Zarathushtra's ancient Iranians did inherit some purity practices from their common past, the multiplication and complication of laws found in theVendidad are almost certainly later developments, probably due to the influence of the Magian priesthood of western Iran, who achieved power during the Achaemenid Empire (600-300 BC). They followed a strict priestly code of purity, which had not only Indo-Iranian elements but Semitic and Mesopotamian influence. This priestly code was later extended to the entire population, and thus a pervasive and complex purity practice, which may not have been in the original teachings of the Prophet, entered orthodox Zoroastrian life.

What does purity and pollution mean to Zoroastrians? One of the best references for this is a book by Jamsheed Choksy, a Parsi scholar who was able to attend purification rituals which are closed to non-Zoroastrians. In his book, PURITY AND POLLUTION IN ZOROASTRIANISM, he explains ritual purity in its religious, rather than social or hygienic context. In the great cosmic conflict between Good and Evil, the pure belong to God's side, and the polluted succumb to Ahriman, the Hostile Spirit. In Zoroastrianism, as Choksy states, there is continuity, not separation, between the physical and the spiritual. What is done for the physical world reflects into the spiritual world:

"The theological linking of the spiritual and material aspects of the universe in the Gathas forms the basis of every action. All thoughts, words, and deeds, can serve to further the cosmic triumph of Ahura Mazda over Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), righteousness over evil....Therefore, the purification rituals not only cleanse a believer's physical body but also are said to purify the soul, thereby assisting in the vanquishing of evil."

In the Vendidad, pollution can come from many sources. It may come from evil animals, known as khrafstras, which are part of Ahriman's creation: snakes, flies, ants, or destructive wolves. It may come from sickness, or from excrement, or from cast-off body waste such as cut hair or nails. Pollution also comes from women during their menstrual periods, a notion which is very common among pre-modern peoples all over the earth. The Vendidad contains detailed instructions (in Fargard 16) on how women should be isolated during their menses. But most of all, pollution comes from dead bodies: the corpses of humans and dogs, and this takes up the greatest amount of technical text in the document.

The pollution of a corpse is personified in the demonic Druj Nasu, the hideous, insect-like spirit of dead flesh. The Vendidad contains very detailed and elaborate instructions on how to protect against and purify human beings from polluting contact with corpses. The text also describes the dakhmas, the famous Towers of Silence where the bodies of dead Zoroastrians are placed to be consumed by vultures and other scavenger animals. Every possible contact with corpses is covered in almost obsessive detail: what to do if someone dies in wintertime and snow and ice prevent access to the Tower, what to do if you find the body of a drowned person in river or lake water, how much pollution happens if a man dies in public surrounded by people, and how to purify land, clothing, wood, vessels, or even houses which have been in contact with corpses. The text also describes the purification process for a woman who has had a miscarriage or a stillbirth; since she has carried a corpse within her, she is especially polluted.

Most of the purification rituals in the Vendidad consist of multiple baths or rubdowns with bull's urine, earth, and water, accompanied by the recital of the proper prayers. The most powerful ritual is the barashnom, a rite that lasts nine days and nights, in which the person to be purified is isolated in a special enclosure and bathed nine times with the sequence of bull's urine, dry earth, and water, as he moves through a series of sacred patterns and spaces laid out on the ground. This ritual can take away the pollution of close contact with corpses, but is reserved for serious occasions due to its length and complexity.

The laws of the Vendidad, both civil and religious, prescribe punishments as well as purifying rituals. Each infraction has a punishment specified for it, whether it is a matter of intentional violent crime or failure to observe the proper ritual laws. Most of the time, these punishments are corporal: they consist of a specified number of lashes with the aspahe-astra or horsewhip, and an equal number of lashes with an instrument called the sraosho-karana which scholars have not been able to identify. In one or two passages, amounts of gold or silver are mentioned as fines, but in general the Vendidad's punishments are all corporal. This is quite different from other ancient law-books, such as the Jewish laws of Leviticus and Numbers, or the Code of Hammurabi, where punishments are not only corporal but also enumerated in monetary fines or amounts of gold and silver. The punishments of the Vendidad often are so severe that it seems that no one could endure them and live; many offenses incur twice two hundred lashes, and some even merit twice a thousand. Such punishments have caused later readers to wonder whether they were ever actually carried out. The Zoroastrian commentaries on the Vendidad from later centuries, written in Pahlavi or Middle Persian, state that these punishments were commuted to fines, and even give the monetary equivalents of each penalty.

The administrators of both law and punishment were the mobeds, the Zoroastrian priests of the Sassanian empire. They wielded the whip or accepted the fine. This has given rise to the widespread notion that corrupt priests multiplied the numbers of the punishments, seeking to gain more wealth from commuted fines. No doubt some of this is true, and as the Sassanian Empire grew old, the riches and oppression of the state-religion increased. But the Vendidad was also taken seriously, as it still is among traditional Zoroastrians, as a God-given law of holiness which transcends the misdeeds of individual administrators.

It is interesting that during the same time as the Vendidad was being given its final edition, similar work was going on among Christians and Jews. The edition and writing of the Vendidad (though not the actual material contained in it, which may be much older) took place during the era of the great Christian controversies about the nature of Christ and human beings, about God's grace and human sinfulness. The Vendidad may actually be contemporary with Church Fathers such as Augustine of Hippo or John Chrysostom in Constantinople. These were the sages of the Western superpower, the Christian Roman Empire. And the other superpower was the Sassanian Empire of Persia, where its sages were also debating heresies and working out the details of sin and atonement in the Vendidad.

The laws of the Jewish Torah show, in many passages, close resemblance to the laws of the Vendidad, especially in regard to ritual purity. The Jewish texts were re-edited during and after the Exile, when the Jews came into contact with Persia and Zoroastrian ways. It is very possible that Jewish laws either influenced, or were influenced by, the Magian laws of the Vendidad. By the time the Vendidad came to be written down, almost a millennium later, there was still a major Jewish presence in the Persian Empire. The era of the Vendidad's writing is also the era of the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud, a great compendium of Jewish wisdom which is still studied today. The rabbis of the Jewish diaspora in Persia were engaging in similar elaborations and casuistry in their own religious and legal traditions, using as their core text a document which may have already had some Zoroastrian influence from long ago.

How do Zoroastrians view the Vendidad today? And how many of the laws of the Vendidad are still followed? This depends, as so many other Zoroastrian beliefs and practices do, on whether you are a "reformist" or a "traditionalist." The reformists, following the Gathas as their prime guide, judge the Vendidad harshly as being a deviation from the non-prescriptive, abstract teachings of the Gathas. For them, few if any of the laws or practices in the Vendidad are either in the spirit or the letter of the Gathas, and so they are not to be followed. The reformists prefer to regard the Vendidad as a document which has no religious value but is only of historic or anthropological interest. Many Zoroastrians, in Iran, India, and the world diaspora, inspired by reformists, have chosen to dispense with the Vendidad prescriptions entirely or only to follow those which they believe are not against the original spirit of the Gathas.

Traditionalists, however, believe that the Vendidad is indeed divinely inspired, written in the divine language of the Avesta, and that its prescriptions are God's law, the "Law of Mazda." The question then is how to follow ancient laws and practices which were designed for a pre-technological, agrarian society, rather than the modern urban world in which most Zoroastrians live. There are still isolated rural communities of Zoroastrians where many of the Vendidad practices are still done, including daily purity rituals, menstrual seclusion of women, exposure of the dead, and the barashnom for both priests and laypeople. Such a community was documented by Mary Boyce in her book A PERSIAN STRONGHOLD OF ZOROASTRIANISM. But these rural believers are now a minority in the Zoroastrian world. There are Parsis who, though living in the crowded quarters of Bombay, still maintain Vendidad practices; menstrual seclusion takes place in a reserved room in a house or apartment, rather than in a separate building, and Towers of Silence are maintained in the suburbs of the city, where high-rise luxury apartments now crowd a place where originally the Tower stood in wilderness. Many of the practices of necessity have been changed to fit modern circumstances. The most arduous of them are undergone only by priests, such as the barashnom which gives a priest the level of ritual purity necessary to work in a high-grade fire temple. But the system of penalties is gone forever.

Some extremist Zoroastrians view the Vendidad as literally the divine word of God, in which nothing can be changed or modernized. They regard all the laws of the Vendidad as still binding on Zoroastrians. In this view, all Zoroastrians have sinned and come short of their true duties to the law of Mazda, especially those in the West who have no access to Vendidad-prescribed things such as bull's urine, isolation buildings for sickness and menstruation, and Towers of Silence. Zoroastrians, according to the extremists, must live in a constant state of regret because they cannot fulfil the divine laws of the Vendidad. Yet few, if any Zoroastrians, no matter how extreme their views, would like to see a return to a literal re-enactment of the Vendidad, where whip- cracking priests administered four hundred lashes to those who violated the rules of ritual purity.

The Vendidad has a peculiar place in Zoroastrian liturgical practice. Recitation of the complete text is the center of a long ritual which is done as a funerary practice soon after a death, or at other times as a propitiation for sins and exorcism of demons. This ceremony is known simply as a "Vendidad," and is still performed in India and Iran. It takes place at night, when the demons are believed to be at their strongest. The priest recites the whole text, a long task which can take most of the night, reading from his book by the light of flickering lamp-flames. The origin of this practice is obscure, but its meaning is not. The whole Vendidad has now become an extended _manthra_ or formulaic utterance, which is believed to have the power to drive away demonic influences which are particularly dangerous just after a death. The priest is literally laying down the Law for them, for it is the "Anti-Demonic Law."

This practice has had another effect, whether this was intentional or not. Because the Vendidad was used in liturgical practice, it was preserved when other legal texts were lost. The Vendidad is in fact one of the best preserved books of the Avesta. It was this use of the law-book as talismanic utterance which kept it alive through the dark night of history.

7/5/95
Hannah M.G. Shapero
Ushtavaiti

The Ushtavaiti Gatha, which embodies happiness, celebrates the Zoroastrian precept of friendship with God. In Ushtavaiti Gatha, Yasna 46.2 Zarathustra says: “Rafedhrem chagvaao hyat fryo fryaai daidit, Aakhso vangheush ashaa ishtim manangho.” Meaning (as translated by Prof. Stanley Insler): “Take notice of it, Lord, offering the support which a friend should grant to a friend. Let me see the power of good thinking allied with truth!”

Here Zarathushtra does not see God as the Master or the Lord or as Father or someone to fear, but sees Him as a beloved friend to talk to in times of distress and to love Him and seek His support to perfect an imperfect world with friendship based on good thinking allied with Truth.

-- Message Of The Holy Gathas, by Noshir H. Dadrawala

[admin]

Magi
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/17/24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magi


Zoroastrian priests (Magi) carrying barsoms. Statuettes from the Oxus Treasure of the Achaemenid Empire, 4th century BC

Magi (PLUR),[a] or magus (SING),[ b] is the term for priests in Zoroastrianism and earlier Iranian religions. The earliest known use of the word magi is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Persian texts, predating the Hellenistic period, refer to a magus as a Zurvanic, and presumably Zoroastrian, priest.

Pervasive throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia until late antiquity and beyond, mágos ([x]) was influenced by (and eventually displaced) Greek goēs ([x]), the older word for a practitioner of magic, with a meaning expanded to include astronomy, astrology, alchemy, and other forms of esoteric knowledge. This association was in turn the product of the Hellenistic fascination for Pseudo-Zoroaster, who was perceived by the Greeks to be the Chaldean founder of the Magi and inventor of both astrology and magic, a meaning that still survives in the modern-day words "magic" and "magician".

In the Gospel of Matthew, [x] (magoi) from the east do homage to the Christ Child,[1] and the transliterated plural "magi" entered English from Latin in this context around 1200 CE (this particular use is also commonly rendered in English as "kings" and more often in recent times as "wise men").[2] The singular "magus" appears considerably later, when it was borrowed from Old French in the late 14th century with the meaning magician.

Hereditary Zoroastrian priesthood has survived in India[3][4] and Iran. They are termed Herbad, Mobad (Magupat, i.e. chief of the Maga), and Dastur depending on the rank.

Iranian sources


Zoroastrian Magus carrying barsom from the Oxus Treasure of the Achaemenid Empire, 4th century BC

The term only appears twice in Iranian texts from before the 5th century BC, and only one of these can be dated with precision. This one instance occurs in the trilingual Behistun inscription of Darius the Great, and which can be dated to about 520 BC. In this trilingual text, certain rebels have magian as an attribute; in the Old Persian portion as [x] (generally assumed to be a loan word from Median). The meaning of the term in this context is uncertain.[5]

The other instance appears in the texts of the Avesta, the sacred literature of Zoroastrianism. In this instance, which is in the Younger Avestan portion, the term appears in the hapax moghu.tbis, meaning "hostile to the moghu", where moghu does not (as was previously thought) mean "magus", but rather "a member of the tribe"[6] or referred to a particular social class in the proto-Iranian language and then continued to do so in Avestan.[7]

An unrelated term, but previously assumed to be related, appears in the older Gathic Avestan language texts. This word, adjectival magavan meaning "possessing maga-", was once the premise that Avestan maga- and Median (i.e. Old Persian) magu- were coeval (and also that both these were cognates of Vedic Sanskrit magha-). While "in the Gathas the word seems to mean both the teaching of Zoroaster and the community that accepted that teaching", and it seems that Avestan maga- is related to Sanskrit magha-, "there is no reason to suppose that the western Iranian form magu (Magus) has exactly the same meaning"[8] as well. But it "may be, however", that Avestan moghu (which is not the same as Avestan maga-) "and Medean magu were the same word in origin, a common Iranian term for 'member of the tribe' having developed among the Medes the special sense of 'member of the (priestly) tribe', hence a priest."[6]cf[7]

Some examples of the use of magi in Persian poetry, are present in the poems of Hafez. There are two frequent terms used by him, first one is Peer-e Moghan (literally "the old man of the magi") and second one is Deyr-e Moghan (literally "the monastery of the magi").[9]

Greco-Roman sources

Classical Greek

The oldest surviving Greek reference to the magi – from Greek μάγος (mágos, plural: magoi) – might be from 6th century BC Heraclitus (apud Clemens Protrepticus 2.22.2[10]), who curses the magi for their "impious" rites and rituals.[11] A description of the rituals that Heraclitus refers to has not survived, and there is nothing to suggest that Heraclitus was referring to foreigners.

Better preserved are the descriptions of the mid-5th century BC Herodotus, who in his portrayal of the Iranian expatriates living in Asia Minor uses the term "magi" in two different senses. In the first sense (Histories 1.101[12]), Herodotus speaks of the magi as one of the tribes/peoples (ethnous) of the Medes. In another sense (1.132[13]), Herodotus uses the term "magi" to generically refer to a "sacerdotal caste", but "whose ethnic origin is never again so much as mentioned."[8] According to Robert Charles Zaehner, in other accounts, "we hear of Magi not only in Persia, Parthia, Bactria, Chorasmia, Aria, Media, and among the Sakas, but also in non-Iranian lands like Samaria, Ethiopia, and Egypt. Their influence was also widespread throughout Asia Minor. It is, therefore, quite likely that the sacerdotal caste of the Magi was distinct from the Median tribe of the same name."[8]

As early as the 5th century BC, Greek magos had spawned mageia and magike to describe the activity of a magus, that is, it was his or her art and practice.[14] But almost from the outset the noun for the action and the noun for the actor parted company. Thereafter, mageia was used not for what actual magi did, but for something related to the word 'magic' in the modern sense, i.e. using supernatural means to achieve an effect in the natural world, or the appearance of achieving these effects through trickery or sleight of hand.[14] The early Greek texts typically have the pejorative meaning, which in turn influenced the meaning of magos to denote a conjurer and a charlatan.[15] Already in the mid-5th century BC, Herodotus identifies the magi as interpreters of omens and dreams (Histories 7.19, 7.37, 1.107, 1.108, 1.120, 1.128[16]).[17]

Other Greek sources from before the Hellenistic period include the gentleman-soldier Xenophon, who had first-hand experience at the Persian Achaemenid court. In his early 4th century BC Cyropaedia, Xenophon depicts the magians as authorities for all religious matters (8.3.11),[18] and imagines the magians to be responsible for the education of the emperor-to-be. Apuleius, a Numidian Platonist philosopher, describes magus to be considered as a "sage and philosopher-king" based on its Platonic notion.[19]

Roman period


Incised sarcophagus slab with the Adoration of the Magi from the Catacombs of Rome, 3rd century

Once the magi had been associated with "magic" – Greek magikos – it was but a natural progression that the Greeks' image of Zoroaster would metamorphose into a magician too.[20] The first century Pliny the Elder names "Zoroaster" as the inventor of magic (Natural History xxx.2.3), but a "principle of the division of labor appears to have spared Zoroaster most of the responsibility for introducing the dark arts to the Greek and Roman worlds. That dubious honor went to another fabulous magus, Ostanes, to whom most of the pseudepigraphic magical literature was attributed."[20] For Pliny, this magic was a "monstrous craft" that gave the Greeks not only a "lust" (aviditatem) for magic, but a downright "madness" (rabiem) for it, and Pliny supposed that Greek philosophers – among them Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato – traveled abroad to study it, and then returned to teach it (xxx.2.8–10).

"Zoroaster" – or rather what the Greeks supposed him to be – was for the Hellenists the figurehead of the 'magi', and the founder of that order (or what the Greeks considered to be an order). He was further projected as the author of a vast compendium of "Zoroastrian" pseudepigrapha, composed in the main to discredit the texts of rivals. "The Greeks considered the best wisdom to be exotic wisdom" and "what better and more convenient authority than the distant – temporally and geographically – Zoroaster?"[20] The subject of these texts, the authenticity of which was rarely challenged, ranged from treatises on nature to ones on necromancy. But the bulk of these texts dealt with astronomical speculations and magical lore.

One factor for the association with astrology was Zoroaster's name, or rather, what the Greeks made of it. His name was identified at first with star-worshiping (astrothytes "star sacrificer") and, with the Zo-, even as the living star. Later, an even more elaborate mytho-etymology evolved: Zoroaster died by the living (zo-) flux (-ro-) of fire from the star (-astr-) which he himself had invoked, and even that the stars killed him in revenge for having been restrained by him.[21] The second, and "more serious"[21] factor for the association with astrology was the notion that Zoroaster was a Chaldean. The alternate Greek name for Zoroaster was Zaratas / Zaradas / Zaratos (cf. Agathias 2.23–5, Clement Stromata I.15), which – according to Bidez and Cumont – derived from a Semitic form of his name. The Suda's chapter on astronomia notes that the Babylonians learned their astrology from Zoroaster. Lucian of Samosata (Mennipus 6) decides to journey to Babylon "to ask one of the magi, Zoroaster's disciples and successors", for their opinion.

Christian tradition

Main article: Biblical Magi


Byzantine depiction of the Three Magi in a 6th-century mosaic at Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo


Conventional post-12th century depiction of the Biblical magi (Adoração dos Magos by Vicente Gil). Balthasar, the youngest magus, bears frankincense and represents Africa. To the left stands Caspar, middle-aged, bearing gold and representing Asia. On his knees is Melchior, oldest, bearing myrrh and representing Europe.

The word mágos (Greek) and its variants appear in both the Old and New Testaments.[22] Ordinarily this word is translated "magician" or "sorcerer" in the sense of illusionist or fortune-teller, and this is how it is translated in all of its occurrences (e.g. Acts 13:6) except for the Gospel of Matthew, where, depending on translation, it is rendered "wise man" (KJV, RSV) or left untranslated as Magi, typically with an explanatory note (NIV). However, early church fathers, such as St. Justin, Origen, St. Augustine and St. Jerome, did not make an exception for the Gospel, and translated the word in its ordinary sense, i.e. as "magician".[23] The Gospel of Matthew states that magi visited the infant Jesus to do him homage shortly after his birth (2:1–2:12). The gospel describes how magi from the east were notified of the birth of a king in Judaea by the appearance of his star. Upon their arrival in Jerusalem, they visited King Herod to determine the location of the king of the Jews's birthplace. Herod, disturbed, told them that he had not heard of the child, but informed them of a prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. He then asked the magi to inform him when they find the child so that he himself may also pay homage to the child. Guided by the Star of Bethlehem, the wise men found the child Jesus in a house. They paid homage to him, and presented him with "gifts of gold and of frankincense and of myrrh." (2.11) In a dream they are warned not to return to Herod, and therefore return to their homes by taking another route. Since its composition in the late 1st century, numerous apocryphal stories have embellished the gospel's account.[citation needed] Matthew 2:16 implies that Herod learned from the wise men that up to two years had passed since the birth, which is why all male children two years or younger were slaughtered.

In addition to the more famous story of Simon Magus found in chapter 8, the Book of Acts (13:6–11) also describes another magus who acted as an advisor of Sergius Paulus, the Roman proconsul at Paphos on the island of Cyprus. He was a Jew named Bar-Jesus (son of Jesus), or alternatively Elymas. (Another Cypriot magus named Atomos is referenced by Josephus, working at the court of Felix at Caesarea.)

One of the non-canonical Christian sources, the Syriac Infancy Gospel, provides, in its third chapter, a story of the wise men of the East which is very similar to much of the story in Matthew. This account cites Zoradascht (Zoroaster) as the source of the prophecy that motivated the wise men to seek the infant Jesus. [24]

Jewish tradition

In the Talmud, instances of dialogue between the Jewish sages and various magi are recorded. The Talmud depicts the Magi as sorcerers and in several descriptions, they are negatively described as obstructing Jewish religious practices.[25][26] Several references include the sages criticizing practices performed by various magi. One instance is a description of the Zoroastrian priests exhuming corpses for their burial practices which directly interfered with the Jewish burial rites.[27] Another instance is a sage forbidding learning from the magi.[28][29][30]

Islamic tradition

Main article: Majus

In Arabic, "Magians" (majus) is the term for Zoroastrians. The term is mentioned in the Quran, in sura 22 verse 17, where the "Magians" are mentioned alongside the Jews, the Sabians and the Christians in a list of religions who will be judged on the Day of Resurrection.[31]

In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party used the term majus during the Iran–Iraq War as a generalization of all modern-day Iranians. "By referring to the Iranians in these documents as majus, the security apparatus [implied] that the Iranians [were] not sincere Muslims, but rather covertly practice their pre-Islamic beliefs. Thus, in their eyes, Iraq's war took on the dimensions of not only a struggle for Arab nationalism, but also a campaign in the name of Islam."[32]

Indian tradition


Brihat Samhita of Varahamihira, 1279 CE palm leaf manuscript, Pratima lakshana, Sanskrit

-- Varāhamihira, by Wikipedia

In India, the Sakaldwipiya Brahmins are considered to be the descendants of the ten Maga (Sanskrit [x]) priests who were invited to conduct worship of Mitra (Surya) at Mitravana (Multan), as described in the Samba Purana, Bhavishya Purana and the Mahabharata. Their original home was a mythological region called Śākadvīpa. According to Varahamihira (c. 505 – c. 587), the statue of the Sun god (Mitra), is represented as wearing the "northern" (Central Asian) dress, specifically with horse riding boots. Some Brahmin communities of India trace their descent from the Magas. Some classical astronomers and mathematicians of India such are Varahamihira are considered to be the descendants of the Magas.[33][34]

Varahamihira specifies that installation and consecration of the Sun images should be done by the Magas. al-Biruni mentions that the priests of the Sun Temple at Multan were Magas. The Magas had colonies in a number of places in India, and were the priests at Konark, Martanda and other sun temples.[35]

Possible loan into Chinese

Main article: Wu (shaman) § Etymologies


Chinese Bronzeware script for wu [x] "shaman"

Victor H. Mair (1990) suggested that Chinese wū [x] "shaman; witch, wizard; magician") may originate as a loanword from Old Persian *maguš "magician; magi". Mair reconstructs an Old Chinese *myag.[36] The reconstruction of Old Chinese forms is somewhat speculative. The velar final -g in Mair's *myag ([x]) is evident in several Old Chinese reconstructions (Dong Tonghe's *mywag, Zhou Fagao's *mjwaγ, and Li Fanggui's *mjag), but not all (Bernhard Karlgren's *mywo and Axel Schuessler's *ma).

Mair adduces the discovery of two figurines with unmistakably Caucasoid or Europoid features dated to the 8th century BC, found in a 1980 excavation of a Zhou dynasty palace in Fufeng County, Shaanxi Province. One of the figurines is marked on the top of its head with an incised [x] graph.

Mair's suggestion is based on a proposal by Jao Tsung-I (1990), which connects the "cross potent" bronzeware script glyph for wu [x] with the same shape found in Neolithic West Asia, specifically a cross potent carved in the shoulder of a goddess figure of the Halaf period.[37]

See also

• Anachitis ('stone of necessity') – stone used to call up spirits from water by Magi in antiquity
• Epiphany (January 6) – a Christian holiday marking the visit of the Magi to the Christ Child
• Fire temple – Zoroastrian place of worship

Notes

1. /[x]/
2. /[x]/ (Latin: magus; from Ancient Greek: [x] and Old Persian: [x] maguš)

References

1. About a year and half old, not a newborn (Matthew 2:11)
2. Matthew 2 in Greek
3. The Origins of Zoroastrian Priesthood in India, Parsi Khabar, April 29, 2009
4. DASTUR FIROZE M. KOTWAL (July 1990), "A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PARSI PRIESTHOOD", Indo-Iranian Journal, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 165-175.
5. Burkert, Walter (2007). Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Harvard University Press. pp. 108–109. ISBN 978-0-674-02399-4.
6. Boyce, Mary (1975), A History of Zoroastrianism, Vol. I, Leiden: Brill, pp. 10–11
7. Gershevitch, Ilya (1964). "Zoroaster's Own Contribution". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 23 (1): 12–38. doi:10.1086/371754. S2CID 161954467., p. 36.
8. Zaehner, Robert Charles (1961). The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism. New York: MacMillan. p. 163..
9. [x]. IRNA (in Persian). 12 October 2015. Retrieved 13 November 2022.
10. Butterworth, G W. (1919). Clement of Alexandria (Loeb Classical Library Volume 92 ed.). Cambridge, MA. Harvard Universrity Press.: Harvard University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-674-99103-3.
11. Bremmer, Jan N.; Veenstra, Jan R. (2002). The Metamorphosis of Magic from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Peeters Publishers. p. 2. ISBN 978-90-429-1227-4.
12. Herodotus (1904). The Histories of Herodotus. D. Appleton. p. 41.
13. Herodotus (1904). The Histories of Herodotus. D. Appleton. p. 54.
14. Janowitz, Naomi (2002-09-11). Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians. Routledge. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-134-63368-5.
15. Peters, Edward (1978). The Magician, the Witch, and the Law. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-8122-1101-6.
16. Herodotus (1904). The Histories of Herodotus. D. Appleton.
17. Bremmer, Jan (2008-04-30). Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East. BRILL. p. 240. ISBN 978-90-474-3271-5.
18. Gera, Deborah Levine (1993). Xenophon's Cyropaedia: Style, Genre, and Literary Technique. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-814477-9.
19. Too, Yun Lee (2010). The idea of the library in the ancient world. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 96. ISBN 9780199577804.
20. Beck, Roger (2003). "Zoroaster, as perceived by the Greeks". Encyclopaedia Iranica. New York: iranica.com.
21. Beck, Roger (1991). "Thus Spake Not Zarathushtra: Zoroastrian Pseudepigrapha of the Graeco-Roman World". In Boyce, Mary; Grenet, Frantz (eds.). A History of Zoroastrianism. Handbuch der Orientalistik. Vol. 3. Leiden: Brill. pp. 491–565. Abteilung I, Band VIII, Abschnitt 1, p. 516
22. Gospel of Matthew2:1–12:9; Acts of the Apostles 8:9; 13:6,8; and the Septuagint of Daniel 1:20; 2:2, 2:10, 2:27; 4:4; 5:7, 5:11, 5:15).
23. Drum, W. (1910), "Magi", The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company
24. Hone, William (1890). "The Apocryphal Books of the New Testament". Archive.org. Gebbie & Co., Publishers, Philadelphia. Retrieved 20 October 2017.
25. Secunda, Shai (2014). The Iranian Talmud. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated. ISBN 9780812245707.
26. Mokhtarian, Jason (2 November 2021). Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520385726.
27. Secunda, Shai (16 June 2020). The Talmud's Red Fence. OUP Oxford. ISBN 9780192598882.
28. Secunda, S. (2016). " This, but Also That": Historical, Methodological, and Theoretical Reflections on Irano-Talmudica. Jewish Quarterly Review, 106(2), 233-241.
29. Secunda, S. (2005). Studying with a Magus/Like Giving a Tongue to a Wolf. Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 19, 151-157.
30. Secunda, S. (2012). Parva—a Magus. In Shoshannat Yaakov (pp. 391-402). Brill.
31. "Surah Al-Hajj - 1-78". Quran.com. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
32. Al-Marashi, Ibrahim (2000). "The Mindset of Iraq's Security Apparatus" (PDF). Cambridge University: Centre of International Studies. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-04-11.
33. Puttaswamy, T. K. (2012). Mathematical Achievements of Pre-modern Indian Mathematicians. Newnes. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-12-397913-1.
34. Biswas, Dilip Kumar (September 1949). Law, Narendra Nath (ed.). "The Maga Ancestry of Varahamihira". The Indian Historical Quarterly. 25 (3): 175.
35. Chattopadhyaya, Sudhakar (June 1950). Law, Narendra Nath (ed.). "The Achaemenids and India". The Indian Historical Quarterly. 26 (2): 100–117.
36. Mair, Victor H. (1990). "Old Sinitic *Myag, Old Persian Maguš and English Magician". Early China. 15: 27–47. doi:10.1017/S0362502800004995. ISSN 0362-5028. JSTOR 23351579. S2CID 192107986 – via JSTOR.
37. Ming-pao yueh-kan 25.9 (September 1990). English translation: Questions on the Origin of Writing Raised by the 'Silk Road', Sino-Platonic Papers, 26 (September, 1991).

Further reading

• Lendering, Jona (2006), Magians, Amsterdam: Livius.org, retrieved 2024-01-06.

External links

• The Magi in Mosaics, Paintings and Sculpture

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Varāhamihira
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/17/24

I. Varahamihira’s Time

Unfortunately, there is considerable divergence of opinion regarding his date. The Jyotirvid-abharana (XXII. 10), professedly composed by the celebrated Kalidasa, the author of the three poems (XXII. 19-20) and a court-poet of the traditional Vikramaditya of the first century B.C., includes Varahamihira among the nine gems of Vikramaditya’s court. If we were to believe in this tradition, Varahamihira will have to be placed in the first century B.C.10 However, besides the inferiority of this work to Kalidasa’s known compositions, the text contains sufficient evidence to prove that it is a very late forgery attributed to Kalidasa with the ulterior motive of popularising it. It mentions in a prophetic fashion the Salivahana-Saka (or the well-known Saka era of 78 A.D.) which commenced 135 years later than the Vikrama era. (X. 110-112). On the basis of certain astronomical details contained in this work historians of Indian astronomy like Sudhakara Dvivedi 11 and S.B. Dikshit 12 are inclined to date its composition in about 1242-43 A.D., while on some other considerations Keith 13 and H. Kern 14 bring it down to so late dates as the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries A.D.

Strangely enough and against the usual practice prevalent among ancient Indian astronomers, Varahamihira himself gives absolutely no indication about his date. In his Panca-siddhantika, however, he refers to the Saka year 427 15 which, following the common vogue, may be taken as the date of the composition of this work or very near it when he began planning it. 16 The Saka-kala is usually taken to refer to the well-known Saka era with its epoch in 78 A.D., and accordingly Saka-kala 427 should be regarded as equal to 105 A.D.

However, as certain statements of Varahamihira in connection with the Saka-kala go against the common notion regarding the date of the Bharata war, 17 some scholars are inclined to identify it with the so-called Cyrus era or the Buddha Nirvana era. But these views are totally against established historical and textual norms, and if we were to accept them, Varahamihira would have to be placed in the second-first centuries B.C. This date, however, is irreconcileable with his reference to Aryabhata 18 who was born in 476 A.D. and composed his work under reference twenty-three years later in 499 A.D. In view of this and other considerations, these theories are totally untenable. 19 Some other scholars have proposed to equate Varahamihira’s Saka-kala with the famous Vikrama era with its epoch in 57-58 B.C. As we have shown elsewhere in this volume, 20 this opinion is as, if not more, untenable as the two other theories on the subject. It also does not go well with allusion to Aryabhata as in this case also Varahamihira would have to be dated a few decades prior to the former’s birth. Therefore, we are left with no alternative but to regard Varahamihira’s Saka-kala, Sakendra-kala and Saka-bhupa-kala as identical with the famous Saka era beginning in 78 A.D. The view also goes well with what Alberuni has to say regarding Varahamihira’s time. Writing his Indian account in 1030 A.D. he states that this year corresponded to the year 526 of the era of the canon Panca-siddantika. He further adds that Varahamihira flourished 525 or 526 years before his own time. These statements, which are clearly based on the mention of Saka-kala 427 in the Panca siddhantika, would be simply unintelligible if the Saka-kala of Varahamihira were to be identified with any other era than the well-known reckoning of this name with its epoch in 78 A.D. 21 The particulars of the date given by Varahamihira (Caitra sukla pratipada, Saka 427) agree with Sunday-Monday 20th-21st March, 505 A.D. 22

However, some scholars doubt if 505 A.D. could really be the date of the composition of the Panca-siddhantika as according to a statement of Amaraja in his commentary on Brahmagupta’s Khanda-khadyaka Varahamihira died in Saka 509 or 587 A.D. (nav-ahika-panca Sata-sankhya-Snke Varahamihir-acaryo divam gatah). It has, therefore, been suggested by a few scholars that it may refer to some important event in Varahamihira's own life like his birth. 23 However, the veracity of this passage has been doubted by competent authorities, as it is not certain if this statement is in verse or prose and whether it has come down to us in its original form through about a thousand years that have elapsed since its composition. 24 But even if we were to take it as authentic, it should not cause much difficulty as it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Varahamihira began his literary activities at a young age of twenty or twenty-five when he composed or began his calculations for the Panca-siddhanika in 505 A.D., and passed away in 587 A.D., at the rather exceptionally high age of about 105 or 110, which, though very uncommon, is not impossible altogether. 25

Another important indication on this point is the reference to the Aulikara monarch Maharajadhiraja Sis-Dravyavardhana in the Brhat-samhita in connection with the omens in a manner indicative of high esteem in which Varahamihira held him and of the fact that he was alive at the time of the composition of the text which is admittedly his most mature and one of the latest works. It was obviously composed about the middle of the sixth century A.D. when Dravyavardhana was ruling as a sovereign ruler from Ujiayini. 26 There are some other literary and cultural evidences, positive and negative, which also support in a general manner the sixth century A.D. as the flourishing period for Varahamihira. 27

_______________

Notes:

10 Sitaram Jha (Brhaj-jataka with Utpala’s gloss, Banaras 1934) gives the reading as 'Vasvastastimite and argues: [x] —There is nothing to commend V. Subrahmanya Sastry’s view (Saravali of Kalyanavarman, Bombay 1928, Preface, pp. 1-2) that Utpala lived at the time of the Mughal emperor Jahangir (1605-1627 A.D. ).

11 E. Sachau, Alberuni's India, I, pp. 157-58, 298, 334, 336-37, 361.

12 Ibid. p. 298.

13 S. B. Dikshit, History of Indian Astronomy (Marathi), p. 235.

14 Ibid.

15 We know another Bhaskara who was a direct pupil of Aryabhata and who composed the Maha-Bhaskariya and Laghu-Bhaskariya. Vide P. C. Sengupta, Khandi.khadyaka (Eng. tr.), Calcutta, 1934, Preface, pp. xiii-xiv.

16 JBBRAS, 1948-49, pp. 30-31. Dr. Kane informs us that these verses are not found in some manuscripts of the commentary.

17 I.e. arrangement of constellations according to zodiacal signs and decans which rise simultaneously or set or culminate simultaneously.

18 Bulletin of the Royal Academy of Belgium, for 1957-58. pp. 133- 140.

19 Prof. Naugebaurer’s arguments are summarised in JAS, Bombay, 1958, pp. 147f.

20 Ibid.

21 Miscellaneous Essays, II. pp. 461-463.

21a Cf. Jyotirvidabharana. IV. 53, X. 110, 111, XXII. 13.

22 In the Charwa stone inscription of the reign of Devapaladeva of Dhara. line 7, the word Saka is used to denote Vikrama samvat. It belongs to 1217-18 A.D. For some more examples, see IA, XIX (1890), pp. 24-25. No. 11.

23 On BS, VIII. 20.

24 [x]

25 Also vide Colebrooke, Miscellaneous Essays, II, p. 478.

26 [x] JA, X. p. 58.

27 Saka-nrpati-samvatsaresu, IA, VI, p. 73; Saka-nrpa-samvatsaresu, IA, XII, p. 16; Suka-nrpa-kala, EI, III, p. 109.

-- Varahamihira and His Times, by Ajay Mitra Shastri, M.A., Ph.D., D. Litt., F.R.N.S., Professor and Head Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, Nagpur University, Nagpur

-- Alberuni's India: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronology, Astronomy, Customs, Laws and Astrology of India About A.D. 1080, by Dr. Edward C. Sachau, Professor in the Royal University of Berlin and Principal of the Seminary for Oriental Languages; Member of the Royal Academy of Berlin, and Corresponding Member of the Imperial Academy of Vienna, Honorary Member of the Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, London, and of the American Oriental Society, Cambridge, USA, 1910

-- The Saka Era of Varahamihira (Salivahana Saka) [Rep. from Journal of Indian History (Trivandrum), 36 (1958) 343-67, Excerpt, from Collected Papers on Jyotisha, by T.S. Kuppanna Sastry (Former Hony. Professor, Sanskrit College, Madras), 1989

Varāhamihira
Born: c. 20-21 March 505 CE[a] possibly Kapitthaka (identified with Kayatha or Sankissa)
Died: possibly 587 CE (disputed; see Date section)
Occupation: astrologer-astronomer
Notable works: Pancha-siddhantika, Brhat-samhita, Brihajjataka

Varāhamihira (c. 20/21 March 505 – c. 587), also called Varāha or Mihira, was a Hindu astrologer-astronomer who lived in or around Ujjain in present-day Madhya Pradesh, India.

Date

Unlike other prominent ancient Indian astronomers, Varāhamihira does not mention his date.[1] However, based on hints in his works, modern scholars date him to the 6th century CE; possibly, he also lived during the last years of the 5th century.[2]

In his Pancha-siddhantika, Varāhamihira refers to the year 427 of the Shaka-kala (also Shakendra-kala or Shaka-bhupa-kala). Identifying this calendar era with the Shaka era places Varāhamihira in the 505 CE. Alternative theories identify this calendar era with other eras, placing him before the 5th century CE. However, these theories are inaccurate, as Varāhamihira must have lived after Aryabhata (born 476 CE), whose work he refers to. The particulars of the date mentioned by Varāhamihira - Shukla pratipada of the Chaitra month of the Shaka year 427 - align accurately with 20-21 March 505 CE. Al-Biruni also places Varāhamihira in 505 CE.[3]

In accordance with the contemporary tradition, 505 CE was most probably the year in which Varāhamihira composed Pancha-Siddhantaka or began planning it.[1] However, some scholars believe that it was the year of Varāhamihira's birth or of another important event in his life. This is because according to Amaraja, the author of a commentary on Brahmagupta's Khanda-khadyaka, Varāhamihira died in 587 CE (Shaka year 509). If Varāhamihira wrote his work in 505 CE even at the young age of 25, he must have been over 105 years old at the time of his death, which seems exceptionally high to these scholars.[4] Consequently, these scholars consider date Varāhamihira's lifespan to 505-587 CE.[5] Other scholars doubt the accuracy of Amaraja's statement, since he lived a thousand years after Varāhamihira.[4]

According to a historically inaccurate tradition, Varāhamihira was associated with the first century BCE legendary emperor Vikramaditya.[6][7] This tradition is based on Jyotirvid-abharana, a work attributed to Kalidasa, which states that Varāhamihira (along with Kalidasa) was one of the navaratnas ("nine gems") at Vikramaditya's court. However, this text is a literary forgery, and is dated variously from 12th-18th century.[1][8] Varāhamihira definitely did not live in the same century as some of the purported "Navaratnas", such as the much older Kalidasa.[9]

Early life


1399 CE manuscript of the Brihajjataka


1279 CE manuscript of the Brhat-samhita

Much of the undisputed information about the life of Varāhamihira comes from a stanza in his Brhaj-jataka. According to this stanza, he was a resident of Avanti, was a son of Aditya-dasa, and studied at Kapitthaka through the boon of the sun god.[10]

Ancestry

Varāhamihira's father Aditya-dasa likely trained him in jyotisha (Indian astrology and astronomy), as suggested by the Brhaj-jataka stanza and the opening stanza of Pancha-siddhantika.[10]

Varāhamihira's commentator Utpala calls him "Magadha-dvija". According to one interpretation, this means that Varāhamihira was a Brahmin (dvija), whose ancestors belonged to the Magadha region.[11][12]

According to another theory, the word "Magadha" in this context refers to the sun-worshipping Maga cult that Varāhamihira was a part of. In his Brhat-samhita, Varāhamihira mentions that the Magas were the only people suitable for consecrating an image of the Sun god. The Magas, as they came to be known in India, originated from the Magi priests of the Achaemenid Empire. Historian Ajay Mitra Shastri cites a Bhavishya Purana passage according to which the term "Magadha" is a synonym of "Maga" and refers to "those who contemplate on the Maga". According to Shastri, Utpala has used the word "Magadha" to denote the Magas, who had been accepted as Shaka-dvipi (Maga) Brahmins in the Indian society.[13]

Shastri theorizes that "Varaha-mihira" may be a Sanskritized form of the Iranian name "Varaza-Mihr", and may refer to a legend mentioned in the Mihr Yasht of the Avesta. According to this legend, the god Verethraghna, in the form of a boar (varaza), precedes Mihr in his march. Shastri notes that the 5th century Sassanian monarch Bahram V bore the name Mihrvaraza, which is quite similar to Varahamihra. Academic J.E. Sanjana suggests that Varāhamihira was descended from an Iranian Magi priest.[14]

Some scholars, such as M.T. Patwardhan and A.N. Upadhye, have identified Varāhamihira with Bazurjmehr, mentioned in Firishta's writings as a minister of the Sasanian king Khusraw Nushirwan (r. 531-578). However, A.M. Shastri dismisses this theory as unconvincing.[15]

There are several historically inaccurate legends about the ancestry of Varāhamihira:

• Jain writers Merutunga (14th century) and Rajashekhara-Suri claim that his original name was Varaha, and he was a brother of the Jain patriarch Bhadrabahu. He gained knowledge because of a favour by the Sun, because of which the suffix "Mihira" ("Sun") was added to his name.[16] Jain authors seem to have fabricated this story to prove the pre-eminence of the Jain astrology over the Brahmanical astrology.[17]
• Another 20th century legend, purportedly based on "some old Gujarati text" claims that Aditya-dasa's wife was called Satya-vati alias Indu-mati: Varāhamihira was born to them in their fifties by the boon of the Sun. He was originally known as Mihira, and was given the prefix "Varaha" by King Vikramaditya when he correctly predicted that a boar (varaha in Sanskrit) would kill the king's son.[18]
• A tradition associates Varāhamihira with Berachampa in West Bengal, where a mound called "Varāhamihira's house" is located. This seems to be the result of an attempt to associate the locality with a famous figure. A legend from the Bengal region claims that Varaha and Mihira were a father-son duo at Vikramaditya's court, and the poet Khana was Mihira's wife. This legend is of no historical value.[19] "Varaha" and "Mihira" were alternative names for the same person - Varāhamihira, as attested by the later astronomical works.[10]
• Another legend claims that the Mimamsa teacher Shabara-svamin had four wives, one from each varna, and Varāhamihira was his son from his Brahmin wife. Some scholars, such as S.K. Dikshit, have theorized that Aditya-dasa (or Aditya-deva) was another name of Shabara-svamin, but no historical evidence supports this tradition.[17]

Birthplace

Kapitthaka, where Varāhamihira studied, was probably his birthplace.[12][10] While "Kapitthaka" is the most popular reading the place's name, several variants of this name appear in various manuscripts, including Kampilyaka,[ b] Kapilaka, Kapishthala, and Kapishkala.[10] Utpala suggests that this village had a sun temple. According to one theory, Kapitthaka is the modern Kayatha, an archaeological site near Ujjain. Statues of the sun deity Surya (whom Varāhamihira worshipped) dated 600-900 CE have been found there, and kapittha trees are abundant in and around Kayatha. However, no historical source suggests that Kapitthaka was another name for Kayatha. According to another theory, Kapitthaka is same as Sankissa (ancient Sankashya) in present-day Uttar Pradesh: according to the 7th-century Chinese traveler Xuanzang, this town was also known as Kah-pi-t'a. Historian Ajay Mitra Shastri notes that Kah-pi-t'a is phonetically similar to Kapittha or Kapitthaka.[21]

Based on the term "Magadha-dvija" (see above), Sudhakara Dvivedi suggests that Varāhamihira was born and brought up in Magadha, and later migrated to Ujjain.[22] Ajay Mitra Shastri disputes this, noting that Utpala describes him as "Avantikacharya" (Acharya of Avanti) and "Magadha-dvija": these two terms cannot be reconciled if "Magadha-dvija" is interpreted as "Dvija (Brahmana) of Magadha"; instead "Magadha" here means Maga, as attested by the Bhavishya Purana.[11]

Residence

Besides the above-mentioned stanza, Varāhamihira's association with Avanti is confirmed by other evidence: in Pancha-siddhantika, he calls himself Avantyaka ("of Avanti"), and the later commentators such as Utpala and Mahidhara describe him as Avantikacharya ("acharya of Avanti").[10] Utpala also describes Varāhamihira's son Prthu-yashas as Avantikacharya, in his commentary on Shat-panchashika.[23]

Historian Ajay Mitra Shastri, relying on Utpala, believes that "Avanti" here refers to the city of Ujjayini in the Avanti region of central India.[10] Scholar Dániel Balogh, however, notes that Avanti here may refer to the city of Ujjayini or the Avanti region in general: there is no concrete evidence that Varāhamihira lived in the city; he may have lived elsewhere in Avanti.[24]

Royal patron

Varāhamihira likely lived in the Aulikara kingdom, as the Aulikaras ruled Avanti in the 6th century CE.[25][26] Varāhamihira's Brhat-samhita states that on the topic of omens (shakuna), one of the works he consulted was that of Dravya-vardhana, the king of Avanti.[27] Dravya-vardhana likely belonged to the Aulikara dynasty, several of whose members bore names ending in -vardhana.[25]

Historian Ajay Mitra Shastri notes that Dravya-vardhana is the only person for whom Varāhamihira employs the honorific Shri, although he mentions several other notable people. Moreover, he mentions Dravya-vardhana's work before he mentions reputed authorities such as the Saptarishis and Garga. According to Shastri, this, combined with the fact that both Dravya-vardhana and Varāhamihira lived in Avanti, suggests that Dravya-vardhana was the royal patron of Varāhamihira.[27] Shastri theorizes that Dravya-vardhana was a successor of Yashodharman alias Vishnu-vardhana, who may have also been a patron of Varāhamihira.[28]

Some other historians identify Dravya-vardhana with the earlier Aulikara ruler Drapa-vardhana. Shastri disputes this, arguing that Varāhamihira describes Dravya-vardhana as a maharajadhiraja (emperor), while the Rīsthal inscription describes Drapa-vardhana as a senapati (commander). Balogh disagrees with Shastri, noting that Varāhamihira actually uses the term nrpo maharajadhiraja-kah (nrpa or ruler "connected to the emperor") for the king, which Shastri has misunderstood as maharajadhirajah (emperor). Only one manuscript reads maharajadhirajah, which can be discarded as it doesn't fit the metre; three others have maharajdhiraja-jah. Thus, the actual title of Drapa-vardhana was nrpa, which is much closer to senapati in status. Utpala also interprets the term maharajadhiraja-kah to mean "born in the dynasty of the (or an) emperor".[29] Hans Bakker interprets the term to maharajadhiraja-kah as a governor installed at Ujjayini by the contemporary Gupta emperor.[26] Balogh believes that Dravya-vardhana was probably same as Drapa-vardhana: "Dravya" may be a variant arising from a mistake in a medieval manuscript, which is the source of later manuscripts.[26]

Balogh disputes Shastri's assertion that Varāhamihira shows a particularly reverential attitude to the king, and even if he did, this is no evidence that the two were contemporaries. Varāhamihira consulted the king's work instead of the original work of Bharadvaja that it was based on; according to Balogh, this actually makes it more likely that the king lived at a time earlier than Varāhamihira, who did not have access to the older work of Bharadvaja.[30]

According to Balogh, Varāhamihira likely lived during the reign of the Aulikara kings Prakasha-dharman, Yashodharman, or an unknown successor of Yashodharman. However, unlike Shastri, Balogh believes that Varāhamihira did not have a royal patron.[26]

Religion

Several scholars theorize that Varāhamihira came from a Brahminized family of the sun-worshipping Magi priests (see Ancestry above).[31][13] He was a worshipper of the sun god Savitur, and stated that he had received all his knowledge by the grace of this god.[32] For example, in Brhaj-jataka, he states that he was able to compose the text because of a boon by the Sun.[28] While he mentions other deities, he devotes a much larger number of verses to the Sun.[11] His commentator Utpala credits his sharp intellect to a boon by the Sun.[28] Some later writers describe him as an incarnation of the Sun god.[18] Utpala, for example, declares that the Sun descended on earth in the form of Varāhamihira to save the jyotisha-shastra from destruction.[33] The Subhashita-ratna-kosha quotes stanzas that praise Varāhamihira as an incarnation of Vishnu and the Sun, presumably because of two parts of his name (varaha referring to an avatar of Vishnu, and mihira meaning sun).[23]

Sun worship seems to have been his family's religion, as his father Aditya-dasa's name literally means "slave (or servant) of the Sun".[28][34] Kutuhula-manjari, a later text, suggests that Varāhamihira was born to Aditya-dasa by the blessings of the Sun. Varāhamihira's son Prthu-yashas also invokes the Sun in the opening stanza of his work Shatpanchashikha.[28]

Varāhamihira was well-versed with the Vedic tradition.[35] He recommends the performance of several ancient Hindu rituals such as Punyaham and chanting of Vedic hymns.[36]

Varāhamihira praises Vishnu in the chapters 42 and 104 of Brhat-samhita, leading A.N.S. Aiyangar and K.V.R Aiyangar to speculate that he came in contact with the Shrivaishnava saints (Alvars); however, A.M. Shastri dismisses this theory, describing the praise for Vishnu as an example of religious eclecticism.[37]

In Brhat-samhita, Varāhamihira discusses the iconography of several Brahmanical deities, including Vishnu, Baladeva, Ekanamsha, Shamba, Pradyumna, consorts of Shamba and Pradyumna, Brahma, Skanda, Indra, Shiva, Surya, the divine mothers (Matrikas), Revanta, Yama, Varuna, and Kubera.[38] These were presumably the popular gods worshipped during his period. He also describes the iconography of two non-Brahmanical faiths, that of the Buddha and the Jinas. He appears to have been religiously liberal, as he reveres the Buddha as "the father of the world" and devotes an entire stanza to Buddha's iconology (compared to shorter descriptions of several Brahmanical deities).[39] A verse in the Brhat-samhita describes the iconography of Ganesha, but this verse appears only in one or two manuscripts, and is likely a later interpolation. Similarly, a Tikanika-yatra verse in which the author reveres Ganesha (among other deities), is likely spurious; this verse appears only in one manuscript.[40]

Works

Varāhamihira is credited with writing several authoritative texts on astronomy and astrology. He was also known for his poetic skills, and the 11th-century writer Kshemendra describes him as a great poet.[2]

He apparently wrote a set of two works - detailed and short - in the following areas:[41]

Area / Detailed work / Short work

Mathematical astronomy (tantra) / Pancha-siddhantika / Now lost, known from Utpala's commentary
Horoscopy (hora): nativity / Brhaj-jataka / Laghu-jataka
Horoscopy: marriage / Brhad-vivaha-patala / Svalpa-vivaha-patala
Horoscopy: journeys / Brhad-yatra and Yoga-yatra / Svalpa-yatra
General astrology (samhita) / Brhat-samhita / Samasa-samhita

The chronological order of some of these works can be determined based on the internal evidence and Utpala's commentary. In order or earliest to latest, these works are:[42]

• Pancha-siddhantika
• Brhaj-jataka
• Brhad-yatra
• Yoga-yatra (according to Utpala, Varaha-mihira wrote this because he was dissatisfied with Brhad-yatra)
• Brhad-vivaha-patala
• Brhat-samhita

Laghu-jataka states that it was written after Brhaj-jataka, and Utpala's commentary states that it was written after the abridged version of Pancha-siddhantika. However, its order with respect to the other works is not certain.[42]

Later authors also mention or quote from some other works composed by Varaha-mihira. Manuscripts of some other works attributed to Varaha-mihira exist, but these attributions are of doubtful nature.[42]

Influences

The Romaka Siddhanta ("The Doctrine of the Romans") and the Paulisa Siddhanta were two works of Western origin which influenced Varāhamihira's thought. The Pauliṣa Siddhānta is often mistakenly thought to be a single work and attributed to Paul of Alexandria (c. 378 CE).[43] However, this notion has been rejected by other scholars in the field, notably by David Pingree who stated that "...the identification of Paulus Alexandrinus with the author of the Pauliṣa Siddhānta is totally false".[44] A number of his writings share similarities with the earlier texts like Vedanga Jyotisha.[45]

Some scholars consider Varāhamihira to be the strong candidate for the one who understood and introduced the zodiac signs, predictive calculations for auspicious ceremonies and astrological computations in India.[46][47][48]

Varāhamihira's works contain 35 Sanskritized Greek astronomical terms, and he exhibits a good understanding of the Greek astronomy.[49] He praised the Greeks (Yavanas) for being "well trained in the sciences", though impure in ritual order.[50]

Legacy

Varāhamihira gained reputation as the most eminent writer on jyotisha after his death, and his works superseded nearly all the earlier Indian texts in this area. Several later Indian astrologer-astronomers speak highly of him, and acknowledge his works among their main sources.[51] The 11th-century writer Al-Biruni also greatly admires him, describing him as an excellent astronomer.[52]

See also

• List of Indian mathematicians

Notes

1. Birthdate is disputed, see #Date
2. Sudhakara Dvivedi, following the reading "Kampilyaka", identified Varahamihira's birthplace as present-day Kalpi in Uttar Pradesh. However, this identification is incorrect: the ancient name of Kalpi was Kalapriya, not Kampilyaka.[20]

References

1. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 3.
2. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 1.
3. A.M. Shastri 1991, pp. 3–4.
4. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 4.
5. Evans, Brian (24 February 2014). The Development of Mathematics Throughout the Centuries: A Brief History in a Cultural Context. John Wiley & Sons. p. 61. ISBN 978-1118853979. Varāhamihira, a mathematician born around 505 CE and died 587 CE, who was also known for innovation with Pascal's triangle.
6. History of Indian Literature. Motilal Banarsidass Publications. 2008. p. 46.
7. Gopal, Ram (1984). Kālidāsa: His Art and Culture. Concept Publishing Company. p. 15.
8. M. Srinivasachariar (1974). History of Classical Sanskrit Literature. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 94–111. ISBN 9788120802841.
9. Winternitz, Moriz (1985). History of Indian Literature. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 45–47. ISBN 978-81-208-0056-4.
10. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 5.
11. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 10.
12. T.K Puttaswamy (2012). Mathematical Achievements of Pre-modern Indian Mathematicians. p. 141. ISBN 9780123979131.
13. A.M. Shastri 1991, pp. 10–11.
14. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 13.
15. A.M. Shastri 1991, pp. 17–18.
16. A.M. Shastri 1991, pp. 8–9.
17. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 17.
18. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 9.
19. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 248.
20. A.M. Shastri 1969, p. 15.
21. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 6.
22. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 27.
23. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 24.
24. Dániel Balogh 2019, p. 142-143.
25. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 51.
26. Dániel Balogh 2019, p. 143.
27. A.M. Shastri 1991, pp. 43–45.
28. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 8.
29. Dániel Balogh 2019, pp. 141–142.
30. Dániel Balogh 2019, p. 142.
31. Abraham Eraly (2014). "Pearls and Pebbles". The First Spring Part 2: Culture in the Golden Age of India. Penguin. ISBN 9789351186465. He belonged, as his name indicates, to a Brahminized family of the Magi, sun-worshipping Zoroastrian priests, and he himself came to be regarded in later times as an incarnation of the sun god.
32. B. Suryanarain Rao, ed. (1986). Sree Varaha Mihira's Brihat Jataka. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 612. ISBN 9788120813953.
33. A.M. Shastri 1969, p. 1.
34. M.R. Bhatt 1996, p. 572.
35. M.R. Bhatt 1996, p. 638.
36. M.R. Bhatt 1996, p. 570.
37. A.M. Shastri 1969, p. 21.
38. A.M. Shastri 1991, pp. 100–120.
39. A.M. Shastri 1991, pp. 120–121.
40. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 121.
41. A.M. Shastri 1991, pp. 19–20.
42. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 20.
43. McEvilley, Thomas (November 2001). The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies. Allworth Press. p. 385. ISBN 978-1-58115-203-6.
44. Pingree, David (1978). The Yavanajātaka of Sphujidhvaja. Harvard Oriental Series. Vol. 2. pp. 437–438.
Pingree, David (1969). The Later Pauliśa Siddhānta. Centaurus 14. pp. 172–241.
45. Velandai Gopala Aiyer. The chronology of ancient India: beginning of the Sat Yuga, Dwaper, Treta, and Kali Yuga with date of Mahabharata. Sanjay Prakashan. p. 63.
46. Winternitz, Moriz (1985). History of Indian Literature. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 685–697. ISBN 978-81-208-0056-4.
47. Pingree, David (1963). "Astronomy and Astrology in India and Iran". Isis. 54 (2). University of Chicago Press: 229–246. doi:10.1086/349703. JSTOR 228540. S2CID 128083594.
48. Sarma, K. V. (2008). "Varahamihira". In Helaine Selin (ed.). Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. pp. 2184–2185. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9604. ISBN 978-1-4020-4559-2.
49. A.M. Shastri 1991, p. 18.
50. Chaudhuri, Kirti Narayan (1990). Asia Before Europe Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750. Cambridge University Press. p. 54. ISBN 0521316812.
51. A.M. Shastri 1969, pp. 1–3.
52. A.M. Shastri 1969, p. 4.

Bibliography

• A.M. Shastri (1991). Varāhamihira and His Times. Kusumanjali. OCLC 28644897.
• A.M. Shastri (1969). India as Seen in the Bṛhatsaṁhitā of Varāhamihira. Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 9780896842212.
• Dániel Balogh (2019). Inscriptions of the Aulikaras and Their Associates. De Gruyter. ISBN 9783110649789.
• M. Ramakrishna Bhat, ed. (1996) [1982]. Brhat Samhita of Varahamihira (Second ed.). Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 9788120810600.

External links

• The Brihat-samhita; complete translation by N. Chidambaram Iyer Online edition with glossary
• Pancasiddhantika, Brihat Jataka, Brihat Samhita and Hora Shastra Various editions in English and Sanskrit. (PDF)
• The Brihat Jataka (1905) (PDF) – archived from Wayback Machine

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Darius the Great
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 11/17/24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_the_Great

Darius the Great

The relief stone of Darius the Great in the Behistun Inscription
King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire
Reign: 29 September 522 BCE – October 486 BCE
Coronation: Pasargadae
Predecessor: Bardiya
Successor: Xerxes I
Born: c. 550 BCE
Died: October 486 BCE
Burial: Naqsh-e Rostam
Spouse: Atossa Artystone Parmys Phratagune Phaedymiaa, daughter of Gobryas
Issue: Artobazanes Xerxes I; Ariabignes Arsamenes; Masistes Achaemenes; Arsames Gobryas; Ariomardus Abrocomes; Hyperanthes Artazostre
Names: Dārayava(h)uš
Dynasty: Achaemenid
Father: Hystaspes
Mother: Rhodogune or Irdabama
Religion: Indo-Iranian religion

Darius I (Old Persian: [x] Dārayavaʰuš; c. 550 – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. He ruled the empire at its territorial peak, when it included much of Western Asia, parts of the Balkans (Thrace–Macedonia and Paeonia) and the Caucasus, most of the Black Sea's coastal regions, Central Asia, the Indus Valley in the far east, and portions of North Africa and Northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, and coastal Sudan.[1][2]

Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the Achaemenid monarch Bardiya (or Smerdis), who he claimed was in fact an imposter named Gaumata. The new king met with rebellions throughout the empire but quelled each of them; a major event in Darius's life was his expedition to subjugate Greece and punish Athens and Eretria for their participation in the Ionian Revolt. Although his campaign ultimately resulted in failure at the Battle of Marathon, he succeeded in the re-subjugation of Thrace and expanded the Achaemenid Empire through his conquests of Macedonia, the Cyclades, and the island of Naxos.

Darius organized the empire by dividing it into administrative provinces, each governed by a satrap. He organized Achaemenid coinage as a new uniform monetary system, and he made Aramaic a co-official language of the empire alongside Persian. He also put the empire in better standing by building roads and introducing standard weights and measures. Through these changes, the Achaemenid Empire became centralized and unified.[3] Darius undertook other construction projects throughout his realm, primarily focusing on Susa, Pasargadae, Persepolis, Babylon, and Egypt. He had an inscription carved upon a cliff-face of Mount Behistun to record his conquests, which would later become important evidence of the Old Persian language.

Etymology

Main article: Darius (given name)


The name of Darius I in Old Persian cuneiform on the DNa inscription of his tomb: Dārayavauš ([x])

Dārīus and Dārēus are the Latin forms of the Greek Dareîos (Δαρεῖος), itself from Old Persian Dārayauš ([x], d-a-r-y-uš; which is a shortened form of Dārayavaʰuš ([x], d-a-r-y-v-u-š). The longer Persian form is reflected in the Elamite Da-ri-(y)a-ma-u-iš, Babylonian Da-(a-)ri-ia-(a-)muš, and Aramaic drywhwš ([x]) forms, and possibly in the longer Greek form, Dareiaîos ([x]). The name in nominative form means "he who holds firm the good(ness)", which can be seen by the first part dāraya, meaning "holder", and the adverb vau, meaning "goodness".[4]

Primary sources

See also: Behistun Inscription, DNa inscription, and Herodotus

Apadana foundation tablets of Darius the Great


Gold foundation tablets of Darius I for the Apadana Palace, in their original stone box. The Apadana coin hoard had been deposited underneath (c. 510 BCE).



One of the two gold deposition plates. Two more were in silver. They all had the same trilingual inscription (DPh inscription).

At some time between his coronation and his death, Darius left a tri-lingual monumental relief on Mount Behistun, which was written in Elamite, Old Persian and Babylonian. The inscription begins with a brief autobiography including his ancestry and lineage. To aid the presentation of his ancestry, Darius wrote down the sequence of events that occurred after the death of Cyrus the Great.[5][6] Darius mentions several times that he is the rightful king by the grace of the supreme deity Ahura Mazda. In addition, further texts and monuments from Persepolis have been found, as well as a clay tablet containing an Old Persian cuneiform of Darius from Gherla, Romania (Harmatta) and a letter from Darius to Gadates, preserved in a Greek text of the Roman period.[7][8][9][10] In the foundation tablets of Apadana Palace, Darius described in Old Persian cuneiform the extent of his Empire in broad geographical terms:[11][12]

Darius the great king, king of kings, king of countries, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenid. King Darius says: This is the kingdom which I hold, from the Sacae who are beyond Sogdia to Kush, and from Sind (Old Persian: [x], "Hidauv", locative of "Hiduš", i.e. "Indus valley") to Lydia (Old Persian: "Spardâ") – [this is] what Ahuramazda, the greatest of gods, bestowed upon me. May Ahuramazda protect me and my royal house!

— DPh inscription of Darius I in the foundations of the Apadana Palace

Herodotus, a Greek historian and author of The Histories, provided an account of many Persian kings and the Greco-Persian Wars. He wrote extensively on Darius, spanning half of Book 3 along with Books 4, 5 and 6. It begins with the removal of the alleged usurper Gaumata and continues to the end of Darius's reign.[7]

Early life

The predecessor of Darius: Bardiya/ Gaumata


"Gaumata" being trampled upon by Darius the Great, Behistun inscription. The Old Persian inscription reads "This is Gaumâta, the Magian. He lied, saying "I am Smerdis, the son of Cyrus, I am king"."[13]


Portrait of Achaemenid King Bardiya, or "Gaumata", from the reliefs at Behistun (detail).

Darius toppled the previous Achaemenid ruler (here depicted in the reliefs of the Behistun inscription) to acquire the throne.

Darius was the eldest of five sons to Hystaspes.[7] The identity of his mother is uncertain. According to the modern historian Alireza Shapour Shahbazi (1994), Darius's mother was thought to have been a woman named Rhodogune.[7] However, according to Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (2013), recently uncovered texts in Persepolis indicate that his mother was Irdabama, an affluent landowner descended from a family of local Elamite rulers.[14] Richard Stoneman likewise refers to Irdabama as the mother of Darius.[15] The Behistun Inscription of Darius states that his father was satrap of Bactria in 522 BCE.[a] According to Herodotus (III.139), Darius, prior to seizing power and "of no consequence at the time", had served as a spearman (doryphoros) in the Egyptian campaign (528–525 BCE) of Cambyses II, then the Persian Great King;[18] this is often interpreted to mean he was the king's personal spear-carrier, an important role. Hystaspes was an officer in Cyrus's army and a noble of his court.[19]

Before Cyrus and his army crossed the river Araxes to battle with the Armenians, he installed his son Cambyses II as king in case he should not return from battle.[20] However, once Cyrus had crossed the Aras River, he had a vision in which Darius had wings atop his shoulders and stood upon the confines of Europe and Asia (the known world). When Cyrus awoke from the dream, he inferred it as a great danger to the future security of the empire, as it meant that Darius would one day rule the whole world. However, his son Cambyses was the heir to the throne, not Darius, causing Cyrus to wonder if Darius was forming treasonable and ambitious designs. This led Cyrus to order Hystaspes to go back to Persis and watch over his son strictly, until Cyrus himself returned.[21]

Accession


Lineage of Darius the Great according to the Behistun Inscription.

There are different accounts of the rise of Darius to the throne from both Darius himself and Greek historians. The oldest records report a convoluted sequence of events in which Cambyses II lost his mind, murdered his brother Bardiya, and was killed by an infected leg wound. After this, Darius and a group of six nobles traveled to Sikayauvati to kill an usurper, Gaumata, who had taken the throne by pretending to be Bardiya during the true king's absence.

Darius's account, written at the Behistun Inscription, states that Cambyses II killed his own brother Bardiya, but that this murder was not known among the Iranian people. A would-be usurper named Gaumata came and lied to the people, stating that he was Bardiya.[22] The Iranians had grown rebellious against Cambyses's rule and, on 11 March 522 BCE, a revolt against Cambyses broke out in his absence. On 1 July, the Iranian people chose to be under the leadership of Gaumata, as "Bardiya". No member of the Achaemenid family would rise against Gaumata for the safety of their own life. Darius, who had served Cambyses as his lance-bearer until the deposed ruler's death, prayed for aid and, in September 522 BCE, along with Otanes, Intaphrenes, Gobryas, Hydarnes, Megabyzus and Aspathines, killed Gaumata in the fortress of Sikayauvati.[22]

Cylinder seal of Darius the Great




Impression of a cylinder seal of King Darius the Great hunting in a chariot, reading "I am Darius, the Great King" in Old Persian ([x], "adam Dārayavaʰuš xšāyaθiya"), Elamite and Babylonian. The word 'great' only appears in Babylonian. British Museum, excavated in Thebes, Egypt.[23][24][25]

Herodotus provides a dubious account of Darius's ascension: Several days after Gaumata had been assassinated, Darius and the other six nobles discussed the fate of the empire. At first, the seven discussed the form of government: A democratic republic (Isonomia) was strongly pushed by Otanes, an oligarchy was pushed by Megabyzus, while Darius pushed for a monarchy. After stating that a republic would lead to corruption and internal fighting, while a monarchy would be led with a single-mindedness not possible in other governments, Darius was able to convince the other nobles.

To decide who would become the monarch, six of them decided on a test, with Otanes abstaining, as he had no interest in being king. They were to gather outside the palace, mounted on their horses at sunrise, and the man whose horse neighed first in recognition of the rising sun would become king. According to Herodotus, Darius had a slave, Oebares, who rubbed his hand over the genitals of a mare that Darius's horse favored. When the six gathered, Oebares placed his hands beside the nostrils of Darius's horse, who became excited at the scent and neighed. This was followed by lightning and thunder, leading the others to dismount and kneel before Darius in recognition of his apparent divine providence.[26] In this account, Darius himself claimed that he achieved the throne not through fraud, but cunning, even erecting a statue of himself mounted on his neighing horse with the inscription: "Darius, son of Hystaspes, obtained the sovereignty of Persia by the sagacity of his horse and the ingenious contrivance of Oebares, his groom."[27]

According to the accounts of Greek historians, Cambyses II had left Patizeithes in charge of the kingdom when he headed for Egypt. He later sent Prexaspes to murder Bardiya. After the killing, Patizeithes put his brother Gaumata, a Magian who resembled Bardiya, on the throne and declared him the Great King. Otanes discovered that Gaumata was an impostor, and along with six other Iranian nobles, including Darius, created a plan to oust the pseudo-Bardiya. After killing the impostor along with his brother Patizeithes and other Magians, Darius was crowned king the following morning.[7]

The details regarding Darius's rise to power is generally acknowledged as forgery and was in reality used as a concealment of his overthrow and murder of Cyrus's rightful successor, Bardiya.[28][29][30] To legitimize his rule, Darius had a common origin fabricated between himself and Cyrus by designating Achaemenes as the eponymous founder of their dynasty.[28] In reality, Darius was not from the same house as Cyrus and his forebears, the rulers of Anshan.[28][31]

Early reign

Early revolts


Darius the Great, by Eugène Flandin (1840)

Main article: Achaemenid Civil War (522-520 BC)

Following his coronation at Pasargadae, Darius moved to Ecbatana. He soon learned that support for Bardiya was strong, and revolts in Elam and Babylonia had broken out.[32] Darius ended the Elamite revolt when the revolutionary leader Aschina was captured and executed in Susa. After three months the revolt in Babylonia had ended. While in Babylonia, Darius learned a revolution had broken out in Bactria, a satrapy which had always been in favour of Darius, and had initially volunteered an army of soldiers to quell revolts. Following this, revolts broke out in Persis, the homeland of the Persians and Darius and then in Elam and Babylonia, followed by in Media, Parthia, Assyria, and Egypt.[33]

By 522 BCE, there were revolts against Darius in most parts of the Achaemenid Empire leaving the empire in turmoil. Even though Darius did not seem to have the support of the populace, Darius had a loyal army, led by close confidants and nobles (including the six nobles who had helped him remove Gaumata). With their support, Darius was able to suppress and quell all revolts within a year. In Darius's words, he had killed a total of nine "lying kings" through the quelling of revolutions.[34] Darius left a detailed account of these revolutions in the Behistun Inscription.[34]

Elimination of Intaphernes

One of the significant events of Darius's early reign was the slaying of Intaphernes, one of the seven noblemen who had deposed the previous ruler and installed Darius as the new monarch.[35] The seven had made an agreement that they could all visit the new king whenever they pleased, except when he was with a woman.[35] One evening, Intaphernes went to the palace to meet Darius, but was stopped by two officers who stated that Darius was with a woman.[35] Becoming enraged and insulted, Intaphernes drew his sword and cut off the ears and noses of the two officers.[35] While leaving the palace, he took the bridle from his horse, and tied the two officers together.

The officers went to the king and showed him what Intaphernes had done to them. Darius began to fear for his own safety; he thought that all seven noblemen had banded together to rebel against him and that the attack against his officers was the first sign of revolt. He sent a messenger to each of the noblemen, asking them if they approved of Intaphernes's actions. They denied and disavowed any connection with Intaphernes's actions, stating that they stood by their decision to appoint Darius as King of Kings. Darius's choice to ask the noblemen indicates that he was not yet completely sure of his authority.[35]

Taking precautions against further resistance, Darius sent soldiers to seize Intaphernes, along with his son, family members, relatives and any friends who were capable of arming themselves. Darius believed that Intaphernes was planning a rebellion, but when he was brought to the court, there was no proof of any such plan. Nonetheless, Darius killed Intaphernes's entire family, excluding his wife's brother and son. She was asked to choose between her brother and son. She chose her brother to live. Her reasoning for doing so was that she could have another husband and another son, but she would always have but one brother. Darius was impressed by her response and spared both her brother's and her son's life.[36]

Military campaigns



Egyptian alabaster vase of Darius I with quadrilingual hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions. The hieroglyph on the vase reads: "King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Darius, living forever, year 36".[37][38]

Egyptian campaign

Main article: Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt

After securing his authority over the entire empire, Darius embarked on a campaign to Egypt where he defeated the armies of the Pharaoh and secured the lands that Cambyses had conquered while incorporating a large portion of Egypt into the Achaemenid Empire.[39]

Through another series of campaigns, Darius I would eventually reign over the territorial apex of the empire, when it stretched from parts of the Balkans (Thrace-Macedonia, Bulgaria-Paeonia) in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east.

Invasion of the Indus Valley


Eastern border of the Achaemenid Empire

Main article: Achaemenid invasion of the Indus Valley

In 516 BCE, Darius embarked on a campaign to Central Asia, Aria and Bactria and then marched into Afghanistan to Taxila in modern-day Pakistan. Darius spent the winter of 516–515 BCE in Gandhara, preparing to conquer the Indus Valley. Darius conquered the lands surrounding the Indus River in 515 BCE. Darius I controlled the Indus Valley from Gandhara to modern Karachi and appointed the Greek Scylax of Caryanda to explore the Indian Ocean from the mouth of the Indus to Suez. Darius then marched through the Bolan Pass and returned through Arachosia and Drangiana back to Persia.

Babylonian revolt

After Bardiya was murdered, widespread revolts occurred throughout the empire, especially on the eastern side. Darius asserted his position as king by force, taking his armies throughout the empire, suppressing each revolt individually. The most notable of all these revolts was the Babylonian revolt which was led by Nebuchadnezzar III. This revolt occurred when Otanes withdrew much of the army from Babylon to aid Darius in suppressing other revolts. Darius felt that the Babylonian people had taken advantage of him and deceived him, which resulted in Darius gathering a large army and marching to Babylon. At Babylon, Darius was met with closed gates and a series of defences to keep him and his armies out.[40]

Darius encountered mockery and taunting from the rebels, including the famous saying "Oh yes, you will capture our city, when mules shall have foals." For a year and a half, Darius and his armies were unable to retake the city, though he attempted many tricks and strategies—even copying that which Cyrus the Great had employed when he captured Babylon. However, the situation changed in Darius's favour when, according to the story, a mule owned by Zopyrus, a high-ranking soldier, foaled. Following this, a plan was hatched for Zopyrus to pretend to be a deserter, enter the Babylonian camp, and gain the trust of the Babylonians. The plan was successful and Darius's army eventually surrounded the city and overcame the rebels.[41]

During this revolt, Scythian nomads took advantage of the disorder and chaos and invaded Persia. Darius first finished defeating the rebels in Elam, Assyria, and Babylon and then attacked the Scythian invaders. He pursued the invaders, who led him to a marsh; there he found no known enemies but an enigmatic Scythian tribe.[42]

European Scythian campaign

Main article: European Scythian campaign of Darius I


Map of the European Scythian campaign of Darius I

The Scythians were a group of north Iranian nomadic tribes, speaking an Eastern Iranian language (Scythian languages) who had invaded Media, killed Cyrus in battle, revolted against Darius and threatened to disrupt trade between Central Asia and the shores of the Black Sea as they lived between the Danube River, River Don and the Black Sea.[7][43]

Darius crossed the Black Sea at the Bosphorus Straits using a bridge of boats. Darius conquered large portions of Eastern Europe, even crossing the Danube to wage war on the Scythians. Darius invaded European Scythia in 513 BCE,[44] where the Scythians evaded Darius's army, using feints and retreating eastwards while laying waste to the countryside, by blocking wells, intercepting convoys, destroying pastures and continuous skirmishes against Darius's army.[45] Seeking to fight with the Scythians, Darius's army chased the Scythian army deep into Scythian lands, where there were no cities to conquer and no supplies to forage. In frustration Darius sent a letter to the Scythian ruler Idanthyrsus to fight or surrender. The ruler replied that he would not stand and fight with Darius until they found the graves of their fathers and tried to destroy them. Until then, they would continue their strategy as they had no cities or cultivated lands to lose.[46]

Despite the evading tactics of the Scythians, Darius's campaign was so far relatively successful.[47] As presented by Herodotus, the tactics used by the Scythians resulted in the loss of their best lands and of damage to their loyal allies.[47] This gave Darius the initiative.[47] As he moved eastwards in the cultivated lands of the Scythians in Eastern Europe proper, he remained resupplied by his fleet and lived to an extent off the land.[47] While moving eastwards in the European Scythian lands, he captured the large fortified city of the Budini, one of the allies of the Scythians, and burnt it.[47]

Darius eventually ordered a halt at the banks of Oarus, where he built "eight great forts, some eight miles [13 km] distant from each other", no doubt as a frontier defence.[47] In his Histories, Herodotus states that the ruins of the forts were still standing in his day.[48] After chasing the Scythians for a month, Darius's army was suffering losses due to fatigue, privation and sickness. Concerned about losing more of his troops, Darius halted the march at the banks of the Volga River and headed towards Thrace.[49] He had conquered enough Scythian territory to force the Scythians to respect the Persian forces.[7][50]

Persian invasion of Greece

Main article: First Persian invasion of Greece

See also: Ionian Revolt


Map showing key sites during the Persian invasions of Greece

Darius's European expedition was a major event in his reign, which began with the invasion of Thrace. Darius also conquered many cities of the northern Aegean, Paeonia, while Macedonia submitted voluntarily, after the demand of earth and water, becoming a vassal kingdom.[51] He then left Megabyzus to conquer Thrace, returning to Sardis to spend the winter. The Greeks living in Asia Minor and some of the Greek islands had submitted to Persian rule already by 510 BCE. Nonetheless, there were certain Greeks who were pro-Persian, although these were largely based in Athens. To improve Greek-Persian relations, Darius opened his court and treasuries to those Greeks who wanted to serve him. These Greeks served as soldiers, artisans, statesmen and mariners for Darius. However, the increasing concerns amongst the Greeks over the strength of Darius's kingdom along with the constant interference by the Greeks in Ionia and Lydia were stepping stones towards the conflict that was yet to come between Persia and certain of the leading Greek city states.


The "Darius Vase" at the Archaeological Museum of Naples. c. 340–320 BCE.


Detail of Darius, with a label in Greek ([x], top right) giving his name.

When Aristagoras organized the Ionian Revolt, Eretria and Athens supported him by sending ships and troops to Ionia and by burning Sardis. Persian military and naval operations to quell the revolt ended in the Persian reoccupation of Ionian and Greek islands, as well as the re-subjugation of Thrace and the conquering of Macedonia in 492 BCE under Mardonius.[52] Macedon had been a vassal kingdom of the Persians since the late 6th century BCE, but retained autonomy. Mardonius's 492 campaign made it a fully subordinate part of the Persian kingdom.[51] These military actions, coming as a direct response to the revolt in Ionia, were the beginning of the First Persian invasion of (mainland) Greece. At the same time, anti-Persian parties gained more power in Athens, and pro-Persian aristocrats were exiled from Athens and Sparta.

Darius responded by sending troops led by his son-in-law across the Hellespont. However, a violent storm and harassment by the Thracians forced the troops to return to Persia. Seeking revenge on Athens and Eretria, Darius assembled another army of 20,000 men under his Admiral, Datis, and his nephew Artaphernes, who met success when they captured Eretria and advanced to Marathon. In 490 BCE, at the Battle of Marathon, the Persian army was defeated by a heavily armed Athenian army, with 9,000 men who were supported by 600 Plataeans and 10,000 lightly armed soldiers led by Miltiades. The defeat at Marathon marked the end of the first Persian invasion of Greece. Darius began preparations for a second force which he would command, instead of his generals; however, before the preparations were complete, Darius died, thus leaving the task to his son Xerxes.[7]

Family

Darius was the son of Hystaspes and the grandson of Arsames.[53] Darius married Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, with whom he had four sons: Xerxes, Achaemenes, Masistes and Hystaspes. He also married Artystone, another daughter of Cyrus, with whom he had two known sons, Arsames and Gobryas. Darius married Parmys, the daughter of Bardiya, with whom he had a son, Ariomardus. Furthermore, Darius married his niece Phratagune, with whom he had two sons, Abrokomas and Hyperantes. He also married another woman of the nobility, Phaidyme, the daughter of Otanes. It is unknown if he had any children with her. Before these royal marriages, Darius had married an unknown daughter of his good friend and lance carrier Gobryas from an early marriage, with whom he had three sons, Artobazanes, Ariabignes and Arsamenes.[54] Any daughters he had with her are not known. Although Artobazanes was Darius's first-born, Xerxes became heir and the next king through the influence of Atossa; she had great authority in the kingdom as Darius loved her the most of all his wives.

Death and succession


Tomb of Darius at Naqsh-e Rostam

After becoming aware of the Persian defeat at the Battle of Marathon, Darius began planning another expedition against the Greek city-states; this time, he, not Datis, would command the imperial armies.[7] Darius had spent three years preparing men and ships for war when a revolt broke out in Egypt. This revolt in Egypt worsened his failing health and prevented the possibility of his leading another army.[7] Soon afterwards, Darius died, after thirty days of suffering through an unidentified illness, partially due to his part in crushing the revolt, at about sixty-four years old.[55] In October 486 BCE, his body was embalmed and entombed in the rock-cut tomb at Naqsh-e Rostam, which he had been preparing.[7] An inscription on his tomb introduces him as "Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage."[7] A relief under his tomb portraying equestrian combat was later carved during the reign of the Sasanian King of Kings, Bahram II (r. 274–293 CE).[56]

Xerxes, the eldest son of Darius and Atossa, succeeded to the throne as Xerxes I; before his accession, he had contested the succession with his elder half-brother Artobarzanes, Darius's eldest son, who was born to his first wife before Darius rose to power.[57] With Xerxes's accession, the empire was again ruled by a member of the house of Cyrus.[7]

Government

Organization

Further information: Districts of the Achaemenid Empire



Volume of annual tribute per district, in the Achaemenid Empire.[58][59][60]

Early in his reign, Darius wanted to reorganize the structure of the empire and reform the system of taxation he inherited from Cyrus and Cambyses. To do this, Darius created twenty provinces called satrapies (or archi) which were each assigned to a satrap (archon) and specified fixed tributes that the satrapies were required to pay.[7] A complete list is preserved in the catalogue of Herodotus, beginning with Ionia and listing the other satrapies from west to east excluding Persis, which was the land of the Persians and the only province which was not a conquered land.[7] Tributes were paid in both silver and gold talents. Tributes in silver from each satrap were measured with the Babylonian talent.[7] Those paid in gold were measured with the Euboic talent.[7] The total tribute from the satraps came to an amount less than 15,000 silver talents.[7]

The majority of the satraps were of Persian origin and were members of the royal house or the six great noble families.[7] These satraps were personally picked by Darius to monitor these provinces. Each of the provinces was divided into sub-provinces, each having its own governor, who was chosen either by the royal court or by the satrap.[7] To assess tributes, a commission evaluated the expenses and revenues of each satrap.[7] To ensure that one person did not gain too much power, each satrap had a secretary, who observed the affairs of the state and communicated with Darius; a treasurer, who safeguarded provincial revenues; and a garrison commander, who was responsible for the troops.[7] Additionally, royal inspectors, who were the "eyes and ears" of Darius, completed further checks on each satrap.[7]

The imperial administration was coordinated by the chancery with headquarters at Persepolis, Susa, and Babylon with Bactria, Ecbatana, Sardis, Dascylium and Memphis having branches.[7] Darius kept Aramaic as the common language, which soon spread throughout the empire.[7] However, Darius gathered a group of scholars to create a separate language system only used for Persis and the Persians, which was called Aryan script and was only used for official inscriptions.[7] Before this, the accomplishments of the king were addressed in Persian solely through narration and hymns and through the "masters of memory".[61] Indeed, oral history continued to play an important role throughout the history of Iran.[61]

Economy

See also: Achaemenid coinage


Gold daric, minted at Sardis

Darius introduced a new universal currency, the daric, sometime before 500 BCE.[7] Darius used the coinage system as a transnational currency to regulate trade and commerce throughout his empire. The Daric was also recognized beyond the borders of the empire, in places such as Celtic Central Europe and Eastern Europe. There were two types of darics, a gold daric and a silver daric. Only the king could mint gold darics. Important generals and satraps minted silver darics, the latter usually to recruit Greek mercenaries in Anatolia. The daric was a major boost to international trade. Trade goods such as textiles, carpets, tools and metal objects began to travel throughout Asia, Europe and Africa. To further improve trade, Darius built the Royal Road, a postal system and Phoenician-based commercial shipping.

The daric also improved government revenues as the introduction of the daric made it easier to collect new taxes on land, livestock and marketplaces. This led to the registration of land which was measured and then taxed. The increased government revenues helped maintain and improve existing infrastructure and helped fund irrigation projects in dry lands. This new tax system also led to the formation of state banking and the creation of banking firms. One of the most famous banking firms was Murashu Sons, based in the Babylonian city of Nippur.[62] These banking firms provided loans and credit to clients.[63]

In an effort to further improve trade, Darius built canals, underground waterways and a powerful navy.[7] According to Herodotus, qanat irrigation technology was introduced to Egypt, which is supported by the historian Albert T. Olmstead.[64] He further improved and expanded the network of roads and way stations throughout the empire, so that there was a system of travel authorization for the King, satraps and other high officials, which entitled the traveller to draw provisions at daily stopping places.[65][7]

Religion

"By the grace of Ahuramazda am I king; Ahuramazda has granted me the kingdom."
— Darius, on the Behistun Inscription

Darius at Behistun


Darius on the Behistun Inscription reliefs


Crowned head of Darius at Behistun

While there is no general consensus in scholarship whether Darius and his predecessors had been influenced by Zoroastrianism,[66] it is well established that Darius was a firm believer in Ahura Mazda, whom he saw as the supreme deity.[66][67] However, Ahura Mazda was also worshipped by adherents of the (Indo-)Iranian religious tradition.[66][68] As can be seen at the Behistun Inscription, Darius believed that Ahura Mazda had appointed him to rule the Achaemenid Empire.[7]

Darius had dualistic philosophical convictions and believed that each rebellion in his kingdom was the work of druj, the enemy of Asha. Darius believed that because he lived righteously by Asha, Ahura Mazda supported him.[69] In many cuneiform inscriptions denoting his achievements, he presents himself as a devout believer, perhaps even convinced that he had a divine right to rule over the world.[70] However, his relationship with the deity was far more complex: in one inscription he writes "Ahura Mazda is mine, I am Ahura Mazda's".

In the lands that were conquered by his empire, Darius followed the same Achaemenid tolerance that Cyrus had shown and later Achaemenid kings would show.[7] He supported faiths and religions that were "alien" as long as the adherents were "submissive and peaceable", sometimes giving them grants from his treasury for their purposes.[7][71] He had funded the restoration of the Israelite temple which had originally been decreed by Cyrus, was supportive towards Greek cults which can be seen in his letter to Gadatas, and supported Elamite priests.[7] He had also observed Egyptian religious rites related to kingship and had built the temple for the Egyptian god, Amun.[7]

Building projects


Reconstruction drawing of the Palace of Darius in Susa


The ruins of Tachara palace in Persepolis

Early on, Darius and his advisors had the idea to establish new royal mansions at Susa and Persepolis because he was eager to demonstrate his newfound power and leave a lasting legacy. Since Cyrus's conquest, Susa's urban layout had remained unchanged, maintaining the layout from the Elamite era. Only during Darius's rule does the archeological evidence at Susa start showing any signs of a Achaemenid layout.[72]

During Darius's Greek expedition, he had begun construction projects in Susa, Egypt and Persepolis. The Darius Canal that connected the Nile to the Red Sea was constructed by him. It ran from present-day Zagazig in the eastern Nile Delta through Wadi Tumilat, Lake Timsah, and Great Bitter Lake, which are both close to present-day Suez. To open this canal, he travelled to Egypt in 497 BCE, where the inauguration was carried out with great fanfare and celebration. Darius also built a canal to connect the Red Sea and Mediterranean.[7][73] On this visit to Egypt he erected monuments and executed Aryandes on the charge of treason. When Darius returned to Persis, he found that the codification of Egyptian law had been finished.[7]

In Egypt, Darius built many temples and restored those that had previously been destroyed. Even though Darius was a believer of Ahura Mazda, he built temples dedicated to the Gods of the Ancient Egyptian religion. Several temples found were dedicated to Ptah and Nekhbet. Darius also created several roads and routes in Egypt. The monuments that Darius built were often inscribed in the official languages of the Persian Empire, Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian and Egyptian hieroglyphs. To construct these monuments, Darius employed a large number of workers and artisans of diverse nationalities. Several of these workers were deportees who had been employed specifically for these projects. These deportees enhanced the empire's economy and improved inter-cultural relations.[7] At the time of Darius's death construction projects were still under way. Xerxes completed these works and in some cases expanded his father's projects by erecting new buildings of his own.[74]


Egyptian statue of Darius I, as Pharaoh of the Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt;[75] 522–486 BCE; greywacke; height: 2.46 m;[55] National Museum of Iran (Teheran)


Darius as Pharaoh of Egypt at the Temple of Hibis


Relief showing Darius I offering lettuces to the Egyptian deity Amun-Ra Kamutef, Temple of Hibis

See also

• History portal
• Iran portal
• Biography portal
• Dariush
• Darius the Mede
• List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources

Notes

1. According to Herodotus, Hystaspes was the satrap of Persis, although the French Iranologist Pierre Briant states that this is an error.[16] Richard Stoneman likewise considers Herodotus's account to be incorrect.[17]

References

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3. Pollard, Elizabeth (2015). Worlds Together, Worlds Apart concise edition vol.1. New York: W. W. Norton. p. 132. ISBN 978-0-393-25093-0.
4. Schmitt 1994, p. 40.
5. Duncker 1882, p. 192.
6. Egerton 1994, p. 6.
7. Shahbazi 1994, pp. 41–50.
8. Kuhrt 2013, p. 197.
9. Frye 1984, p. 103.
10. Schmitt 1994, p. 53.
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13. "Behistun, minor inscriptions - Livius". http://www.livius.org.
14. Llewellyn-Jones 2013, p. 112.
15. Stoneman 2015, p. 189.
16. Briant 2002, p. 467.
17. Stoneman 2015, p. 20.
18. Cook 1985, p. 217.
19. Abbott 2009, p. 14.
20. Abbott 2009, p. 14–15.
21. Abbott 2009, p. 15–16.
22. Boardman 1988, p. 54.
23. "cylinder seal | British Museum". The British Museum.
24. "Darius' seal, photo - Livius". http://www.livius.org.
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27. Abbott 2009, p. 98.
28. Llewellyn-Jones 2017, p. 70.
29. Van De Mieroop 2003.
30. Allen, Lindsay (2005), The Persian Empire, London: The British Museum press, p. 42.
31. Waters 1996, pp. 11, 18.
32. Briant 2002, p. 115.
33. Briant 2002, pp. 115–116.
34. Briant 2002, p. 116.
35. Briant 2002, p. 131.
36. Abbott 2009, p. 99–101.
37. Goodnick Westenholz, Joan (2002). "A Stone Jar with Inscriptions of Darius I in Four Languages" (PDF). ARTA: 2. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 April 2018.
38. Qahéri, Sépideh (2020). "Alabastres royaux d'époque achéménide". L’Antiquité à la BnF (in French). doi:10.58079/b8of.
39. Del Testa 2001, p. 47.
40. Abbott 2009, p. 129.
41. Sélincourt 2002, pp. 234–235.
42. Siliotti 2006, pp. 286–287.
43. Woolf et al. 2004, p. 686.
44. Miroslav Ivanov Vasilev. "The Policy of Darius and Xerxes towards Thrace and Macedonia" ISBN 90-04-28215-7 p. 70
45. Ross & Wells 2004, p. 291.
46. Beckwith 2009, pp. 68–69.
47. Boardman 1982, pp. 239–243.
48. Herodotus 2015, pp. 352.
49. Chaliand 2004, p. 16.
50. Grousset 1970, pp. 9–10.
51. Joseph Roisman, Ian Worthington. "A companion to Ancient Macedonia" John Wiley & Sons, 2011. ISBN 1-4443-5163-X pp. 135–138, 343
52. Joseph Roisman; Ian Worthington (2011). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 135–138. ISBN 978-1-4443-5163-7.
53. Briant 2002, p. 16.
54. Briant 2002, p. 113.
55. livius.org (2017). Darius the Great: Death. Thames & Hudson. p. 280. ISBN 978-0-500-20428-3.
56. Shahbazi 1988, pp. 514–522.
57. Briant 2002, p. 136.
58. Herodotus Book III, 89–95
59. Archibald, Zosia; Davies, John K.; Gabrielsen, Vincent (2011). The Economies of Hellenistic Societies, Third to First Centuries BC. Oxford University Press. p. 404. ISBN 978-0-19-958792-6.
60. "India Relations: Achaemenid Period – Encyclopaedia Iranica". iranicaonline.org.
61. Briant 2002, pp. 126–127.
62. Farrokh 2007, p. 65.
63. Farrokh 2007, pp. 65–66.
64. Olmstead, A. T. (1948). History of the Persian Empire (PDF). The University of Chicago Press. p. 224. ISBN 0-226-62777-2.
65. Konecky 2008, p. 86.
66. Malandra 2005.
67. Briant 2002, p. 126.
68. Boyce 1984, pp. 684–687.
69. Boyce 1979, p. 55.
70. Boyce 1979, pp. 54–55.
71. Boyce 1979, p. 56.
72. Briant 2002, p. 165.
73. Spielvogel 2009, p. 49.
74. Boardman 1988, p. 76.
75. Razmjou, Shahrokh (1954). Ars orientalis; the arts of Islam and the East. Freer Gallery of Art. pp. 81–101.

Bibliography

• Abbott, Jacob (2009), History of Darius the Great: Makers of History, Cosimo, Inc., ISBN 978-1-60520-835-0
• Abbott, Jacob (1850), History of Darius the Great, New York: Harper & Bros
• Balentine, Samuel (1999), The Torah's vision of worship, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, ISBN 978-0-8006-3155-0
• Beckwith, Christopher (2009), Empires of the Silk Road: a history of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the present (illustrated ed.), Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-13589-2
• Bedford, Peter (2001), Temple restoration in early Achaemenid Judah (illustrated ed.), Leiden: Brill, ISBN 978-90-04-11509-5
• Bennett, Deb (1998), Conquerors: The Roots of New World horsemanship, Solvang, CA: Amigo Publications, Inc., ISBN 978-0-9658533-0-9
• Boardman, John (1988), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. IV (2nd ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-22804-6
• Boardman, John, ed. (1982). The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 10: Persia, Greece, and the Western Mediterranean. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 239–243. ISBN 978-0-521-22804-6.
• Boyce, Mary (1979). Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. Psychology Press. pp. 1–252. ISBN 978-0-415-23902-8.
• Boyce, M. (1984). "Ahura Mazdā". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. I, Fasc. 7. pp. 684–687.
• Briant, Pierre (2002). From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Eisenbrauns. pp. 1–1196. ISBN 978-1-57506-120-7.
• Chaliand, Gérard (2004), Nomadic empires: from Mongolia to the Danube (illustrated, annotated ed.), Transaction Publishers, ISBN 978-0-7658-0204-0
• Cook, J. M. (1985), "The Rise of the Achaemenids and Establishment of their Empire", The Median and Achaemenian Periods, Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 2, London: Cambridge University Press
• Del Testa, David (2001), Government leaders, military rulers, and political activists (illustrated ed.), Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 978-1-57356-153-2
• Duncker, Max (1882), Evelyn Abbott (ed.), The history of antiquity (Volume 6 ed.), R. Bentley & son
• Egerton, George (1994), Political memoir: essays on the politics of memory, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-7146-3471-5
• Frye, Richard Nelson (1984). The History of Ancient Iran. C.H.Beck. pp. 1–411. ISBN 978-3-406-09397-5.
• Farrokh, Kaveh (2007), Shadows in the desert: ancient Persia at war, Osprey Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84603-108-3[permanent dead link]
• Grousset, René (1970). The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Rutgers University Press. pp. 1–687. ISBN 978-0-8135-1304-1.
• Herodotus, ed. (2015). The Histories. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 352. ISBN 978-0-375-71271-5.
• Konecky, Sean (2008), Gidley, Chuck (ed.), The Chronicle of World History, Old Saybrook, CT: Grange Books, ISBN 978-1-56852-680-5
• Kuhrt, A. (2013). The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-01694-3.
• Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd (2013). King and Court in Ancient Persia 559 to 331 BCE. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 1–272. ISBN 978-0-7486-7711-5.
• Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd (2017). "The Achaemenid Empire". In Daryaee, Touraj (ed.). King of the Seven Climes: A History of the Ancient Iranian World (3000 BCE – 651 CE). UCI Jordan Center for Persian Studies. pp. 1–236. ISBN 978-0-692-86440-1.
• Malandra, William W. (2005). "Zoroastrianism i. Historical review up to the Arab conquest". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
• Moulton, James (2005), Early Zoroastrianism, Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 978-1-4179-7400-9[permanent dead link]
• Poolos, J (2008), Darius the Great (illustrated ed.), Infobase Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7910-9633-8
• Ross, William; Wells, H. G. (2004), The Outline of History: Volume 1 (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading): Prehistory to the Roman Republic (illustrated ed.), Barnes & Noble Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7607-5866-3, retrieved 28 July 2011
• Safra, Jacob (2002), The New Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc, ISBN 978-0-85229-787-2
• Schmitt, Rudiger (1994). "Darius I. The Name". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VII, Fasc. 1. p. 40.
• Sélincourt, Aubrey (2002), The Histories, London: Penguin Classics, ISBN 978-0-14-044908-2
• Shahbazi, A. Shapur (1988). "Bahrām II". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. III, Fasc. 5. pp. 514–522.
• Shahbazi, Shapur (1994), "Darius I the Great", Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 7, New York: Columbia University, pp. 41–50
• Siliotti, Alberto (2006), Hidden Treasures of Antiquity, Vercelli, Italy: VMB Publishers, ISBN 978-88-540-0497-9
• Spielvogel, Jackson (2009), Western Civilization: Seventh edition, Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, ISBN 978-0-495-50285-2
• Stoneman, Richard (2015). Xerxes: A Persian Life. Yale University Press. pp. 1–288. ISBN 978-1-57506-120-7.
• Tropea, Judith (2006), Classic Biblical Baby Names: Timeless Names for Modern Parents, New York: Bantam Books, ISBN 978-0-553-38393-5
• Van De Mieroop, Marc (2003), A History of the Ancient Near East: Ca. 3000–323 BC, "Blackwell History of the Ancient World" series, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, ISBN 978-0-631-22552-2
• Waters, Matt (1996). "Darius and the Achaemenid Line". The Ancient History Bulletin. 10 (1). London: 11–18.
• Waters, Matt (2014). Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550–330 BCE. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–272. ISBN 978-1-107-65272-9.
• Woolf, Alex; Maddocks, Steven; Balkwill, Richard; McCarthy, Thomas (2004), Exploring Ancient Civilizations (illustrated ed.), Marshall Cavendish, ISBN 978-0-7614-7456-2

Further reading

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Darius".
• Burn, A.R. (1984). Persia and the Greeks : the defence of the West, c. 546–478 B.C (2nd ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-1235-4.
• Ghirshman, Roman (1964). The Arts of Ancient Iran from Its Origins to the Time of Alexander the Great. New York: Golden Press.
• Hyland, John O. (2014). "The Casualty Figures in Darius' Bisitun Inscription". Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History. 1 (2): 173–199. doi:10.1515/janeh-2013-0001. S2CID 180763595.
• Klotz, David (2015). "Darius I and the Sabaeans: Ancient Partners in Red Sea Navigation". Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 74 (2): 267–280. doi:10.1086/682344. S2CID 163013181.
• Olmstead, Albert T. (1948). History of the Persian Empire, Achaemenid Period. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Vogelsang, W.J. (1992). The rise and organisation of the Achaemenid Empire : the eastern Iranian evidence. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-09682-0.
• Warner, Arthur G. (1905). The Shahnama of Firdausi. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co.
• Wiesehöfer, Josef (1996). Ancient Persia : from 550 BC to 650 AD. Azizeh Azodi, trans. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-85043-999-8.
• Wilber, Donald N. (1989). Persepolis : the archaeology of Parsa, seat of the Persian kings (Rev. ed.). Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press. ISBN 978-0-87850-062-8.

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Book Review: A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia by Manan Ahmed Asif
by LSE Editor
December 16th, 2016
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2016/ ... hmed-asif/

The Brahmin dynasty (c. 632–712), also known as the Chacha dynasty or Silaij dynasty, was a Hindu dynasty that ruled the Sindh region, succeeding the Rai dynasty. Most of the information about its existence comes from the Chach Nama, a historical account of the Chach-Brahmin dynasty.

-- Brahmin dynasty of Sindh, by Wikipedia

A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia is a critical literary, historical and intellectual analysis of a 13th century Persian text which tells the story of the Arab invasions of Sindh in the 7-8th centuries. Asad Abbasi finds the book an important re-examination of a key text which has been used to perpetuate the myth that Hindus and Muslims are historic enemies, despite offering a moral conduct for governance.

A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia. Manan Ahmed Asif. Harvard University Press. 2016.

Introduction

Every origin story about Muslims in South Asia borrows something from the Chachnama, a thirteenth Century Persian manuscript authored by a settler in Uch, Sindh, named Ali Kufi. Kufi claimed his work was a translation an Arabic manuscript with historical narratives about Sindh in the seventh and eighth centuries.

It is the Chachnama that is cited when the ‘foreignness’ and savagery of Muslims is narrated by Hindu nationalists in India. It is Chachnama that is quoted when forgiveness and benevolence of Muslims is written by state historians in Pakistan. And poor old Chachnama was the reference point for writers of the British Empire in eighteenth and nineteenth century to explain the barbarism and destruction by Muslims.

Manan Ahmed Asif’s A Book of Conquest is a critical literary, historical and intellectual analysis of this historical text. The title is a perfect example of verbal irony, because Asif’s central argument is that the Chachnama is not a book of conquest.

Not a book of translation; neither a conquest narrative

Ali Kufi’s narrative begins with rise of Chach of Alor from a letter writer to King of Sindh. After Chach’s death his son, Dahar inherits the Kingdom and rules until his defeat by Umayyad General Muhammad Bin Qasim. Chachnama ends with Bin Qasim killing himself on the orders of the Caliph.

Asif implies that previous commentators have invariably selected, chopped, derided, ridiculed, and ignored parts of the text to fit their own agendas. But there are two common assumptions that still hold, primarily because of how Ali Kufi frames his work: first, the Chachnama is a translation of an Arabic manuscript, and second it is a book about conquest in eighth century Sindh. Asif rejects both these assumptions. He argues the Chachnama is an original book of political theory written in Persian addressed to the audience of thirteenth century Sindh.

Asif builds on work by Muzaffar Alam and A.C.S. Peacock in challenging the notion that the text is a translation. Alam, an eminent Mughal historian, proposes that translation was key part of ‘Persianisation’ i.e. process for the elites to move away from religious values towards more secular methods (p. 55). Peacock, Professor of History at St Andrews, views the translations of that period as ‘transcreations or commentarial interpretations’. Asif highlights that in the 13th century claiming a book’s Arabic heritage was customary but also very prudent for raising author’s profile. Kufi’s contemporaries such as Awfi and Juzjani are known to have employed similar methods. The historians of thirteenth century may call their own work translations but ‘saw pedagogy and self-reflection as key function of the texts’ (p. 60).

Asif also argues that the Chachnama does not fit the mould of other conquest narratives within Arabic historiography. These differences are stark: while the conquest narrative deals in proper names; the Chachnama gives ‘general attributes’ and uses generic citations (p. 63). The Arabic conquest literature focuses on plot of the story, description of land and regions; Kufi, instead, writes about ‘inner turmoil, deliberation, doubts and planning of the campaign’. The conquest narratives paint dismal picture of pre-Islamic times; Chachnama informs the reader of the wealth and resources in Sind before Muhammad Bin Qasim. Furthermore, unlike the conquest narratives, Kufi draws comparisons between the Hindu ruler Chach, and the Muslim ruler Bin Qasim (p. 66). Based on these differences, Asif contends that the Chachnama is not a conquest narrative but ‘an Indic political theory’ which is ‘deeply ingrained in the physical geography and spatial constraint of the thirteenth century’ (p. 67).

Asif’s interpretation differs significantly from those of earlier commentators. Whereas all the previous commentators wrote for a selected audience, Asif’s reading of the book, his argument and explanations, I am sure, will have universal appeal. With basic knowledge of South Asian history, or historical writings in general, one can enjoy Asif’s genealogical investigations. Asif explores, in detail, the encouraging and powerful women in the Chachnama and how in the 15th and 16th century the same women metamorphosed into symbols of transgression and deceit. In the midst of it all, Asif traverses through the streets of present day Uch.

City and the Book

In his book Curiosity, Alberto Manguel— borrowing from French scholar, Marc-Alain Ouaknin— demonstrates that physical structures of Venice in the sixteenth century left a mark on the Babylonian Talmud, the first edition of which was produced by the printer Daniel Bomberg. Manguel writes, ‘like every visitor to Venice Bomberg must have been struck by its inlaid, convoluted structure’ (Manguel 2015, p. 101). Look at the map of Venice and something ‘akin to the pages of Talmud appears’. In Manguel’s eyes the structural map of the city influenced the layout of the Talmud.

In a similar spirit, Asif writes Uch leaves a permanent mark on the Chachnama. He argues that one cannot understand the text without knowing the place it was written in. Asif conjoins intellectual history of Sind— as survived in the Chachnama— with physical memory as stored in graves, temples, wells, and palm trees. Asif asserts that it is possible to see how this unique environ of thirteenth century Uch influenced Ali Kufi’s narration.

[x]
Mausoleum of Bibi Jawindi, Uch. Credit: Shaun Metcalfe CC BY 2.0

Uch is not Venice by any means, but the intellectual environment mixed with constant wars and new patrons made it a destiny for writers (including Ali Kufi), philosophers and saints. The trees tell a story, the ramshackle shrines, dedicated to Sufi saints, tell yet another story. It is in this context that Asif suggests one has to understand 13th century Uch to interpret the Chachnama, and that this is evidence that the text is not a straightforward translation.

Political Theory

So what could a book aimed at thirteenth century elites, perhaps written to gain favour of the ruler of Sindh, offer as political theory?

Asif argues that the Chachnama’s true essence is its advice on governance. He writes that it:

‘creates a moral genealogy for rule, it is text that argues for a framework for understanding difference (most critically, religious difference), and it is a text that demonstrates five hundred years of interconnected lives in the Sindh-Gujarat-Oman-Yemen-world’ (p. 76).

Through series of letters between characters, the Chachnama deals with issues of morality, the role of advisors (p. 82), succession (p. 83), immoral choices (p. 86), and policies of governance (p. 86-90). Far from being a conquest narrative, Asif concludes the text falls into the genre of Persian advice literature (p. 92), although can also be seen as ‘Indic political theory’ due to its similarities with the ancient Indian texts Arthashastra and Panchatantra (p. 96).

With the rise of sectarian conflicts, nationalism, violence and the alt right across the globe, the Chachnama’s key message to the governing elites – hitherto buried by misrepresentation and political interpretations – remains relevant today: only through dialogue one can deal with differences (p. 101).

Conclusion

The book is not without weaknesses. For example, Asif discusses the ‘historians of Sindh’, as distinct from historians of Pakistani state, albeit too briefly leaving scope for further exploration. Although, he hints at it, he largely misses the opportunity to explore the ‘social function of the text’ (p. 62-63) in present day Sindh.

Throughout the book, Asif talks with several people in Uch and thereabouts. In the last chapter, Asif recasts his meeting with ‘another historian who brings Uch to light’ (pg 182). In their long conversation, the ‘historian’ tells Asif that Uch was never conquered. To which, Asif responds that British, Genghis Khan, Iltutmish, Tughluq, Humayun, Akbar all conquered Uch (p. 184). After introspection, however, Asif begins to question these historical facts: “This was the landscape that gave birth to the Indic Chachnama…the story of an always conquered Uch could not explain how this text came to be written in the first place and why it survived’ (p. 184).

It is ironic that Asif, who is trying to demystify stories of origins of Muslims in South Asia, ends up seemingly accepting factually inaccurate stories about Uch. But this is not the same as believing that Hindus and Muslims have been forever at war.

The falsehood that Hindus and Muslims are enemies who have been engaged in conflict since time immemorial is perpetuated by centres of power to establish legitimacy. The British used it to legitimise colonisation, for Pakistani state it provides legitimacy for military expenditure and for Hindu nationalists it becomes the basis for delegitimising last one thousand years of Indian history. Asif’s new volume seeks to challenge the misinterpretations of the Chachnama that has arisen from its use in these instrumental narratives.

This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the South Asia @ LSE blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.

About the Author

Screenshot 2015-07-20 at 23.43.49Asad Abbasi has a Masters degree in Political Economy of Late Development from LSE. Currently, he is researching conceptual frameworks of development.

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Khyber Pass
by Wikipedia
Accessed 12/11/24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pass

د خیبر درہ (Pashto)
درۂ خیبر (Urdu)
[x]
The pass connects Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar.
Elevation 1,070 m (3,510 ft)
Traversed by N-5 National Highway; Khyber Pass Railway
Location Between Landi Kotal and Jamrud
Range White Mountains (Spīn Ghar, Safēd Kōh)
Coordinates 34.07570°N 71.20394°E
Khyber Pass د خیبر درہ (Pashto) درۂ خیبر (Urdu) is located in Khyber PakhtunkhwaKhyber Pass د خیبر درہ (Pashto) درۂ خیبر (Urdu)

The Khyber Pass (Urdu: درۂ خیبر[pronunciation?]; Pashto: د خيبر دره, romanized: De Xēber Dara, lit. 'Valley of Khyber' [d̪ə xebər d̪ara]) is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, on the border with the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. It connects the town of Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud by traversing part of the White Mountains. Since it was part of the ancient Silk Road, it has been a vital trade route between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent and a strategic military choke point for various states that controlled it. The Khyber Pass is considered one of the most famous mountain passes in the world.[1]

Geography

Following Asian Highway 1 (AH1), the summit of the pass at the town of Landi Kotal is five kilometres (three miles) inside Pakistan, descending 460 m (1,510 ft) into the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud, about 30 km (19 mi) from the Afghan border by traversing part of the Spin Ghar mountains.[2]

History

[x]
The Khyber Pass with the fortress of Ali Masjid in 1848

[x]
Afghan chiefs and a British political officer posed at Jamrud Fort at the mouth of the Khyber Pass in 1878

[x]
The British Indian Army's elephant battery of heavy artillery along the Khyber Pass at Campbellpur, 1895

Historical invasions of the Indian subcontinent have been predominantly through the Khyber Pass, such as those of Cyrus, Darius I, Genghis Khan, and later Mongols such as Duwa, Qutlugh Khwaja and Kebek. Prior to the Kushan era, the Khyber Pass was not a widely used trade route.[3]

The pass has been traversed by military expeditions launched by empires such as the Achaemenids and Sassanids, as well as by nomadic invaders from Central Asia, including the Saka, Yuezhi, and White Huns.[2] [b][u][size=120]Indian empires rarely extended their control beyond the pass, with the Maurya king Čandragupta being an exception.[2]

The Khyber Pass has witnessed the spread of Greek influence into India and the expansion of Buddhism in the opposite direction.[2] Despite military activities, trade continued to thrive there.[2][/u][/b][/size] The Khyber Pass became a critical part of the Silk Road, a major trade route from East Asia to Europe.[4][5]

The Parthian Empire fought for control of passes such as this to profit from the trade in silk, jade, rhubarb, and other luxuries moving from China to Western Asia and Europe. Through the Khyber Pass, Gandhara (in present-day Pakistan) became a regional center of trade connecting Bagram in Afghanistan to Taxila in Pakistan, adding Indian luxury goods such as ivory, pepper, and textiles to the Silk Road commerce.[6]: 74 

During the Islamic period, Muslim rulers, including Mahmud Ghaznavi, Muhammad of Ghor, and Babur, used the Khyber and nearby passes for their invasions of Indian subcontinent.[2] The Mughals attempted to control the pass but faced resistance from local tribes.[2] Ahmad Shah Durrani was the last major Islamic conqueror to cross the pass, though his successors' campaigns had limited lasting impact.[2] Finally, Sikhs under Ranjit Singh captured the Khyber Pass in 1834.[6]

[x]
Railways through the impregnable Khyber Pass,1939. Digitized by the Panjab Digital Library.

In the 19th century, the British East India Company aimed to secure the Khyber Pass against potential Russian threats.[2] The region was contested during the Anglo-Afghan Wars, with control shifting between the British, Sikhs, and Afghans.[2] After the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880), the Khyber region came under British control, and the policy of paying local tribes to maintain the route's security was implemented.[2] The British invested in infrastructure development, building roads, railways, and telegraph lines through the pass.[2] For strategic reasons, after the First World War, the government of British India built a heavily engineered railway through the Pass.[2] The Khyber Pass Railway, from Jamrud, near Peshawar, to the Afghan border near Landi Kotal was opened in 1925.[2] A common phrase during British colonial period described the length of what was then British India as "Khyber to Kanyakumari".[7][8]

[x]
During World War II, concrete dragon's teeth were erected on the valley floor due to British fears of a German tank invasion of India.[9]

[x]
Bab-e-Khyber, the entrance gate of the Khyber Pass

Following the partition of British India in 1947, the Khyber Pass became part of Pakistan. Passenger services through the pass have been intermittent, with the Khyber Steam Safari, a joint venture between a private company and Pakistan Railways, operating in the 1990s.[2]

The Pass became widely known to thousands of Westerners and Japanese who traveled it in the days of the hippie trail, taking a bus or car from Kabul to the Afghan border. At the Pakistani frontier post, travellers were advised not to wander away from the road, as the location was a barely controlled Federally Administered Tribal Area. Then, after customs formalities, a quick daylight drive through the Pass was made. Monuments left by British Indian Army units from the time of British colonialism, as well as hillside forts, could be viewed from the highway.

The area of the Khyber Pass has been connected with a counterfeit arms industry that makes various types of weapons known to gun collectors as Khyber Pass copies using local steel and blacksmiths' forges. To the north of the Khyber Pass lies the country of the Shalmani tribe and Mullagori tribe. To the south is Afridi Tirah, while the inhabitants of villages in the Pass itself are Afridi clansmen. Throughout the centuries, Pashtun clans, particularly the Afridis and the Afghan Shinwari, have regarded the Pass as their own preserve and have levied a toll on travellers for safe conduct. Since this has long been their main source of income, resistance to challenges to the Shinwari's authority has often been fierce.

Recent history

[x]
The pass was serviced by the Khyber Pass Railway, currently closed.

During the War in Afghanistan, the Khyber Pass was a major route for resupplying military armament and food to NATO forces in the Afghan theater of conflict since the US started the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Almost 80 percent of the NATO and US supplies that were brought in by road were transported through the Khyber Pass. It was also used to transport civilians from the Afghan side to the Pakistani one. Until the end of 2007, the route had been relatively safe, since the tribes living there (mainly the Afridi, a Pashtun tribe) were paid by the Pakistani government to keep the area safe.

In January 2009, Pakistan sealed off the bridge as part of a military offensive against Taliban guerrillas. This military operation was mainly focused on Jamrud, a district on the Khyber road. The target was to “dynamite or bulldoze homes belonging to men suspected of harboring or supporting Taliban militants or carrying out other illegal activities”.[10]

This increasingly unstable situation in northwest Pakistan made the US and NATO broaden supply routes, through Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). Even the option of supplying material through the Iranian far southeastern port of Chabahar was considered.[11]

In 2010, the already complicated relationship with Pakistan (always accused by the US of hosting the Taliban in this border area without reporting it) became tougher after the NATO forces, under the pretext of mitigating the Taliban's power over this area, executed an attack with drones over the Durand line, passing the frontier of Afghanistan and killing three Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan answered by closing the pass on 30 September which caused a convoy of several NATO trucks to queue at the closed border.[12] This convoy was attacked by extremists apparently linked to Al Qaida which caused the destruction of more than 29 oil tankers and trucks and the killing of several soldiers.[13]

In August 2011, the activity at the Khyber pass was again halted by the Khyber Agency administration due to the more possible attacks of the insurgency over the NATO forces, which had suffered a period of large number of assaults over the trucks heading to supply the NATO and ISAF coalitions all over the frontier line.[14]

Gallery

[x]
Khyber Pass Gateway southbound towards Peshawar

[x]
Typical Pakistani transport truck and passengers

[x]
Washed out bridge

[x]
The Khyber Railway. With a Pakistan Railways HGS 2-8-0 at front and rear a charter train climbs the Khyber Pass through a series of zig-zags to gain height

[x]
An advertisement card from 1910 depicting Khaiber Pass

[x]
A camp of the British Indian Army near the Khyber Pass (c. 1920)

[x]
Mountain passes of Afghanistan

Cultural references

A number of locations around the world have been named after the Khyber Pass:

• A steep and twisting minor road in Mugdock Country Park near Glasgow, Scotland. The road is a landmark along the West Highland Way and is popular among local road cyclists.[15]
• A suburb of Civil Lines, Delhi, India.[16][17][18]
• Khyber Pass Road, a major road in the suburb of Newmarket, Auckland, New Zealand (Google Earth view)
• An artificial rockwork feature at East Park, Kingston upon Hull, UK.[19][20]
• Khyber Road in Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland.[21]
• A steep and twisting road up the West Cliff at Whitby, UK.
• A pedestrian alley in Stromness, Orkney, Scotland[22]
• Khyber Pass Pub in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Khyber Himalayan Resort and Spa in Gulmarg, Jammu and Kashmir.
• A mountain bike trail connecting the Top of the World trail at Whistler, British Columbia to the Whistler Creekside Village.
• A subway in the King's Cross St Pancras tube station. After the King's Cross fire in November 1987, it was replaced.[23]

Other references include the following:

• The bus journey on this road was belle-lettered very beautifully, and a part of its first act, in the selective memoir Deshe Bideshe (1948) by Syed Mujtaba Ali.
• Before the partition of India, the pass was mentioned as part of common Hindustani phrase used to describe the length of colonial India, "Khyber sé Kanyakumari".[8]
• 'Khyber Pass' is Cockney rhyming slang meaning 'arse'. This use is alluded to in the 1968 film Carry On Up the Khyber.
• In the 1975 movie The Man Who Would Be King, the character Peachy Carnehan tells Rudyard Kipling how he and his comrade-in-arms Danny Dravot had fought under Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts yard by yard through the Khyber Pass during the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878-1880
• The podcast Twilight Histories has an episode called "Napoleon in Afghanistan" which partly takes place in the Khyber Pass.
• The Vampire Weekend song "M79" references the Khyber Pass.
• The Tom Cochrane song "Life Is a Highway" (covered by Rascal Flatts and others) references the Khyber Pass.
• The album Rio Grande Blood by Ministry (2006) has a song called "Khyber Pass" which references it as a possible hiding place for then missing and at large Osama bin Laden. This song was also featured at the end of the film The Hurt Locker.
• The song "Red War" by Probot, featuring Max Cavalera on vocals, mentions the pass.
• British rock band Pink Floyd references the Khyber in their song "Up the Khyber", featured on the soundtrack to the film More.
• In an episode of the cartoon series The World of Commander McBragg titled “Khyber Pass”, the eponymous commander has to fend off ten thousand screaming tribesmen in the Khyber Pass.
• Parts of the 1985 Jay McInerney book Ransom take place in or near the Khyber Pass.
• The Khyber pass features in several of Rudyard Kipling's poems: it appears by name in "The Ballad of the King's Jest",[24] as "the Pass" in "Arithmetic on the Frontier",[24] and semi-fictionalized as the Tongue of Jagai in "The Ballad of East and West".[25]
• In the 2023 movie Ghosted the farmer Cole played by Chris Evans is abducted to the Khyber Pass and rescue by CIA operative Sadie played by Ana de Armas as shown by the location card at 35'15", although the film was actually filmed in New Mexico.[26][27]

See also

• Ali Masjid
• Bab-e-Khyber
• Battle of Ali Masjid
• Battle of Khyber Pass
• Bolan Pass
• Carry On... Up the Khyber, film
• Dasht-e Yahudi
• Dorah Pass
• Durand Line
• Khyber Agency
• Khyber Pass Copy
• Khyber Pass Railway
• Khyber Pass Economic Corridor
• Khyber Rifles
• Khyber train safari

References

1. Wright, Colin. "Maliks of Khyber Pass". http://www.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2023-03-07. Retrieved 2023-03-07.
2. Wilde, Andreas (September 27, 2022). "KHYBER PASS". Brill – via referenceworks.brillonline.com.
3. Tarn, William Woodthorpe (2010). The Greeks in Bactria and India. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108009416. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
4. Insight Guides Silk Road. Apa Publications (UK) Limited. 2017. p. 424. ISBN 9781786716996.
5. Arnold, Guy (2014). World Strategic Highways. Routledge. p. 12. ISBN 9781135933739.
6. The Khyber Pass: A History of Empire and Invasion. Union Square Press. 2008. ISBN 978-1-4027-5696-2.
7. Nalwa, Vanit (2009). Hari Singh Nalwa, "champion of the Khalsaji" (1791-1837). New Delhi: Manohar. pp. 318–. ISBN 978-81-7304-785-5.
8. Rajghatta, Chidanand (27 June 2017). "Attock to Cuttack, PM Narendra Modi causes a stir". The Economic Times. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
9. "Introducing The Khyber Pass". Lonelyplanet.com. 2009-03-24. Archived from the original on 2011-06-07. Retrieved 2010-11-12.
10. Oppel Jr, Richard A. (2 January 2009). "Pakistan Briefly Reopens Key NATO Supply Route". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 20 May 2013. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
11. "Pakistan and Afghanistan". Institute for the Study of War. Archived from the original on 9 February 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
12. "Pakistan Reopens Khyber Pass To US/NATO". Archived from the original on 24 July 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
13. Karin Brulliard (October 9, 2010). "Pakistan reopens border to NATO supply trucks". Washington Post Foreign Service. Archived from the original on 9 February 2011. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
14. Ahmad Nabi (August 17, 2011). "Nato supplies via Khyber Pass halted due to security". Archived from the original on 11 January 2012. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
15. "Khyber Pass Trail at Mugdock Park". Trailforks. Retrieved 2020-03-30.
16. Khyber Pass Map Archived 2011-10-30 at the Wayback Machine. Mapsofindia.com (2013-03-01). Retrieved on 2013-07-12.
17. "Khyber Pass Delhi". Google Maps. Retrieved 2013-07-12.
18. "MGF City , Khyber Pass , North Delhi". Archived from the original on 2012-03-10. Retrieved 2011-05-19.
19. "East's Eden". Kingston upon Hull City Council. September 2002. Archived from the original on 2013-05-17.
20. Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1001519)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 14 January 2013.
21. McNally, Frank (20 February 2013). "An Irishman's Diary". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
22. "OpenStreetMap". OpenStreetMap. Retrieved 2019-08-07.
23. "New subway to replace Kings Cross "Khyber Pass"". This Is Local London. 12 August 2004.
24. National Geographic Society (2011-11-21). "The Khyber Pass". National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 2019-08-07. Retrieved 2019-08-07.
25. "The Ballad of East and West". http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2019-08-22. Retrieved 2019-08-07.
26. "Where was 'Ghosted' filmed? All 'Ghosted' filming locations". 21 April 2023. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
27. "Where was Ghosted filmed?". Retrieved 2023-04-27.

Further reading

• Molesworth, Lt-Gen. G.N. (1962). Afghanistan 1919 : an Account of Operations in the Third Afghan War. Asia Publishing House. OCLC 7233999.

External links

Khyber Pass at Wikipedia's sister projects

• Definitions from Wiktionary
• Media from Commons
• News from Wikinews
• Quotations from Wikiquote
• Texts from Wikisource
• Textbooks from Wikibooks
• Resources from Wikiversity
• Travel information from Wikivoyage
• History of Khyber Pass, Pakistan (archived)
• Twilight histories, Napoleon in Afghanistan (archived)

[admin]

Kanhadade Prabandha
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/21/24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanhadade_Prabandha

Padmanabha’s identity is not explicitly mentioned as a specific individual with a known background or affiliation, except for being a court poet of Akhairaja, the Chauhan Rajput king of Visalnagar. Akhairaja is said to be a descendant of the poem’s hero Raval Kanhadade, through Viramade, Megalde, Ambaraja, and Khetsi.

It is worth noting that the search results do not provide a detailed biography of Padmanabha, and his personal identity remains somewhat obscure.

-- Padmanabha, by Google AI

Kānhaḍade Prabandha is a book by Indian poet Padmanābha written in 1455, in a western Apabhramsha dialect. The book tells the story of Raval Kanhadade (Kanhadadeva), the Chahamana ruler of Jalore.

Textual history

Padmanabha wrote Kanhadade Prabandha in 1455, in a western Apabhramsha dialect. The author was a court-poet of Akhairaja, the Chauhan Rajput king of Visalnagar. Akahiraja is said to be a descendant of the poem's hero Raval Kanhadade, through Viramade, Megalde, Ambaraja, and Khetsi.[1]

The German Indologist Georg Bühler was the first modern scholar to write about this treatise. He noticed its manuscript in a Jain library at Tharad.[2]

Kanhadade Prabandha has been praised as the finest work in Dingal (literary form of the Old Western Rajasthani or Old Gujarati), and one of the greatest Indian works written during the medieval period by eminent scholars like Muni Jinavijaya, K. M. Munshi, Dasharatha Sharma and K.B. Vyas.[3][4]

The work was translated into English by V. S. Bhatnagar, a professor of History at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur.[5]

Plot

At the beginning of the text, Padmanabha invokes Ganesha and Sarasvati to grant him the ability to recount Kanhadade's story.[6] He extolls the Sonagiri Chauhan lineage and their capital city of Jalore.[7]

Ulugh Khan's raid of Gujarat

The author then describes the conquest of Gujarat by the Alauddin Khalji, the Muslim ruler of the Delhi Sultanate: Gujarat was ruled by the Baghela king Rao Karnade.

Karna II,1296 – c. 1304) was the last ruler of the Kingdom of Gujarat in India. Little is known about his life except his defeat against Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate. Alauddin's forces ransacked his kingdom in 1299, forcing him to flee Gujarat. Karna seems to have gained control of at least some part of his territory in the subsequent years. However, a second invasion in 1304 resulted in the end of the Vaghela dynasty.

Variations of his name include Karnadeva (in Vaghela inscriptions), Rai Karan, and Karan Dev (in vernacular literature). He is also known as Karna II to distinguish him from the Chaulukya king Karna. The 15th century epic poem Kanhadade Prabandha calls him "Rao Karnade". The 16th century Portuguese historian João de Barros calls him "Galacarna"....

Aside from his defeat against Alauddin Khalji, very little is known about his reign.

According to medieval chronicles (such as Merutunga's Vichara-shreni and Padmanābha's Kanhadade Prabandha), Karna had abducted the wife of his minister Madhava and killed Madhava's brother. In revenge, Madhava instigated the Delhi Sultanate ruler Alauddin Khalji to invade his kingdom. In 1299, Alauddin invaded Gujarat, which was one of the wealthiest regions of India.

The invasion appears to have been a surprise for Karna, as Alauddin's army captured Gujarat easily in a very short time. This suggests that either Karna was unpopular among his subjects, or he had an ineffective military and administrative setup. The Jain chronicler Jinaprabha Suri states that Ulugh Khan's forces defeated Karna's army at Ashapalli (present-day Ahmedabad).

Jinaprabha Suri was a renowned Jain scholar and chronicler who lived during the Sultanate period, specifically during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq (1325-1351 CE). He was born in the Tambi clan of the Shrimal Jain community in Mohilvadi, Gujarat.

Jinaprabha Suri is best known for his magnum opus, Vividha Tirtha Kalpa, a widely cited Jain text composed in the 14th century CE. This compilation of about 60 Kalpas (sections) provides accounts of major Jain Tirthas (pilgrimage sites) throughout India. The text is an example of the tirtha-mala genre, which documents Jain pilgrimage sites and practices.

Jinaprabha Suri’s poetic flair and knowledge of various Indian religious schools impressed Muhammad bin Tughluq, who consulted him on religious matters. The Sultan even called upon Jinaprabha Suri to settle disputes and recover a stolen image from his treasury. This recognition highlights the significant role Jain scholars like Jinaprabha Suri played in facilitating interfaith dialogue and understanding during the Sultanate period.

Jinaprabha Suri was initiated as a Jain monk at the age of 8 and became an Acharya (teacher) in the Kharatara Gaccha sect at 23. His travels took him across India, and he documented contemporary events and oral traditions. Although some Kalpas (sections) in Vividha Tirtha Kalpa contain dates, most are undated, ranging from Samvat 1364 to Samvat 1389.

Jinaprabha Suri’s work, Vividha Tirtha Kalpa, remains an important source for understanding Jain pilgrimage practices, Tirthas, and the cultural exchange between Jainism and Islam during the Sultanate period. His contributions have had a lasting impact on Jain literature and scholarship.

-- Jain Scholar Jinaprabha Suri, by Google AI

According to the 14th century writer Isami, Karna weighed his options: putting up a fight against the invaders or retiring into a fortress. His ministers advised him to leave the country and return after the departure of the invaders, given his lack of war preparation....

Ultimately, Karna fled to Devagiri, the capital of the neighbouring Yadava kingdom. A section of the Delhi army pursued him. The 14th century chronicler Isami states that he was refused asylum by the Yadavas, and had to seek shelter from the Kakatiya ruler Rudradeva. Meanwhile, the Delhi army plundered the wealthy cities of Gujarat, including the capital Anahilavada (modern Patan), Khambhat, Surat and Somnath.

Subsequently, Karna seems to have recaptured at least some part of Gujarat, although is not known when exactly he returned to the throne.

An inscription found at the Sampla village in Gujarat attests that Karna was ruling at Patan [the capital of Gujarat for approximately 650 years, from 746 to 1411] on 4 August 1304.The Jain author Merutunga also states that he ruled up to 1304 CE. The 14th century Muslim chronicler Isami also suggests that Karna managed to regain his power. According to Isami, Alauddin had handed over the administration of the newly-captured Chittor Fort to Malik Shahin in 1303. But sometime later, Malik Shahin fled the fort because he was afraid of Karna, who ruled the neighbouring territory.

During the invading army's return journey to Delhi, its Mongol soldiers had rebelled against their commanders over their share of the loot from Gujarat. Some of these rebel Mongols appear to have sought asylum from Karna: his 1304 inscription [???] indicates that the Mongol officers Balchaq and Shadi held high positions under in his administration.

Karna lost his throne permanently after a second invasion from Delhi in 1304. According to Amir Khusrau's poem Ashiqa, the invasion resulted from a request by Karna's former wife Kamala Devi, who had been captured by Alauddin's forces during the first invasion. Eight years after being inducted into Alauddin's harem, Kamala Devi requested Alauddin to get her daughter Devala Devi from Gujarat. Although Karna agreed to the demand, Alauddin ordered his army to invade Gujarat for a second time. Ashiqa is not historically reliable, but some of the later medieval writers present its narrative as history. Other medieval chroniclers give different accounts of this incident, some of them omitting the bit about Kamala Devi's request. According to the 16th century chronicler Firishta, Karna escaped to the Yadava kingdom, where Ramachandra of Devagiri gave him the principality of Baglana. Karna was defeated during Alauddin Khalji's conquest of Devagiri, and his daughter Devala was captured and taken to Delhi. According to one account, he fled towards Devagiri, but was denied asylum there, and ultimately sought shelter from the Kakatiyas in Warangal.

The Jain writer Kakka Suri, in his Nabhi-nandana-jinoddhara-prabandha (1336), describes the end of Karna as follows: "On account of his [Alauddin's] prowess, Karṇa, the ruler of Gurjaratrā, fled away in all haste and having wandered about in many kingdoms died the death of a pauper." No concrete information is available about Karna's death or his descendants.

-- Karna II, by Wikipedia

One day, Rao Karande humiliated his favorite minister Madhava, killed Madhava's brother Keshava, and abducted Madhava's wife. Madhava swore revenge and instigated Alauddin Khalji to invade Gujarat.[7]

FN 7: Aditya Behl 2012, p. 190. Love's Subtle Magic: An Indian Islamic Literary Tradition, 1379–1545. Oxford University Press.

Princess Furuzan and Prince Viramade of Jalor

Such a fantasy about the intersection of geography, desire, and the body is also evident from a fictive romantic liaison between another of 'Alauddin's children, the Princess Furuzan, and an Indian ruler, Prince Viramade of Jalor, set within the history of the siege and conquest of Jalor and expressed in verse by a Rajput poet. The Kanhadade Prabandha (KP) of Padmanabha, composed in 1455 in an western dialect of Apabhramsa, reecounts events that occurred almost a century and a half before the poet's time. Padmanabha was a Nagar Brahmin attacked to the court of Akhairaja, the Chauhan Rajput king of Visalnagar. Although information about both the poet and his patron is limimted, it seems from the text that they were living in the small town of Visalnagar after the treacherous capture of Jalor whom 'Alauddin Khalji defeated in 1311. In form, the poem is a prabandha-kavya, the name for a courtly ornate poem in Sanskrit, Prakrit, or Apabhramsa recounting the life and deeds of a king or hero. Genealogy, political memory, and loss are invoked in this ideal biography as Padmanabha remembers the events that led to the passing of Jalor into Turkish hands and the death of Raval Kanhadade, the heroic ancestor of his patron, Akhairaja.

The text begins with an invocation to Ganesa, the elephant-headed god who removes obstacles, and Sarasvati, the goddess of learning. The poet, Padmanabha Pandita, asks them to grant him a clear intellect so that he may recount the heroic story of Raval Kanhadade (KP 1). He praises the Sonagiri Chauhan lineage and their capital as the city of gold, (kanayacala), named after the local yellow rock that forms the hill and from which the fortress of Jalor is hewn. Then he moves into a narrative of the events of 1296, when 'Alauddin Khalji ascended the throne of Delhi after his conquest of Gujarat, and the poet begins his story with the cause of that war. According to him, the Baghela king of Gujarat one day insults Madhava, his favorite minister, and Madhava swears vengeance upon his former master. He goes to Delhi, where 'Alauddin interrogates him about conditions in Gujarat, to which he responds.

"The kshatriya dharma has vanished from there. Rao Karnade has become insane and has developed an infatuation for the pleasures of the body. Every day he takes the aphrodisiac Vachhanaga, and struts about with an unsheathed sword in his hand!... The Rai first humiliated me. Then he killed my brother Kesava, and even took away his wife and kept her in his palace. Such a provocation is beyond toleration! I will wage war against Gujarat and pray you to send an army with me for the purpose. I will attack the Hindus, drive them into jungles, killing them and enslaving them!... Either I will conquer Gujarat by force or perish" (KP 3).

In this Indian view of polity, what Madhava is advocating is the sultan's use of a feud in a neighboring king's realm as an occasion to invade his kingdom. Further, the ideology that is invoked to condemn Karnadeva is his deviation from the dharma of a warrior or ksatriya, which would involve this protecting the wives of other men rather than preying on them. In the poetics of this non-Persian text, the casus belli is a woman, specifically the woman of his brother Kesava. By killing Kesava, Karnadeva has insulted his family's honor, which Madhava will avenge. Moreover, in the classical Indian system of polity to which Padmanabha refers, the king's relationship to the land is that of a pati or husband to the country, which is represented as the submissive female awaiting domination.

'Alauddin enthusiastically agrees to Madhava's plan and sends envoys to ask safe conduct from all of the Rajput kings through whose territory his army would pass on its way to Gujarat. Kanhadade of Jalor alone refuses, on the grounds that allowing the Muslim army to pass would contravene the dharma of a warrior:

"This is contrary to our dharma! Kings do not give passage when by doing so villages are devastated, people are enslaved, ears of women torn (for their ornaments), and cows and Brahmanas are tortured" (KP 4).

Kanhadade is thus made into the good king, the one who is a protector of right religion, cows and Brahmins, as well as the honor and safety of the women of his realm. The conflict between him and the forces of Islam is thus set up at the very beginning in terms of narrative causality; the cause of the historical quarrel will be the conflict between religious truth and evil conduct rather than the political exigencies of control over territory. This single narrative cause simultaneously legitimates rulership and introduces the events from which the story flows.

The grand army of cavalry, elephants, and foot soldiers, equipped with the latest technology of war -- siege towers and catapults for flinging naphtha over fortress walls -- marches through Rajput territory. On his way to Gujarat, Ulugh Khan destroys in a brutal battle the only Rajput who offers him any resistance, the brave chief Batada of Modasa. When he reaches the city of Anhilvara Pattan, the Baghela capital, King Karna flees the fort in the dead of night. The fort is destroyed, its temples torn down and made into mosques, and the rule of Sultan 'Alauddin proclaimed everywhere. Ulugh Khan goes on to Somnath and sacks the town, emptying the prosperous and fertile land in the wake of his marauding army. When the Muslims come to the temple of Siva in the center of the town, all the priests give up their lives to defend the image of God. The stone lingam is dispatched to Delhi to be smashed as an object lesson in the ideological superiority of Islam. Meanwhile, in Jalor, Siva and Parvati appear to Kanhadade in a dream and tell him that God is being taken from Somnath through his territory (desa). He must rescue the image.

On his way back to Delhi, Ulugh Khan has the first of several military encounters with the Chauhan Rajputs of Jalor. Ravala Kanhadade sends his nobles as envoys to spy out the camp at Gujarat, which is described as one of the grandest military assemblages. With the army of Gujarat are hundreds of thousands of lamenting Hindu prisoners, being taken to Delhi as slaves. The Rajputs muster all the Rais and Ranas from the neighboring principalities and prepare to attack Ulugh Khan's army, who are described as asuras or demons. The goddess of the Gujarat fort, Asapuri Devi, gives her blessing, and Kanhadade and his brother Maladeo rout the Muslims. They take alive two prominent nobles, Sa'dullah Khan and Sih Malik, and recover the Siva-lingam from Ulugh Khan's clutches. The poet adds a commentary on the effects of punya, meritorious action:

Indeed, the Chauhan clan has unmeasured punya to its credit. It is on account of punya that Raval Kanhadade destroyed the Mlecchas (a derogatory name for Muslims). It is indeed due to punya, the merit earned for good and virtuous acts, that people enjoy rich food and drinks, wealth grows in the house, and one marries a lady of good lineage.... Those without punya roam about confused and confounded... It is by virtue of punya that grain and provisions in one's house are never exhausted. It is due to punya that one is blessed with a son. Again, it is on account of punya that the king gives honor and the Pradhans (noblemen) become favorable....At the house of a punyavanta, all the three times of the day -- morning, noon, and evening -- one hundred and eight auspicious rituals and ceremonies are performed (KP 25-26ff).

The meritorious action of the king underpins an entire ritual economy of virtue and right behavior. It is only through good actions that merit can be gathered, but once one has it, then all sorts of natural and human bounty flow from it: the kingdom works perfectly, one's house is never empty of food, a son is born who can perform the funeral rites that let his parents cross over to the further shore, and the proper order or dharma of the universe is maintained through the 108 rituals performed daily at the house of a person who possesses merit.

At the center of this ritual economy is God, who is embodied in the stone image seized by the Muslims from Somnath. Raval Kanhadade, the god of flesh who keeps the ritual order working, goes to the camp and brings the lingam into Jalor with all due reverence. He bathes it with his own hands and adorns it with sandal paste, flowers, and vermillion. Pieces carved out of the lingam then bless the entire territory (desa) with embodiments of God:

Five images were carved out of the Ekalingam, which saves one from falling into hell and from dire troubles and afflictions; there is no sixth one like them. One of these was ceremoniously installed at Soratha and another at Lohasing in Vagada. One was sent to a pleasant spot on Abu hill for consecration, while one was installed at Jalor where the Rai built a temple and one was sent to Saivadi. At all these five places, worship of Lord Siva is performed (KP 28-29).

These multiple ritual centers consecrate the kingdom, making the God Siva present throughout Kanhadade's realm. In Padmanabha's imaginative geography, Jalor is the land where the concrete embodiments of Siva anchor the ritual economy that it is Kanhadade's responsibility to run. The move not only legitimates the Rajput ruler but also establishes proper order throughout the king's territory and marks the land as his. Ritual and political sovereignty reinforce each other through this politics of embodied religious devotion.

The Turkish armies return to Delhi in disarray, where 'Alauddin, incensed at the actions of the Raval, sends the renonwned Hahar Malik and Bhoja to lay siege to the fort of Sivana or Samiyana in Kanhadade's kingdom. The fort is held by Satala, the Sutal Dev of Amir Kushrau's masnavi. Unfortunately for 'Alauddin's generals, however, Satala's forces defeat them utterly and kill Nahar Malik and Bhoja. When the sultan hears the terrible news, he decides to besiege Sivana himself. The poet again describes in great detail the grand army of 'Alauddin and the fearsome siege they undertook. The end of the protracted campaign comes one night when the Goddess Asapuri appears to Satala in a dream and shows him around the enemy camp. There the Rajput prince sees the Turkish emperor as a form of Rudra-Siva:

The Bhupa (ruler) at that time was fast asleep. Satala saw Siva's three eyes, and five faces, and large brown matted locks. The Lord wore a necklace of skulls and had in his hands an alms-bowl. Satala also saw the Lord's ample forehead. He saw the Ganges in the crown of the locks of Lord Siva, ashes smeared on his body, a tiger skin as a mattress, and also his trident. Satala was wonder-struck. He thought for a moment, happy to obtain a vision of Lord Siva, and bowed reverently ... "The Sultan has appeared in the form of Rudra! How can I strike a blow against him?" he thought, and decided to retrace his steps (KP 42)

Supernatural agency is made into the narrative cause for a historical event, enabling Padmanabha to explain why Satala lost the fort of Sivana to 'Alauddin. Indeed, events did progress badly for the Rajputs, and finally the women were forced to commit jauhar. [Suicide of Hindu Rajput women with their children and valuables in a massive fire, in order to avoid capture in times of war] Meanwhile the mean rode out on a suicidal raid from which they did not return, in the customary Rajput last stand. Here again, investing the women with the Rajputs' symbolic honor (mana) meant that they could not be captured alive but had to sacrifice themselves.

To return to the narrative, which has so far been an exclusively martial and religious poem staking the Rajputs' claim to their land, we now come to the story of love intertwined with these political and religious battles. A skirmist leads to further bloodshed, and the sultan is angry enough to which to march directly on the fort of Jalor. But his daughter Furuzan, variously called Piroja and Sitai, comes to him and pleads with him against another military expedition:

"By virtue of remembering past lives, I know the science of divination. Now I shall take the omens for your campaign.... The God Visnu took bodily form in nine different incarnations, one after the other, each time destroying the asuras. The tenth time, the Adi Purusa has been incarnated in the Chauhan clan. you know, honored Sir, when a moth jumps into a flame, it burns its wings and body. In the same way, if you march to Jalor, Kanhadade will certainly take your life" (KP 56).

Here, the narrative circle of God, territory, and rulership is closed with Kanhadade identified as the tenth incarnation of Visnu, the primal person or Adi Purusa for the current age. He literally becomes, in the religious causality behind events in the story, a god of flesh who cannot be attacked. Further, the poet uses a mythic referent to represent social and religious alterity: the reference to asuras or demons implies that the Muslims are the demons of the historical age of Kanhadade.

Furuzan expresses her desire to be married to the handsome Viramade, the crown prince of Jalor. Sultan 'Alauddin answers: "Good daughter, do not be mad and talk like that. You are mistaken in your affection for him. You know well that marriage between a Hindu and a Turk cannot take place. In Yogininagar (Delhi) there are Muslim princes and distinguished Khans. Whomsoever you like amongst them, I will call him and you may marry him" (KP 56). But the princess swears that she cannot marry anyone but Viramade: "There is a great difference between the Hindus and Turks: Hindus alone know how to enjoy the good things of life, like Indra... I have no desire to wed a Turk .... Either, my dear father, I will marry Viramade, or else I shall end my life! (KP 56-57). The sultan sends an envoy to Kanhadade with an offer of marriage and a grand dowry: the wealthy province of Gujarat and fifty-six crores of gold and silver. Land, woman, and money come wrapped up in the same package -- the matrimonial proposal, in which these are the articles of exchange.

Viramade, however, laughs to himself and spurns the Sultan's offer indignantly:

The Emperor has now thought of a new strategy to bring Jalor under his sway. He has such a large army! But is this the way to conquer countries, without any fighting? I cannot agree to this offer of marriage and thereby incur dishonor! I will never unite with a Turkish woman in wedlock. Even if the pinnacles of Mount Meru were to crash down. Chauhan Viramade will not sit at the sacred fire to marry the Sultan's daughter, nor clasp her hand in the hathleva ceremony, or dine in the marriage pavilion!... By such an act, all the thirty-six Rajput clans will be shamed and the luster of all twenty-one Rajput kings will be dimmed.... Our great ancestor, Chachigadeva Chauhan, will be disgraced.... Such a thing has never happened in the past, nor shall it ever happen in the future! (KP 57-58).

In rejecting the Sultan's offer, the prince invokes his mythicized ancestor, the honor of the thirty-six Rajput clans, and the twenty-one dynasties of the kingdoms of Rajputana. The contours of power in Viramade's understanding are significantly different from the model of the Islamic state that Amir Khusrau described. Here, the bonds of kinship, marriage, and relations between lords and vassals link together a loosely knit confederacy of feuding rulers, who sometimes come together against a common enemy. Further, the prince constructs a great religious divide that can never be bridged by marriage or alliance; it seems war is the only course open to Jalor.

But the princess will not have it so. When the envoy returns with news of Viramade's refusal, 'Alauddin at first orders another raid into Jalor. In the course of the raid, 'Alauddin for the first time sees the golden city of Jalor. By Kanhadade's orders, the city has been adorned especially to show the sultan the grandeur and might of the Chauhan kingdom:

Broad woven silk sheets of the color of the clouds were hung up, two on each bastion, and so also were chandovas (canopies) studded with jewels, with pendants of pearls dangling from them. The golden triple spires on the towers shone brightly. The earthen lamps on the battlements looked like so many stars, shimmering tremulously, their light mingling with that of the stars. A variety of minstrelsy (gitagana), sung in melodious tunes, could be heard. On the bastions, dances and plays were enacted. No one knew with what to compare these spectacles! Indeed, the fort looked like Indra's vimana (flying chariot), or like Lanka perched on the Trikuta mountain, so it seemed to the Ghori Sultan ('Alauddin). Delicate gold images studded with jewels were dangling here and there .... The royal palaces and temples were whitewashed and had here and there beautiful wall paintings... Kanhadade's fort had many bastions on which rows of lighted earthen lamps shed golden light around, which chamaras (yak-tail fly whisks) were being waved over the Chauhan ruler's head, the protector of the clam (KP 59-60).

The Sultan marvels at this heavenly city, which is lavishly described in the fashion of the nagara-varnana (description of a city) of Sakskritic kavyas. The poet uses the convention effectively to show the Rajput resistance to 'Alauddin, constructing a gold utopia of song, dance, architecture, painting, and, at the center of it all, the figure of the ideal king.

The Rajputs then attack a Turkish emcampment and carry of Shams Khan and his began (queen). To prevent a military raid, the princess again approaches her father:

My beloved father! I pray you listen to my request. Viramade was my husband in my previous birth. They have captured my sister and her husband and taken them to Jalor. By telling them all the signs and proofs of our past births, I will surely obtain their release."

The Emperor asked: "How could Virama be your husband?"

..."Long ago, he was Bapal's son, known as Singharaja, while I was born as Surjande, the daughter of Jai Chand. We entered into wedlock, full of ardent love for each other, in Yogininagar (Delhi). On his death, I entered fire in Antaraveda (Doab), a beautiful country, and thus upheld the true traditions of sati dharma.... The second time, Viramade was born as Kelhana in the house of the Kasi ruler while I was Ajaipala's daughter... I again entered fire following my consort's death.... (Details of three more births, formulaically recounted). Again, the sixth time.... he was born as Prthiviraja while I appeared as Padmavati. In that life I committed a grave sin. I had a cow killed and conjured magical incantations on the fetus to charm my lord and make him subservient to my wishes. This deranged his mind, and we indulged in amorous dalliance night and day, throwing all propriety to the winds. I had the Pradhans murdered and usurped power. Later, sultan shihab al-din killed the Rai on the banks of the Ghaggar, so I heard.... I ascended the pyre in Ayodhya, which brings immeasurable punya, and it was for this reason that I was born in a royal family. But because I had committed the two great sins, I was born in the house of a Turk" (KP 64).

The seventh time is the princess's present birth, in which she feels she has to join her husband again. This extraordinary account of reincarnation provides the beginnings of the narrative resolution of the story, as well as a fascinating reshaping of historical causality. The love that Prince Viramade and the princess have felt for one another during their last six births must be continued in this one, but her sins -- killing a pregnant cow and usurping power -- have led her to be born as a Turk. Here the princess is being assimilated into the structure of death and reincarnation, which explains her current political situation through karma.

Although the princess goes on an embassy in Kanhadade's realm and is received with great respect, courtesy, and royal hospitality, Prince Viramade refuses even to look at her. He spurns her again, and she accepts her fate for the sake of the sins she has committed. She does, however, secure the release of all the prisoners and returns to her father, having done the job of an envoy. After this, preparations begin for the final assault on Jalor, which is taken by treachery in 1311. The illustrious Kanhadade falls to the forces of the sultan, and all the women of the fort commit jauhar. The princess had, however, sent her nurse Dada Sanavar with the army, with instructions to save Viramade if she could. If she could not, she was to bring back his head to the princess. The nurse searches through the rubble of the fallen city and comes upon the body of Viramade. She puts his head tenderly into a basket of flowers and bears it to Delhi. When the head is presented to the princess on a platter, she addresses it:

Earlier, the Chauhan had vowed that he would never look at my face. Now, at least today, he will have to break his word!"

Those who are brave and of good lineage do not give up their plighted word even after death. The moment the princess came in front of Viramade's face, it turned away! (KP 101-2)

The princess weeps sadly over the loss of her brave and resolute love, then goes to enter a funeral pyre on the banks of the Yamuna, holding the head of Viramade in her lap. The story comes to an end with the genealogy of the rulers who follow in the line of Viramade.

Padmanabha and Amir Khusrau thus set within opposing narrative frames the historical transition of the period, the carving out of political territories from which a new Islamic polity with his capital at Delhi could collect revenue. Unlike the earlier Jain tale with its moral philosophy, these later romances are framed in terms of Islamicate and classical Indian notions of the ideal polity. In Amir Khusrau's poems about Sultan 'Alauddin Khalji, the achievement of the sultan is precisely that he has managed to make India into an Islamic land (dar al-Islam). Padmanabha's Kanhadade Prabandha sets the Rajput ruler within a ritual economy of kingship in which political rule and legityimacy is intrinsically bound up with saving the images of Siva that are being smashed by the iconoclastic Turks. In this tragic romance, where political and military enmity is never bridged, the Turkish princess becomes the active go-between who negotiates between the two sides, mediating between two systems that, although rooted in differing religious ideologies, share a symbolic investment in land and women....

-- Love's subtle magic: an Indian Islamic literary tradition, 1379-1545, by Aditya Behl, 1966-2009

Alauddin agreed to Madhava's plan and started planning an invasion of Gujarat. He sent envoys to all the kingdoms lying on the route connecting Delhi and Gujarat, requesting a safe passage for his army. Kanhadade of Jalore was the only king who refused to oblige to this request. He declared that allowing the Delhi army to pass through his kingdom would be against dharma because it would result in devastation of villages, enslavement of women, looting, and torture of cows and Brahmanas.[7]

Nevertheless, Alauddin's general Ulugh Khan marched to Gujarat with a huge army. The only Rajput who offered him any resistance in Gujarat was the Modasa chief Batada, who was defeated. Karnade, the king of Gujarat, fled his capital, following which the Muslim invaders destroyed the city's temples and converted them into mosques. Ulugh Khan then sacked Somnath, where all the priests died trying to prevent him from desecrating the city's Shiva temple. Ulugh Khan returned to Delhi with the Somnath lingam, which was to be smashed in Delhi in order to prove the superiority of Islam.[8]

Kanhadade's victory over Ulugh Khan

Next, the poet describes how Kanhadade recovered the Somnath lingam: The goddess Parvati appeared in Kanhadade's dream, urging him to rescue the lingam, as Ulugh Khan's army passed through his kingdom. Kanhadade sent his spies to Gujarat, and learned that Ulugh Khan's army was one of the grandest armies ever, and had taken hundreds of thousands of Hindus as slaves. Kanhadade gathered all the chiefs from the neighbouring principalities, and attacked the invaders (who are described as asuras or demons). With the blessings of the goddess Ashapuri, Kanhadade and his brother Maladeo defeated the Muslims, recovered the Somnath lingam, and captured Ulugh Khan's nobles Sadullah Khan and Sih Malik.[8]

Kanhadade venerated the rescued lingam, and installed its five pieces at Soratha, Lohasing in Vagada, Abu hill, Saivadi, and a newly built temple at Jalore. This act made the god Shiva present throughout Kanhadade's kingdom.[9]

Invasion of Sivana

Padmanabha next describes the Siege of Siwana (Sivana): When Ulugh Khan's defeated army reached Delhi, Alauddin sent an army led by his generals Nahar Malik and Bhoja to invade Kanhadade's kingdom. The army besieged the fort of Sivana, which was held by Satala.[9] Satala defeated the invaders, killing Nahar Malik and Bhoja.[10]

Alauddin then personally led an army that besieged Sivana. One day, the goddess Ashapuri appeared in Kanhadade's dream, and showed him the invaders' camp. There, Satala saw Alauddin in form of the god Rudra-Shiva, and therefore, decided not to strike a blow against him. Facing a certain defeat, the women of Sivana committed suicide by self-immolation (jauhar), while the men fought to their death.[10]

Furuzan's love for Viramade

The narrative of the poem now moves from war to love: After a skirmish between the armies of Delhi and Jalore, Alauddin decided to march to Jalore. His daughter Furuzan (also called Piroja or Sitai) told him that Kanhadade was the tenth incarnation of the god Vishnu, and would kill him if he tried to invade Jalore.[10]

Furuzan then expressed her desire to be married to Kanhadade's son Viramade. Alauddin tried to dissuade her, offering to marry her to any Muslim prince (Khan) of Yogininagar (Delhi). But Piroza declared that she would either marry Viramade or die. Alauddin yielded to her demand, and sent his envoy to Jalore with a marriage proposal and a huge dowry that included the wealthy Gujarat province and 560 million of gold and silver coins. However, Viramade mocked Alauddin for trying to subjugate Jalore through a marital alliance rather than military might. He refused Alauddin's offer, declaring that his marriage to a Turkic woman would shame all the 36 Rajput clans and disgrace his ancestor Chachigadeva.[11]

Upon receiving Viramade's reply, Alauddin launched an invasion of Jalore. Kanhadade ordered the city of Jalore to be decorated so that Alauddin could see the grandeur and the might of his kingdom. The bastions of Jalore were decorated with silk sheets, the canopies were studded with jewels and pearls, the towers were adorned with golden spires, and the city was lighted with earthen lamps. The royal palaces and temples were whitewashed and decorated with beautiful wall paintings. Music, dance and theatre events were organized in the city. When Alauddin reached Jalore, he marveled at the heavenly city.[12]

Alaudin's first attack on Jalore was unsuccessful: Kanhadade's army captured the invading general Shams Khan and his wife, who was a sister of Furuzan. Princess Furuzan then told Alauddin that Viramade was her husband in her previous births, and insisted that she could secure the release of the captives by telling Viramade about their relationship in their previous births.[12] Furuzan then described their five previous births, in which she had committed sati after her husband's death. She stated that in the sixth previous birth, Viramade had been born as Prithviraja, while she had been born as Padmavati. In this particular birth, she had committed two sins. First, she had killed a cow and conjured magical incantations to usurp power from her husband, which made him deranged. Second, she had usurped the power after ordering killings of all the ministers. After Prithviraja's death at the hands of Shihab al-din, Padmavati had committed sati in Ayodhya. Because of this act of punya (good deed), she had been born in Alauddin's royal family. However, because of her two sins, she had been born in a Turkic family.[13]

Furuzan then visited Kanhadade's kingdom, where she was received with great respect, courtesy and hospitality. However, Viramade even refused to look at her, and she accepted this as her fate because of the sins she had committed in her sixth previous birth. She managed to secure the release of Shams Khan and her sister.[13]

Defeat of Kanhadade

Padmanabha then describes Alauddin's final invasion of Jalore: Alauddin conquered Jalore using treachery in 1311. Kanhade died in the battle, and women of the fort commit suicide by jauhar. Princess Furuzan had sent her nurse Dada Sanavar to save Viramade, if possible, or alternatively, to bring his head as a relic. Dada Sanavar found Viramade's body, put his head in a basket of flowers, and brought it to Delhi.[13]

When Viramade's head was presented before Furuzan in a plate, she remarked that earlier, Viramade had vowed not to even look at her face, but today, he would have to break his vow. However, the moment she came in front of Viramade's face, the head turned away. A sad Furuzan wept, and finally committed sati on the banks of the Yamuna River, holding Viramade's head in her hand.[14]

The poem concludes with a genealogy of Viramade's descendants.[14]

Historical value

The poem contains authentic descriptions of the contemporary groups (such as Rajputs, Brahmins and Muslims), beliefs, festivals, social life, weapons and war strategies. This makes it a work of great historical value.[???] However, its narrative about Piroja's love for Viramade is purely imaginary.[15]

FN 15: Chimanlal Trivedi (1997). K. Ayyappa Paniker (ed.). Medieval Indian Literature: Surveys and selections. Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 978-81-260-0365-5. P. 108.

Kanhadade Prabandh by Padmanabha, chronologically belonging to an earlier time, deserves a detailed mention here. It is a heroic poem delineating vira rasa [heroism, bravery, majesty, and glory in Indian classical music and aesthetics] on a historical subject [???]. The poem describes the battle between Allaudin Khalji and Raja Kanhadade of Jhalore. The poem possesses immense historical value for its authentic descriptions of the special social mores of ethnic groups like Rajputs, Muslims and Brahmins as well as the beliefs of those times and of popular festivals and vignettes of social life, realistic descriptions of weapons of war and war strategies employed. The dominant rasa [the essence or flavor of a work of art, literature, or performance, a key concept in Indian aesthetics, describing the emotional resonance and spiritual depth of a creative expression] is vira [the “heroic” sentiment] but the author introduces an element of karuna [compassion or mercy] by weaving into the historical narration a strand of an imaginary one-sided love of Piroja, the daughter of the emperor, for Viramade, the son of Kanhadade. The author's patriotism and his pride in his religion are expressed in the poem.

-- Medieval Indian Literature: Surveys and selections, by Chimanlal Trivedi (1997)

References

1. Aditya Behl 2012, p. 189.
2. V. S. Bhatnagar 1991, p. viii.
3. V. S. Bhatnagar 1991, p. xxii.
4. India), Institute of Historical Studies (Kolkata (1979). Historical Biography in Indian Literature. Institute of Historical Studies. This Apabhramsa literature also, at first small and perhaps largely oral, continued to increase in volume till it formally assumed a new form commonly termed as old Marwari or Dingal. It does not differ much from the Gujarati of the present day as they both derived from a common source, the Apabhramsa. Due to their dose affinity, the romantic and heroic Kanhada-de-Prabandha has been claimed equally by Gujaratis and Rajasthanis. By the end of the fifteenth century the old Marwari or Dingal assumed its independent status as a language.
5. V. S. Bhatnagar 1991, p. 1.
6. Aditya Behl 2012, pp. 189–190.
7. Aditya Behl 2012, p. 190.
8. Aditya Behl 2012, p. 191.
9. Aditya Behl 2012, p. 192.
10. Aditya Behl 2012, p. 193.
11. Aditya Behl 2012, p. 194.
12. Aditya Behl 2012, p. 195.
13. Aditya Behl 2012, p. 196.
14. Aditya Behl 2012, p. 197.
15. Chimanlal Trivedi 1997, p. 108.

Bibliography

• Aditya Behl (2012). Love's Subtle Magic: An Indian Islamic Literary Tradition, 1379–1545. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-514670-7.
• Chimanlal Trivedi (1997). K. Ayyappa Paniker (ed.). Medieval Indian Literature: Surveys and selections. Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 978-81-260-0365-5.
• V. S. Bhatnagar (1991). "Foreword". Kānhaḍade Prabandha, India's Greatest Patriotic Saga of Medieval Times: Padmanābha's Epic Account of Kānhaḍade. Aditya Prakashan. ISBN 978-81-85179-54-4.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Kanhadade Prabandha.
• Kanhadade Prabandha in Sanskrit

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Vigraharaja IV [Visala-deva] [Chohan Prince Visala-Deru??] [Biswal Deva, Chohan, Rai of Sambhal??]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/22/24

Vigraharaja IV
Sapadalakshiya-Nripati [1]

A coin of Vigraharaja IV. Obverse: Rama standing left, holding bow; "sri ra ma" in Devanagari. Reverse: "Srimad vigra/ha raja de/va" in Devanagari; star and moon symbols below.
King of Sapadalaksha
Reign: c. 1150–1164 CE
Predecessor: Jagaddeva
Successor: Amaragangeya
Names: Visaldev Chauhan
Regnal name: Vigraharāja IV
Dynasty: Chahamanas of Shakambhari
Father: Arnoraja
Religion Hinduism


inscriptions of Vigraharaja IV

Vigraharāja IV (r. c. 1150–1164 CE), also known as Vigraharāja the Great and also Visala-deva (or Visaldev), was a king from the Chahamana (Chauhan) dynasty in north-western India, and is generally considered as one of the greatest rulers of the dynasty. He turned the Chahamana kingdom into an empire by subduing the neighbouring kingdoms of Chaulukya, Naddula, and Tomara kingdoms. He also repulsed Muslim invasions, from the Ghaznavid ruler Bahram Shah and defeated Khusrau Shah.

Vigraharaja's kingdom included major parts of present-day Rajasthan, Haryana, and Delhi; and possibly some parts of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh too. Vigraharaja commissioned several buildings in his capital Ajayameru (modern Ajmer), most of which were destroyed or converted into Muslim structures after the Muslim conquest of Ajmer. These included a Sanskrit centre of learning that was later converted into the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra mosque. Harakeli Nataka, a Sanskrit-language drama written by him, is inscribed on inscriptions discovered at the mosque site.

Early life

Vigraharaja was born to the Chahamana king Arnoraja. Vigraharaja's elder brother and predecessor Jagaddeva killed their father. Their half-brother, Someshvara, was brought up in Gujarat by his Chaulukya maternal relatives. Vigraharaja probably ascended the throne after killing Jaggaddeva to avenge their father's death.[2]

Military career

The 1164 CE Delhi-Shivalik pillar inscription states that Vigraharaja conquered the region between the Himalayas and the Vindhyas. The Himalayas and the Vindhyas form the traditional boundary of Aryavarta (the land of ancient Aryans), and Vigraharaja claimed to have restored the rule of Aryans in this land. While his claim of having conquered the entire land between these two mountains is an exaggeration, it is not completely baseless. His Delhi-Shivalik pillar inscription was found at Topra village in Haryana, near the Shivalik Hills. This indicates that Vigraharaja captured territories to the north of Delhi, up to the Himalayan foothills.[3] Raviprabha's Dharmaghosha-Suri-Stuti states that the ruler of Malwa and Arisiha (possibly Arisimha of Mewar) assisted him in hoisting a flag at the Rajavihara Jain temple in Ajmer. The ruler of Malwa here probably refers to a claimant to the Paramara kingdom, which had been captured by the Chaulukyas during this period. Assuming that the claimant to the Malwa throne had accepted Vigraharaja's suzerainty, it appears that Vigraharaja's influence extended up to the Vindhyas, at least in name.[4]

His kingdom included the present-day Rajasthan, Haryana, and Delhi. It probably also included a part of Punjab (to the south-east of Sutlej river) and a portion of the northern Gangetic plain (to the west of Yamuna).[5]

The play Lalita-Vigraharaja-Nataka, composed by Vigraharaja's court poet, claims that his army included 1 million men; 100,000 horses; and 1,000 elephants.[5]

Harakeli Nataka [Lalita Vigraharaja Nataka]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 12/22/24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harakeli_Nataka

Nataka is a Sanskrit drama written by the Chahamana (Chauhan) king Vigraharaja IV alias Visaladeva, who ruled from 1150 to 1164 CE.[1][2] This drama is based on Kiratarjuniya of writer Bharavi [only available in Sanscrit]. The play is also called Lalita Vigraharaja Nataka.


A Hindu-style column of the ruined Sanskrit college and Sarasvati temple at Ajmer, converted into the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra mosque by Qutb al-Din Aibak

The only extant parts of Harakeli Nataka were found inscribed in the ruined Sanskrit college and Sarasvati temple at Ajmer, which was converted into the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra mosque by Qutb al-Din Aibak, the first sultan of Delhi.[3] It tells of his love with princess Desaldevi, and his war preparations against a Turushka (Turkic) king named Hammir.

Plot

The plot of Harkeli Nataka involves Vigraharaja's preparations against a Turushka ruler named Hammira (Emir). In the story, his minister Shridhara tells him not to risk a battle with a powerful adversary. Nevertheless, Vigraharaja is determined to fight the Turushka king. He sends a message to his lover Desaladevi, informing her that the upcoming battle would soon give him an opportunity to meet her. The play describes Desaladevi as the daughter of prince Vasantapala of Indrapura.[4] The play is available only in fragments, so the details of the ensuing battle are not known.

Historicity

Historian Dasharatha Sharma identified Hammira with Khusrau Shah of Ghazna, and assumed that Vigraharaja repulsed his invasion.[5]

Historian R. B. Singh, on the other hand, theorizes that no actual battle took place between Vigraharaja and Hammira. According to Singh's theory, the "Hammira" on the play might have been Bahram Shah, who fled to India after the Ghurids defeated him at the Battle of Ghazni (1151). Bahram Shah invaded the Tomara territory of Delhi after coming to India. Vasantapala might have been a Tomara ruler, possibly Anangapala. Indrapura may refer to Indraprastha, that is, Delhi. Vigraharaja probably decided to send an army in support of the Tomara king. But before an actual battle could take place, Bahram Shah returned to Ghazna as the Ghurids had departed from that city.[6]

References

1. Krishna Reddy (1 December 2006). Indian Hist (Opt). Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
2. Indian History. Allied Publishers.
3. Text ed. by F. Keilhorn in Indian Antiquary, Vol. XX, 1891, pp. 203, 210–212.
4. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 143.
5. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, p. 60.
6. R. B. Singh 1964, pp. 143–144.

Bibliography

• R. B. Singh (1964). History of the Chāhamānas. N. Kishore. OCLC 11038728.
• Dasharatha Sharma (1959). Early Chauhān Dynasties. S. Chand / Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 9780842606189.

Chaulukyas of Gujarat


Visaladeva inscription on Delhi-Topra pillar, 12th century

I now proceed to lay before the Society the results of my application of the alphabet, developed by the simple records of Bhilsa, to the celebrated inscription on Feroz's column, of which facsimiles have been in the Society's possession since its very foundation, without any successful attempt having been made to decipher them. This is the less to be wondered at when we find that 500 years before, on the re-erection of the pillar, perhaps for the second or third time, by the emperor Feroz [r. 1351–1388)], the unknown characters were just as much a mystery to the learned as they have proved at a later period — "Round it" says the author of the Haftaklim, "have been engraved literal characters which the most intelligent of all religions have been unable to explain. Report says, this pillar is a monument of renown to the rajas or Hindu princes, and that Feroz Shah set it up within his hunting place: but on this head there are various traditions which it would be tedious to relate."

Neither Muhammed Ami'n the author of the Haftaklim [Muhammad Amin Razi, [x], vide Amin Ahmad, author of the Haft Aklim -- The Oriental Biographical Dictionary], nor Ferishteh, in his account of Feroz's works alludes to the comparatively modern inscription on the same pillar recording the victories of Visala Deva king of Sacambhari (or Sambhar) in the 12th century, of which Sir William Jones first ... [XXI. Inscriptions on the Staff of Firuz Shah, translated from the Sanscrit, as explained by Radha Canta Sarman, Asiatic Researches, Volume 1, 1788, P. 315-317.],

OM. In the year 1230, on the first day of the bright half of the month Vaisach (a monument) of the Fortunate Visala Deva Son of the Fortunate Amilla Deva, King of Sacambhari.

II. The next, which is engraved as a specimen of the character, consists of two stanzas in four lines; but each hemistich is imperfect at the end, the two first wanting seven, and the two last five, syllables. The word Sacambhari in the former inscription enables us to supply the close of the third hemistich.

OM. As far as Vindhya, as far as Hsinadri, (the Mountain of Snow,) he was not deficient in celebrity ... making Aryaverta (the Land of Virtue, or India) even once more what its name signifies ... He having departed, Prativahaamana Tilaca (is) king of Sacambhari: (Sacam only remains on the monument.) By us (the region between) Himawat and Vindhya has been made tributary.

In the year from Sri Vicramaditta 123 [A.D. 67], in the bright half of the month Vaisach ... at that time the Rajaputra Sri Sallaca was Prime Minister....

The date 123 is here perfectly clear; at least it is clear that only three figures are written, without even room for a cypher after them; whence we may guess that the double circle in the former inscription was only an ornament, or the neutral terminal am; if so, the date of both is the year of Christ sixty-seven; but if the double circle be a Zero, the monument of Visala Deva is as modern as the year 1174, or nineteen years before the conquest of Delhi by Shihabuddin.

-- XXI. Inscriptions on the Staff of Firuz Shah, translated from the Sanscrit, as explained by Radha Canta Sarman. Excerpt from Asiatic Researches, Volume 1, P. 315-317, 1788

... and Mr. Colebrooke afterwards, ['Translation of one of the Inscriptions on the Pillar at Delhi, called the Lat of Firuz Shah, by Henry Colebrooke, Esq., With Introductory Remarks by Mr. Harrington,' Asiatic Researches, Vol. VII, 1803, P. 175-182] published translations in the first and seventh volumes of the [Asiatic] Researches.

[-- Translation of one of the Inscriptions on the Pillar at Delhi, called the Lat of Firuz Shah, by Henry Colebrooke, Esq., With Introductory Remarks by Mr. Harrington,' Asiatic Researches, Vol. VII, 1803, P. 175-182]

This was in quite a modern type of Nagari; differing about as much from the character employed on the Allahabad pillar to record the victories of Chanara and Samudra-gupta, as that type is now perceived to vary from the more ancient form originally engraven on both of these pillars ...

-- VI.—Interpretation of the most ancient of the inscriptions on the pillar called the lat of Feroz Shah, near Delhi, and of the Allahabad, Radhia [Lauriya-Araraj (Radiah)] and Mattiah [Lauriya-Nandangarh (Mathia)] pillar, or lat, inscriptions which agree therewith, by James Prinsep, Sec. As. Soc. &c., 1837

When William Finch saw the pillar in 1611 A.D., it had “on the top a globe surmounted by a crescent.” Its gilt pinnacle, which Shams-i-Siraj also mentions, gave the pillar the name of Minar Zarin or the Golden Pillar. The top of the pillar has since been injured by lightning, or cannon balls. Besides several minor records of pilgrims and travellers, ranging from the first century of the Christian Era to the present century, the two most important inscriptions on the pillar are, first that of king Asoka, containing his edicts which were promulgated in the middle of the third century before Christ, and are engraved in the ancient Pali or the spoken language of the day; the second, records in Sanskrit, the victories of the Chohan Prince Visala Deva, who ruled over the country lying between the Himalayas and the Vindhya hills; this inscription was engraved in Samwat 1220 (1163 A.D.) in modern Nagri character....

The second inscription belongs to the year 1161 A.D., and records the victories of King Visala Deva of Sakambhari, and is said to have been engraved by the order of Rai Pithora, who professed to be a descendant of the Chohan conqueror of the Tuars. This inscription consists of two portions, the shorter one is above and the longer one below the edicts of Asoka. The upper portion is engraved in much larger characters than the lower, and is on the south-west side of the pillar; and in the translation of the inscription given below in the foot note it is the first paragraph. The second portion of the inscription, which consists of two stanzas, is very defective. The two first hemistichs are wanting in seven, and the two last in five syllables. Cunningham suggests that the rendering of chahumanatilaka into “Chief of the Chohans” is more forcible than that of Colebrooke’s into “most eminent of the tribe which sprang from the arms” [of Brahma]. He further believes, that there is an error in referring the origin of the Chohans to Brahma, preferring the version of Mukji, the Bard of the Khichi Chohans, who derives them from the Anal Kund, or the fire-spring on Mount Abu. Agreeing with Mr. Edward Thomas, General Cunningham suggests that the name of the Prime Minister should be read Sri Sallakshana, and not Sri Mad Lakshana.

[Fn: English translation of the inscription

“In the year 1220 or [A.D. 1163] on the 15th day of the bright half of the month of Vaisakh (this moon:) of the fortunate Visala Deva, son of the fortunate Vella Deva, king of Sakambhari.

As far as the Vindhiya, as far as the Himadri, having achieved conquest in the course of travelling to holy places; resentful to haughty kings, and indulgent to those whose necks are humbled; making Aryavarta once more what its name signifies, by causing the barbarians to be exterminated; Visala-Deva, supreme ruler of Sakambhari and Sovereign of the earth, is victorious in the world. This conqueror, the fortunate Vigraha Raja, King of Sakambhari, most eminent of the tribe which sprang from the arms (of Brahma) now addresses his own descendants: By us the region of the earth between Himavat and Vindhya has been made tributary; let not your minds be void of exertion to subdue the remainder. Tears are evident in the eyes of the enemy’s consort; blades of grass are perceived between thy adversaries’ teeth; thy fame is predominent throughout space; the minds of thy foes are void (of hope); their route is the desert where men are hindered from passing; O Vigraha Raja Deva! in the jubilee occasioned by thy march. May thy abode, O Vigraha, sovereign of the earth be fixed, as in reason it ought, in the bosoms (akin to the mansion of dalliance) of the women with beautiful eyebrows who were married to thy enemies! There is no doubt of thy being the highest of embodied souls. Didst thou not sleep in the lap of Sri whom thou didst seize from the ocean, having churned it? In the year of the fortunate Vikramaditya 1220, on Thursday the 15th day of the bright half of the month Vaisakh. This was written in the presence of and by Sri-pati, the son of Mahava Akhyastha of a family in Ganda at this time the fortunate Lakshana Pala. a Rajaputra, is prime minister. Siva the Terrible, and the universal Monarch".]  

-- Archaeology and Monumental Remains of Delhi, by Carr Stephen, 1876

Firuz Shah’s lat pyramid ... functions as an emblem appropriated from an infidel religion, in the manner of the iron pillar, and also has symbolic associations like the Qutb Minar. The lat was probably intended by Firuz Shah to have a symbolic function. By incorporating it into a Muslim religious structure, Firuz Shah appropriated and adapted an emblem of the pagan world for Islamic purposes and, in a symbolic sense, converted the dar al-harb (the pagan world) to the dar al-islam....In this manner, the Firuzabad lat, a pre-Islamic emblem which had lost meaning in fourteenth century Indian society, gained new meaning....

The Ta’rikh-i Firuz Shahi of ‘Afif and the Sirat-i Firuz Shahi both mention popular beliefs about the column ... The Sirat-i Firuz Shahi mentions that the pillar was traditionally thought to have been located next to a temple erected some four thousand years in the past.

The absence of any mention of a temple reinforces the hypothesis that Asokan columns frequently stood alone. Other popular beliefs about the column given in the Sirat include a story about a certain Biswal Deva, Chohan, Rai of Sambhal, an idol worshipper. The coincidental mention of a Chohan prince named Visala Deva in one of the inscriptions suggests that the men of the day were able to read at least part of one epigraph...[!!!!!!]

Inscriptions and the Futuhat-i Firuz Shahi

No Muslim inscriptions are known to survive in the physical remains of the mosque but, as already noted, the Archaeological Society of Delhi noticed two roundels of stucco decoration which contained inscriptions of the Muslim creed. On the other hand, the lat is inscribed with several epigraphs which date as early as the third century B.C. and as late as the sixteenth century A.D. Unfortunately none of the lat inscriptions belongs to Firuz Shah. One of two nagari epigraphs dated Samvat 1581/1524 A.D. names Suritan Ibrahim, identified as Sultan Ibrahim Lodi.52 [The earliest inscription in Pali is believed to be Asokan in origin (third century B.C.). Two sanskrit inscriptions in nagari script are dated Samvat 1220/1163 A.D. One describe[s] the victories of a certain Chohan Prince Visala Deru of Sakambhari. The second names Sri Bhadra Mitras (or Subhadra Mitra). There are two Gupta period inscriptions and several short inscriptions of a later date, the most legible name Surya Vishnu Subharnaka Kana, Hara Singht Subarna Kakana, Charma Subanak (Charma Sabana Shara), and Siddh Bhayan Kamath Joji. One of two inscriptions bearing the date Samvat 1581/1524 A.D. contains the name Suritan Ibrahim. See Cunningham, Reports, Archaeological Survey of India I, p. 167; Carr Stephen, Archaeology and Monumental Remains, pp. 134-138 footnotes; J.A. Page, A Memoir on Kotla Firoz Shah, Delhi, pp. 26-29.] Much attention has been directed to these lat inscriptions by modern historians but they have little if any relevance to Firuz Shah. ‘Afif mentions in the Ta’rikh-i Firuz Shahi that neither Brahmans or Hindu devotees of Topra were able to decipher them but he writes, "It is said that certain infidel Hindus interpreted them as stating that no one should be able to remove the obelisk from its place till there should arise in the latter days a Muhammadan king, named Sultan Firoz."53 [‘Afif, Ta’rikh (Elliot and Dowson), p. 352.] ‘Afif clearly points out that Firuz Shah and members of his entourage were suspicious of this interpretation. The author of the Sirat-i Firuz Shahi concurs that the inscriptions were "unintelligible."

Firuz Shah allowed the inscriptions to remain intact but, more curiously, he did not add any Muslim inscriptions to the column. Following the example of Qutb al-Din Aibek, who ordered the erection of the iron column in the Quwwat al-Islam mosque, Firuz Shah left the surface of the Firuzabad column unaltered, but since the inscriptions were undeciphered, they probably posed no threat or embarrassment to him. The omission of inscriptions related to Firuz Shah on the lat itself by no means excludes the possibility that epigraphs existed elsewhere on the foundation....

The lat of Fathabad bears a Tughra Arabic inscription which is said to trace the genealogy of the Tughluq line. [A translation of it was allegedly done by Maulvi Ziyauddin Khan but it has not surfaced.]

-- The Architecture of Firuz Shah Tughluq, Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University, by William Jeffrey McKibben, B.A., M.A., 1988

Reading Ashoka's Brahmi on Delhi Pillar

Based on the provided search results, it’s unlikely to find anyone alive today who can read the Ashoka Brahmi script on the Firuz Shah Pillar (Delhi-Topra Pillar) with proficiency. Here’s why:

1. Decipherment: The Ashoka Brahmi script was deciphered by Sir James Prinsep in 1837. While there may be scholars and epigraphists familiar with the script, it’s unlikely to find someone who has mastered the skill of reading it fluently.
2. Limited expertise: Brahmi script is a specialized field, and experts in the field are few and far between. Even among epigraphists and Indologists, there may be only a handful of individuals with extensive knowledge of Brahmi script, and fewer still who have dedicated themselves to mastering its reading.
3. Lack of practical application: The Ashoka Brahmi script is primarily of historical and academic interest. There are no contemporary practical applications or uses for reading the script, which means there is little motivation for individuals to develop the necessary skills.
4. No living tradition: Unlike other ancient scripts, such as Devanagari or Tamil, there is no living tradition of reading or writing Ashoka Brahmi script. This means that there are no native speakers or practitioners who can pass on their knowledge to others.
While it’s possible to find individuals with some knowledge of Brahmi script or Ashoka inscriptions, it’s unlikely to find someone who can read the script fluently and accurately on the Firuz Shah Pillar (Delhi-Topra Pillar). The script is over 2,000 years old, and its decipherment and interpretation require extensive study and expertise.

-- Is there anyone alive today who can read the ashoka brahmi on the firuz shah pillar-delhi-topra pillar?, by Google AI

Vigraharaja's father Arnoraja had suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Kumarapala, the Chaulukya king of Gujarat. Vigraharaja launched several expeditions against the Chaulukyas to avenge his father's defeat.[2]

According to the Bijolia rock inscription, he killed one Sajjana. The inscription describes Sajjana as "the most wicked person of the land", who was sent to the abode of Yama (the god of death) by Vigraharaja. Historian Dasharatha Sharma identified Sajjana with Kumarapala's governor (daṇḍāhiśa) of Chittor. According to the Jain author Somatilaka Suri, Vigraharaja's army captured Sajjana's elephant force. While Vigraharaja was busy fighting at Chittor, Kumarapala tried to create a diversion by besieging Nagor, but lifted the siege after learning about Vigraharaja's victory at Chittor.[6]

A Chahamana prashasti (eulogy) boasts that Vigraharaja reduced Kumarapala to a karavalapala (probably the designation of a subordinate officer). This is obviously an exaggeration, but it does appear that Vigraharaja conquered some of Kumarapala's territories. The earliest Chahamana inscriptions from the Bijolia-Jahazpur-Mandalgarh area are dated to Vigraharaja's reign.[7]

Chahamanas of Naddula


The Bisaldeo temple in Bisalpur was constructed by Vigraharaja IV.

Vigraharaja subdued the Chahamanas of Naddula, who had branched off from the Shakambhari Chahamana dynasty, and were feudatories of the Chaulukya king Kumarapala.[8] The Bijolia inscription boasts that he turned Javalipura (modern Jalore) into "Jvalapura" (city of flames); reduced Pallika (modern Pali) to a palli (a hamlet); and made Naddula (modern Nadol) a nadvala (a cane-stick or a marsh of reeds).[9][10] The Naddula ruler subdued by him was probably Alhanadeva.[3]

Vigraharaja also defeated one Kuntapala, who can be identified with a Naddula Chahamana subordinate of Kumarapala.[11]

Tomaras of Delhi

The Bijolia rock inscription states that Vigraharaja conquered Ashika (identified with Hansi) and Delhi.[12] The Chahamanas had been involved in conflicts with the Tomaras of Delhi since the time of his ancestor Chandanaraja. Vigraharaja put an end to this long conflict by decisively defeating the Tomaras, who had grown weak under attacks from the Chahamanas, the Gahadavalas and the Muslims. The Tomaras continued to rule for a few more decades, but as vassals of the Chahamanas.[13]

An old bahi (manuscript) states that Visaladeva i.e. Vigraharaja captured Delhi from Tamvars (Tomaras) in the year 1152 CE (1209 VS).[14] According to historian R. B. Singh, Hansi might have been under Muslim control by this time.[12] On the other hand, Dasharatha Sharma theorizes that the Tomaras had recaptured Hansi from Ghaznavids by this time, and Vigraharaja captured it from the Tomaras.[13]

The legendary epic poem Prithviraj Raso states that the later Chahamana king Prithviraja III married the daughter of the Tomara king Anangapala, and was bequeathed Delhi by the Tomara king. Historian R. B. Singh speculates that it was actually Vigraharaja who married the daughter of the Tomara king. According to Singh, Desaladevi, who has been mentioned in the play Lalita-Vigraharaja-Nataka as Vigraharaja's lover, might have been the daughter of a Tomara king named Vasantapala.[12]

War against the Turushkas

Main article: Vigraharaja IV's first war against the Muslims

Several sources indicate that Vigraharaja achieved military successes against the Turushkas, the Muslim Turkic invaders in Vigraharaja IV's first war against the Muslims.[15] The Delhi-Shivalik pillar inscription boasts that he destroyed the mlechchhas (foreigners), and once again made Aryavarta ("the land of Aryans") what its name signifies. The Prabandha-Kosha describes him as "the conqueror of Muslims". The Muslim invaders forced to retreat by him were probably the Ghaznavid rulers Bahram Shah and Khusrau Shah.[16]

The plot of Lalita Vigraharaja Nataka involves Vigraharaja's preparations against a Turushka ruler named Hammira (Emir). In the story, his minister Shridhara tells him not to risk a battle with a powerful adversary. Nevertheless, Vigraharaja is determined to fight the Turushka king. He sends a message to his lover Desaladevi, informing her that the upcoming battle would soon give him an opportunity to meet her. The play describes Desaladevi as the daughter of prince Vasantapala of Indrapura.[17] The play is available only in fragments, so the details of the ensuing battle are not known. Historian Dasharatha Sharma identified Hammira with Khusrau Shah, and assumed that Vigraharaja repulsed his invasion.[13]

Historian R. B. Singh, on the other hand, theorizes that no actual battle took place between Vigraharaja and Hammira. According to Singh's theory, the "Hammira" on the play might have been Bahram Shah, who fled to India after the Ghurids defeated him at the Battle of Ghazni (1151). Bahram Shah invaded the Tomara territory of Delhi after coming to India. Vasantapala might have been a Tomara ruler, possibly Anangapala. Indrapura may refer to Indraprastha, that is, Delhi. Vigraharaja probably decided to send an army in support of the Tomara king. But before an actual battle could take place, Bahram Shah returned to Ghazna as the Ghurids had departed from that city.[18]

Other conquests

According to the Bijolia inscription, Vigraharaja also defeated the Bhadanakas.[14] The Prithviraja Vijaya claims that he conquered several hill forts.[13]

Cultural activities


Vigraharaja's Sanskrit learning centre was converted into the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra mosque (pictured) after the Muslim conquest of Ajmer.

Vigraharaja patronized a number of scholars, and was a poet himself. Jayanaka, in his Prithviraja-Vijaya, states that when Vigraharaja died, the name kavi-bandhava ("the friend of the poets") disappeared.[19]

The king commissioned a centre of learning in Ajmer, which was later destroyed by the Ghurid invaders and converted into the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra mosque. Several literary works were engraved on stones at this centre:[20]

• The play Lalita Vigraharaja Nataka was composed by his court poet Somadeva in his honour. Only fragments of this play were recovered from the mosque.[21]

Somadeva
by Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somadeva

Somadeva was an 11th century CE writer from Kashmir. He was the author of a famous compendium of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales - the Kathasaritsagara.

Not much is known about him except that his father's name was Rama and he composed his work (probably during the years 1063-81 CE) for the entertainment of the queen Suryamati, a princess of Jalandhara and wife of King Ananta of Kashmir.

Ananta or King Ananta, also known as Anantadeva, was a king of Kashmir who reigned for 40 years from 1028 to 1068 CE. He belonged to the Lohara dynasty.

At a young age, Ananta succeeded his close relative — who possibly ruled the region for less than a month — on the throne of Kashmir. According to the Kashmiri historian Kalhana...

-- Ananta (king), by Wikipedia

Kalhana (sometimes spelled Kalhan or Kalhan'a) (c. 12th century), a Kashmiri, was the author of Rajatarangini (River of Kings), an account of the history of Kashmir. He wrote the work in Sanskrit between 1148 and 1149. All information regarding his life has to be deduced from his own writing, a major scholar of which is Mark Aurel Stein. Robin Donkin has argued that with the exception of Kalhana, "there are no [native Indian] literary works with a developed sense of chronology, or indeed much sense of place, before the thirteenth century".

Kalhana was born to a Kashmiri minister, Chanpaka, who probably served king Harsa of the Lohara dynasty. It is possible that his birthplace was Parihaspore and his birth would have been very early in the 12th century. It is extremely likely that he was of the Hindu Brahmin caste, suggested in particular by his knowledge of Sanskrit. The introductory verses to each of the eight Books in his Rajatarangini are prefaced with prayers to Shiva, a Hindu deity. In common with many Hindus in Kashmir at that time, he was also sympathetic to Buddhism, and Buddhists tended to reciprocate this feeling towards Hindus. Even in relatively modern times, Buddha's birthday has been a notable event for Kashmiri Brahmins and well before Kalhana's time Buddha had been accepted by Hindus as an avatar of Vishnu.

Kalhana was familiar with earlier epics such as the Vikramankadevacharita of Bilhana, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, to all of which he alludes in his own writings. However, his own writings did not employ what Stein has described as "the very redundant praise and flattery which by custom and literary tradition Indian authors feel obliged to bestow on their patrons". From this comes Stein's deduction that Kalhana was not a part of the circle surrounding Jayasimha, the ruling monarch at the time when he was writing the Rajatarangini.

-- Kalhana, by Wikipedia

Rajatarangini (Rājataraṃgiṇī, "The River of Kings") is a metrical legendary and historical chronicle of the north-western Indian subcontinent, particularly the kings of Kashmir. It was written in Sanskrit by Kashmiri historian Kalhana in the 12th century CE....

Although inaccurate in its chronology, the book still provides...

Kalhana's work is also full of legends and inconsistencies...

Historical reliability

Despite the value that historians have placed on Kalhana's work, there is little evidence of authenticity in the earlier books of Rajatarangini. For example, Ranaditya is given a reign of 300 years. Toramana is clearly the Huna king of that name, but his father Mihirakula is given a date 700 years earlier. Even where the kings mentioned in the first three books are historically attested, Kalhana's account suffers from chronological errors.

-- Rajatarangini, by Wikipedia

The queen was quite distraught as it was a time when the political situation in Kashmir was 'one of discontent, intrigue, bloodshed and despair'.

-- Somadeva, by Wikipedia

What do we know about Vigraharaja IV's court poet Somadeva?
by Google AI
12/22/24

Based on the provided search results, here’s what we know about Somadeva, the court poet of Vigraharaja IV:

1. Composition of Lalita-Vigraharaja-Nataka: Somadeva wrote a Sanskrit drama, Lalita-Vigraharaja-Nataka, in honor of Vigraharaja IV. Fragments of this play were recovered from the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra mosque, which was originally a Sanskrit center of learning commissioned by Vigraharaja IV.
2. Harikeli Nataka: Somadeva also wrote another Sanskrit drama, Harikeli Nataka, which is inscribed on two slabs at the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra mosque site. This play is modeled after Kiratarjuniya, a work by the ancient poet Bharavi.
3. Court poet: Somadeva served as the court poet of Vigraharaja IV, composing dramas and other literary works for the king’s entertainment and patronage.
4. Patronage: Somadeva mentions in his work that Queen Suryamati of Kashmir was his patron, and he wrote the Kathasaritsagara (Ocean of the Streams of Stories) for her, to distract her from her studies of science.

Note that there is limited information available about Somadeva’s life, and most of what we know comes from his own works and the context in which they were composed.

• Fragments of the play Harikeli Nataka, authored by Vigraharaja himself, were also found inscribed on two slabs at the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra. The play is styled after Kiratarjuniya, a work by the ancient poet Bharavi.[19]
• A Chauhan prashasti (eulogy), which is in form of a kavya (poem).[4]
• A stuti (prayer) to various Hindu deities, also in kavya form.[4]

According to Prithviraja-Viajaya, Vigraharaja commissioned as many buildings as the hill forts he captured. Most of these appear to have been destroyed or converted to Muslim structures (such as Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra) after the Muslim conquest. He established a number of towns named Visalapura ("the city of Visala") after his alternative name Visala.[22] He is also said to have commissioned a lake named Visalasara (also known as Vislya or Bisalia) in Ajmer. According to Prithviraj Raso, the king saw a beautiful spot with springs and hills while returning from a hunt. He ordered his chief minister to construct a lake at this spot.[23]

He also founded the Vigrahapura town (modern Bisalpur) on the site of an older town called Vanapura. There, he constructed the Gokarnesvara temple, now popularly known as Bisal Deoji's temple.[24]

Like his predecessors, Vigraharaja was a devout Shaivite, as indicated by his Harakeli-Nataka. He also patronzed Jain scholars, and participated in their religious ceremonies. At the request of the Jain religious teacher Dharmaghosha-Suri, he banned animal slaughter on the Ekadashi day.[22]

The Bijolia rock inscription describes Vigraharaja as "a protector of the needy and the distressed".[5] He is generally considered one of the greatest rulers of the Chauhan Dynasty.[25] Historian Dashratha Sharma calls him "Vigraharaja the Great" and describes his reign as the "Golden age of Sapdalaksha" (the Chauhan Territory).[25]

Vigraharaja's son Amaragangeya succeeded him on the throne.[23]

References

1. Hooja, Rima (2006). A History of Rajasthan. New Delhi: Rupa Publication. p. 43. ISBN 81-291-0890-9.
2. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, p. 56.
3. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 148.
4. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, p. 62.
5. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 150.
6. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, p. 57.
7. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, pp. 58–59.
8. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 149.
9. Shyam Singh Ratnawat & Krishna Gopal Sharma 1999, p. 105.
10. Asoke Kumar Majumdar 1956, p. 109.
11. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, pp. 57–58.
12. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 147.
13. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, p. 60.
14. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, p. 59.
15. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, p. 60-61.
16. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 145.
17. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 143.
18. R. B. Singh 1964, pp. 143–144.
19. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 151.
20. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 152.
21. R. B. Singh 1964, pp. 151–152.
22.Dasharatha Sharma 1959, p. 64.
23. R. B. Singh 1964, p. 153.
24. "Bisaldeo Temple". Archaeological Survey of India. Retrieved 29 September 2016.
25. Dasharatha Sharma 1959, p. 65.

Bibliography

• Asoke Kumar Majumdar (1956). Chaulukyas of Gujarat. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. OCLC 4413150.
• Dasharatha Sharma (1959). Early Chauhān Dynasties. S. Chand / Motilal Banarsidass. ISBN 9780842606189.
• R. B. Singh (1964). History of the Chāhamānas. N. Kishore. OCLC 11038728.
• Shyam Singh Ratnawat; Krishna Gopal Sharma, eds. (1999). History and culture of Rajasthan: from earliest times upto 1956 A.D. University of Rajasthan. Centre for Rajasthan Studies. OCLC 42717862.