Iranian Influence on Moslem Literature, Part I

The facile notion is still prevalent even among Musalmans of learning that the past of Iran is beyond recall, that the period of its history preceding the extinction of the House of Sasan cannot be adequately investigated and that the still anterior dynasties which ruled vaster areas have left no traces in stone or parchment in sufficient quantity for a tolerable record reflecting the story of Iran from the Iranian's standpoint. This fallacy is particularly hugged by the Parsis among whom it was originally lent by fanaticism to indolent ignorance. It has been credited with uncritical alacrity, congenial to self-complacency, that the Arabs so utterly and ruthlessly annihilated the civilization of Iran in its mental and material aspects that no source whatever is left from which to wring reliable information about Zoroastrian Iran. The following limited pages are devoted to a disproof of this age-long error.

For a connected story of Persia prior to the battle of Kadisiya, beside the Byzantine writers there is abundant material in Armenian and Chinese histories. These mines remain yet all but unexplored for the Moslem and Parsi, although much has been done to extract from them a chronicle of early Christianity. The archaeology of Iran, as I have shown elsewhere, can provide vital clue to an authentic resuscitation of Sasanian past. Pre-Moslem epigraphy of Persia is yet in little more than an inchoate condition. Not only all Central Asia but the territories marching with the Indian and Persian frontiers, where persecution of the elder faith could not have been relatively mild, the population professing Islam have been unable to abjure in their entirety rites and practices akin to those of Zoroastrianism. Within living memory the inhabitants of Pamir would not blow out a candle or otherwise desecrate fire. While science cannot recognise the claims of any individual professing to have studied esoteric Zoroastrianism hidden in the hill tracts of Rawalpindi, the myth has a value in that it indicates the direction in which humbler and uninspired scholars may work. These regions and far beyond, teem with pure Iranian place-names to this day; and you meet in and around even the Peshawar district individuals bearing names of old Iranian heroes which, if the theory of persecution-mongers be correct, would be an anathema to the bigoted followers of Muhammad.

* * * * *

It is, above all, Arabic literature which upsets the easy fiction of total destruction of Iranian culture by the Arabs. In its various departments of history, geography and general science Arabic works incorporate extensive material for a history of Iranian civilization, while Arabic poetry abounds in references to Zoroastrian Iran. The former is illustrated by Professor Inostranzev's pioneer Russian essay of which the main body of this book is a translation. The Appendices are intended to be supplementary and to be at once a continuation and a possible key—continuation of the researches of the Russian scholar and key to the contemned store-house of Arabic letters.

Professor Inostranzev is in little need of introduction to English scholars. He has already been made known in India by the indefatigable Shams-ul-Ulma Dr. Jivanji Modi, Ph.D., C.I.E., who got translated, and commented on, his Russian paper on the curious Astodans or receptacles for human bones discovered in the Persian Gulf region. He shares with Professor Browne of Cambridge and the great M. Blochet a unique scholarly position: he combines an intimate knowledge of Avesta civilization with a familiarity with classical Arabic. It is not wilfully to ignore the claims of Goldziher, Brockelmann or Sachau or the Dutch savants de Goeje and Van Vloten. Deeply as they investigated Arabic writings, it was M. Inostranzev who first revealed to us the worth of Arabic: he unearthed chapters embedded in Arabic books which are paraphrase or translation of Pahlavi originals. He had but one predecessor and that was a countryman of his, Baron Rosen.

* * * * *

In preparing the Appendices, which are there to testify to the value of Arabic literature especially the annals and the branch of it called Adab, I have availed myself of the courtesy of various institutions and individuals. Bombay, perhaps the wealthiest town in the East where prosperous Musalmans form a most important factor of its population, has not one public library containing any tolerable collection of Arabic books edited in Europe. Time after time wealthy Parsis whose interest I enlisted have received from me lists of books to form the nucleus of an Arabic library but apparently they need some further stimulus to appreciate how indispensable Arabic is for research into Iranian antiquities. The Bombay Government have expended enormous sums in collecting Sanskrit manuscripts—a most laudable pursuit—and have published a series of admirable texts edited by some of the eminent Sanskrit scholars, Western and Indian. But the numerous Moslem Anjumans do not appear to have demonstrated to the greatest Moslem Power in the world, or its representative in Bombay, the necessity of a corresponding solicitude for Arabic and Persian treasures which undoubtedly exist, though to a lesser extent, in the Presidency. And what holds true of Bombay holds good in case of the rest of India. Some of the libraries in Upper India in Hyderabad, Rampur, Patna, Calcutta possess along with manuscript material cheap mutilated Egyptian reprints of magnificent texts brought out in Leiden, Paris and Leipzig. Nowhere in India is available to a research scholar a complete set of European publications in Arabic, which a few thousand rupees can purchase. The state of affairs is due to Moslem apathy, politics claiming a disproportionate share of their civic energy, to Government indifference and to some extent Parsi supineness and prejudice which, despite the community's vaunted advancement, has failed to estimate at its proper worth their history as enshrined in the language of the pre-judged Arab.

Moulvi Muhammad Ghulam Rasul Surti, of Bombay, himself a scholar, lent me from his bookshop expensive works which few private students could afford to buy. No western book-seller could have conceived a purer love of learning or a gaze less rigidly fixed on "business". Sir John Marshall, Director General of Archaeology in India, continued very kindly to permit me use of books after I had severed official connection with his library at Simla. Dr. Spooner who acted for him obligingly saw that as far as he was concerned no facilities were incontinently withdrawn from me at Benmore. I have particularly to thank the Librarian of the Imperial Library, Calcutta, who not only posted me books in his charge but went out of his way to procure me others. Mrs. Besant and her wealthy adherents have created at Adyar the atmosphere associated with the Ashramas and the seats of learning in ancient India so finely described by Chinese travellers. The Oriental Library there is unsurpassed by any institution in British or Indian ruled India. It is to be wished in the interests of pure scholarship that some one succeeds—I did not—in prevailing on the President of the Theosophical Society to lend books to scholars who may not be equal to the exertion of daily travelling seven miles from Madras to Adyar. Her insistence on a rigid imitation of British Museum rules in India, mainly because so many of the Theosophical fraternity cut out pages and chapters from books once allowed to be borrowed by them, inflicts indiscriminate penalty on honest research and seals up against legitimate use books nowhere else to be found in India.

I reserve for the Second Part of this book some observations on the Russian language with reference to Orientalism, and Arabic and Persian literatures in particular. Only after the outbreak of the War some interest has been aroused in England in matters Russian generally and a number of grammars and dictionaries and other aids to the study of this most difficult language have recently been placed on the market for the use of students who only a brief three years ago had to depend mainly on German for acquisition of Russian. This neglect of Russian is wholly undeserved. It is doubtful if the researches into Oriental histories and literatures by the Russians have been yet adequately appreciated in England, the tireless efforts of Dr. Pollen and the Anglo-Russian Literary Society notwithstanding. It is apparently still presumed that ripe scholarship in Arabic and Sanskrit is inconceivable except through the medium of the languages of Western Europe. No unworthy disparagement of French labours is at all suggested. But it is only fair to Russia to remember in India that the absence of a Serg d'Oldenberg would leave a lacuna which must be felt in Buddhist Sanskrit; without Tzerbatski the Jain literature both Magadhi and Sanskrit would be appreciably poorer; and that the Continent has produced nothing to exceed the series of Buddhist Sanskrit texts of Petrograd, where was published the still largest Sanskrit lexicon. Naturally in the province of Chinese and Japanese the Russian Academy at Vladivostock stood facile princeps till only the other day its magnificent rival was established in London under the direction of Dr. Denison Ross. An individual scholar like Khanikoff, who like most of his countrymen in the last century preferred to write in French, and a Zukovski has done more signal service to Persian antiquities than could be honestly attributed to many a German name familiar to Indian scholars. The distinguishing feature of the Russian investigator, devoted to the past of Persia, is his uncommon equipment. The Russian bring to their task a mature study of Semitic languages and acquaintance with Avesta philology. Arabic literature teems with allusions to the religions, dogma, customs and the court of Sasanian Iran. Once intended for contemporaries equally at home in the Arabic and Persian idioms these references have in course of time grown obscure to copyists who have mutilated Iranian names of persons and places and specific Zoroastrian terms which had become naturalised in the language of the ruling Arabs. It is scholars like Baron Rosen and Rosenberg who have adequately appreciated the value of Arabic texts in which are interwoven verbal translations of celebrated Pahlavi treatises. Two such have been disinterred by the industry and erudition of Inostranzev.

This is the first book to be translated from Russian into English by an Indian and the obvious difficulties of the task may be pleaded to excuse some of the shortcomings of a pioneer undertaking. I look for my reward in on awakened interest in Arabic books which hold in solution more information on Persia than any set work on the history of Iran.

It would not be in place to advert to the present state of hapless chaos in Persia. The most sympathetic outsider, however, cannot help observing that her misfortunes are less due to her neighbours and their mutual relations than to her too rapid political strides and adoption of exotic administrative machinery repugnant to the genius of the ancient nation. Whatever the attitude of individual Mullas towards non-Moslems in the past the central authority and the people as a whole are actuated to-day with a spirit of patriotism which is still the keynote of the character of Persia's noble manhood and womanhood. It declines to make religion the criterion of kinship.

The inconsistency in the spelling of Arabic words has not altogether been avoidable being due partly to a desire to adhere to the orthography adopted by authors whom I have consulted.

SIMLA, G.K. NARIMAN.

September, 1917.

Iranian literary tradition in the opening centuries of Islam 1

The character of the Persian history during the Sasanian epoch 6

Importance of this epoch according to the Arab writers of the first centuries of Islam 10

The position of the Parsi community and the centres of the preservation of Persian tradition during the period of the Khalifat in Tabaristan, Khorasan and Fars 15

The castle of Shiz in the district of Arrajan in the province of Fars described by Istakhri, p. 118, 2-4; 150, 14-7; Ibn Hauqal, p. 189, 1-2; cf. the translator of the Khoday Nameh, Behram, son of Mardanshah of the city of Shapur in the province of Fars 19

This castle was the residence of those acquainted with the Iranian tradition (the badhgozar) and here their archives were lodged 20

To the Iranian element belongs a very rich rôle in the external as well as the internal history of Islam. Its influence is obvious and constant in the history of the Moslem nations' spread over centuries. Whenever the circumstances have been favourable it has been clearly manifest; when the conditions have been hostile it is not noticeable at the first glance but in reality has been of great consequence. The causes of this are very complicated. And it is necessary on account of its universal value to examine a wide concatenation of facts. But from a general point of view there is no doubt that it has its roots principally in the continuity of the historical and cultural traditions. Particular significance attaches to the circumstance that just in the epoch preceding the Arab conquest Persia had experienced a period of national revival after the horrors that its sovereignty had undergone, at the hands, for instance, of Alexander the Great.[1] Therefore for the study of Iranian tradition in Islam the period of the Sasanian dynasty preceding the Arab conquest has a special significance.

[Footnote 1: This is explained by the hatred given expression to in the
Parsi tradition regarding Alexander. Comp. J. Darmesteter La Legende de
Alexandre chez les Parses. Essais Orientaux, Paris 1883, pp. 227-251.]

The Sasanian dynasty issuing from a small principality in the south of Persia—a principality which, properly speaking bears the title of the "kernel of the Persian nation"—occupies a considerable position in Persian history. Wide imperial aims were united with a plenitude of solid organisation of government so perfect that it passed into a proverb among the Arabs. In this last connection the Sasanian tradition survived for a long time a number of Moslem dynasties. The powerful influence which Iranian tradition exercised was felt by the Abbaside Khahlifs and after them by the Turkish Seljuks. But not only the science of government, a good deal of other matters of cultural and historical importance in the latter times have their explanation in the Sasanian epoch. Placed on the confines of the Greco-Roman world on the one hand, and China and India on the other, Sasanian Persia served during the course of a long time as a central mart of exchange of a mental as well as of a material nature. As against the Achaemenides, emulating the high Semitic culture of the West and the Hellenistic endeavours preceding the Parthian dynasty, the Sasanians pre-eminently were the promulgators of the Iranian principles. Alongside of this, however, although in a subordinate position, the development of the Hellenistic movement and the ancient Irano-Semitic syncretism continued to proceed. Simultaneously an ethical amalgamation proceeded especially in Western Persia where Semiticism was powerful for a lengthened period, Nevertheless, the Sasanians continued the unification of the Iranian inhabitants of central and western Persia. The political system of the Sasanian emperors[1] was based on this fusion. Before it pales the importance of the other facts regarding the political organisation of the Sasanians,—centralisation of government in a manner so that the elements of feudal constitution made themselves felt throughout the existence of the empire and even after the Arab conquest, when it left traces in circles representing Iranian traditions.

[Footnote 1: On the constitution of the Sasanian government, see A. Christensen, L'empire des Sasanides, le peuple, l'etat, la cour, 1907.]

The Iranophile tendencies which dominated the Sasanian epoch developed in intimate cooperation with the State religion (Mazdaism) and the Parsi priesthood. Among the latter continued the production of literary works. Besides, the redaction of the sacred books was completed in these times. Among them were conserved and propagated Persian ethical ideals, which found expression in literary forms, in ethico-didactic tracts, like those which we notice just in the same circles in later times. To the same end were preserved national traditions and ritual, some of which had nothing to do with Mazdaism. The ethical ideals of the church found strong support in the feudalistic circles comprising the larger and the smaller landholders, the dehkans who, with particular zeal, preserved ancient heroic traditions.

Alongside of these national currents in the Sasanian empire there operated in full force those factors of cultural exchange of which we spoke above. Of those factors the most important that deserve our attention are questions regarding education and instruction. In this connection, Sasanian Persia found itself under powerful influences from the West. There are sufficient reminiscences of neo-Platonic exiles from Greece at the Sasanian Court and of the school of medicine in which the leading part belonged to Hellenic physicians. At the same time in the same field we have to examine other influences. For Sasanian Persia did not remain stranger to the sciences of India. We have information regarding the renascence of the activity of the translators of scientific works into the Persian language and the tradition of this activity survived down to the Moslem times. In connection with this theoretical scientific activity stood high perfection in exterior culture issuing to a considerable degree from exchange of materials. And even here the Sasanian tradition has survived the dynasties; in the study of the commerce and industry as well as the art of the Moslem epoch we have necessarily to refer back to the preceding times of the Persian history.

In pre-Moslem Arabia the high development of the civilisation of Sasanian Persia was well known. Among the subjects of the great Persian sovereigns in the western provinces of their empire there were a large number of Arabs who in commercial intercourse carried, to tribes of the Syrian desert and further south to the Arabian peninsula, reports regarding the great Iran Shahar. Not only legends of the heroic figures of the Iranian epic—Rustam and Isfandiar—but religious views and persuasions of the Persians found a place and were spread among the Arab clans. Thus we know that "fire-worshippers" were settled among the Arab tribe of the Temim.[1]

[Footnote 1: See for example Ibn Rustah (B.G.A. VII, p. 217, 6-9).]

As regards the political influence of the Persians on the tribes of Arabia a vast deal has been related in the pre-Moslem epoch. As is well-known, thanks mainly to the Persian influence, there was a small Arab kingdom of the Lekhmides in the South-Western portion of the Sasanian empire[1]. It played its part, most beneficial for Persia, holding back on the one hand Roman-Byzantine onrush from the West, and on the other restraining the perpetual attempts at irruption into Persian territory by Arab nomadic tribes. Not long before the appearance of Islam, Sasanian influence was extended to the Arabs and the South as well as Yemen passed into the sovereignty of the Persians. Khusro and his Court appeared to the Arab an unattainable ideal of grandeur and luxury.

[Footnote 1: Die Dynastie der Lekhmiden in al-Hira, Ein Versuch zur arabisch-persischen Geschichte zur Zeit der Sasaniden Berlin, 1899.]

The rapid conquest of Persia by the Arab warriors proved a complete catastrophe to the Sasanian empire. But Persian culture was not to be extirpated by the success of Arab arms. Persia was overwhelmed only externally and the Arabs were compelled to preserve a considerable deal of the past. Having lost the position of rulers, the Persian priesthood preserved intact its control of the indigenous populace in the eyes of the latter as well as of the foreign Government. The same remark holds good of the class of landed proprietors.[1] Iranian tradition continued to live In and with them. Not only what was preserved but all that was destroyed for long left vestiges in the memory of the conquerors.

[Footnote 1: Regarding the part played by this class in the times of the
Khalifs, see A. Von Kramer Culturgeschiche des orients unter den
Chalifen II. pp, 150, 62.]

Many years after the Arab conquest the ruins that covered Persia excited the admiration of the Arabs. Their geographers of the ninth and tenth centuries considered it their duty to enumerate the principal buildings of the Sasanians reminding the reader that here Khusro built in his time in bye-gone days a castle, there a mountain fastness, again at a third place, a bridge.[1] Regarding various ancient structures which had survived the Sasanian times, we refer, inter alia, to Istakhri, (ibid I), pp. 124; Ibn Hauqal (ibid II) 195; Ibn Khordadbeh (ibid VI) p. 43, (text); Ibn Rusteh (ibid VII), 153, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 189; Yakubi (ibid VII), 270, 271, 273, &c.

[Footnote 1: See the enumeration of the noteworthy buildings of ancient Persia as given in Makdisi (B.G.A. III), p. 399, and Ibn-ul-Fakih (ibid V), p. 267.]

The remains of the structures, monuments of art from the Sasanian times and the ages preceding them attracted the attention of the Arabs and they have left descriptions of the same in more or less detail.[1] From the information of the same Musalman writers we possess accurate accounts of the inhabitants of Persia and their religions. Thus, for instance, Yakubi indicates that the inhabitants of Isfahan, Merv, and Herat, consisted mainly of high-born Dehkans.[2] Makdisi notices a considerable number of fire-worshippers in several provinces of Persia, for instance, Irak and Jibal.[3]

[Footnote 1: Istakhri, p. 203, Ibn Hauqal, p, 266, 256, Makdisi pp. 396 and 445, Ibn Rusteh, p. 166.]

[Footnote 2: Yakubi, pp. 274, 279-280.]

[Footnote 3: Makdisi, pp. 126, 194.]

ISTAKHRI AND IBN HAUQAL[1]

Relate that the inhabitants of several localities of Kerman during the entire Umayyad period openly professed Mazdaism.

In a more detailed fashion, however, the Arab writers notice the Mazdian dwellers of Fars, the heart of the Persian dominion. Makdisi says that in Fars existed the customs of fire-worshippers but that the fire-worshipping inhabitants of the capital of the province of Shiraz had no distinguishing mark on their clothes; from which it follows that in that age these people were in no way differentiated from the Musalman subjects.[2] Istakhri[3] and Ibn Hauqal[4] relate that the bulk of the inhabitants of Fars consisted of fire-worshippers and they were there in larger number than anywhere else, Fars being the centre of sacerdotal and cultural life of the empire in the days of Persian independence. Very minute information is supplied us by these writers[5] regarding the ancient castles and fire-temples scattered over the whole of Fars in abundance. The latter is of capital importance since here was the residence of those two classes of Persian society, noblemen and priests, who were the staunchest conservators of the ancient national tradition.

[Footnote 1: Istakhri, p. 164; Ibn Hauqal, p. 221.]

[Footnote 2: See Makdisi, pp. 421, 429.]

[Footnote 3: P. 130.]

[Footnote 4: P. 207.]

[Footnote 5: Istakhri, pp. 116-119; also p. 100. Ibn Hauqal, 187-190; also p. 181.]

It is undoubted that the position of the Parsi community after the Moslem conquest was comparatively comfortable. Still sometimes it was darkened by excessive fanaticism and the intrigues of the followers of other faiths. Although sometimes the Parsis could push themselves forward to positions of officials and instructors and played an important part in the history of the Khalifate, generally speaking, this community was a close one leading a more or less exclusive life, a circumstance enabling the conservation of national peculiarities and attachment to antiquity. As time went on, however, the condition of their existence necessarily became worse and the consequence was the gradual emigration of a portion of the community from the motherland to Western India.

In the entire Parsi literature we come across only one historical composition which recounts this emigration. But the narrative is so obscure that of the main occurrence in it there must have remained only a general memory.[1] This book is called the "Kisseh-Sanjan" and was written at a very late date at the very close of the 16th century, so that the data given in it have to be looked upon as a reverberation of ancient tradition.[2]

[Footnote 1: The modern historian and Parsi scholar Karaka, in analysing the events subsequent to the Arab conquest follows the views of the old School of writers regarding this epoch as a complete destruction of all the previous organisation and the triumph of fanaticism of the new faith. See D.F. Karaka, History of the Parsis, Vol I; on the history of the Parsis subsequent to the Arab invasion see page 22 ff.]

[Footnote 2: E.B. Easrwick, Translation from the Persian of the "Kisseh-Sanjan" or "History of the arrival and settlement of the Parsis in India." J.B.B.R.A.S., I. 1844, pp. 167-191. (See also Vol. 21, extra number, 1005, pp. 197-99).]

From the circumstances detailed in this book it appears that the emigrators after the establishment of Musalman domination passed a hundred years in a mountainous locality and only after the lapse of these long years migrated to Hormuz, from where they proceeded to the peninsula of Gujarat and finally after negotiations with the local chief settled in Sanjan. Subsequently fresh refugees joined them from Khorasan. From this last we can infer that the emigration was gradual and this is confirmed by the fact that in case of migration in a mass the diaspora of the Parsis would have left some traces in the Arabic literature. Further there is no doubt that considerable number of Parsis remained behind in their country and their descendants are the modern Persian Guebres who, together with the Parsis of India, may be called the only preservers of ancient Iranian tradition to the present times.

Thus, throughout Persia in the first centuries of Islam national elements with, changed fortunes persisted in their existence. It is, however, to be remarked that their success was not uniform in, every quarter of the country, that their fate depended to a considerable extent upon the geographical position and the historical life of the various provinces of the land. Western provinces owing to their proximity to the centre of the Arab ruling life had more than the rest to mingle with, the Arab stream, and to participate in the cycle of events in the Arabic period of the history of the Musalman East. Central Persia, owing to its geographical position, could not constitute the point d'appue of the Persian element. For the latter the most favourably situated provinces were those in the North, East, and South, Tabaristan, Khorasan, and Fars.

As is well-known throughout the floruit of the Arab empire this province found itself in almost entire independence of the central power. Local dynasts called the Ispahbeds enjoyed practical independence and in those times Arabo-Moslem influences simply did not exist. Local rulers,—Bavendids, Baduspans, Karenides—appeared successively or simultaneously following the traditions left to them by the Marzbans or the land holders and partly the successors of the great King who were independent from the times of the Arsacide dynasty.[1] Subsequently as Aliides and Ziyarids, they were closely attached to Shiaism with its definite expression of Persian sympathy. Nevertheless, this province was not favourable for a particularly successful national evolution. The fact was that even in the Sasanian epoch Tabaristan remained a distant and obscure frontier division and did not take part in the progress of civilisation of the times. Therefore it could not form the centre of gravity of Persian life although there is no doubt that in several respects in this province there were preserved typical features of Sasanian antiquity.

[Footnote 1: For a general conspectus of the history of the provinces with regard to their independence during the Sasanian and Arab domination, see, e.g. F. Justi, G.I. Ph., II, pp. 547-49—"History of Iran from the earliest to the end of the Sasanides" in German—Appendix I.]

It was otherwise with the Eastern provinces of Khorasan, too far distant from the territary occupied by the Arab settlers, and too densely inhabited by Iranians to rapidly lose its previous characteristics. On the contrary, we know from the historians that in this province Iranian elements remained steadfast throughout the Umayyad dynasty and it was exclusively due to the support given by Khorasanians to the Abbasides that the latter succeeded in overthrowing the previous dynasty and commenced the era of powerful Iranian influences in the history of the Musalman Orient.[1] Khorasan played a vital part in the development of the modern Persian literature and especially its chief department, poetry. The entire early period of the history of modern Persian poetry, from Abbas welcoming with an ode Khalif Mamun into Merv down to Firdausi, may be labelled Khorasanian. There flourished the activity of Rudaki, Kisai, Dakiki, and other less notable representatives of the early period of modern Persian bards.[2] The culture of poetry was favoured not only by the geographical position of the province of Khorasan but by its political conditions. Already in the beginning of the ninth century in Khorasan there had arisen national Persian dynasties and under their patronage began the renascence of the Persian nation (Taherides, Saffarides, Samanides).

[Footnote 1: On the history of Khorasan in the Umayyad period see J. Wellhausen Das Arabische Reich und Sein Sturz, p, 247 f. and p. 306 f.]

[Footnote 2: See the general survey of this period in J, Darmesteter,
"The Origins of the Persian Poesy", in French and E.G. Browne "Literary
History of Persia", I, p, 350 ff.]

Under different circumstances but with considerable significance for the Persian national ideals lay the Southern province of Fars. Here with tenacious insistence survived not only national but also political traditions of ancient Sasanian Persia. Here was the centre of a government and from here started fresh dynasties. After the Arab conquest this province came into much more intimate connection with the Khalifate, than, for instance, Khorasan. But Persian elements were favoured by its geographical position,—the mountainous character of its situation and the consequent difficulty of access by the invaders. We already produced above the information of the Arab geographers of the tenth century regarding the abundance of fire-temples and castles in Fars. They relate that there was no village or hamlet of this province in which there was no fire-temple. Residence was taken up in strong castles by the native aristocrats whose ideals were rooted in the Sasanian epoch. Just in these geographers, Istakhri and Ibn Hauqal, is to be found information of unusual importance, so far as we can judge, regarding the conservation of the Parsi tradition in Fars These authors have been up to now not only not appreciated but their significance for our question has not yet been adequately recognised.

Istakhri and Ibn Hauqal enumerating the castles of Fars declare as follows regarding the castle of Shiz:[1]

"The castle of Shiz is situated in the district of Arrajana. There live fire-worshippers[2] who know Persia and her past. Here they study. This castle is very strong."

[Footnote 1: Istakhri, p. 118, 2-4; Ibn Hauqal, p, 180, 1-2.]

[Footnote 2: In the text occurs the Persian word badgozar, that is to say, the rhapsodists, the relators of the national traditions; on this word see B.G.A. III, pp. 182-83, and Vuller's Lexicon Persico-Latinum S.V. For a parallel to the archives of the Achamenide empire see F. Justi, Ein Tag aus den Leben des konigs Darius.]

Further we read the following in Istakhri (page 150, 14-17):—

"In the district of Sabur on the mountain there are likenesses of all the noteworthy Persian kings and grandees, of illustrious preservers of fire, high mobeds and others. Their portraits, their acts and narratives about them are successively recorded in volumes. With particular care are preserved these volumes by the people living in a locality in the district of Arrajan called the castle of Shiz."

From this information we learn that in one of the castles of Fars down to the tenth century there were preserved manuscripts written probably in the Pahlavi language containing narratives from Persian history and illustrated with, portraits after the style of the Sasanian reliefs to be found in the rocks in the district of Sabur.[1] This strong mountain fastness was probably little accessible to the Arabs and afforded an asylum to the mobeds, dehkans and others interested in the past of their country.

[Footnote 1: That is after the style of the Sasanian bass-reliefs which were preserved in his time on the rocks in the vicinity of Shapur and the most famous type of which are the bass-reliefs representing the triumphs of the Sasanian Shapur I, over the emperor Valentine].

These facts generally important for the history of the preservation of the epic, historic and artistic traditions of Iran, are particularly important for the investigation of the sources of the Arabic translations of the Sasanian chronicles and of the epopee of Firdausi. As we know, the translators of these chronicles were Persian "fire-worshippers" or Musalmans who had adopted Islam only externally and had remained true to the ancient Persian religion. Among them the foremost is called Mobed belonging to the city of Sabur in the province of Fars. He is important as a worker in the Iranian historical tradition and about him we shall have occasion to speak later on. This Mobed probably made Arabic translations of Sasanian chronicles from materials in the archives in the castle of Shiz. Further, the information adduced by us above regarding the castle refers to times a little previous to the age of Firdausi and undoubtedly among the materials in these archives were the sources of the Shah Nameh which were available to Firdausi through intermediate versions. Finally, we see that these Sasanian histories were illustrated, a fact which is confirmed by the statement of other Arab writers as we shall see later on. Generally the district of Arrajan enjoyed its ancient glory with reference to its cultural connections. Yakut[1] has preserved for us the information that at Raishahar in the district of Arrajan there lived in the Sasanian times men, versed in a peculiar species of syllabary who wrote medical, astronomical and logical works.

[Footnote 1: "Muajjam ul Buldan", ed. Wustenfeld, II, p. 887. This passage has been translated by Barbier de Maynard in his "Geographical, Historical and Literary Dictionary of Persia", in French, pp. 270-271. See also Fihrist II, p, 105.]

What we have studied above establishes the existence of Persian literary tradition in its national form for several centuries after the Arab invasion. Now we have to survey wherein lie the characteristic features of this tradition and what were its main contents. And we pass on to their consideration.

The Parsi Clergy and the Musalman Iranophile party of the Shuubiya 26

The part played by them in the conservation of the Persian literary tradition 30

The different varieties of this tradition; scientific, epico-historic, legendary and ethico-didactic 32

We have demonstrated above that in the time subsequent to the Arab conquest Iranian tradition found a congenial asylum in the bosom of the Parsi priesthood. There it was maintained and developed orally as well as in a written form. The most competent among the Persian historians who employed the Arabic language in those times turned to the Parsi clergy for information. Of this we have first-hand proof in their own works and in the quotations from other works preserved in later authors. For example, they frequently remark "the Mobedan-mobed related to me", "the mobed so and so told me" and so on. In their quest for ancient Persian books, too, Arab authors searched for them among the Parsi priesthood and it was only there that they found them. Thus it was the merit of the Parsi community that it conserved Iranian traditions daring unfavourable times and handed them on to Moslem Persia under more auspicious conditions.

Involuntarily we are led to a comparison, to their advantage, with the activity of the Iranophile party of the same times in the Moslem community, the party of the Shuubiya,[1] In their capacity as promoters of learning and exponents of literature they concentrated their activity in the cultured centre of the Khalifate at Baghdad and other cities, and being familiar with Persia played an important part in the development of Moslem culture of the Middle Ages. But in the preservation of the Iranian tradition they turned to much restricted and greatly exclusive Parsi circles. In the second half of the tenth century and in the eleventh century the currents which were preparing the Persian renascence party were lost and their significance forgotten. But for the purpose of illuminating historical questions a careful examination of these currents deserves our undivided attention. It was owing to them that literary materials were preserved which were sometimes direct translations from books belonging to the Sasanian period. The course by which these materials found their way into Arabic literature can be definitely traced. They came from Parsi centres through older circles of Moslem civilisation which were sympathetic towards Persia. Generally speaking they were trustworthy transmitters. As a matter of fact the Shuubiya turned only to the Parsi circles for materials and in the explanation of the material they did not distinguish them from their other sources. Their sources betray themselves by an exaggerated Parsi partiality where the penchant of these circles is clearly manifest. And these are intimately connected with certain questions of daily life,—the struggle for power between the Arab and the Iranian element in the Khalifate. Enthusiastic partisans of the Persian element, these circles as a counterblast to the poverty of civilizing factors of the pre-Islamic Arab nation, turned to the glories of Persia, principally of the Sasanian past. Iranophile writers had no need for inventions, since historical truth was on their side. The effectiveness of their method was indisputable. In this connection Iranian tradition among the Musalmans as transmitted by Arab writers must take precedence of a similar transmission, the Christian literature of the East, where all possibility was excluded of polemics such as obtained under the Moslem domination between the pro-Iranian and anti-Iranian parties. It is, therefore, to be regretted that the literary activities of the Musalman circles sympathising with Persian culture have descended to us only in occasional extracts and are sometimes confined only to the titles of books written by them.

[Footnote 1: For details, Goldziher. Muhammedanische Studien, I, 147-310.]

We noticed above the revival of scientific activities in Sasanian Persia. This activity for the most part has its significance in its quality of being a connecting link, in the first place, as the transmitter of Greek knowledge to the East, and secondly, as the unifier of this knowledge with the heritage which Sasanian Persia had received from scientific works belonging to Semitic culture, as well as from the science of India. The principal representatives of this activity were not Persians, but Christians, mainly the Syrian Nestorians, and Monophysites from the school of Edessa.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a general account of the character of this activity see
T.J. de Boer, History of Philosophy in Islam, 17-20.]

What was the share in these operations of the Persians themselves it is hard to tell. But at all events, it was not considerable.[1] The general character of this activity does not leave particular room for wide creative science, since it has expressed itself pre-eminently in compilations, translations of philosophical, astronomical, astrological, medical, mathematical and ethical commentaries on Greek and some Indian authors. It was not in this field that the activity of the Persian sacerdotal community in the Sasanian epoch was concentrated. And latterly in the period of the development of analogous scientific work dining the eastern Khalifate under the Abbasides the principal role belonged just to the same class of scholars, Christian Syrians, with just this difference that the activity of the latter continued among the Musalman alumni of various nationalities whilst in Sasanian Persia their operations were cut short by the unfortunate circumstances of the Arab inroads. It is interesting that in the Abbaside period the translations made from the Persian authors or authors belonging to Persia appertain to a certain special genre of works of a technical nature, books on warfare[2], on divination, on horse-breaking[3], on the training of other animals, and on birds[4] trained to hunting. These special treatises were of no abstract scientific contents but referred to the practical demands of life.

[Footnote 1: As regards philosophical traditions of Sasanian Persia in the Musalman epoch principally we may refer to the influence of the system of "Zervanism" on the adherents of the system of "Dahar", de Boer 15 and 76.]

[Footnote 2: See my studies on the Ain-Nameh.]

[Footnote 3: See my book on Materials from Arabic Sources for Culture
History of Sasanian Persia.]

[Footnote 4: Fihrist 315.]

A different kind of importance attaches to histories devoted to government and national life of the Sasanian period and to the epic and literary tradition of Persia. Their value as history has been acknowledged and appreciated by the progressive circles of the Musalman community. Contemporary researches directing the greatest attention to this aspect of Iranian movement appreciated its value and thanks to their works, we are enabled to speak with some clearness regarding books of exceeding importance. Traces of ancient Iranian epic tradition are observable in some Greek writers, Ktesias, Herodotus, Elian, Charen of Mytelene and Atheneus. But it has survived in a considerable quantity in the Avesta.[1]

[Footnote 1: The principal works for investigating the Persian historical and literary tradition are, besides the introduction to his edition and translation of the Shah-Nameh by Mohl, Noeldeke's German History of the Persians, and Arabs at the time of the Sasanians, his introduction, and his Iranian national epic G.I.Ph. II, 130—212; Baron Rosen, On the question of the Arabic translations of the Khudai Nameh (Paraphrase by Kirst in W.Z.K.M.X, 1896); H. Zotenberg, History of the Kings of Persia by Al-Thalibi, Arabic text with translation, especially Preface, XLI-XLIV. A number of profound ideas and ingenious suggestions are made in the various articles and reviews by Gutschmid. (See Appendix V, p. 141).]

The most recent and pregnant exposition is by Lehmann.

It existed also in official writings of the Sasanian times, recensions of which, we possess in several Arab histories and in the Shah Nameh. Like the scientific literature these writings were subjected to a final redaction towards the close of the Sasanian dynasty and it is this recension that has mainly come down to posterity. Alongside of official writings of a general character, there existed various books of epic-historical contents, for instance, the Yadkari-Zariran.[1] As in these writings, so in the versions appearing from them at later times, the materials embodied were of a kindred nature, like the Romance of Behram Chobin, Story of Behram Gor, the narrative of the introduction into Persia of the Game of Chess. Besides these there were writings relating to local histories. It is noteworthy that the epic element was and is preserved with persistence by the Parsis. Mohl notes that the majority of Persian epic poems, excepting the Shah Nameh, has been preserved only in manuscripts belonging to Parsis[2]. Farther development of this phase of Persian literary tradition bifurcated into two directions. It has been shown that the official chronicles of the Sasanian times exercised influence on the development of the Musalman science of history. On the other hand, the epic was resuscitated in heroic romances and tales[3]. Alongside of the historical traditions and the epos stands the romantic poesy which has entered into Musalman literature in a marked degree in the shape of Iranian tradition. At the time this species of poetry prospered in Arabic literature there was a strong Persian influence and some of its representatives were undoubtedly inclined to Persian literary motifs, for instance, the Shuubite Sahal Ibn Harun.[4]

[Footnote 1: We refer mainly to the epic cycle of Soistan for the views of the authorities on which see Mohl (LXII) and Noeldeke National Epic, 80-81. As a supplement to the bibliography furnished by Noeldeke see V. Rugarli, the Epic of Kershasp, G.S.A.I., XI, 33-81, 1898.]

[Footnote 2: LXVII, note 2.]

[Footnote 3: On the process of the latter nature see Mohl LXXII ff. Regarding one of the principal representatives of the later stage of this development see Abu Taher Tarsusi, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1, 115.]

[Footnote 4: Fihrist 120, 1-13. For this kind of poetry see Fihrist 306, 8-308, 14, and compare also the books characterised at page 314, 1-7.]

To the same type of literary monuments we have to add the vast field of story literature. Although a considerable portion of it belongs to the province of migratory subjects, and although to Persia belongs often only the rôle of the transmitter, nevertheless, collections of stories of this class undoubtedly had their assigned place in the Sasanian epoch and the dependence of the core of the Thousand and One Nights on the Persian stories collected in the Hazar Afsan[1] is indisputable. We shall not, therefore, stop here further regarding facts which have been decided more than once. We will only observe that in connection with the Persian literary age of the Sasanians we have to indicate a series of works of the character of epic tales arisen from the ancient historical period of the western boundary of Persia and representing "stories of the Babylonian kingdom" which have been enumerated among the books of this class and also among Persian books,—a circumstance which proves that these tales originated in Sasanian literature. Finally, just as in historical and especially in narrative literature, Persian tradition survived to the Musalman times so also it continued to live in the writings of the ethico-didactical category. The importance of the Pahlavi translation of the book of Kalileh and Dimneh for the migration of this collection of tales to the West is well-known. The significance of Pahlavi translations is not less evident with regard to the Hazar Afsan in connection with the Thousand and One Nights. Still Persian tradition in the field of ethico-didactic literature has been studied and appreciated much less than in the historical and story literature. We have now to examine a few questions in connection with the Persian tradition regarding the ethico-didactic literature of the early Musalman epoch. We shall devote the following chapter to its study.

[Footnote 1: Fihrist 304, 10-305, 2. Fihrist 306, 6; Fihrist 305, 7.]

The ethico-didactic books in the Fihrist (315, 19-316, 25) 38

They are almost exclusively of Persian origin 38

Opinion on the importance of the influence of ethical and didactical works of the Sasanian times on the literature of this class of early Moslem epoch, generally speaking has been expressed in scientific works and has found admittance into a few general surveys of Persian literature. To the literary monuments go back a number of books on what is called Adab, good behaviour or agreeable manners, in modern Persian literature. Besides several literary monuments of later ages,[1] for the solution of this question, capital importance attaches to the information given in the Fihrist of an-Nadhim which is the fundamental source of the history of entire Arabic literature bearing on our period. Further on we shall draw upon this work with the object of determining this species of literary tradition in Arabic books of the first centuries of Islam.

[Footnote 1: P. Horn, Geschichte der persischen Letteratur, (Die
Letteraturen des Ostens in Finzeldarslellungen Bd VI) 38, and Die
Mittelpersische Letteratur, 237.]

Great importance for this problem lies in that portion of the Fihrist which when first edited had elicited little interest, and where are enumerated the titles of books of ethico-didactic character, Persian, Greek, Indian, Arabic, by well-known authors and by anonymous writers[1]. We are aware that in the Fihrist there are partly Arabic, partly Persian, titles of books which have come down to us in a mutilated form, but at the same time some of them have reached us in their correct shapes and others are often easily restorable.

[Footnote 1: Fihrist 315, 19-316, 23.]

In this section of the Fihrist we have in all forty-four titles of books. Among them a large number can be directly traced to Persian origin and a portion were evidently written under Persian influence. To the first class we have no hesitation in assigning fourteen names of books, since as we shall see, two of them or possibly three pertain to one and the same work. We will examine these titles in some detail.

1. The first book is by Zadan Farrukh and is a testament to his son[1]. Although we are not able to recall a book of this title among the Pahlavi literature that has come down to us, still the general character of this work is presented to us in perfect definiteness. It is undoubtedly one of the testaments or counsels, the so-called Pand Nameh or Andarz, of a father to a son, or some one person to another, and the typical representatives of which in the Pahlavi literature appear to be the well-known book of testament of Adarbad to his son, the book of advice to his son by Khosro Anushirvan and the book of counsel to the latter by his Wazir, Buzurj Meher[2].

[Footnote 1: In the text the term is Zadan Farrukh, but Justi already in his Iranisches Namenbuch in 1895 proposed the reading Zadan Farrukh.]

[Footnote 2: As regards the first, see my Materials from Arabic Sources, page 68-69. For the second, West Pahlavi literature G.I. Ph. II, 112. For the third, in Pahlavi verse West 113. For Musalman times see Schefer Chrestomathy 3-6 and Salemann and Zukovski, Persian Grammar page 41-49. Also compare Melanges Asiatiques IX, 215. In Arabic Anthologies especially of the character of what is known as Furstenspiegel the maxims of this wise Wazir are very frequently quoted. See for instance, Sirajul Mulk of Tartushi, also compare the bibliography in V. Chaubin, of Arabic works, Leige 1892, page 66.]

Alongside of this most celebrated Pand Nameh in the Pahlavi literature are also famous a number of other analogous literary monuments traceable to definite persons, while some are anonymous. They are of a nature, for instance, of a simple testament from father to son[1].

[Footnote 1: West 109-111, and 113-115.]

As we have already observed, and as we shall have occasion to speak further, this category of literary remains undoubtedly survived in the Musalman literature and partly in the literature of the Arabs. For the study of the Pahlavi literature this class of tracts has already evoked attention and has called forth several editions and translations. We notice that their interest goes beyond that of Pahlavi literature proper and they are important also for the history of the literature of Musalman nations. Moreover, they are of interest from a general point of view, for the study of Musalman culture. In fact, by their very character these works are brief catechisms with no pretensions to abstract theoretical acquaintance with the sacerdotal tracts, composing another important section of Pahlavi literature, but immediately connected with the daily ordinary life. It goes without saying that whoever read them in the original, their interest did not lie in their theoretical character, but that they were rendered into Arabic and modern Persian languages with a view to the same practical end. Hence however monotonous they are,[1] whatever wearisome character these books possess, they are of great interest for the purpose of comparison with similar productions of Musalman literature and for the purpose of establishing their influence in the unfolding of ethical ideas of the Musalman east, which are far from being clearly made manifest. This side of the question deserves, in my opinion, in these days ampler attention and research.

[Footnote 1: See Noeldeke "Persische Studien" II, S.B.W.A, 1892, 29, Noeldeke remarks, with reference to this class of literature, "that the investigation of this fatiguing business demands an unusual amount of patience", see for instance, the comparison instituted between ethical norm in the Parsi and in the Musalman Literature by Darmesteter in Revue Critique, 21, 1-8.]

2. The second book in the Fihrist is attributed to a Mobedan-mobed that is, head of the Parsi clergy, who in Arabic texts is sometimes called simply Al-Mobedan and whose name was not understood by Flugel[1]. The same word is met with in a mutilated form in another place in the Fihrist[2]. (119-20).

[Footnote 1: Fugel took it for a dual, and consequently divided the name into two.]

[Footnote 2: The book next following is called Kitab kay Lorasp and apparently it had to do with questions connected with Persian literary tradition.]

He is mentioned by Ali Ibn Rayhani, Arabic author, who stood in near relationship to the Khalif and who was partial to the Zindiks, that is, in this case, to the Dualists. He is a reputed author of several books among which there is one whose title was restored by Justi in the Namenbuch[1]. The conjecture of Justi that this name should be read Mihr Adar Jushnas is fully supported by a sketch of it in a passage of interest to us in the Fihrist. Justi hesitated to declare whether this was the name of the book or of its author. But in another place in the text this word is accompanied by the designation Al-Mobedan from which we can undoubtedly conclude that this book was ascribed to a particular person, the supreme Mobed Mihr Adar Jushnas. Therefore, this title of the book should be read as that of the book of Mihr Adar Jushnas, the Mobedan. This book stands at the head of the works we are considering in the Fihrist. Therefore, we can fully trace it to the Persian literary tradition.

[Footnote 1: Namenbuch Mahr Adar Jushnes.]

3. Similarly there can be no scepticism regarding the individual nature of the book called the Book of the Testament of Khusro to his son Ormuz, the admonition given to the latter when he handed over to him the reins of government and the reply of Ormuz. Flugel already perfectly correctly noticed that by Kisra we must here understand Kisra Anushirvan. In this way in this book or in the first half of it we have certainly the Andarz Khusro, the celebrated work in the Pahlavi literature which has been preserved up to our times and which has been translated into the European languages.[1] It contains a number of counsels of Khusro to his son and occupies the place of importance in this species of literature. It is of a pseudo-epigraphic character.

[Footnote 1: See West, 112. The full title is: Andarz-e-Khusro Kavadan.
IV.]

4. With this book is identical another mentioned just there but a little further and entitled the Book of Counsels of Kisra Anushirvan to his son who was called "a well of eloquence". In this way these third and fourth titles indicate one and the same book sufficiently known in the Persian literary tradition in which we are interested.

5. To the same category belongs another book ascribed to the Kisra. It is possible that in this book we have a treatise identical with the one referred to above as the book of the Testament of Khosro Anushirwan, since in several redactions his testaments are represented as advice to his son while in some they stand as admonition directed to the general public.[1]

[Footnote 1: Salemann, Mittel-persische Studeîn, Melanges Asiatiques, ix, 1888, 218.]

6. Under the sixth heading appears a Book of Counsels of Ardeshir Babekan to his son Sabur. This work which was sufficiently known and made use of in the early Moslem period has not come down to us in the original Pahlavi. We know of the existence of a verse translation of this book in the Arabic made by Belazuri (Fihrist, 113 and 114). Moreover, this work was considered as a model composition (probably as represented by Belazuri), and in this connection it was comparable (Fihrist 126, 15-19) to Kalileh wa Dimneh, the Essays of Umar Ibn Hamza,[1] Al Mahanith,[2] the tract called Yatima of Ibn al Mukaffa, and the Essays of Ahmed Ibn Yusuf, secretary of Mamun. In view of the importance attached to this and the following risalas by the author of the Fihrist, it would be interesting to have their editions and translations.

[Footnote 1: A relative of the Khalif Mansur and Mahdi, a secretary of the former Fihrist, 118, 8-12. In the Kitab al Mansur wal Manzum of Ahmed ibn Abi Taher (vide Baron B.P. Rosen, On the Anthology of Ahmed ibn Abi Taher, Journal of the Russian Oriental Society, Vol. III, 1889, page 264). The essay probably referred to is called Rasalat fi al Khamis lil Mamun. (Or Rislat al Jaysh). See Fihrist, II, 52.]

[Footnote 2: This was probably the title of the epistle of Umar Ibn Hamza to Ali ibn Mahan preserved by the same Ahmed ibn Abi Taher. As regards persons by the name of Mahan in the Musalman period see Justi Namenbuch 185.]

Extracts from this testament especially from its concluding portion, have been handed down to us in the Kitabat Tambih.[1] They relate to the prophecy of Zaradusht regarding the destruction of the Persian religion and empire in the course of a thousand years after him.[2]

[Footnote 1: By the same Ahmed ibn Abi Taher has been preserved the
Essay of this Ahmed ibn Yusuf on "Thankfulness"—Risalat Ahmed ibn
Yusuf fishshukr which possibly is referred to by the author of the
Fihrist. See also there the highly important Risalat ibn Mukaffa
fissahobat.

B.G.A. VIII, 98, 16-99, 1. Macoudi, Le livre de l'avertissement et de la revision, trad. par Carra de Vaux, Paris, 1897, 141-142.]

[Footnote 2: In connection with this prophecy, as regards the changes which were made in the chronological system of the Persian history see A. Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften, III, Leipzig, 1892. 22-23, and 97, &c.]

It is highly interesting that just like the well-known testament by Tansar to the king of Tabaristan this testament was written at a considerably later period, in the time of Anushirwan.[3]

[Footnote 3: See on this question Christensen 111-112 and Appendix VI.]

Regarding the general character of this apocryphal testament we may judge by the counsels of the founder of the Sasanian dynasty which have come down to us in various Arabic and Persian historical works and in the Shah Nameh.

7. The 7th title refers to the book of a certain mobedan mobed on rhetorical passages which were analogous probably to the anonymous Pand Namehs which are found in the Pahlavi literature.

8. The 8th is the book on the correspondence between the Kisra and a Marzban.[1]

[Footnote 1: Does not this appear like a book containing the correspondence on the well-known episode in the history of the Persians in Yemen and the letters which were exchanged between the Marzban or Mavazan and Khosrau Parviz? (See Noeldeke, Tabari 237, 264, 350-351).]

9-10. The 9th and the 10th titles relate to books of questions directed on a certain occasion by the king of Rome to Anushirwan and on another occasion by the king of Rome to another emperor of Persia.

11. The 11th book refers to the order of Ardeshir to bring out from the treasury books written by Wisemen on "Government."

12. The 12th book was written for Hormaz, son of Kisra, i.e., Kisra Anushirwan on the correspondence between a certain Kisra and "Jamasp."[1]

[Footnote 1: Are we to understand under this name a reference to the well-known Jamasp Hakim occurring in Pahlavi literature (Weat, 110)?

On the Persian wisdom of Jamasp, see C.H.L. Flise, cher Kleinere
Schriften 3 Leipzig, 1888, 254-255, and Justi Namenbuch, 109.

The name, however, cannot be clearly read, Hadahud (see Fihrist, 316, 13) where instead of Mardyud should be read Mardwaihi. In the same book 162, 6, instead of Zaydyud should be read Zaiduya. As regards the name Hadahud generally, see Justi, 177, who mentions a son of Farrukhzad.]

13. The 13th book is attributed to a certain Kisra and it is added that it treated of gratitude and was written for the benefit of the public.

14. Finally, the 14th heading referred no doubt to one of those Persian books written by Persians bearing Persian names and embodying various stories and anecdotes.

Of the remaining 30 books, 11 belong to the Moslem period but were composed at the time of complete Persian influence on Arabic literature. We have three books on Adab written for Khalif Mahdi, Rashid and for the Barmecide Yahya ibn Khalid. Then there are nine books by authors who are partly unknown and partly belong to the same period of Persian influence and who have been mentioned in other places in the Fihrist.

Of the remaining 19 books a considerable number is to be found to have issued from Persian sources. Of Persian origin probably were two books translated by the aforesaid Mihr Adur Jushnasp—one relating to 'Adab' and the other on 'house-building.'

The book on the refutation of the Zendiks by an unknown author was probably derived from Parsi circles. For, especially in the reign of Mamun there existed various controversies with the followers of Mazdaism and Dualists.[1]

[Footnote 1: A. Barthelémy, Gujastak Abalish. Rélation d'une Conférence
Théologique, presidée par le Calife Mamoun, Paris, 1887. (Bibliotheque
de l'école des hautes études, sciences philologiques et historiques,
LXIX., fascicule.)]

Further, undoubtedly under Persian books must be reckoned the book of the 'Counsels' of ancient kings and the book of the 'Questions' to certain Wisemen, and their Answers. If these are not of direct Persian origin they are similar in contents to Persian books. Two books included in this list, namely, one by a certain Christian on ethico-didactical subjects as is stated in the title itself, drawn from Persian, Greek and Arabic sources, and the other, a book translated by the author of the Fihrist himself containing the anecdotes regarding the people of a superior class and of the middle class—these two books on account of their contents embody the experiences relating to ethico-didactical questions and were of the nature of compilation similar to the book of Ibn Miskawaihi of whom we shall speak later on. Finally, all the remaining books relate to that class of anecdotal and didactic literature which spread so wide among Arabic writers through Pahlavi and originating from Indian authors. Such books were, for instance, the story of Despair and Hope, the Book of Hearing and Judgment, the Book of the two Indians, a liberal man and a miser, their disputation, and the judgment passed on them by the Indian prince, etc. That our assumption is highly probable is confirmed by the mention among these books of the book of the philosopher and his experiences with the slave girl Kaytar.[1]

[Footnote 1: This book no doubt is a portion of the well-known fable Lai d'—Aristote preserved in certain ancient monuments of Arabic literature. The same book is mentioned among Persian books in another place in the Fihrist. (305-6). Kitab Musk Zanameh, w[=a] shah Zanan. These two books have been variously transcribed by the copyists.]

The name has been much mutilated and serves as an example of the degree to which Persian titles have been corrupted. Nevertheless, thanks to the circumstance that the name of the slave girl has come down to us, in the Arabic version of the story we are able to trace the title adduced in the Fihrist.[1]

[Footnote 1: Le Livre des beautes et des antithesis attribute a Abu Othman Amr ibn Bahr al-Djahiz texte publie par G. Van Vloten, Leyde, 1898, 225-257; E. G., Browne, "some account of the Arabic work entitled Nihayatu'l-irab fi Akhbari'l Furs wa'l-Arab," particularly of that part which treats of the Persian kings, J.R.A.S. (900, 243-245).]

This name is Mushk Daneh or a grain of Musk. The book of Musk Daneh and the mobed became famous in Arabic literature as a separate Persian composition.[2]

[Footnote 2: Similarly the title Shahzanan in the Fihrist is possibly Mobedan, (See Browne 244, 2, 3, 11, 15; 245, 4, 15; and Van Vloten 255, 16; 256, 1, 4, 14; 257, 7, 9; or Shaikh al mobedan, Browne 245.)]

The Persian, sources of the compilation of Ibn Miskawaihi 54

Preponderance of the Persian element in the evolution of the Musalman morals 57

The "Book of Adab" by Ibn al Muqaffa and other similar Arabic works 59

At the head of works under the title of ethico didactic writings, which have come down to us stands a group most characteristically denominated Adab ul Arab val Furs belonging to the pen of a writer of the 10th and 11th centuries, Ibn Miskawaihi whose name is pronounced in Persian Ibn Mushkuya. At the basis of this collection lies the ancient Persian pseudepigraphical book Javidan khired, or "Eternal wisdom." But in the body of it there is a series of literary monuments of Sasanian literature and its descendants.[1] The author is known, besides, by his philosophical works, as a historian[2] and as such he is particularly important for the history of the Buides.[3] And his Persian origin would point to his sympathy for Persian literary tradition. As a matter of fact, his ethico-didactic collection is based on a book of the Sasanian epoch. It would appear that this circumstance has undoubted significance for the determination of the influence in the compilation of Moslem ethical ideals. However, in contradiction to this basal fact and notwithstanding that in the province of the development of Islam as a religion, Persian element played an important part,[4] the development of the Moslem ethical tracts in contemporary literature, for the most part, is dependent upon more antique, specially Greek, tradition. J. Goldziher recognizing the importance of the influence of Parsism on Islam says the exact demonstration of the dependence of these phenomena on the culture historical facts, whose consequences they are, would be the most interesting task which those studying Islam in its present position can place before themselves. Many of the dominating views regarding the original spirit of Islam would receive the needed correction by such investigation.

[Footnote 1: On this work and its manuscripts see my Material from Arab sources 68-69.]

[Footnote 2: For Miskawaihi as a philosopher see Boer 116-119.]

[Footnote 3:—He was the treasurer and a close friend of the Buide
Adudad-Daula.]

[Footnote 4: For a general sketch of Moslem ethics in ancient times see Carra de Vaux, Gazali, 129-142, and Encyclopaedia of Islam 4, 244-246.]

Let us examine three points regarding the influence on Moslem morals and general conduct. In the first place stand the moral writings of ecclesiastical character. The morality is rooted in and based on the moral of the Bible and then on the developed Moslem law and has absorbed in itself some of the elements of the ethics of Christianity. In the second place, there is a series of ethical documents of a most valued nature in the shape of proverbs, dicta, maxims, fables, constituting a kind of moral philosophy, often independent of each other, varied in their character, and different as to time and the place of their compositions. Here we may separate a certain stratum of Persian element, and an analysis of them may reveal partly contemporary knowledge and partly elements of foreign religious ethics. The third but not the last place in importance is occupied by the Greek ethical tradition in which latterly are discernible important Christian constituents. Recent studies have yielded us as their result, this structure of Musalman ethics. But it is to be noted that the theoretical deductions at first sight do not find confirmation in facts. For we do not know which Greek books on ethics were translated in the beginning of the period of the scientific development of Islam, and for the support of our thesis we have to point to the possibility of oral transmission of Hellenic ethical tradition through Syriac scholars, although this circumstance does not militate against our hypothesis. Besides a small amount of translations from Greek ethical works, especially the books of Aristotle, there are observed among the works embodied in this tradition a series of pseudographs which, however, can have only an external relation with the Greek sciences and which would rather lead to the second group of the influences on Musalman ethical monuments namely, the group of monuments of "Oriental wisdom." The most typical of the pseudographical wisaya, or "Testaments" are ascribed to Aristotle, Pythagoras, and others. To our mind, they are derived from Persian tradition to the same extent, if not in a larger extent than from the Christian. Actual studies demonstrate that the basal work for this epoch was the book above-mentioned of Ibn Miskawaihi which as we saw above, issued from Persian literary tradition. And the character of that tradition can be explained from exterior circumstances without an analysis of its contents. The fact is that Ibn Miskawaihi worked upon that class of Persian material, for instance the Pand Nameh or Andarz, which had nothing to do with the province of the indefinite gnomic literature but which had the character of a catechism and therefore expresses a definite system of religious morals, the morals of Parsism.[1] The appreciation of the influence of Parsism on Islam has only just commenced. But we are already in a position to emphasise the great influence, which Parsi ethics have exercised on Islam and this influence has been attested by a number of Greek and Christian witnesses. So far, for an acknowledgment of this influence serves a purely external fact, namely, a glance at the bibliography of the ancient ethico-didactic tracts in the Musalman literature and an examination of the contents of the book of Ibn Muskawaihi. A number of additional facts confirm this hypothesis.

[Footnote 1: For a general review of the morals of Parsism see A.V.W.
Jackson's G. I. Ph. Vol. II, 678-683.]

Well-known is the importance enjoyed in the beginning of the epoch of the development of the Arabic Musalman literature, by the activities of the Parsi Ibn al Muqaffa.[1] He is famous as the first commentator of the Greek books on logic in Arabic literature, but he is particularly renowned as the efficient supporter of the Persian literary tradition and its translator into the Arabic literature. His rendering of Kalila and Dimma is well-known. It enjoys a prime role in the migration of this collection of stories to the West. Well-known also is his translation of the Persian book of Khoday Nameh,—that is, the official chronicle of the Sasanian times and of the Ain Nameh, the Institutes of the time. We shall have occasion to speak about these books later on. To him also belong the books closely connected with the Sasanian epoch, namely, the Book of Mazdak the Book of Taj to which we shall refer further on. It is interesting that he is also the reputed author of two books on Adab, perhaps among the most ancient ones in Arabic literature.[2] One of these books called the Smaller was probably contained in the other which is called the Larger and has the purely Persian title of Mah farra Jushnas. (This is how the title is to be read according to Hoffmann and Justi).[3] Since the interest of Muqaffa was concentrated in the province of Persian culture it is indisputable that his activity was not confined in this direction to one book and the contents of the book have vestiges in a high degree of dependence on Persian motifs. This is proved by a variety of circumstances. We have descended to us his book called Al Yatima, a tract on that aspect of morals which was especially diffused in the Sasanian epoch and was devoted to politics and in form represented the species of writings called Furstenspiegel.[4] A tradition of this kind of literature for long continued to live in the Musalman writers and the typical representative of the species seems to be the famous Siyasat Nameh, of Nizam-ulmulk, the Saljuk Wazir. On some occasions it directly serves as a source for the internal history of the Sasanian domination. It bears particularly on didactic literature though it has been as yet very ill studied from the comparative standpoint. The Sasanian influence is perfectly obvious. Some portions of Al Yatima of Ibn Muqaffa may be parallelled to corresponding remnants from Pahlavi literature in the Kabus Nameh and the Siasat Nameh.[5] We know further that books under the title of Persian Adab were spread among those who sympathised with Mazdaism and Manichism in the circle of Moslem society.[6] These books by their character were comparable to books on Mazdak but also to Kalila wa Dimna.

[Footnote 1: Fihrist, 118, 18-29, and Ibn al Qifti's Tarkh al hukama edited by Lippert, page 220, 1-10.]

[Footnote 2: Brockelmann, On the rhetorical writings of Ibn all Mukaffa,
Z.D.M.G. 53, 231-32.]

[Footnote 3: Hoffmann "Extracts from Syrian acts of Persian martyrs", 1880 page 289 note, and Justi, Namenbuch 186.]

[Footnote 4: Precise information regarding its contents is rather to be found in Ibn al Qifti than in the Fihrist. In the former the heading is Fi taat us Sultan, in the latter Fi rasail. See La perle incomparable ou l'art du parfait courtisane de Abdallah ibn al-Muqaffa, 1906. See the French translation from the Dutch rendering of this tract.]

[Footnote 5: On the political ideas of the latter see Pizzi, Le idee politiche di Nizam-ul-Mulk G.S.A. 1., 131-141.]

[Footnote 6: Tabari "Annales" Vol. 3, 1309, 9-15, and Browne A literary
History of Persia, 1, 332.]

Besides Muqaffa a number of writers of the epoch of the development of Arabic Musalman literature interested themselves in themes connected with Persian antiquities. One of them, Aban Ibn Abdul Humiad ar Rakashi otherwise known as Aban al-Lahiki chose a number of themes from ancient Persian literature and according to the Fihrist versified them (119, 1-6-163, 7-10). Such subjects were—Kalila and Dimna, the Book of Barlaam and Yuasef, the Book of Sindbad, the Book of Mazdak and finally books on two popular representative of the Sasanian dynasty, namely, the Book of the acts of Ardasher and the Book of the acts of Anushirvan.[1]

[Footnote 1: Versification of the history of Anushirvan is also to be met with in later Parsi literature, see, Sachau, Contribution to the knowledge of the Parsi literature, J.R.A.S. 1870 page 258.]

Another author, Ahmed Ibn Tahir Taifur, wrote according the Fihrist (146, 21) a special Book of Hormuz son of Kisra Anushirvan.[1] No doubt, further more, writers of Persian origin followed in their books on Adab Persian models. Such probably was the book of Adab by an author whose name has been mutilated in the Fihrist (139, 15, 18). There is another class of writings which bears relation to this one and which is mentioned in the Fihrist. It is quite possible that on this literary Persian tradition, were based also some of the tracts under the title of "Books on counsels" a considerable number of which we meet with in the Fihrist.[2]

[Footnote 1: See the essay of Baron Rosen on the anthology of Ahmed Ibn
Abi Tahir.]

[Footnote 2: 78, 15; 105, 10; 293, 12; 204, 17-18; 204, 29; 207, 21; 210, 23; 212, 22-23; 217, 4-5; 220, 25; 222, 14; 234, 23; 281, 20; 282, 5.]

Ethico-didactical treatises in the form of counsels, maxima or testaments, constitute a singular group of literary mementos the genesis of which in the Musalman literature maybe established only after an examination of similar books in the Persian writings of the Sasanian times. Examples of a like class of testaments, literary compilations under the title, for the most part, of pseudo-graphs going up to pre-Moslem period we have already noticed in the Book of the counsels of Ardasher and the Pand Nameh of Kisra Anushirvan.

The Taj Nameh as mentioned in the Fihrist page 305, and page 118, and repeatedly referred to in the Uyunal Akhbar, Part I, of Ibn Kutayba 65

The Persian book with illustrations mentioned by Masudi in his Kitab at Tambih, page 106-7 and the illustrations in the scrolls in the castle of Shiz 68

We have indicated in the preceding chapter the translations of Ibn al Muqaffa from Persian books into Arabic. Besides those of an ethico-didactic contents, among them there were books of historical character. All these translations have not come down to us. Extracts of these renderings into Arabic, however, have been preserved in the original and sometimes in paraphrase. Unusually important was the translation of the book called the Khuday Nameh, the value of which has long been appreciated by science. Questions of vital importance in connection with this history are its relation to the Shah Nameh and the examination of its various translations in the Musalman period. The loss of this book, perhaps the most important monument of Middle Persian literature, is to be particularly deplored in that with it has perished the connecting link of the historical evolution of Iran, incorporating the religious and clerical legislature in an official redaction. Of capital importance also was another book called the Ain Nameh[1] or the Book of Institutes, a valuable source of the internal history of the Sasanian Empire, comprising a descriptive table of official dignitaries or the Gah Nameh.[2] Judging by the clue given in the Fihrist (118,28) it would appear that the Book of Taj also was a historical one since it has been explained that the book treated of the "Acts of Anushirwan." As a matter of fact, among the books written by the Persians on epic and historical subjects and indexed in the same Fihrist (305, 8-13) has been mentioned the Book of Taj.[3]

[Footnote 1: See below and also my book on The Materials from Arabic sources, &c., 63-66. Like Masudi in his Kitab at Tambih, Asadi in his Lughal al-Furs (Asadi's neupersischen Worterbuch Lughat al-Furs, edited by P. Horn, 1897, 110, 1), identifies the word ain with the word rasam, practice or custom. As regards the word ain in the Iranian languages see Horn Grundriss der neu persischen Etymologie, 15-16; Hubschmann, Persische Studien 11, and B.G.A. IV, 175, and VIII, Glossarium IX. To understand the ancient usage of the term the modern Parsi expression Dad wa ain din in the sense of religious law and custom helps us. In this phrase the word dad corresponds to the modern Musalman shariyat and the word ain to adat. Regarding its special meaning in the Umayyad times see J. Wellhausen Das Arabische Reich und sein Sturz 189.]

[Footnote 2: Most probably in connection with the materials of this book stood A collection of Persian genealogy written by the well-known Ibn Khurdadbeh (Fihrist 149, 4), representing a peculiar antithesis to the numerous selections of Arab tribal and family genealogies.]

[Footnote 3: Here are first mentioned the two books translated by Jabala ibn Salim, namely, the Book of Rustam and Isfandiyar and the Book of Behram Chobin (the well-known Romance of the King about which, sea Noeldeke's Tabari 474-478), and further the Book of Shahrzad and Aberviz (which no doubt was connected with the Thousand and one Nights), the Book of Kar Nameh or the "Acts" of Anushirwan belonging to the same class of books as the Kar Nameh of Ardashir. Then the books that interest us are the Book of Taj, the Book of Dara and the Golden Idol, the Ain Nameh, the Book of Behramgor and his brother Narseh and finally, one more Book of Anushirwan.]

It is possible that the book of Ibn al Mukaffa was not the first translation of the Persian book since this title is applied by not a few other Arabic writers of the time to some of their own works. (For example, Abu Ubaida, See Goldziher Muhammed Studien 1,198).

In his time Baron Rosen called attention to quotations from a certain Book of Taj in Uyunal Akhbar of Ibn Qutaiba.[1] These quotations are only to be found in the first part of the Uyunal Akhbar. All these quotations, eight in number, bear a didactic character, and excepting three, refer back to Kisra Abarviz and contain his testament to his sons (two), secretaries, treasurers and hajibs. Of the remaining three one bears on general maxims of practical politics. Another is a testament of an ancient Persian king to his Wazir. And the third is a maxim of one of the secretaries of a king. In this manner all these citations are of an ethicodidactic nature; only they have been invested with a historical environment and under ordinary circumstances would represent the general type of writings on political conduct for rulers, standing for the class of literature designated Furstenspiegel. A similar class of citations is preserved in the "speeches from the throne" and the counsels of the Sasanian kings which we come across in various Arab historical and anthological works bearing on Sasanian Persia, as also in the Shah Nameh.

[Footnote 1: Baron Rosen, Zur arabischen Literatur geschichte der altern zeit, 1. Ibn Qutaiba; Kitab Uyunal Akhbar (Melanges Asiatiques, VIII, 1880, 745-779, especially 774-775). These citations correspond to those in the edition of Brockelmann as follows: 21, 12-16; 27, 11-15; 32, 2-8; 44, 13-45, 4; 67, 13-66, 8; 84, 8-16; 107, 2-17; 120, 16-121, 5.]

Gutschmid already noticed in his time that by the Persian historians to each Sasanian ruler was ascribed a maxim and indicated that with reference to Ardashir and Anoshiravan these maxims may be taken as the basis since the Book of Counsels of the former was well-known and a large number of edifying proverbs of the latter had found admittance into the national language.[1] Let us add that, as we showed above, there has been preserved a similar class of Books of Counsels, the reputed author of which is Anoshiravan. The putative dicta of the other Sasanian kings Gutschmid considered as fabricated being designed to be brief characterisations of each of them. Gutschmid further advanced the conjecture that these apophthegms formed the texts under the portraits of the kings in the book which was used by Hamza Ispahani[2] and which was seen by Masudi.[3] According to the information supplied us by the latter (Masudi) he saw this book in Istakhr in an aristocratic Persian family, and that it included, besides information of a scientific character, the history of the Persian kings and their reigns and a description of the monuments erected by them.[4] In the book were the portraits of the Sasanians and it was based on the documents found in the royal archives. And the portraits also were prepared from the materials deposited there. The book was completed in A.H. 113 (A.D. 731), and it was translated for the Khalif Hisham from the Persian into the Arabic language.

[Footnote 1: Gutschmid, Kleine schriften, III, 35-36.]

[Footnote 2: About this book see Gutschmid, III, 150-151.]

[Footnote 3: B.G.A. VIII, 106, 5-107, 5. Translation by Carra de Vaux 150-151. See Christensen 90-91.]

[Footnote 4: Gutschmid 150, 151.]

We called attention above to the information supplied by Istakhri and Ibn Haukal regarding the castle of Shiz and the preservation in it of the archives and the portraits of the Sasanian kings. It is highly probable that for the reproduction of these portraits of the sovereigns the authors were guided as much by the bas-reliefs, not far from this castle, as by the tradition regarding them which was embalmed in older books belonging to the class mentioned by Masudi which undoubtedly existed in the Imperial archives.[1] Along with the literary tradition there must have survived the artistic tradition. It is highly probable that the peculiar Persian art of illuminating manuscripts which was yet unknown according to Masudi in his own time,—the embellishing of books with gold, silver, and copper dust was practised by the Manichians whose calligraphy[2] delighted the Musalman authors and whose style of illustrating manuscripts must have been fashioned after the art displayed in those books which in the tenth century were preserved in the castle of Shiz[3] and which at an earlier period were widely desseminated among the Parsi circles.

[Footnote 1: Connected with ancient tradition, but dependant upon modern science, are the portraits of the Sasanian kings in the recently published Nameh Khusrawan, Tehran 1285, (A.D. 1868).]

[Footnote 2: In connection with the art of the Persian calligraphist and illustrative of the Sasanian epoch stand the indications of the ancient Moslem writers regarding the Avesta, which is reported to have been inscribed by Zoroaster in gold ink on parchment and also writings in gold ink of certain ancient Persian books. According to the Zafar Nameh, Anushirwan directed that the maxims of Buzurjamihr should be written down in golden water,—(ba-abizar). From early Sasanians also comes the custom of writing on valuable parchment or paper. Masudi speaks of the purple ink of these books.]

[Footnote 3: See Browne, "A Literary History", I, 165-166.]

Now we revert to the supposition of Gutschmid. Had he known the quotations from the Book of Taj in Uyunal Akhbar he would have adduced them in confirmation of his hypothesis, and he would have compared the book mentioned by Masudi with the Book of Taj referred to among the Persian books enumerated in the Fihrist. On the basis of the last-mentioned work it may be affirmed that in the Sasanian times there existed a certain Taj Nameh comparable to the Khuday Nameh and the Ain Nameh. The extracts in the Uyunal akhbar do not contain anything of a special nature with reference to king Anushirwan so that the Book of Taj on the "Acts of Anushirwan" mentioned in the Fihrist among the books of Ibn al Mukaffa could hardly have comprised what has been quoted in Uyunal akhbar. The materials at our disposal are too scanty to establish its relation with the Sasanian Book of Taj.[1]

[Footnote 1: The supposition (Zotenberg, Thaalibi XLI,) according to which Firdausi saw an illustrated "Book of Kings" rests on a misunderstanding. The fact is that certain verses have been incorrectly translated by Mohl (IV, 700-701, Verses 4071-4075).

Mohl translated the passage as follows: "There was an aged man named Azad Serw who lived at Merv in the house of Ahmad son of Sahl; he possessed a book of kings in which were to be found the portraits and figures of the Pehlwans. He was a man with a heart replete with wisdom and a head full of eloquence, and a tongue nourished with ancient tradition; he traced his origin to Sam, son of Nariman, and he knew well the affairs regarding the fights of Rustam."

A more correct translation would be: "There was a certain old man by name of Azad Serw living in Merv with Ahmad son of Sahl. He had a Book of Kings. In figure and face he was a warrior; his heart was full of wisdom, his head full of eloquence, and in his mouth there ever were stories of the ancient times. He traced his origin back to Sam, son of Nariman, and preserved in his memory many a tale of the battles of Rustam."]

The list of the translators from Persian into Arabic as given in the
Fihrist, (244, 25-245, 6) 75

The different categories of these translators

Omar ibn al Farrukhan of Tabaristan (Fihrist 273, 14-18) and his Kitab al Mahasin 79

Other authors of books of analogous titles in the first centuries of Islam,—the relation of these books to the books of "Virtues and Vices" (cf. Baihaqi, pseudo-Jahiz) and the connection of these books with the Parsi religious idea of the licit and the illicit,—Al Mahasin wal Masavi, and the Shayast la Shayast. 83

In the Fihrist (244, 25-245, 6) are stated a number of names of the principal translators from the Persian into the Arabic language. Assuredly this list is far from complete. The author names only a few calling attention to only particular translators. The passage in question in the Fihrist has been more than once utilised. The entire section has not been exhaustively examined. We believe that from it we can infer the general character of the contents of those translations which were prepared from Persian into Arabic and can gather some further indices regarding this list of names.

To examine the list of translators in order. First of all as may be expected is mentioned Ibn al Muqaffa about whom the Fihrist speaks in detail at another place. Then follow the family of Naubakht; Musa and Yusuf, the sons of Khalid; Abul Hasan Ali ibn Zyad at Tamimi—of his principal translations is mentioned "the Tables of Shahriyar;" Hasan ibn Sahal mentioned at the head of astronomers; Balazuri; Jabala ibn Salem, secretary of Hisham; Ishak ibn Yazid, translator of the Persian history entitled Khuday Nameh; Muhammad ibn al Jahm al Barmaki; Hisham ibn al Kasim; Musa ibn Isa al Kisravi; Zaduya ibn Shahuya al Isfahani; Muhammad ibn Behram al Isfahani; Behram ibn Mardanshah, Mobed mobedan of the City of Sabur in Fars; Umar ibn al Farrukhan of whom special mention is made by the author of the Fihrist.

An examination of the aforesaid names of translators in order would, it seems to us, afford material for the solution of the problem regarding the different varieties of Persian literary tradition in the first centuries of Islam. Ibn al Muqaffa stands in the first place belonging to him by right. He was a genuine encyclopaedic translator familiar with the Arab society with all its influence of spiritual Sasanian life of Persia finding expression in its literature. He translated scientific, epico-historical, and ethico-didactic books. Hence we can understand that in the Fihrist has been assigned to him a special notice as noted by us above.

The family of Naubakht, mentioned next, represents a group of scholars mentioned separately in the Fihrist.[1] The head of the Naubakhts, was an astronomer to the Khalif Mansur and his son Abu Sahl succeeded to his father's occupation. The grandsons of Naubakht wrote books on astronomy as well as jurisprudence. Persian literary tradition is earliest recognised in the astronomical works of the grandsons of Naubakht. The author of the Fihrist places this Hasan ibn Sahl, as already indicated by Flugel, at the head of astronomers. And the same scientific character no doubt was attached to the activities of Musa and Yusuf,[2] the sons of Khalid mentioned there as well as at Tamimi, the author of the astronomical tables Zichash Shahriyar. In this manner these translators mentioned after Ibn al Mukaffa constituted in a manner a peculiar group of scholars who prepared translations from Pahlavi into Arabic.

[Footnote 1: 176, 20-177, 9; 177, 9-19; 274, 7-13; 275, 25-6. See Ibn al
Kifti 165, 1-5 and 409, 3-14.]

[Footnote 2: See Ibn al Kifti, 1711, 10-11.]

Balazuri and Jabala ibn Salem have already been mentioned above. The first translated into verse a Book of the Counsels of Ardeshir and the second the Book of Rustam and Isfandiyar as well as the romance of Behram Chobin. In this way the themes handled by these writers may be called epico-historical and ethico-didactic. Purely historical questions interested the seven succeeding translators from Ishaq ibn Yazid to Mobed Behram. These persons are sufficiently known in their special departments of literature. They were the translators into the Arabic language of the Khuday Nameh.[1] Accordingly we may group them in a class by themselves.

[Footnote 1: Compare the essay of Rosen mentioned above On the question of the Arabic translations of the Khuday Nameh, 173-176, and 182-186.]

The next author mentioned at this place in the Fihrist as a translator stands by himself,—Umar ibn al Farrukhan. He is altogether unknown as a translator of historical works. Hence he was not included in the group of persons mentioned before. On the other hand, had he been set down in this passage of the Fihrist as a translator of scientific works he would have been assigned a place not at the close of the list but in the middle of the translators of this class of books, that is, after Ibn Muqaffa and in the midst of the descendants of Naubakht and other persons mentioned above. Therefore we think that Umar ibn Farrukhan was a translator of another species of work or, may be, works. In support of our assumption we must call attention to that place in the Fihrist where are enumerated the books of this author and to which an-Nadhin himself refers in the analysis of the number of translators from Persian into Arabic.

Besides this place in the Fihrist, Umar ibn Farrukhan of Tabaristan has been mentioned in two other places. Once briefly,[1] (268, 25-26) as the annotator of the astronomical book of Dorotheya Sidonia and in another place (277, 14-18) in a few lines[2] specially devoted to him. Here he is mentioned as the annotator of Ptolemy as translated by Batrik Yahuya ibn al Batrik and as the author of two books, one of astronomical contents and the other entitled Kitab al Mahasin, that is the book of good qualities and manners.[3] This latter book demands a few lines from us.

[Footnote 1: Ibn al Qifti 184, 9—10.]

[Footnote 2: Ibn al Kifti 241, 20-242, 12. (This has been pointed out in the Fihrist Vol. II, 110-111, and in ZDMG XXV, 1871, 413—415.) Further mention of him in the same book 98, 9 and 184, 10.]

[Footnote 3: An account of the literary activity of this author was given in the work of H. Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke, Abhandiungen Zur Geschichte der mathematischer Wissenschaften Supplement zum, 45 Jahrgang der Zeitschrift fur Mathematik und Physik, Leipzig, 1900, 7-8. Haji Khalfa cites only the astrological books of Omar Ibn Farrukhan I, 198 and V, 35, 386. See also Justi Namenbuch 95, Nos. 15 and 19.]

Umar ibn Farrukhan is mentioned in the section of books on astronomy, mathematics, physics, mechanics, and music. In this group are mentioned a number of writers who composed works on these sciences, beginning with Euclid and ending with the contemporary authors of an-Nadhin. In the midst of them, an-Nadhin has also mentioned the grandsons of Naubakht. Not one of them wrote any Kitab al Mahasin which appears, therefore, to be the independent work of Umar ibn Farrukhan. This book, further, could not have been of a scientific astronomical, or mathematical nature as is obvious from its subject-matter which related to good manners and conduct. This book has been mentioned in this group only because here are enumerated the works of Umar ibn Farrukhan. And good manners and conduct constituted, as we saw above, a favourite theme of Parsi literature: wherefor the book heads the list. Similar to it are the contents not only of Andarzes and Pand Namehs but of a series of tracts on religious subjects. Hence we think that it was mainly owing to this book that Umar ibn Farrukhan was included among the number of principal translators from Persian into Arabic and came to be enumerated among the translators to whom is ascribed a certain amount of speciality. For he was the solitary representative of his category of translators of ethicodidactic books intimately connected with the problems of the Paris religion. Possibly Umar ibn Farrukhan was the first to introduce this species of literature into Arabic, and we must add, employed for his material as well as ideas Parsi tracts. Originally from Tabaristan, he, in the words of Ibn al Qifti, was introduced to Abu Maashar al Balkhi, stood well with Jaffer the Barmecide, and subsequently with Fazl ibn Sahl, the Wazir who recommended him to his sovereign al-Mamum. And for this Khalif Mamun he prepared a number of translations. The sympathy of these persons for the Persian literary tradition could not have been confined to the translation of scientific works, but must have extended to the preservation of Persian ethico-didactic tradition in literature.

Books with the title of Kitab al Mahasin are to be met with in the Fihrist, if not often, several times. A book with this title (77, 21) has been ascribed to the celebrated Ibn Qutaiba. It was composed doubtless after the book of Umar ibn Farrukhan, for Qutaiba flourished at the close of the reign of Mamun and his literary activities could be referred to the ninth century. Qutaiba undoubtedly interested himself in Persian literary materials. Hence it can be concluded that his Kitab al Mahasin was not foreign to the materials and in form could be the first imitation of Farrukhan. Further it is interesting to note that books with this title were attributed especially to Shia authors such as Abu Nadar Muhamed ibn Masud al Ayashi who wrote Kitab al Mahasin al Akhlak or a book of good morals (195, 10) and Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Khallid al Barki who wrote Kitab al Mahasin (2213-4, also 7-9). And the interest of Shia authors in Persian tradition was unquestionable. A book with the same title of Kitab al Mahasin is ascribed to a certain Ibn al Harun, (148, 17) an author who has been assigned in the Fihrist a place among the writers on Adab and as responsible for a book called Kitab al Adab. Now the discussion of Adab as we said above is intimately connected with Persian tradition. And this tradition probably survived in the books which had for their theme "the good qualities of Adab."[1] We believe that all these books were devoted to Persian literary tradition, in close relation to which stands the book on "good qualities and manners" mentioned in the Fihrist as translated from the Persian language into Arabic by the man from Tabaristan, Umar ibn al Farrukhan.

[Footnote 1: For instance, Mahasin al Adab of Ispahani, see
Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litterature I. 351.]

Co-related with these books on "good qualities" stand, in our opinion, the books on "good morals and their opposite," or "goodness and wickedness," Kutub al Mahasin wal Azdad, or Kutub al Mahasin wal Masawi. Although in the Fihrist we do not come across books with this title, we have a book so named from the beginning of the tenth century whose author was Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al Baihaki.[1] Under the title of Kitab al Mahasin wal Azdad we likewise possess a work ascribed to Jahiz.[2] Both these books evidently go to a common origin.[3] It is quite possible that antithesis was originally not excluded from these Kutub al-Mahasin, from which were developed a special species of educative treatises,—those on "good qualities and their opposites." Continuing our comparison with the Parsi literature, we notice that a similar kind of antithesis is most commonly employed there.

[Footnote 1: Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al Baihaki, Kitab al-Mahasin val masavi, herausgegeben von Dr. F. Schwally, Geissen 1902.]

[Footnote 2: Le livre des beautes et des antithesis attribue a Abu
Othman Amr ibn Bahr al-Djakiz, texte arabe publie par G. Van Vloten
Leyde; 1898.]

[Footnote 3: See the review by Barbier de Meynard of the edition of Mahasin wal Azdad in the Revue Citique, 1900, 276.]

In the Parsi ecclesiastical literature of an ethical nature we find definitely settled what is "proper" and, on the other hand, what is "improper."[1] It is well known that books under this title,—"the proper and the improper" or "the licit and the illicit"—are to be found among the Pahlavi tracts the time of whose composition can be fixed somewhere between the seventh and the ninth centuries A.D.[2] Comparing the Pahlavi tracts with reference to these questions with Arabic books on good and bad qualities and manners, we have to bear in mind the general features, general outline, as well as the conditions of civilisation of the period when these books were written, in other words, the circumstances of their intimate relation generally of a cultural nature, particularly of a literary form obtaining between the Arab and Persian nations, and between Islam and Parsism. Not only in detail, but also in their nature these books must be differentiated in proportion as were different the clergy who wrote these ethical tracts from didactic works of a strong legendary element belonging to the pen of secular people. These literary monuments must be differentiated quite as much as their authors and with reference to them we may institute the same parallel which we suggested above between the Parsi clergy and the Iranophile party of the Shuubiya.

[Footnote 1: Shayed-na-shayed.]

[Footnote 2: Shayast la-shayast West Pahlavi Texts, Part I, 1880.
Sacred Books of the East, Vol. V. 237-407.]

Furthermore, associated with these literary features was also that class of Arabic books, so well known and the period of which interests us, the books on Questions and Answers.[1]

[Footnote 1: Kitab al Masael wa Jawabat.]

And this is precisely the form in which some of the better known of the Parsi books have been cast, for instance, the Minog-i-Khrad[1] and the Dadistan[2] The second of these books decidedly belongs to the ninth century. Its contents no doubt, were strongly divergent from others owing to its dependence on altered conditions.

[Footnote 1: Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXIV, 1-15.]

[Footnote 2: Sacred Books of the East XVIII, 1-277.]

We have already indicated the importance of the citations in early Arabic anthologies incorporated from Persian historical works.[1] This nature of quotations are to be found also in books on "good and bad morals and conduct." Further we find embedded in Arabic works a considerable amount of matter of great importance, a circumstance of vital moment for the investigation of the survival of Persian literary tradition. A number of passages similar to those found in these books are undoubtedly embodied in various Arabic anthologies. We give below from the two works al Mahasin wal Masavi and al Mahasin wal Azdad extracts bearing on Persian subjects.[2]

[Footnote 1: See Noeldeke "National Epos" 13.]

[Footnote 2: See Part II.]

The list of Persian subjects comprised in these Arabic books afford us a sufficient idea of the wealth and variety of the material on these points to be recovered from Arabic discourses on manners and morals.

The Book of Ali Ibn Ubaida ar Raihani

We spoke above about the Arabic writer Ali ibn Ubayd ar Rayhani who was prone to Persian cultural tradition in general and to the literary tradition in particular. Besides the ethico-didactic book, Mehr Adar Jushnas, he is the reputed author of a book on Adab which has a Persian title (Fihrist 1, 119, 22 and II, 52),[1] and also another book the title of which could not be deciphered by Flugel when he edited the text of the Fihrist, (Fih. 119, 21). The title consists of two words which can be read conjecturally as Rushna nibik.[2] Such a name of a book we know to exist in Middle Persian literature.[3]

[Footnote 1: Kitab Adab Jawanshir].

[Footnote 2: As regards the mutilation of Persian proper names in the Fihrist, such comparatively wellknown books as Khuday Nameh appear in some of the manuscripts of the Fihrist as Baktiyar Nameh instead of bakhuday Nameh; see Rosen's essay on the Translations of the Khuday Nameh, 177.]

[Footnote 3: West; Sacred Books of the East Vol. V. page 241, note 1, and Sacred Books of the East Vol. III, 169. [The first authority is not quite clear to me. The second authority is evident: "writing which the glorified Roshna, son of Atur-frobag, prepared—for which he appointed the name of the Roshan Nipik." Tr.] Re the name of Rushen see Justi Namenbuch 262 under the word Rozanis.]

* * * * *

Books of this title in Pahlavi literature related to a variety of religious problems and treated of ethicodidactic themes. The same title, further, we find in the Middle Persian literature. This is the title of the wellknown book of Nasir-i-Khusrao, namely, Rushnai Nameh, a considerable portion of which manifests Shia and Sufistic influences and which by its nature must have been connected with ethico-didactic literature.[1] It is quite possible that Ar Rayhani interested himself in Persian of ethics and morality literature and in Persian Adab and gave his book the name of the 'Book Light' which treated of questions of this nature. This book formed, as no doubt its author did, the uniting link between the didactic Parsi clerical writings and the ethical literature of Islam.

[Footnote 1: GIPh Vol. II, 280.]

Now reading as Rushana Nibik the title of the book of Ar Rayhani occurring in the Fihrist, we establish a historical fact in literature. Not only redactions of Persian historical books like Khuday Nameh and the Ain Nameh, not only diverse monuments of Persian ethico-didactic literature but also books with Pahlavi titles appear in the index of the books of the flourishing period of Arabic literature in Fihrist. This is a phenomenon of outstanding importance for the appreciation of the significance of Persian literary tradition in the first centuries of Islam.

INDEPENDENT ZOROASTRIAN PRINCES OF TABARISTAN.

In the mountains to the south of the Caspian Sea the Persians defended themselves longer than in the rest of the Empire against the Arab invasion. Here the Arsacide princes had permitted the local tribes to rule, for these tribes were probably from the first almost independent and only acknowledged their paramountcy and paid tribute. They had the title of Spadhapati or in modern language Ispehbed which was turned into the Arabic Isfehbed. One of them, Gushnasp Shah, is named as a contemporary of Ardashir I. It was only so late as in the time of Kawadh that this king succeeded in establishing a Sasanian prince, his son Keyus, as Shah of Tabaristan in 530. At the death of his father he contested the throne with Khusrow I, and was therefore slain by the latter in 537. His son Shapur remained in Persia, and a prince of the Arsacide house of Qaren, named Zarmihr, son of Sokhra was appointed governor. The administration of Rae, Derbend and a portion of Armenia was before now entrusted to Jamasp, a son of Peroz, who was succeeded by his son Narsi, while another son, Behvat, father of Surkhab became the ancestor of the kings of Shirvan who were known as Shirvan Shahs. Narsi's son was Peroz, the father of Farrukhan Gilanshah, whose capital accordingly was Gilan and who in 643 concluded a peace with the Arabs.

Gil Gaubareh, the son of this prince, united, with the consent of Yezgird the III, who could not prevent him, Gilan with Tabaristan, where the dynasty of Zarmihr had come to an end. It cannot be doubted that Sasanian princes became the governors of these territories. The sons of Gaubareh were Daboe (660-676) and Patospan, in Pahlavi Patkospan or governor, in modern Persian Baduspan. Daboe was succeeded by his brother Khurshed (676-709). We possess coins struck by him in the years 706-709. Then came Daboe's son Ferkhan more correctly Farrukhan, the Great (709-722); he defeated several attempts on the part of the Moslems to penetrate the country. Our authorities are Tabari (vol. 2 p. 1321); Kitaboloyun (22-8); Zahireddin (45, 10.273, 14); Mordtmann (ZDMG 19, 494). His son Dad-Burzmihr died according to Zahireddin in 748, still his son Khurshed II already struck in 734 his first coin. He was defeated by the Arabs and took poison which he used to carry in his signet ring in 759.

The Masmoghan or the "priest-prince," the successor of Zarathustrotema of Ragha or modern Rai, who had his seat in the city of Demawend or the Castle of Ustunavend, and who was the son-in-law of the Ispehbed, was defeated and the daughters of both the princes were married to members of the house of Abbas.

The descendants of the Badusepan, whom Zahireddin carefully traces in all the branches of the family, ruled over Ruyan, Rustamdar, Nur and Kujur, down to the year 1453, when they divided themselves into two branches which continued to reign till 1567, and 1576.

Another dynasty was the mountain rulers of Qaren, which is named after its founder. The first Qaren was the son of Sokhra, the brother of Zarmihr. These princes were also styled Ispehbeds. A descendant of Qaren was Vindad-Hormizd, who in conjunction with Shervin I of the house of Bavend, and with the Badusepan, Shahriyar I, conquered the Arabs in 783, but subsequently surrendered himself to Hadi and went to Baghdad till the latter became Khalif in 785. There is some confusion in the chronology of this dynasty also. A few rulers appear to be wanting because between the beginning of the dynasty in 565 to its close in 839 the average reign of the six princes would come to 45 or 46 years. Maziyar, son of Qaren, and grandson of Vindad-Hurmizd was at first defeated by Shahryar the son of Shervin of the Bavend dynasty and took refuge with the Khalif Mamun in 816-17, and returned after the victory over Musa Ibn Hafs in 825 but was himself worsened by the Arabs in 839 and executed. Thereupon Tabaristan came into the power of the Tahirides, the nominal governors of the Khalif in Khorasan. Our authorities are Beladhori 134, 14; Masudi 7, 137; Kitab ol Oyun 399, 6; Yaqut 3, 284, 4. 506, 10; Abulfida 2, 212, 2.

The Bavend dynasty is a continuation of the Masmughans. Their original ancestor Bav who is characterised as son of Shahpur, son of Kayos, received from Khusraw II the governorship of Istakhr, Adharbaijan and Tabaristan, but retired himself into a fire-temple in the time of queen Azarmidukht. When the Arabs in 655 had advanced to the vicinity of Amul, the Mazenderanis invited him to lead them and he was the founder of the Bavend dynasty called after him. Now Bav was killed by Valash in 679, who did not belong to the dynasty and it was only 8 years later on that the son of Bav, Suhrab, more correctly Surkhab, came to the throne. With the last potentate of this first line of the Bavends was united by marriage the house of Ziyar which produced two celebrated princes of Gurgan, Vashmgir and Qabus. The other line, the "mountain kings" proper, sprang from a son of the last prince of the first line and was extinguished with the murder of Rustum by Sayed Husain in 1210. A third offshoot originating from a collateral branch of the second enjoyed princely power from 1237-1349.

The Arabs had their governors in Tabaristan who in the first period minted coins with Sasanian impress and with Pahlavi legends; they were, however, from time to time expelled by the people. These coins struck by the Arabs after the model of the Pahlavi mintage were first deciphered by Olshausen. Ibn Khaldun is compelled to admit that "the Arabs are of all the people the least capable to govern a country."

[Translated from Justi's contribution to Grunddrisder der iranischen
Philologie. Vol. II, p. 547 seq.—G.K.N.]

To the above concise sketch of the history of Tabaristan for the period which concerns us, which I have translated from Justi, one of the most sympathetic writers on Iran, a few paras may be added from the fascinating history of Ibn-Isfandiyar which professor Browne has made accessible to us.

Long after the Sasanian dynasty had fallen, and the rest of Persia had been subdued by the Arabs the Ispahabeds continued to strike their Pahlavi coinage and maintained the religion of Zoroaster in the mountains and forests of Tabaristan; and their struggles with the Arabs only ended about A.D. 838 by the capture and cruel execution of the gallant Maziyar, son of Qaren, son of Wanda-Hurmuz. For a vivid portrayal of the last days of this unfortunate scion of the lost empire of the Iranians the reader is referred to the vivid page of this English authority, who has reproduced the story of Zoroastrian aggressions in all its original spirit. And nothing less could be expected from a profound and sympathetic scholar to whom "All that concerns Maziyar is of supreme interest because it stands for the old Persian national and religious ideal". (p. XII). Those who still hold in the teeth of historical fact that the empire and religion of Iran were overturned at one fell stroke by the ferocious Arabs may be referred to the alliance between the Ispahbed Shirvin and Windad-Hurmuz which brought it about that from one end to the other of a large track of country, "without their permission no one dared enter the highlands from the plains, and all the highlands were under their control. And when a Moslem died they would not suffer him to be buried in that country". (p. 131). [italics mine, G.K.N.]

I will not further quote at length from this volume as it is in English but I cannot resist the temptation to call attention to page 146, which supplies a typical instance of conversion by persuasion and not persecution. Further note that the Khalif Mamun had a Zoroastrian astrologer whose Zoroastrian name the Khalif arabicised into Yahya ibn Mansur (p. 146). Though Maziyar outwardly embraced Islam he was probably in secret a Zoroastrian inasmuch as he continued to have a large Magian following and "conferred various offices and distinctions on Babak, Mazdak, and other Magians who ordered the Muhammadan mosque to be destroyed and all trace of Islam to be removed." (p. 152-3). [Italics mine, G.K.N.] The Khalif Al-Muatasim was no less lenient in matters religious than some of the Khulfa i rashidin. In the year 854-55 he deputed one of his nobles to bid a Zoroastrian chieftain "break his Magian girdle and embrace Islam, which he did and thereupon received a robe of honour from the Khalif." (p. 157). At page 157 we notice the extortionate practices of a Magian.

PARSI PRINCES DURING KHALIFAT.

"In the time of the Arabs we find an actual principality whose ruler bore the title of Masimogan or the elder of the Magians. To him also belonged the cities of Wima and Shalamba (Istakhri 209; Ibn Khurdadbeh 118; Ibn-al Faqih 284) as well as the territory of Khwar. [Magian princes during Khalifat (Tabari 12,656).]

"The first definite mention of the Masmoghan occurs in the year 131 A.H., in which Abu Muslim called upon the former to surrender and as he declined despatched Musa Ibn Kaab against him who however failed to effect anything against him. (Ibn al Athir vol. 5,304). It was only under Mamun that the mountainous country of the Masmoghan was subjugated. The last prince, whose brother Aparwez fought on side of the Arabs, was taken prisoner and confined with his two daughters in the mountain fastness of Ustunawand in 141 A.H. (Tabari Vol. 2, 137).

"The exact time of the rise of this principality is unknown. For the Masmoghan Mardanshah who is mentioned by Saif in a treaty with Suwaid Mukarrin under Omar (Tabari 1, 2656), belongs positively to the time of Muhallab, 98 A.H. I surmise, however, that the Dynasty of the Magian Baw, the father of the renegade Mahgundat, whose Christian name was Anstasious, who became a martyr to Christianity in 628, originated from the village of Warznin in the territory of Rai (Acta Anstasii Persae, p. 26 & 56), and is connected with the Bawend dynasty which appeared just at this place in 167, and is definitely traced to the Magian Baw. (The authorities for the above are Tabari vol. 3, 1295 and Zahirud-din 205, see also ZDMG 49, 661.)

"Baw is a pure Magian name and is a transcription of the Avesta Bangha (Yesht 13,124). Another transliteration of the same word is Bohak, a name borne by a hero of Ispahan who with his six sons and an army joined Ardeshir (Karnamak 4, 3, p. 22-19; Neoleke 46). It was also the name of a son of Hobakht, the chief Mobed under Shapur II. Bahak, son of Fredon, was the ancestor of Aturpat Mahraspand (Bundahesh 33; West Pahlavi Texts 1, 145). Another form of the same name is B[=a]we, who was the Astabed or magister officiorum of the Persians (Josua Stylite ed. Wright 59). The first ruler of the Bawend dynasty who enters history is Sharwin ibn Surkhab (Tabari 3, 519). By the Arabs he was at first made a vassal controlling the slopes of the Alburz (Ibn al Faqih 304; Yakut 3, 283), and probably assumed the title Padashkhwargar-shah which his descendants continued to hold in the time of al Beruni (Chronology, p. XL, No. 7). In Yakubi (vol. 2, 479) he even bears the title of King of Tokharistaxi. After him is named Mount Sherwin on the boundary of Komish (Tabari 3, 1275; Ibn al Fakih 305; Belazuri 339, 7). In the year 201, that is, A.D. 816-17, however, the governor of Tabaristan, Abdallah Ibn Khurdadbeh, the father of the historian and geographer, invaded Larijan and Sarijan and annexed them to the empire of Islam. He likewise conquered the mountain land of Tabaristan and compelled Shahryar, the son of Sherwin, to surrender (Tabari 3, 1014).

"But after the death of Shahryar, in 825-26, Maziyar Ibn Qaren contested the kingdom with his son Shapur and in alliance with the Moslems invaded Mount Sherwin, captured the sons of Shahryar and put them to death. (Tabari 3, 1093, Belazuri 339 and Ibn al Fakih 309.) However, a son of Shahryar named Qaren who had been detained at the court of Maziyar later on joined the Arabs and after the fall of Maziyar was restored to his paternal estate.

"As regards the Avesta expression Ragha Zarathushtrish in the Yasna 9, 18, it refers to political conditions of a much anterior age not yet reached by our historical investigations."

[Translated from Marquarts, Eranshahr, p. 127 seq-G.K.N.]

IRANIAN MATERIAL IN MAHASIN WAL MASAVI AND MAHASIN WAL AZDAD.

Professor Inostranzev gives a list of passages of Iranian interest which are to be found in the Mahasin-wal masawi and in the Mahasin wal azdad giving references to pages in the European editions. Unfortunately I have not been able to procure the latter and cannot verify the allusions. I, however, reproduce below the Iranian subjects touched upon in these two Arabic books on adab in the Cairo editions.

Iranian material from the Mahasin-wal masawi, Part I, p. 1. A dictum of
Buzarjmahir.

P. 82, A story of King Kobad.

P. 96, A story of Anushirwan, "the wisest of men of his time in Persia".

P. 110, A story of King Ardeshir.

P. 122, Reference to a custom of the Persian kings and a story of
Yazdajard.

Iranian material from the Mahasin-wal masawi Part II.

P. 62, A story about Shiruya, son of Aberwez.

P. 74, A dictum of the Persians on eloquence.

P. 75, A story about Buzarjmahir.

P. 123, A story about Anushirwan.

P. 125, A story about King Kobad and a MOBED.

P. 131, A story of Anushirwan.

P. 133, A dictum of Buzarjmahir.

P. 154, A story of Hurmuz, son of Anushirwan.

P. 155, A story of Bahramgor.

P. 155, A story of the sense of justice of King Anushirwan.

P. 166, A story of Anushirwan.

P. 169, Reference to a ZAND book in connection with Islam.

P. 170, A story of an Arab who acted as interpreter in Arabic to a
Persian King.

P. 178, A story as narrated by Kisrawi about Kisra, son of Hormuz.

P. 178, Reference to a Majus or Zoroastrian.

P. 194, A story of Shiruya, son of Kisra.

P, 199, A quotation from Ibn-ul Muqaffa.

P. 203, The story of Sabur-zul-aktaf.

IRANIAN MATERIAL IN THE MAHASIN-WAL-AZDAD.

P. 14, Story of King Abarwez.

P. 17, Story of the Kisra.

P. 35, Quotation from al Kisrawi, relating a story about Kisra, son of
Hormuz. In this story the unfortunate general Afshin, the governor of
Ashrushna, is plainly designated a Majus or Zoroastrian.

P. 51, A dictum of Bahramgor.

P. 51, The conversation between the MOBEDAN MOBED and King Aberwez.

P. 51, Reference to the book of "our" (Zoroastrian) religion (Kitab din-na).

P. 110, Reference to an inscription on a stone slab discovered in the treasury of a Persian king.

P. 163, The story of Balash as narrated by Kisrawi, (on this story Baron
Rosen bases his investigation of the Pahlavi Khodaynama.)

P. 168, An anecdote of King Aberwez.

Professor Inostranzev finds the following Iranian material in the
Mahasin-wal masavi and the Mahasin-wal azdad (MM=Mahasin-wal Masavi, and
MA=Mahasin wal-azdad):

MA, 21, 4 to 10—MM, 490, 2 to 7.
MA, 37, 12 to 14—MM, 128, 11 to 12.
MA, 53, 14 to 16—MM, 571, 1 to 3.
MA, 78, 5 to 9—MM, 202, 2 to 5.
MA, 79, 2 to 6—MM, 202, 14 to 16.
MA, 79, 6 to 11—MM, 202, 16 to 203, 2.
MA, 168,20 to 3—MM, 310, 16 to 18.
MA, 170, 2 to 3—MM, 313, 7 to 8.
MA, 173, 8 to 16—MM, 372, 11 to 18.

In connection with the importance of Kisrawi as regards the Persian literary material, these are the extracts from him in the two Arabic works:

MA, 168, 20 to 269, 3—MM, 310, 16 to 18.
MA, 53, 14 to 16—MM, 571, 1 to 3.
MA, 359, 13 to 364, 6—MM, 376, 1 to 9.

In view of the remarks by Browne (Literary History,471 to 475) regarding the significance of Persian words and expressions in the ancient Arabic literary works for the history of the Persian language, of particular importance are the excerpts from Kisrawi, MA 168,20 to 269, 3—MM, 310, 16 to 18, where occur Persian phrases from the maxims of Anushirwan "which as I think have been handed down to us in pure Pahlavi." Interesting is the interpretation of the Persian word Mihman at another place in the same Arabic books, viz:—MA, 79, 6 to 11=MM, 202, 16 to 203, 2.

[Translation of Noeldeke's Burzoe's Einleitung zu dem Buche Kalila wa
Dimna.]

BURZOE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF KALILA WA DIMNA.

[Sidenote: Burzoe's Introduction not fabricated.]

The Arabic redaction of the Indian tales which we know under the name of Kalila wa Dimna had two unquestionably genuine Introductions, that of the compilator Ibn Moqaffa himself who died in 142 A.H., and that of Burzoe who in the time of King Khusrow I, (A.D. 531 to 579) brought the book from India and translated it into the written Persian language of the time, the Pehlevi. The circumstances regarding the mission of Burzoe to India are still not clear. At any rate Ibn Moqaffa did not write as we read them now.

Nevertheless it is by no means improbable that he had affixed to his book a report which, however, wan subsequently mutilated, of necessity, in diverse ways. The preface by Ala-ibn-Shah or Behbod, which has also been printed by de Sacy, which is found in a few manuscripts and which is not known to the ancient translations is a later and entirely valueless excrescence.

The Introduction of Burzoe stood in the Pehlevi work which Ibn Moqaffa had before him. According to certain manuscripts this Introduction has been compiled—or however we translate the ambiguous term tarjuma—by Burzgmihir, the prime minister of Khusrow, much better known in polite literature than in history.

[Naturally I do not deny altogether that Burzgmihir was a historical personage but he possessed by no means the importance which the tradition in question ascribes to him. The ascription is purely an erroneous inference from the above-mentioned report of the circumstances touching the mission of Burzoe, has not the slightest inherent probability, and is besides wanting not only in other manuscripts but also in all the older translations.]

We cannot question the fact that this section of the Arabic work in the main reproduces the Introduction composed by the Chief physician Burzoe himself to the book translated by him into Pehlevi from an Indian language. That language as Hertel has shown was Sanskrit, which fact, however, does not preclude the possibility of an Indian interpreter translating the original text to the Persian who spoke a modern Indian tongue. Several passages speak to the fact that the author of the Introduction is the physician. Why should Ibn Moqaffa pretend that Burzoe earnestly studied medicine and practised it? Moreover, the section is familiar with those principles of Indian medicine of which Ibn Moqaffa could otherwise know little and the exposition of which he had no call to deal with. The entire situation seems to me to harmonise with the circumstances of the Persian physician. Specially noteworthy is the encomium on the Persian sovereign.

[Sidenote: Ibn Moqaffa took liberties with the Pehlevi.]

This is, however, not equivalent to saying that the Arabic text is an exact replica, down to details, of the original of Burzoe. In the first place it has to be observed that Ibn Moqaffa was no pure translator at all but a regular redactor of his model. His object was to prepare a work suitable to the taste of his highly educated readers and at the same time entertaining and instructive. He proceeded, therefore, not only with a tolerably free hand as an artist in words but added good many things of his own. Above all here we have to bear in mind the trial of Dimna. That this chapter is an addition by a Muslim who would not let pass in silence the acknowledgement of clever but demeaning intrigue was already recognised by Benfey and we need not doubt but that it originated with Ibn Moqaffa. I would also claim, for Ibn Moqaffa the somewhat unimportant history of the anchorite and his guest. The manner of his narrative we learn from his own preface. It is especially to be noted that here also as in the trial of Dimna he recounts anecdotes after the Indian fashion.

[Sidenote: Ibn Moqaffa's religious scepticism.]

It is accordingly not impossible that in our Burzoe chapter there are a few things which have originated not with the Persian physician of old but with Ibn Moqaffa; and this, I presume, as I showed long ago, specially from the disquisition on enquiry into the uncertainty of religions. It appears much more to fit in with Ibn Moqaffa than Burzoe.

Ibn Moqaffa exchanged the religion of his Persian fathers for Islam only in his mature years,—certainly not because he saw in the latter perfect verity but because probably he was not satisfied with Zoroastrianism with which he was intimately familiar or with any of the other religions which in his time flourished openly or in secret in Iraq which was "the heart of the Empire". To such a man the scepticism of our section is natural, a fact which does not make it impossible that certain principles which were common to all the religions intimately known to the author remained also self-evident to Ibn Moqaffa,—such as God as the Creator, and the next world with its reward and penalties. Had Ibn Moqaffa, in his own name confessed to such religious doubts publicly no patron could have saved him from capital punishment. On the other hand he ran no risk in ascribing the questionable exposition to the Persian long since dead, who, however, supposing that he harboured such doubts could not have given expression to them as a physician attached to the Imperial Court of Persia. The belief in an inexorable fate which is evident in this chapter as well as in the entire portion attributable to Ibn Moqaffa could have been cherished, no doubt, also by a Mazdyasnian. This doctrine, therefore, speaks neither for nor against the authorship of Ibn Moqaffa. Equally far from decisive is the exhortation to pure morality which finds expression there.

I am confirmed in my view that the passage on the unconvincing nature of religions proceeded from Ibn Moqaffa by a few couplets in the Shahnama. (Mohl vol. 5, 53 ff; Macan 1293). The king of India called Kaid has several dreams which are interpreted to him by the sage Mihran. The third dream, about four men pulling at a fine piece of cloth, each towards himself, without tearing it, is thus explained by him:

"Know that the piece of cloth is the religion divine end that the four men who pull at it have come to preserve it. One of the religions is that of the Dihkans, the fire-worshippers, who may not take in hand the Barsom without pronouncing the prayer formula.

"[The Dihkans were properly speaking the small landed nobility of the Sasanian times and as such were representatives of the ancient Persian religion; barsom and the prayer formula or baz are well-known components of their ritual.]

"Another religion is that of Moses, which is called the Jewish religion, maintaining that none besides itself is worthy of praise; the third religion is of Greece, belongs to men of piety and brings equity to the heart of princes (this is Christianity). The fourth is the pure faith of the Arab which raises the head of the intelligent out of dust. Thus they struggle for the preservation of their religion and pull the cloth towards the four sides away from each other and become enemies for the sake of religion."

[Sidenote: Ibn Moqaffa no sincere Muslim]

This passage the basic principle of which accords with the reflections on religion in our chapter I would now with greater positiveness than before trace to Ibn Moqaffa (ZDMG 59, 803). It did not find a place in the old Pehlevi "Book of Kings" because the latter could recognise only the national religion as the right one and could not have taken into consideration Islam, even supposing that the last redaction of the official Sasanian history took place at a time when Muhammadanism had already come into existence. But Firdausi did not at all invent the material of his narrative. He merely compiled it and the major portion of the compilation goes back to the shape which Ibn Moqaffa had given to the ancient tradition (see what I have to say on this in my National Epic of Iran, Grundriss der iran philogie). In actuality Ibn Moqaffa was not believed to be a sincere Muslim. He is frequently stigmatised as Zindik or heretic (See Aghani 13.81, 18 ff. 18, 200, 25 ff. Ibn Qotaiba, Uyun 71, 9; further Ibn Khallikan 186, p. 125.)

[The term zindiq probably originally denoted a certain rank among the Manichaeians or a similar religion and was then applied to suit a variety of infidels. The etemology, Aramaic Zaddiqy, has been recognised by Bevan.]

Again the passage does not fit in with the tenor of the entire section. For Burzoe who was at a loss with regard to the physician's art, the main question is, whether he should or should not become an ascetic,—a question which must concern Ibn Moqaffa but little. The suitability of the addenda hardly admits of proof but we may state that Ibn Moqaffa did not simply interpolate but wove them artfully in his text and he might have omitted something here and there.

[Sidenote: Burzoe influenced by Buddhism]

It seems to me highly probable that Burzoe allowed himself to be influenced by the Buddhist romance, the original of which has perished and the best representative of which, is preserved to us in the Arabic Bilauhar wa Budasf (See Barlaam und Joasaph by E. Kuhn). Many a passage of our chapter is strongly reminiscent of the sentences of the romance, for instance, the dangers to the body remind one of those related at p. 53; the four principles or akhalat appear at p. 9, and the parable of the man in the well is common to both. The parable which stands at the close of the chapter is, unless one is greatly mistaken, directly taken from the romance with little modification. It stands in the whole of Kalila wa Dimna isolated, deviates in manner and tendency entirely from the story and also from what has issued from Ibn Moqaffa but is consistent with the monastic predilections of Burzoe. And his appraisement of the life of the recluse does not appear spontaneous but something to which he has laboriously compelled himself. One may surmise that it was really alive only in India. How far it was practised in actual life must remain unproved. We must not omit to mention that Burzoe points out that for an ideal physician his art earns also rich earthly profits.

[Sidenote: English translation of the Introduction a desideratum.]

So far as I know, of this chapter there is no translation in a European language except in the English by Knatchbull which appeared in 1819, which reproduced the imperfect text of de Sacy and is otherwise defective. Wolff did well to omit it in his German translation of Kalila wa Dimna of 1837, for he could not have produced a correct rendering of de Sacy's text which was not completed till 1873 by Guidi.

[Sidenote: Difficulties of translation.]

Even now it is impossible to make a translation of Burzoe's Introduction which can stand the test of philology. We must first see whether with the use of all available manuscripts and a careful collation of other text sources we cannot arrive at a tolerably settled Arabic text. And that is, so far as I can conclude from my not quite insignificant material, not very probable. At all events a searching examination of all the manuscripts in the great Paris library is essential. The various texts of the book are considerably divergent. Arbitrariness and carelessness of transcriber have disfigured Ibn Moqaffa's work of art just because it presently became a favourite book of entertainment. The language at all events remains approximately correct in the manuscripts.

Grammatical mistakes easy of correction are not seldom met with but pure vulgarisms occur only in a few copies like that of Berlin. The numberless variants have not much significance for the translator when it is only a question of synonyms, since for them the same European expression can do duty. And though it is not certain whether in the case of a multitude of non-essential or wholly analogous expressions the shorter or the extended text is the original one, that does not substantially affect the translation. There is scarcely any harm in curtailing the frequent tautology of this chapter. We should be well advised in case of successive synonymous abstract nouns and verbs such as occur frequently in Arabic to translate by a simple expression with an emphatic adjective or adverb. But not seldom the difference becomes great. It is a difficult situation when we are uncertain whether the passage which is found in several manuscripts and not in others is the original one. As a rule we have to decide in favour of the majority but as sometimes we do come across actual interpolations in some, so their existence is not impossible in others, although we can not be positive on the subject.

[Sidenote: A monumental piece of literature.]

The matter would have been less troublesome for me had I been able straight way to declare as the best the tradition of any of the manuscripts familiarly known to me or any old translation. That, however, is not so. I have to judge each case by itself and to proceed eclectically as much as my philological conscience permits. Finally, by means of my rendering I believe I have reproduced the import of this monumental piece of literature without showing absolute partiality to the Arabic document. My rendering is wanting doubtless in the elegance with which Ibn Moqaffa handles the language which in his time had acquired the capacity of treating even abstract subjects with lucidity. May a later hand improve upon my translation!

Only those who attempt it can appreciate how difficult it is to make a tolerable European translation even of an easily intelligible Arabic text. A literal translation would be wooden. We have often to alter the entire construction and to insert all manner of words foreign to the Arabic to make the context clear. On the other hand the translator must avoid employing the same expression in rapid succession, a procedure which is common in Arabic even if we make allowance for the figura etymologica and the like.

[Sidenote: Ibn Qutaiba and Ibn Moqaffa.]

I only know two passages in this chapter which are quoted by Arabic authors. Brockelmann informs me that no quotation from our chapter occurs in the unpublished portion of the Uyun of Ibn Qutaiba. Unless I am mistaken the excerpts in this book from Kalila wa Dimna are not always correct. Ibn Qutaiba was concerned more with the sense than with the phraseology of Ibn Moqaffa.

Who undertook to transcribe and translate this Indian Book (Kalila wa
Dimna).

[Sidenote: Autobiographical.]

My father belonged to the Warrior class, my mother came of an eminent priestly family. One of the earliest boons which the Lord conferred on me was that I was the most favourite child of my parents and that they exerted themselves more for my education than for my brothers. So when I was seven years old they sent me to a children's school.

[This was required to be mentioned in his case inasmuch as it could not have been necessary or usual for a child of distinguished parentage in early Persia to be educated in a public school.]

When I had learnt the ordinary writing I was thankful to my parents and perceived something in knowledge.

[In spite of the wide divergence in the Arabic texts and translations the sense of the original is clear. Note the reference to the difficult nature of the Pehlevi syllabary. Only the Spanish version has a good deal more about the schooling.]

[Sidenote: Appreciation of the healing art.]

And the first branch of science to which I felt inclination was medicine. It had a great attraction for me because I recognised its excellence and the more I acquired it the more I loved it and the more earnestly I studied it. Now when I had progressed sufficiently far to think of treating invalids I took counsel with myself and reflected in the following manner on the four objects for which mankind so earnestly strive. "Which of them shall I seek to acquire with the help of my art, money, prosperity, fame, or reward in the next world"? In the choice of my calling the decisive factor was my experience that men of understanding praise medicine and that the adherents of no religion censure it. I found, however, in medical literature that the best physician is he who by his devotion to his vocation strives only after a reward in the next world; and I resolved to act accordingly and not to think of worldly gain, so that I may not be likened to the merchant who sold for a worthless bead a ruby by which he could have acquired a world of wealth. On the other hand, I found in the books of the ancients that when a physician strives after the reward in the next world by means of his art he thereby forfeits no fraction of his worldly guerdon but that therein he is to be compared with the peasant who carefully sows his plot of ground to acquire corn and who subsequently without further effort gets along with the harvest all manner of vegetation.

[The cultivator along with the harvest gets grass and vegetation which may serve as a pasture for cattle.]

[Sidenote: Burzoe starts practice.]

I, therefore, directed my attention to the hope of securing recompense in the next world by curing the sick and was at considerable pains in the treatment of all the deceased whom I hoped to cure and even such as were past all such hopes, whose suffering I endeavoured at least to alleviate. I personally attended those I could; but where this was not possible I gave the patients the necessary instructions and also sent medicine. And from none of those whom I so treated did I demand payment or other return. I was jealous of none of my colleagues who was my equal in knowledge and who excelled me in repute and riches; although as a matter of fact he was lacking in equity and good manners. When, however, my soul felt inclined to impel me to be jealous of such and to be covetous of a situation like his I met it with severity in the following manner:—

[Sidenote: Burzoe addresses his own soul. The physician's arduous calling.]

[Sidenote: A simile.]

O soul, dost not thou differentiate between what is useful and what is injurious to thee? Dost thou not cease wishing for the acquisition of that which secures for every one a small gain but which entails severe exertion and privation and which, when he must at last relinquish it, procures him much sorrow and severe punishment in the next world? O soul, thinkest thou not of that which succeeds this life and forgettest it because of thy avarice for the things of this world? Art thou not ashamed to live the evanescent terrestrial life in the company of men of feeble intellect and fools? It belongs not to him even who has something of it in his hand: it does not endure with him and only the infatuated and the negligent depend upon it. Desist from this irrationality and bend all thy might, so long as in thee lies, to exert thyself for the good and for divine recompense. Beware of procrastination. Reflect on the fact that our body is destined to all manner of unhappiness and permeated with the four perishable and impure principles which are enclosed in it, which struggle against each other, defeating each other by turn, and thus support life which itself is transient. Life is like a statue with several limbs. When properly adjusted each in its right place, they hold themselves together on a single pivot but which, when the latter is taken off, fall to pieces. O soul, do not deceive thyself owing to intercourse with friends and companions and do not strain thyself after it, inasmuch as this intercourse brings no doubt joy but also much hardship and tribulation and finally ends in separation. It is like a ladle which men use for hot soup, so long as it is new but when it breaks they have done with it—burn it. O soul, allow not thyself to be moved by family and relations to amass property for them so that thyself should perish. Thou shouldst, then, be like fragrant incense which is burnt only for the enjoyment of others. They are like a hair which men cherish so long as it remains on the head but cast it off as impure as soon as it falls. O soul, be steadfast in treating the diseased and give it not up because thou findest that the physician's profession is arduous and people do not recognise its uses and high value. Judge only thyself whether a man who cures in another a disease making him feel once more fresh and whole is not worthy of a great reward and handsome remuneration. This is the case with one who has solicitude for a single individual; how much more then is this so in the case of a medicineman who for meed in the next world thus acts towards a, large number of men, so that they after torturing pains and maladies, which shut them out from the enjoyment of the world, from food and drink, wife and child, feel once more as well as ever before. Who indeed merits larger reward and nobler retribution? O soul, do not put away from thy sight things of the next world because thou hungerest after passing life. For thou, in thy haste to acquire a triviality surrenderest the valuable; and such people are in the position of the merchant who had a house full of aloe wood and who said, "If I were to sell this by weight it would take me too long" and therefore gave it away wholesale for a trifling price.

[Sidenote: Autobiographical]

After thus I had replied to my soul and thereby explained matters to it and guided it aright it could not deviate from truth, yielded to righteousness and abandoned what it was inclined to. Accordingly I continued to treat the sick for the sake of my reward in the next world. This, however, by no means prevented my acquiring a rich portion of earthly goods before my journey to India as well as after my return from the kings, and that was more than I was ambitious of or had hoped for, for a man in my position and my calling.

[Sidenote: Limitations of the healing art.]

Thereafter I again reflected on the healing art and found that the physician can employ no remedy for a suffering patient which so completely cures his disease that it does not attack him again or that he is immune from a worse disorder. While, therefore, I was unaware how I could effect a perfect cure secure against the recurrence of a disease, I saw that on the other hand acknowledge of the next world was a permanent absolute protection against all distempers. Accordingly I conceived a contempt for the healing art and a longing for religious knowledge.

[Sidenote: Uncertainty of religious Verity.]

[Sidenote: Burzoe inquires of religious heads on matters divine: his disappointment.]

When, however, this occurred to my mind it was not clear to me how matters stood with reference to religion. I found nothing in the writings on pharmacy which indicated to me the truest religion. So far as I saw there were many religions and creeds and their adherents were again disunited. Some inherit their religion from their fathers; others are compelled to adhere to it by fear and pressure; others again aim at worldly advantages, enjoyments and renown. Everyone claims for himself the possession of the true and right faith and denounces that of others as false and erroneous. Their views on the world and other problems are entirely conflicting yet each despises the other, is inimical to and censures every other creed. I then resolved to turn to the learned and leaders of every religions community with a view to examining their doctrines and precepts in order possibly to learn to distinguish between verity and nullity and implicity to give my adhesion to the former without altogether accepting as true what I did not understand. So I analysed, investigated and observed, but I found that all those people only held before me traditional notions. Each landed his faith and reviled that of others. It was, therefore, evident to me that their conclusions rested on mere imagination and that they did not speak with impartiality. In none did I find such fairness and integrity that reasonable people could accept their dicta and declare themselves satisfied with them. When I perceived this it was impossible for me to follow any one of the religions and recognised that if I put faith in one of them of which I knew nothing I should fare like the betrayed believer in the following story.

[Sidenote: Anecdote of the credulous burglar.]

Once upon a time a thief set out at night and along with his companions got up on to the roof of the house of a man of opulence. As they entered they awoke the owner who noticed them and perceived that at that hour they were on the roof with evil intent. He awoke his wife and gently said to her, "I see that up on the top of our roof there are thieves. I will pretend to sleep, wake me up in a voice loud enough to be heard by those on the roof and say to me, 'My husband, do tell me how you came by so much wealth and property.' When I make no reply whatever ask me very pressingly again." The woman accordingly asked him as she was ordered so that the house-breakers heard it all. The man replied, "My wife, luck has led you to great prosperity, so eat and drink, keep quiet and do not ask about it, because if I told it to you, some one would easily hear it and get something by it, which neither of us would like." She, however, persisted, "But my husband, do tell me, surely there is no one here to overhear us." "Well then, I will tell you that I have acquired all this wealth and goods by theft." "How did you manage it, when in the eye of the people you are still irreproachably honest and no one suspects you?" "By means of an artifice in the science of thieving: it is so handy and easy that no one can have any suspicion whatever." "How so?" "I used to manage this way: On a moonlight night I would go out with my companions, get up to the roof of the house of the person I wanted to rob as far as the sky light through which the moon shone and then uttered seven times the charm Sholam Sholam Sholam. I would then embrace the rays and slide down into the house without any body noticing my intrusion. Then at the other extremity of the moon-beams I again would seven times repeat the magic word and all the money and treasures in the house became visible to me. I could take of them whatever I would. Once more I would embrace the beams and rehearsing again seven times the magic word mount up to my companions and load them with all I had. Next we stole away unscathed."

When the robbers overheard this they rejoiced exceedingly and said: "In this house we have got a spoil which is more valuable to us than the gold which we can get there; we have acquired a means by which God delivers us from fear and we are secure against the authorities." So they watched for a long time and when they had made sure that the master of the house and his wife had gone to sleep the leader of the robbers stepped up to the spot where the light streamed through the hole, spoke Sholam Sholam seven times, clasped the rays with the intention of dropping down along them and fell head foremost on the floor. The husband sprang to his feet with a club and thrashed him to a jelly asking him, "Who are you?" And he replied, "The deceived believer: this is the fruit of blind faith."

[Sidenote: More religious investigation and more despair.]

[Sidenote: A dilemma.]

Accordingly, after I had grown sufficiently circumspect not to credit what might probably lead to my perdition, I started again investigating religions to discover the true one. But I again found no reply whenever I put questions to any one and when a doctrine was propounded to me I found nothing which in my judgment merited belief or served me as a guiding principle. Then I said, "The most reasonable course is to cling to the religion in which I found my fathers." Yet when I sought justification for this course I found none and said to myself, "If that be justification then the sorcerer also had one who found his progenitors to be wizards." And I thought of the man who ate indecently and when he was rebuked for it he excused himself by saying that his ancestors used to feed in the same gross way. Since, therefore, it was impossible for me to keep to the religion of my forbears and since I could find no justification for it, I desired once more earnestly to bestir myself and most carefully to examine the various religions and to consider minutely what they had to offer us. But then suddenly the idea struck me that the end was near and that the world would presently come to a close for me. Thereupon I pondered as follows:—

[Sidenote: Meditation of despair.]

Perhaps the hour of my departure has already arrived before I could wring my hands. My deeds were once still such that I could hope they were meritorious. Now perhaps the prolonged hesitation over my search and investigation would turn me away from the good deeds which I practised formerly, so that my end would not be such as I strove for, and owing to my wavering and vacillation the fate of the man in the following anecdote would overtake me.

[Sidenote: An anecdote: fatal hesitation.]

A certain man had a love affair with a married woman. She had made for him a subterraneous passage opening into the street and its entrance was constructed close by a water jar. This she did for fear lest her husband or some one else should surprise her. Now one day when her paramour was with her word was brought that the husband was standing at the door. The lover hastened to get behind the jar but it had been removed by some one so he came to the woman and said, "I went to the passage but the jar of which you spoke was not there." To which the woman, said "You fool, what have you got to do with the jar? I mentioned it to point to you the way to the passage." "I could not be sure, since the jar was not near the passage, you should not have spoken of it to me and misled me." "Now save yourself, enough of your stupidity and hesitation." "But how shall I go since you spoke to me of the jar and even now confuse me?" Thus he remained there till the master of the house came up and seized hold of and belaboured him, and handed him over to the authorities.

[Sidenote: Burzoe follows good principles common to all creeds.]

[Sidenote: The properties of righteousness.]

Since I was apprehensive of the risks of shilly-shallying I resolved not to expose myself to the danger and to confine myself entirely to such works as all men regard as benevolent and which are consonant with all the religions. I refrained, therefore, from assault, murder and robbery, and guarded myself against incontinence and my tongue from falsehood and all utterance calculated to harm any one, avoided the smallest deception, indecency of language, falsehood, calumny and ridicule and took pains that my heart wished ill of no one and that I did not disbelieve in resurrection and retribution and punishment in the next world. I turned away my mind from wickedness and adhered energetically to good, perceived that there is no better associate or friend than righteousness and that it is easy to acquire it with the help of God. I found that it has more tender solicitude for us than father and mother that it leads to good and gives true counsel like one friend to another, that use does not diminish but rather multiplies it, and that when employed it does not wear out, but is constantly renewed, and becomes more beautiful; that we need not fear that the authorities will snatch it from us, the enemy will rob or miscreants disfigure it, or water drown or fire will consume it, wild beasts attack it or that any thing untoward will happen to it. He who contemns righteousness and its consequences in the next world and permits himself to be seduced from it by a fraction of the sweets of this passing world, he who passes his days with things which do not permit piety to approach him, fares as did to my knowledge the merchant in the following story.

[Sidenote: The careless Jeweller.]

A merchant had many precious stones. To bore a hole through them he hired a man for a hundred pieces of gold a day and went with him to his house. As soon however, as he set to work, there was a lute and the workman turned his eyes towards it. And upon the merchant questioning him whether he could play upon it he replied, "Yes, right well." For he was indeed proficient in the art. "Then take it" said the merchant. He therefore took it and played for the merchant the whole day beautiful melodies in proper tune so that the jeweller left the caset with the precious stones in it and filled with joy kept time, nodding his head and waving his hand. In the evening he said to the jeweller, "Let me have my wages," And when the latter said, "Have you done anything to deserve the wage?" he replied, "You have hired me and I have done what you ordered me to do." So he pressed him till he received his hundred pieces without any deduction, while the gems remained unbored.

[Sidenote: Aversion to pleasures of the world: Buddhistic pessimism.]

The more I reflected upon the world and its joys the deeper grew my aversion towards them. Then I made up my mind entirely to devote myself to the life of the blessed and the anchorite. For I saw that asceticism is a garden the hedge of which keeps off at a distance eternal evils, and the door through which man attains to everlasting felicity. And I found that a divine tranquility comes over the ascetic when he is absorbed in meditation; for he is still, contented, unambitious, satisfied, free from cares, has renounced the world, has escaped from evils, is devoid of greed, is pure, independent, protected against sorrow, above jealousy, manifests pure love, has abandoned all that is transitory, has acquired perfect understanding, has seen the recompense of the next world, is secure against remorse, fears no man, does none any harm and remains himself unmolested. And the more I pondered over asceticism the more I yearned for it so that at last I earnestly thought of becoming an ascetic.

[Sidenote: The trials of an anchorite: the greedy dog.]

But then apprehension came upon me that I should not be able to support the life of a hermit and that the ordinary way in which I had grown up would prove an hindrance. I was not sure that, should I renounce the world and adopt asceticism, I should not prove too feeble for it. Moreover, should I give up such good works as I had previously performed in the hope of salvation, I should be in the position of the dog who with the bone in his mouth was going along a river. He saw his reflection in the water, suddenly dashed forward to seize it and consequently let fall what he had in the mouth without securing what he wanted to get. So I grew uneasy regarding the recluse's life and was afraid lest I should fail to bear it and thought therefore rather to continue the career of my life.

[Sidenote: Worldly Monastic life.]

[Sidenote: A series of similes.]

However, it occurred to me to compare the discomforts and straits of monasticism, which I feared I should be unable to support, with the wants of those who remain in the world. Then it became clear to me that all the joys and pleasures of the world turn to discomforts and bring sorrow. For the world is like salt water. The more one drinks of it the more thirsty one becomes; like a bone found by a dog on which he still sniffs the flavour of flesh, he bites to get at it but only to tear the flesh of his teeth and make his mouth bleed and the more he struggles the more he makes it bleed; like the vulture that has found a piece of flesh, it attracts other birds in a flock so that for a long time it is in trouble and flies till at last, quite exhausted, it drops its prey; like a pot filled with honey and with poison at the bottom, he who eats of it has a short enjoyment but at last death by venom; like a dream which rejoices the sleeper who finds when he awakes his joy vanished; like lightning that brings brilliance for a moment but quickly disappears, he who builds his hope upon it abides in darkness; like the silk worm the more it spins itself into the silk the more impossible it finds to come out.

[Sidenote: More internal struggle.]

After I had pondered thus I once more proposed to my soul to elect asceticism and had yearning for it. Nevertheless I opposed it with: It will not do that I should seek refuge from the world in asceticism when I think of the evils of the world and then again seek refuge in the world from asceticism when I consider the privations and discomforts of the latter. I continued in a state of prolonged vacillation without firm determination like the Kazi of Merv who at first heard one party and decided in his favour and against the other and then heard the other and gave judgment in favour of the latter as against the first. And when again I reflected upon the frightful discomforts and straits of monasticism I said, How trifling it is all in comparison with eternal peace. And then once more thinking of the joys of the world I exclaimed, How bitter and pernicious they are which lead to perpetual perdition and its horrors; how can a man not regard as sweet the little bitterness which is succeeded by sweet that endures and how can a man not regard as bitter a bit of sweet that ends in greater and abiding bitterness? If it was offered to a man that he should live a hundred years but that every day he should be hacked to pieces and should be called to life again the following day and so on, provided that at the close of the century he should be delivered from the torture and pain and be in security and delight, he would account as nothing the whole years. How can a man then not bear the few days of asceticism, the inconveniences of which are succeeded by much that is beautiful? And we know that the entire world bears privation and torment and that man from his origin as foetus till the end of his days is subject to one suffering after another. Moreover, we find the following in books of medicine.

[Sidenote: Man in embryo: his torments till and after death.]

[Sidenote: Tribulations of human existence.]

When the liquid, of which the perfect child is to be built, enters the uterus of the woman, and mixes itself with her liquid substance and her blood it becomes thick and pulpy. Next the liquid is stirred by a wind and becomes like sour milk and later on hard like curdled milk. After a certain number of days the individual members become separate. If it is a man child its face is turned to the back of the mother; if it is a female it is turned towards the belly. In the foetus the hands are on the cheeks and the chin is on the knee. It is all bundled up in the foetus as if it was thrust into a pouch. It breathes through a narrow opening. Each member is bound by a chord. Above it is the heat and the pressure of the mother's womb; below are darkness and constriction. It is tied with a piece of its navel to that of its mother, sucks through it and lives upon her food and drink. In this position it remains in gloom and confinement till the day of birth. When that day comes a wind acquires control of the womb, that child acquires strength to rise, turns the head towards the opening and experiences in this confinement the pain of one forced into a distressing torture. Should it fall to the ground or be touched only by a breath of wind or should it come in contact with one's hands it feels greater pain, than a person that is flayed alive. The new born babe then suffers all manner of torment. When it is hungry it cannot ask for food; thirsty, for drink; when in pain it cannot call for help. Besides it is lifted up, laid down, wrapped up, swathed, washed and rubbed. When it is laid to sleep on the back it cannot turn. Again so long as it is given the suck it is subjected to all manner of other tortures. When it is finally delivered from these, it is liable to those of education and has then to suffer a great deal, the brusqueness of the teacher, the unpleasantness of the instruction, the disgust at writing. Next he has his rich portion of medicine, diet, aches and illnesses. When he has outgrown these, he is troubled with wife, child and property and is pulled about by covetuous ambition and is exposed to the peril of longing and desires. All this while he is menaced by his four internal enemies, gall, blood, bile and wind; and furthermore, mortal poison, snakes that bite, animals of prey and reptiles, the alternation of heat and cold, rain and storm as well as finally the various plagues of age, if at all he survives those. But should he have nothing to fear from all this and were he secure with regard to these calamities, when he thinks of the moment when death must come and he musk give up the world, what a miserable plight is his, at the thought of the hour he has to separate himself from family, friends, and relations and all that is precious on the earth, and when he reflects that there is in store for him after death fearful horrors? Then must he be considered of feeble intellect, neglectful and a suitor for misfortune should he do nothing for his soul, should he not employ all art in behalf of the soul, and should he not renounce altogether the pleasures and errors of the world which till then had seduced him.

[Sidenote: Eulogy of the reigning Monarch.]

[Sidenote: Fallen on evil days.]

[Sidenote: How the world's misery outweighs its joys.]

But this holds especially good of modern times which have become worn out and fragile, which appear pure but are turbid. God has given the king good fortune and success. He is equally circumspect, mighty, magnanimous, profound examiner, upright, humane, liberal, a lover of truth, grateful, of broad comprehension, mindful of right and duty, indefatigable, strenuous, with insight, helpful, serene of mind, intelligent, thoughtful, gentle, sympathetic, kind, one who knows man and things, friend of learning and the learned, of the good and of benevolent people, but severe to the oppressor, not timid, nor backward, dexterous in granting in abundance to his subjects what they desire and averting from them what they do not like. Yet we see that our days are retrogressive in every way. It is as if man were divested of truth, as if that should be absent which one sadly misses and as if the harmful were there, as if the good were withering and the evil flourishing, as if the sinners were proceeding with a smile and the righteous receding in tears; as if knowledge was entombed and irrationality propagated, as if wretched intent was spreading and nobility of thought restricted; as if love was cut off and malice and hatred had become favourites; as if rectitude were divested of prosperity which had betaken itself to the malefactor; as if craftiness were awake and truth were asleep; as if mendacity were fruitful and veracity was left in the cold; as if those in power held before them the duty to act according to their own inclinations and to violate law, as if the oppressed were in dejection and made way for the tyrant; as if greediness on all sides had opened its jaws and swallowed all that was far and near; as if there was no trace left of contentment; as if the wicked had exalted themselves to Heaven and had made the good sink into the ground; as if nobility of mind were thrown from the loftiest pinnacle to most abysmal depths, as if turpitude were in honour and authority and as if sovereignty had been transferred from the exalted to the mean—in fact as if the world in the fullness of its joy were crying, "I have concealed the good and brought the evil to light." When, however, I reflected on the world and its condition and on the fact that man, although he is the noblest and foremost of creatures in it, is still in spite of his eminent position, subject to one misery after another and that this is his notorious peculiarity so that whoever has even a tittle of reason must be convinced that a human being is unable to help himself and to exert for his salvation,—this greatly astonished me, as further consideration told me that he is debarred from salvation only because of the small miserable enjoyments of smell, taste, sight, hearing and feeling of which he may receive a fraction or enjoy a particle but which is insignificant being so transient. He is, however, so much taken up with it that on its account he does not trouble himself for the salvation of his soul.

Then I looked for a similitude for this behaviour of human beings and found the following:

A certain person was fleeing from a danger into a well and suspended himself by clinging to two branches which grew on its edge, his feet striking against something which supported them. When he looked round there were four serpents which were projecting their heads from their holes. As he looked into the bottom of the well he noticed a dragon with its jaws open expecting him to fall his prey. And as he turned his head up to the branches he observed at their roots a black and a white mouse which were ceaselessly gnawing at both. While he was contemplating the situation and casting about for a means of escape he descried near him a hollow with bees that had made some honey. This he tasted and he was so much absorbed in its deliciousness that he no more thought of the condition he was in and that he must devise some contrivance of escape. He became oblivious of the fact that his feet rested against four serpents and that he did not know which would attack him first, forgot that the two mice were without cessation nibbling at the boughs by which he was hanging, and that as soon as they had gnawed them through he would drop into the jaws of the dragon. And so in his heedlessness he yielded to the enjoyment of the meed till he perished.

I compared the well with the world which is brimful of all manner of harm and terrible perils, the four snakes with the four humours which constitute the physical basis of man, but which, should they be excited, prove mortal poison; the branches to life, the black and white mice to night and day which in perpetual alternation consume our lifetime; the dragon with death inevitable; the honey to the particle of joy which man derives from his senses of smell, taste, sight, hearing and feeling, but which makes him oblivious of himself and all his circumstances and decoy away from the path to emancipation. So circumstanced I found myself, and endeavoured to conduct myself with as much rectitude as possible in the hope once again to experience a time when I should acquire a guide for myself and help for my cause. I remained in this stage till I returned from India to my homeland after I had made a copy of this book and a few more.

THE TRIAL OF AFSHIN..

A DISGUISED ZOROASTRIAN GENERAL.

[Afshin was a Zoroastrian at heart. His trial and condemnation are referred to by Browne, Literary History of Persia. I take the account direct from Tabari. It is to be found also in Ibn Athir and Ibn Khaldun. The legal procedure reveals prominently the condition under which professed non-Moslems lived—religious liberty was granted to them. Note that it was possible to chastise ecclesiastical officers like Imams and Muezzins because of their interference with the religious practices of non-Moslems. Observe the part played by a Mobed at a criminal trial conducted according to Muhammadan usages. The Zoroastrian priest, who subsequently embraced Islam, comes forward to give evidence against the most puissant but covert co-religionist of his times.]

It has been related by Harun son of Isa, son of Mansur as follows:—I was present in the house of Muatisim and there were there Ahmad bin Ali Dawud and Ishaq bin Ibrahim son of Masab and Muhammad bin Abdal Maliq al Zayyad. They then brought Afshin who was yet not in rigorous imprisonment, and there were present people who were prepared to cause Afshin to shed tears. There was nobody in the house belonging to any high position except the sons of Mansur, for, the people had left. Those present were Muhammad bin Abdal Maliq al Zayyad and there were Mazyar, the ruler of Tabaristan, the Mobed, and the Marzban son of Urkesh, one of the chieftains of Sughd, and two people from among the Sughdians. Then Muhammad Ibn Abdal Maliq called the two people whose clothes were torn and asked them how they were. They then uncovered their backs which were torn of the flesh. Muhammad turning to Afshin asked "Do you know these?" "Yes, this man is the Mauzzin and this, one is the Imam who made a mosque at Ashrushana, and I struck each of them a thousand lashes, and that was because there was a covenant between myself and the kings of Sughd including a clause to the effect that I should leave each community to its own religion. But these two people attacked a shrine which had images in it, a shrine which was at Ashrushna, and they took out the images and turned the shrine into a mosque. I therefore struck them one thousand lashes for this transgression of theirs."

Then Muhammad asked Afshin, "What is the book which you have got which you have adorned with gold and gems and brocade? Its contents are impious with reference to God?" Afshin replied, "This is a book which I have inherited from my father and it contains the manners of the Persians, and as regards the impiety to which you refer I take advantage of the book in so far as the manners are concerned and I leave all the rest. And I found it bejewelled and as there was no occasion for me to take off the gems I left it as it was just as you have left with yourself the book Kalileh and Dimneh and the Book of Mazdak in your house. For I don't think the book would make me lose my Islam."

Then came forward the Mobed and referring to Afshin said, "This man is used to eating animals that have been strangled and he suggested the eating of it to me alleging that the flesh was more fresh than the flesh of slaughtered animals. And he used to kill a black goat every Wednesday and tearing it up with his sword he would pass through the two halves, and he would then eat the flesh. And one day he told me, 'I have entered this community [Islam] with reference to every detail of theirs which I hate so that I have eaten of olive oil, have ridden on camels, have put on the Arabian shoes, but although I have gone to this extent I have not in any way been injured and no harm has come to me: nor have I had myself circumcised.'"

Then Afshin said "Let me know as regards this man who is speaking these words whether he is a staunch believer in his own religion." Now the Mobed was a Magian who subsequently received Islam at the instance of the Khalif Mutawakkil and repented of his previous belief. They replied, "No."

Afshin then said, "What is the meaning of your adducing the evidence of a man who is not firm in his own faith?" Then turning to the Mobed Afshin said, "Was there between your house and my house any door or any hole through which you could look at me and learn my movements?"

"No," said the Mobed.

Afshin then asked, "Was I not then introducing you into my private affairs and informing you regarding my Persian nationality and my inclination towards it and towards the people of the race?"

"Yes," said the Mobed.

Said Afshin, "Now you are not firm in your own religion, and you are not faithful to your promise when you have revealed the secret confided by me to you."

Then the Mobed withdrew and the Marzban turned up. Afshin was asked whether he knew him, and said "No."

Then the Marzban was asked whether he knew Afshin and said "Yes. This is
Afshin."

Afshin was then told that this was the Marzban and the Marzban turning to Afshin said; "Oh cutthroat, why do you prevaricate and shuffle?"

Afshin said, "Oh you long-bearded one, what are you talking?"

The Marzban said "How do people under your jurisdiction address you when they write to you?"

Afshin replied; "Just in the way they used to write to my father and grandfather."

"Then tell us the way."

"No, I won't."

"Do not the people of Ashrushna write to you in such and such a way?"

"Now, does this not mean in Arabic, 'to the high God from his slave so and so?'"

[Ibn Khaldun is here clearer than Tabari. The term used was Khoday which in Persian meant Lord, applicable equally to God and any high dignitary. The original 'Pahlavi' title of the Shahnameh was Khodaynameh.]

"Yes."

Muhammad Ibn Abdal Maliq asked upon this, "Do they tolerate such a thing? For what greater blasphemy would be left to Pharaoh to commit who suggested to his people 'I am your God the Highest.'?"

Afshin replied, "This was the custom of the people in my father's and grandfather's times and it was also the custom with me before I embraced Islam. And then I did not like that I should lower myself before them. For then I should have lost their allegiance and the obedience that they owed me."

Upon this Ishaq Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Musab said, "Fie, fie on you, Hyder."

[Afshin is sometimes referred to as Hyder.]

Then turned up Mazyar the chief of Tabaristan and Afshin was asked whether he knew him. He said "No."

Mazyar was asked if he knew Afshin.

Then they told him that this was Mazyar.

"Yes, I know him now."

"Did you ever have correspondence with him? No."

Then turning to the Marzban they asked, "Did he ever write to you?"

"Yes," said Mazyar, "His brother Khash used to write to my brother Quhyar to the effect that this splendid religion of theirs will have help from nobody except himself, Quhyar and Babak."

[In the sequel Tabari relates how when Afshin's house was searched, after he was starved to death, among other incriminating articles a book was discovered sumptuously bound and bedecked with gems which related, to the old faith of Iran.]

NOELDEKE'S INTRODUCTION TO TABARI.

[The Arabs have long been credited with maintaining learning and civilisation in general when Europe was slumbering in its dark ages. History as a science was rarely known even to the gifted Hindus. The Arabs cultivated it with peculiar enthusiasm. Wustenfeld has collected the lives of 590 historians, the first of whom died in the year 50, and the last was born in 1061 A.H. But it is now proved beyond all doubt that many of these writers were Persians who employed the Arabic language and that the art of Arab annalists had its root in the archives of the Sasanians. We owe this discovery to Goldziher and Von Kremmer in the first instance, and to Brockelmann, Browne, Blochet and Huart who have done ample justice to the Iranian element in Arab culture. One of the best of these histories is by Tabari. Noeldeke translated in 1879, the portion relating to the Sasanians into German, and added footnotes to his translation, which are a mine of information on pre-Moslem Persia. The introduction which he wrote to his translation is equally valuable especially for the light it throws on the sources of Firdausi. The following is a translation of that German introduction by Noeldeke.

Tabari was a most prolific author and is reported to have written daily forty sheets for forty years. He was of pure Iranian descent G.K.N.]

[Sidenote: Tabari's method.]

Abu Jafar Muhammed bin Jarir born in the winter of 839 at Amul not far from the Caspian Sea in the Persian Province of Tabaristan, hence called Tabari, and who died in Baghdad on the 17th February 923, wrote many, partly very large, works in the Arabic language, among them an extremely voluminous chronicle, which reaches from the creation down to nearly the close of his life. Tabari, mainly occupied with theological tradition, was no man of original research or of historical acumen even in the sense applied to a few other Persian scholars in those centuries. His annals are a compilation, a mass of rich material put together with extraordinary industry. He does not work into unity the various versions in his divergent sources, but simply brings them up in order one after another. But it is just this circumstance which considerably enhances in our eyes the value of the work; for in this way the older reports themselves are preserved more faithfully than if the chronicler had laboured to reconcile them one with the other.

[Sidenote: Abounds in extracts from Arab and Iranian predecessors, but does not mention his sources.]

The principal value of Tabari's compilation consists in the extremely exhaustive presentation of the history of Islam from the first appearance of the Prophet; no other Arabic work in this respect can compare with his. The pre-Islamic history comprises, may be, a twentieth portion of the whole work and gives a very groat deal of what we would rather be without. Of the highest moment, however, is the tolerably detailed section on the history of the Sasanides and their times embodied in it, and whose German translation forms the text of our book. This section goes back partly to good Arabic records and mostly, at least mediately, to very important ancient Persian sources. But the stories from the mythological and historical traditions which appear scattered in Tabari in proceeding sections have a cognate origin. If the criticism of the sources is here very much facilitated on the one hand, because these orientals where they excerpt love to adhere, as far as possible, to the letter of their models or sources, it is on the other, rendered difficult because Tabari does not mention his immediate authorities. Only in reports of theological interest, to which the whole of the history of the growth of Islam belongs, he proceeds to indicate his sources with precision; otherwise he cites at the best an old authority come down to him only obliquely, and in most cases none at all. Throughout the Persian history he never names an authority, barring Hisham, whom he quotes here and there and who was an acknowledged authority in another province of tradition.

[Sidenote: Story of Persia based on indigenous original work.]

[Sidenote: Occasional identity of Firdausi and Tabari.]

The story of Persia from the first mythical Kings to the last of the Sasanides exhibits in Tabari, as in allied Arabic works, a certain similarity of conception and presentation which leads to the assumption of an indigenous original work at least respecting a very large portion. Now the Shahnameh of the great poet Firdausi, a national epic of the kind which no other people possess, while it on one hand, apart from the poetic license indulged in by Firdausi, contains much that is either not found at all or is essentially differently related in Arab writers; on the other, considerably accords with those Arab annalists in the order, in the whole structure, and in the details of the narrative. Indeed the poet often reproduces almost the identical phraseology of the historian. But now since according to both tradition and internal grounds Firdausi's bases were not Arabic books, the coincidence must be explained from a common ultimate source. The original work has been reflected to us in Tabari and other Arabs as well as Firdausi through a series of intermediate texts. To judge by the express statements and suggestions as also by various features in style and phraseology and further by all that we are aware of touching the circumstances of the literature we can say with certainty that, that original work like all other Persian narrative productions of the Sasanides and of the period of Arab conquest was composed in the written, language of this period, the Pahlavi. The most important connected presentment of Persian history in Pahlavi to which our reports go back is no doubt the Khoday Nameh, i.e., the "Book of Lords" a title which answers to the subsequent Shah Nameh or "Book of Kings."

Hamza mentions that name. The prose introduction to Ferdausi says that the "Book of Kings" was written first of all at the instance of Khushrau I Anoshirwan, but that the complete story was compiled only under Yazdegerd III by the Dihkan Danishwar. This work which it would not be too bold to identify with the Koday Nameh began with the primeval king, Gayomarth, and reached down to the termination of the reign of Khushrau II, surnamed Parwez. Although this introduction to Ferdausi dates but from the fifteenth century, and as for details is disfigured by inaccuracies and fictions, I attach weight to what it indicates respecting the time of its composition. In fact the concord of the narrative in the various sources reaches down to the death of Parwez and then abruptly ceases; while there are no vestiges to demonstrate that the completion of the original work was brought about subsequent to the victory of the Arabs. And the legitimistic nature of the story Is especially in keeping with the times when usurpation and insurrections of all sorts had run their course, and when the people looked forward with, the inauguration of the rule of the youthful grandson, of Parwez, who was crowned at the sacred place where the dynasty took its rise, to an era of prosperity to the ancient monarchy,—a hope which was fearfully crushed with the loss of the battle of Kadisiya towards the close of 637. Again the replies made by the imprisoned king which have been reproduced in different sources suit the times of the Yezegerd who descended from Khusrau II and not Sheroe, Khusrau's brilliant career despite its shady side strongly contrasted with the period ushered in by the patricide. A small piece of writing which depicts the first stormy years of Khusrau's domination in a romantic fashion seems to have arisen about the same time.

I am less certain about the name Danishwar. It was probably an adjective signifying "possessed of knowledge." It was easy for anyone who knew from Firdausi that the landed nobility called the Dihkan constituted the peculiar custodians of national lore to name a "learned Dihkan" as the collector of the stones of kings.

The compilation prepared at the time had undoubtedly drawn upon written documents without which It would have been impossible to give minute particulars of a long by-gone past. Besides the brief notices communicated by the Syrian Sergius to Agathias from the Basilika apomnemoneiumata are in the main in unison with our Arabo-Persian stories. Thus then in Khushro's time there existed a general survey of the history of Persia more or less in an official version. But otherwise there is no need to lay stress on the mention of Khushrau here, for all manner of things beneficial and good are ascribed to this king.

[Sidenote: Nature of the Khoday Nameh.]

The book of kings contains, as we said, the story of Persia from the creation of the world to the fall of the last purely national domination. It made no distinction between wholly mythical, semi-fabulous, and fully historical dynasts, so that the Arabs and Persians who drew upon it never suspected that e.g., Hoshang and Rustam are not such historical persons as Shahpur I and Bahram Chobin. But in the material itself we notice a conspicuous difference. The mythical tales which in their crude nascent forms were already there at the period of the Avesta were in course of time richly developed and under the Sasanides were no doubt universally known. To these were joined ecclesiastical speculation and traditions concerning the genesis of the world, civilisation and the legislation of Zoroaster. There were also several genealogical trees. In all these at the most a few proper names were historical. Of the empires of the Medes and of Persians proper this tradition had no knowledge. It is doubtful if it contained even quite a feeble reflex of the last days of the Achaeminides. On to this ancient autochthonous tradition was immediately joined the story of the last Darius and Alexander emanating from a foreign source, the Greek romance of Alexander. Not more than a few names was all that was preserved of the long period covering the Macedonian and the Parthian supremacy. With the Sasanides the national reminiscences became clearer. Round the founder of the dynasty were accreted, on the one hand, legends wholly fabulous and on the other, such as embodied excellent historical data. But the latter seem to be inadequately represented in the main work, the Khodayname. Again very few particulars were known of the reigns of the succeeding sovereigns down to Yezdegerd I. In the chapters which correspond to those of the old Book of Kings just this want of actual information, it seems, the compilers strove to veil behind rhetorical accounts of scenes of homage done to the rulers, imperial speeches from the throne, etc. For the following ages on there was, in general, good, partly very authentic information. But this entire presentment did not concern itself solely with veracity. The Iranians who from very remote antiquity extravagantly lauded truth, had in reality never any great sense of it. The Khoday Nameh and kindred productions were unfairly biassed and rhetorical. The ornamental and figurative ingredients are indicated even by the Arabic reproductions, though the latter are greatly condensed. A classic testimony to it has been kindly communicated to me by Baron Von Rosen which is a passage from a Petersberg manuscript of Albayan Wattabyin of Jahiz in which the Shuubiya or the Persians, who, though Muslims placed their nation above the Arabs say: "And he who is interested in reason, fine culture, knowledge of ranks, examples and penalties, in elegant expressions and superlative thoughts, let him cast a glance at the History (more properly the Vitae) of Kings." History of the Kings, Siyar-ul Muluk, is the title of the Arabic rendering of the Book of Kings in Pahlavi. Compare likewise Hamza's remarks on the works on Persian history. I have laboured to show the partiality of the Persian tradition in the footnotes. The narrative is conceived in a monarchical and legitimistic spirit, but equally all along from the view point of the superior nobility and the clergy. Add to this the exertions to cry up as much as possible the glory of Persia which sometimes produces a strange effect. Moreover, there must have been no lack of contradictions as to facts as well as respecting estimates of personal character which was inevitable owing to the employment of varying sources. Nevertheless a work like this written under the Sasanides and familiar with the state of things obtaining in the empire and more or less of an official nature, must have been an admirable fount of history. There was hardly ever a better presentment of the story of this house than the Khoday-Nameh.

[I have translated the entire passage from the since printed text. See p. 170.—G.K.N.]

Since, barring the small book treating of Ardeshir's adventures, no original Pahlavi document in the domain of historical or romantic literature has descended to us and even the Arabic recensions made directly from the original general history in Pahlavi have perished, we are altogether left in uncertainty touching many most important points. We cannot, for instance, ascertain whether alongside of the Khoday-Nameh there existed also other general continuous narrations or whether the deviations, which are for the most part trifling, in some cases of great moment, already existed in the Pahlavi work or are traceable to various recensions of that book. It would not be rash, to assume that some copies of the work contained additional matter taken from other Pahlavi books like the Romance of Bahram. Bahram the high priest of the city of Shapur collected, according to Hamza, more than 20 manuscripts of the Khoday-Nameh and from their divergence made out another independent recension. Musa Ibn Isa Kesravi complains of the variants in the copies of the work; the latter author who speaks of defects in translation has in view only the Arabic redactions. The text, however, of Tabari, at all events and more so a comparison of Tabari and other Arabs with one another and with Firdausi exhibits that entire sections of the History of Kings were already in the Pahlavi original in essentially different shapes. Otherwise, it would not be possible, for instance, that where Tabari offers two different versions, one should harmonise with Eutychius and Ibn Kotaiba (derived from the translation of Ibn Mukaffa) and the other should agree with the Arab Yakubi and often with Firdausi, who goes back to the Pahlavi text not directly but mediately through compositions in modern Persian. It is very important for a knowledge of the history that thus we have at our command all manner of dissonant reports about the Sasanide epoch. But we have to observe all the same that the character and the tendency of the several versions are almost all along consistent and further more that often we have more recensions than one which differ but little and which have one and the same ground-work or prototype. The question whether this difference is older or younger than the Khoday-Nameh has more literary than historical significance.

[Sidenote: Translation of Khoday-Nameh into Arabic. Its general fidelity to the original.]

[Sidenote: The Arabic translation may be pieced together from various sources.]

We should decide all this with much more certainty did we possess but one direct rendering made from the Pahlavi into Arabic. Above all we have to deplore the loss of Ibn Mukaffa's history of Persian Kings which is always assigned the first place among translations of the Persian Book of Kings by Hamza and other authorities. This distinguished man who only late in life exchanged the faith of his forbears for that of Islam, and who never professed the latter with over much zeal, translated a series of Pahlavi writings into Arabic including the Khoday-Nameh. He was a courtier, and passed for a good Arabic poet and one of the best rhetorical writers of his time. The famous Wazir Ibn Mukla counted him among "the ten most eloquent men." He must consequently have striven to suit his rendering of the book of Persian kings to the taste of his contemporaries. But we have no sufficient grounds to assume that he introduced arbitrary and material alterations into his translations or even that he greatly elaborated the rhetorical passages of the original text or invested them with an altogether different garb. Such a suspicion is contradicted by the coincidences with other sources which, like Firdausi, are independent of him. There is little probability of Ibn Mukaffa's work being again brought to light in its entirety. But on the other hand, it will indeed be possible to gather together in course of time more and more stray passages belonging to the book; though it is to be feared, unfortunately that these fragments will prove more to be preserved as efforts of rhetoric than because of their intrinsic value. A few extracts of this nature we find in Ibn Kotaiba's Oyun-al Akhbar. Among these citations which I owe to the goodness of Rosen, there is one tolerably long on the death of Peroz. Now the same fragment, little curtailed, is in the chronicle of Said bin Batrik or Eutychius, the patriarch of Alexandria. We should, therefore, be inclined from the first to derive other information in Eutychius on the Sasanides from Ibn Mukaffa. And our predisposition is supported by the circumstance that the history of the dynasty as given in a manual by the same Ibn Kotaiba and which is styled Kitab al Maarif, brief as it is, betrays as in the instance of the reign of Peroz, all through such an harmony with Eutychius that here two independent authors must necessarily have drawn upon one and the same original; and that original source can be no other than the production of Ibn Mukaffa. The abstract in Eutychius is very unequal being in some parts exhaustive, in others much abridged. The narrations as preserved in Tabari, which correspond to the statements in Eutychius and Ibn Kotaiba and which consequently go back to Ibn Mukaffa, are of a similar nature though Tabari gives in addition other parallel reports. Tabari, however, did not himself use Ibn Mukaffa's work, but for the History of Persia, among other authorities, employed by preference a younger work which represented another version together with excerts from the former. This can be inferred from the fact that the anonymous Codex Sprengers 30, which and Tabari are mutually independent, shows quite the same combination of two main sources and so far as the section in question goes, can be utilised and treated as a new manuscript of Tabari. Both have relied almost to the letter upon the presentment which emanated partly from Ibn Mukaffa and partly from another translator with the only difference that the anonymous writer is oftener more concise than Tabari. Again the version which does not proceed from Ibn Mukaffa is for the most part in accord with the epitome of the story of the Sasanides in the introduction to Yakubi's History of the Abbasides; there the excellent author occasionally subjoins extraneous information. More often than not this presentment is in touch with Ferdausi. I am unable to aver from whom has originated this other recension of the story of the Sasanides. We know indeed the names of a number of persons who redacted the History of Persia, originally in Pahlavi, for Arab readers. But though we can collect a few notices of some of the authors mentioned, we know nothing in particular about them and are completely in the dark about the special nature of their work. All that we can postulate as established is that they wrote posterior to Ibn Mukaffa. The latter is always mentioned in the first place. Muhammad bin Jahm who is regularly cited next after him and bears the surname of Bermaki, was a client of the Barmecides, who came to power a long while after the death of Ibn Mukaffa. Ifc may be supposed that they all laid under contribution the production of their celebrated predecessor. How they individually set about their work, whether perhaps some of them tapped non-Persian tradition; also, how far one or other of them utilized the novels of which there were probably many in Pahlavi—this we are no longer in a position to determine. Again this too remains a mystery whence Tabari came by most of the accounts touching the Persians, which are conspicuous by their absence in the anonymous Codex. To clear this whole ground it would appear to be expedient in the first place to set apart all that for which Ibn Mukaffa directly or indirectly is responsible. This I have done in the footnotes but an advance is possible in this direction. On the other hand, we must keep Ferdausi steadily before our eyes. Whatever in Tabari and other Chroniclers does not issue from Ibn Mukaffa and is not represented in Ferdausi likewise merits special study.

[Sidenote: Direct Sources of Ferdausi.]

[Sidenote: The Persian prose Shahname was not derived from Arabic but
Pahlavi.]

A superficial reading of Firdausi would engender the view that he obtained his material partly from Pahlavi books direct and partly from the oral communication of competent renconteurs. That this is only a deceptive illusion we conclude at once from his strong resemblance not only in the main features but also in the details and the order, with Arab writers some of whom were much anterior to him. Firdausi positively knew no Pahlavi and as for Arabic he knew next to nothing. He did employ written sources preponderatingly if not exclusively and these were in modern Persian. His principal authority was, according to the introduction mentioned above, a translation of the old Book of Kings which was prepared by Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak bin Abdullah bin Ferrukh. So far our information is surely trustworthy. For, Biruni testifies to a Shahname by Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak of Tus. According to the introduction, this man was a minister of Yakub bin Laith Saffar, who was commissioned with the work which he accomplished through a certain Sund bin Mansur Mamari with the help of four competent people from Khorasan and Sagistan in 360 A.H. The chronological impossibility involved in the figure is removed by Mohl who emends it to 260. Yakub ibn Laith got a foothold in Khorasan in 253 A.H. and reigned till 265. Still this report involves much that is incorrect. That the uncouth warrior Yakub who was perpetually camping in the battle fields should have possessed a sense for such a literary undertaking is extremely improbable, though not altogether inconceivable. May be, he was actuated by a political design, but Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak did not live under Yakub but flourished two or three generations later. For he is either a brother of Muhammad bin Abdar Razzak of Tus or Muhammad himself. The first surmise has the weight of greater likelihood in that the Strasburg manuscript calls him once Abu Mansur Ahmed and Muhammad had in fact a brother named Ahmed who participated in his political manouvres. Muhammad was the lord of Tus. We hear much about him—how he in the years A.D. 945-960 stood up now for the Samanides, his proper overlords, now for their powerful antagonist Ruknaddin, the Buide, whose capital lay in dangerous proximity to his territory. In those days when an enthusiasm for Modern Persian was strongly awakened the enterprize may most appropriately have been taken in hand. Immediately after the Princes of Khorasan planned to cast this prose work into poetry; and this task was first inaugurated by Dakiki for the Samanides and brought to conclusion by Ferdausi of Tus, countryman of Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak, for Mahamud of Ghazna. The name of the four people who executed the work for the son of Abdar Razzak are all genuinely Persian; which indicates that they were all adherents of the ancient religion and that they had actully a Pahlavi original before them. To transfer an Arabic version into Modern Persian would not have required four men. Moreover, Firdausi's poem occasionally betrays that his sources had not flowed to him through Arabic. Of those men one only is met with again, Shahzan son of Barzin. He is mentioned by Firdausi at the head of his account of the genesis of KALILA WA DIMNA: "Listen to what Shahzan, son of Barzin has said when he revealed the secret." Because this section is an episode which assuredly did not appear in the KHODAY-NAMEH, we may conclude that the prose Shahname on which this Shahzan collaborated, embodied all manner of similar episodes, though Firdausi may have taken several from elsewhere. It is an interesting circumstance that the potentate who had this work prepared by Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak, had inserted—so Biruni tell us—a fictitious genealogical tree in it which led up his ancestors to Minochihr. Such things were in those times very common among new men of Persian origin who attained power. We are compensated for the loss of this prose work by at least the epos of Ferdausi which has issued from it.

[Sidenote: Dinawari.]

As the most important of extant Arabic representations of the Khoday-Nameh and the cognate literature we must regard at any rate Tabari I have already touched upon Eutychius, Ibn Kotaiba, and Yakubi. Another old chronicler Abu Hanifa Ahmed bin Daud Dinawari greatly accords with Tabari but presents also much that is peculiar to himself. A closer examination would no doubt reveal that he draws considerably upon romances directly or indirectly and that he is not particularly accurate. Tabari reproduces the conflicting versions of the same incident separately one after another; Dinawari works them up into a single unified narrative.

[Sidenote: Hamza.]

The small book which Hamza Ispahani wrote in 961, contains in brief much independent information on the Sasanides. Hamza treats his materials in a spirit of much more freedom and independence than Tabari, but to us the compiling process of Tabari is far more convenient.

[Sidenote: Masudi.]

Masudi in his "Meadows of Gold" affords us many a supplement to Tabari's narratives derived from reliable Persian sources. But Masudi works very unequally, accepts a good deal that is suspicious provided only it is entertaining, and as regards detail he is by no means over exact.

As an historical authority, the Persian redaction of Tabari, so remarkable in many of its aspects, and achieved by Muhammad Belami or by others under his guidance, has but little value. I designate this work as "Persian Tabari" and have used it in the splendid Gotha manuscript and in Zotenberg's French translation. I have also consulted the Turkish version of Belami in a Gotha Manuscript.

[Sidenote: Tabari more valuable than Firdausi.]

All these writers and others present us collectively a tolerably rich and vivid portrait of Persian tradition of the Sasanide times. But the best comprehensive statement of the story of the Sasanides on the basis of this tradition is furnished us by Tabari, all his shortcomings notwithstanding and despite the pre-eminence which Firdausi's poem possesses as such.

[Sidenote: Ibn Kelbi.]

But in his narrative of this period Tabari had laid under contribution reports which were not of Persian origin. For the history of the Arab princes of Hira, which is so intimately related to that of the Persian empire, Tabari's chief authority was Hisham bin Muhammad called Ibn Kelbi a man who, like his father Muhammad bin Saib Kelbi before him, has rendered, however often modern criticism may take exception to the unscientific system of both the writers, the greatest service in connection with the collection of the scattered information on the history of ancient Arabs. We know of a few of the numerous writings, large and small, of Ibn Kelbi which are enumerated for us in the Fihrist and which probably are at the root of Tabari's chapters. It is quite possible that Tabari borrows many of the secondary sources of Ibn Kelbi. It is surprising that the latter is cited as an authority on the Persian history itself, on the reigns of Ardeshir, Peroz, Khosrau I, Harmizd IV, Khosrau II, and Yazdegerd III. We are not cognisant of any work of his on the History of Persia. But it may be conjectured that occasionally in his history of Arabia he supplied minuter details touching contemporary Persia. An amanuensis of his, Jabala bin Salim, is noticed in the Fihrist as one of the translators from Persian. Ho provided his master with material from Pahlavi books.

For the History of the Arabs of that period Tabari has used a variety of other sources, most prominent among them being Muhammad Ibn Ishak who is better known as the biographer of the prophet. In this section of Tabari's great work mediately or immediately a large amount of diverse information has been brought together.

It is certainly desirable and to be hoped that the criticism of the sources in this domain would make substantial progress. But the point of greatest moment even here is to test every incident or piece of information according to its origin and credibility as I have endeavoured to do in the footnotes.

LETTER OF TANSAR TO THE KING OF TABARISTAN.

Christensen, by the following reasoning, comes to the conclusion, that it was written somewhere between 557 and 570.

Among the sources of our knowledge of the Sasanian institutions, one of the most important is the letter of Tansar to the king of Tabaristan published and translated by Darmesteter in the Journal Asiatique (1894). The information which it gives on points where we can verify it is so exact that we cannot doubt that the letter was composed in the time of the Sasanians. On the other hand, on the first reading of the epistle I formed the impression that it was a literary fiction dating from the time of Khusro when the tradition made of Ardeshir the model of political sagacity and the founder of the entire organisation of the empire. The letter impressed me as a historical, theological, political and moral dissertation which in the shape of a correspondence between the grand Herbed Tansar and the king of Tabaristan, ill-informed regarding the new state of affairs and hesitating to submit himself to Ardeshir, was calculated to instruct contemporaries. It, therefore, fits in with the entire literature of the Andarz type, which was developed under Khusro and the object of it was the moral instruction of the people. A more minute examination has confirmed me in this view and now I think I am able to affirm positively that the letter was composed under Khusro I. Tansar relates that Ardeshir softened the penalties for crimes against the religion. Formerly, "they used to put to death without hesitation those who set aside the religion of the State. But Ardeshir has directed that the accused shall be arrested and shall be catechised during a year and only if that proves of no effect he shall be killed." As a matter of fact, the rigorous ordinance which awarded the punishment of death for apostacy could not have existed before Parsism became with Ardeshir the State religion. The relaxation of punishment, on the other hand, dates from a much later period, when the standpoint of greater humanity began to be prevalent and when it was attempted to give greater authority to these views by attributing them to the celebrated founder of the dynasty. And we can say the same thing with reference to the less severe punishment for crimes committed against the State and in respect of other things mentioned in the letter. Besides, the tolerance in matters religious and the humanity of Khusro I are well-known.

Now let us look at the incident of succession. According to the letter Ardeshir did not like to choose his successor lest the latter should wish for his death. So, he arranged for the succession in the following manner. The king only left in his royal letters a few counsels or instructions to the grand Mobed, the commander-in-chief, and the principal secretary, and after the decease of the king the latter were to proceed to elect a successor from among the royal princes. If they all were not of the same mind the choice should rest with the grand mobed alone. But Aideshir had made a formal notes that he was not going to establish a president thereby, and that "in another age a manner of looking at things different from ours may appear the proper one." In the first place such an arrangement accords ill with the nature of a statesmen like Ardeshir, for we know from Tabari who follows the official chronicle of the times of the Sasanians, that Ardeshir as well as Shapur I and II themselves chose their respective successors. But in the times between Ardeshir II and Kawadh the election of the king was generally in the hands of the noblemen, and the system mentioned by Tansar may well have suited this period and been in harmony with the singular expression ascribed to Ardeshir that the system in question was not a definite one, and that in other periods, other manners might be more convenient. It seems to us that the letter of Tansar was composed at a period when the memory of the system of Ardeshir was still living although it had already been abolished. In other words, it was the time when the kings had gained the power to nominate their successors during their life-time, which brings us to the period between Kawadh and Hormum IV.

The letter makes Ardeshir say "None but the subject kings who do not belong to our House can assume the title of king barring the wardens of the marches of the territory of the Allans and the districts in the west and of Khwarzm." By the oppression 'the warden of the matches' we must understand no doubt the marzbans of the countries established by Khusro.

Finally, the geographical notices permit us to determine in a more exact fashion the time of the origin of the letter…. The letter was consequently, composed after the march of Khusro I towards the East by the destruction of the Hephthahtes, but before the capture of Yemen. that is to say, between 557-570.

Christensen finally notes that Marquart has arrived at the same conclusion, by another way, namely, that the letter is a fiction of the time of Khusro I. (See Eranshahr page 30, note 2).

Some Arabic authors and the Iranian material they preserve.

[Note,—Brockelmann's edition of the Uyunal Akhbar is not accessible to me in India. I have carefully examined the first volume of the Cairo Edition and the following will show the wealth of Iranian material comprised in the book.—G.K.N.]

When the Kisra died this was reported to the Prophet who inquired who was going to succeed the dead emperor and when he was told his daughter, the princess Buran, the Prophet declared that the nation could not prosper inasmuch as its affairs depended upon a woman. (p. 11).

[Sidenote: Next-of-kin marriage.]

I have read in the Book of the Persians an epistle written by Ardeshir, son of Babak to his subjects declaring that the ecclesiastical authorities were the upholders of the religion and that the warriors were the bearers of the casque and literature, and were ornaments of the empire and that the agriculturists were pillars of the country. (p. 15). [In the course of the epistle there is a reference to marriage of next of kin, the king exhorting his subjects to tazauwa-ju-fil qarabayn.]

[Sidenote: Kitab Ain or the Pahlavi Ain-nameh.]

[Sidenote: Anushirwan's rule.]

I have read in the Ain that a king of Persia said in his address to his people: "I am only the ruler of people's bodies, not their minds; and I govern with justice, not according to my pleasure; and I safeguard people's property, not their secrets." Furthermore, the Persians say the most efficient of rulers is he who draws the bodies of his subjects to fealty to him through their hearts. When Anushirwan appointed a person to an office he directed his secretary to leave out in the appointment order a space of four lines so that he may fill it up with his own hand, and when the appointment order was brought to him he would write in it "govern the good people by love, and for the common people mix liberty with awe and govern the proletariat with levity." (p. 15).

And it is said in the Book of the Persians that the hearts of the people are the treasuries of the king, so that whatever is put there should be made known to him. (p 17).

[Sidenote: The Taj.]

And I have read in the Taj; Said Aberwez to his son Shiruya who had put him into prison, [and here follow some views relating to the treatment of soldiers.]

And in one of the Books of the Persians it is stated that Ardeshir said to his son, "Oh, my son, the empire and the religion are two brothers which cannot do the one without the other. For the religion is the foundation and the empire is the guardian and whatever has no foundation falls and whatever has no guardian to look after it goes to waste" [And then proceeds to advise him as to the treatment of the nobles, warriors, the clergy, etc. Then are described the five qualities essential in a man occupying a post in the imperial government]

And it is said in the Taj that Aberwez wrote to his son Shiruya from his prison…. (p. 20)

And I have read in the letter … Aberwez wrote to his son Shiruya, [and here follow instructions regarding the three qualifications necessary in a revenue officer.] (p. 21)

[Sidenote: The Taj.]

I have read in the Taj that one of the kings of Persia took counsel with his Wazirs, [and here follows a discussion about the necessity of confiding one's secret to one man only and not more.] (p. 25)

[Sidenote: Epistle of Aberwez.]

I have read in the Epistle of Aberwez to his son Shiruya who was imprisoned by him,[here follows the advisability of taking counsel with a certain class of people.] (p. 30).

[Sidenote: Marzbans.]

One of the kings of Persia, when he consulted the Marzbans and they did not give their opinion in a proper way, summoned those who were entrusted with provisioning the Marzbans and punished them. The latter complained that the error was on the part of the Marzbans whereas the punishment was awarded to them and the king replied that was so, and that the Marzbans would not have committed the error unless their minds were not dependent upon their food.

[Sidenote: Buzurjamaher.]

[Sidenote: Books of the Persians.]

[Sidenote: Ideal Persian Secretary]

Says Buzurjamaher, "When you are in doubt as to the propriety of doing one of two things then look out for the one which is nearest to your desires and relinquish it." (p. 23). And it is said in the Books of the Persians, [and here follows one of the most frequently repeated injunctions about the strict guarding of one's secrets.] (p. 40.) The Persians were in the habit of saying that the person would be deficient as a writer who was not conversant with the nature of flowing waters, with the digging of canals, with mirage, with the length of days as to particular seasons, with the rising of the new moon, and its effects, with weights and measures, with mensuration, triangles, squares, and measurements of areas involving various angles, with the preparation of channels and bridges and water mills, with the implements of artisans, and with the intricacies of mathematics. (p. 43).

[Sidenote: Mobedan-Mobed]

I have read in one of the Books of the Persians that the Mobedan-Mobed in eulogising the art of writing said etc … (p. 47).

[Sidenote: Epistle of Aberwez.]

I have read in the Epistle of Aberwez to his son Shiruya. [Then follows an advice about severely punishing even a small piece of dishonesty.] (p, 58).

[Sidenote: The Taj.]

I have read in the Taj that Aberwez said to the treasurer [here follows some observations on integrity.]

[Sidenote: Persian sense of justice and equity.]

I have read in the Ain that it behoves the ruler to understand the jurisdiction of rightful justice, of justice which is not equity, of equity which is not justice, and to use his judgment with regard to evidence and eyewitnesses, and to refrain from doubtful matters. Since it is both justice and equity to kill a person for the slaughter of a person, and it is justice without equity to kill a master for the slaughter of a slave, and it is equity without justice to award the same punishment for a crime committed by a sane man as to one who was not in his senses. (p. 88).

And I have read in the Taj: Said Aberwez to his chamberlain; [and here follow very interesting instructions regarding the treatment which the chamberlain was to give to the various persons seeking an audience of the king.] (p. 74).

I have read in the Taj [here follows an address of a secretary to a king.]

[Sidenote: Speech from the throne.]

I have read in the Siyaral Ajam [one of the Arabic versions of Shah Nameh] that Ardeshir, when he was firmly established on the throne, gathered together his subjects and addressed them with eloquence exhorting them to love and obedience to himself, and warning them against sin and dividing the people into four classes, upon which those present made obeisance and their spokesman addressed the king as follows. [Here follows one of those typical speeches of which we have so many in Shah Nameh, and which leaves no doubt that the originals of them were composed in Pahlavi and that they were almost literally translated.]

KITAB-AL-BAYAN VA-AL-TABAYYIN.

(Egyptian Edition.)

The dictum of BUZURJAMEHR: Buzurg, son of Bokhtagan was asked, "Which is the thing which covers indolence." "Aye" he said, "Wisdom, which gives beauty to it." They said, "If a person has got no wisdom?" He said, "Then property, which will cover it." They said, "But if there is no property?" He said, "His friends will earn respect for him." They said, "But if he has got no friends to earn respect for him?" He said, "If a person is indolent then he must preserve silence" They said, "But if he does not observe silence?" He said, "Then sudden death is better for him than that he should remain, in the world of the living." This passage has been repeated at page 123 with a slight difference. There the interrogator is Kisra Anushirvan, and the question is, which thing is the best for a man who is indolent. Buzurg replies, "Wisdom, with which he may be happy." (p, 4.)

There is mention of several authors and books similar to Kalileh wa
Dimneh with the names of their authors including Sahal Ibn Harun, Ibn
Rayhani, Al Katib. (p. 30.)

Says Ismai: In the alphabet of the Romans there is no zad and among the Persians there is no tha. (p. 36)

A longish definition and description of oratory by Ibn ul Mukaffa. (p. 64.)

Ibn Mukaffa again referred to. (p. 65.)

Instances of Arabic poetry in which Persian words and phrases are intermingled e.g., garden for unuk (neck); av sard for cold water, &c. (p. 79.)

[There are several other instances where the Persian words are there, but the copyist and possibly also the editor, do not seem to have understood the Kasida and the editor observes in a marginal note that, the text is corrupt, G.K.N.]

Mention of Sahal Ibn Harun. (p. 37.)

Mention of Persia, (p. 53.)

Mention of Abdallah Ibn Mukaffa. (p. 84.)

Mention of Persia, (p. 92.)

Dicta of Ibn al Mukatia on the dignity of kings and of nobles, (p. 104.)

Reference to Khalid al Kisravi. (p. 105.)

Reference to Ibn al Mukaffa. (p. 109.)

Khalid al Kisrawi. (p. 112.)

Al Hurmuzan. (p. 139.)

On the service of kings. (p. 176.)

The ways of the Shuubiya. (p. 2.)

Reference to Persia. (p. 5.)

Persia and Arabia compared. (p. 7.)

Arabia and Persia compared. (p. 12.)

Arabia and Persia contrasted. The prophets of Ajam. (p, 13.)

Reference to Persia. (p. 44.)

The Persian throne. (p. 77.)

Dicta of Mukaffa. (p. 87.)

Khalid al Barmaki. (p. 110.)

Dicta on Adab of Mukaffa. (p. 135.)

Reference to Barmaki. (p. 174.)

Reference to Barmaki. (p. 170.)

Sahal Ibn-Harun. (p. 185.)

Dictum of Buzurja Meher. (p. 217.)

Madaini quoted. (p. 233.)

Persia referred to. (p. 234.)

[Sidenote: Value of Zoroastrian literature.]

And we note that the persons most superior with, regard to preaching our sermons are the Persians. And among the Persians the most clever in this respect are the people of Fars, and they are the sweetest in words, and their pronunciation is the most correct. And the most difficult in this respect are the people of Merv. The most eloquent dialect of Persia is the Dari. As regards the Pahlavi idiom, of the people of the country of Ahwaz are the best. And as regards the chantings of the HERBEDS and the songs of the MOBEDS the superiority in this respect lies with the annotators of the Zemzema. And it is said that he who desires to acquire proficiency in the art of eloquence, and to be acquainted with rare expressions, and to be profoundly versed in vocabulary should read the book of Karwand. Moreover, if it is necessary to acquire sagacity and good manners and knowledge of the various interpretations of terms, a knowledge of pleasing expression and agreeable interpretation, one should study the LIVES OF KINGS, since for the Persians this book contains essays and sermons and fine expressions.

[Sidenote: Why no authentic history of Iran has survived.]

[Sidenote: A clear reference to the ambiguous Pahlavi script and to the great difficulty of translating from it:]

[Sidenote: Enumeration of the sources of Iranian history.]

There are four dynasties among the kings of Persia and their enumeration is given alone and without any history of the events of their time or the characteristics of the kings of Persia during the protracted period of their sovereignty. They were divided into four groups called the Feshdadiya, the Kayaniya, the Ashghaniya, and the Sasaniya. Their entire chronology is dubious and not certain since it was translated after 150 years from one language into another and from one equivocal set of symbols for figures into another set of symbols, so that there remained nothing for me with reference to a narrative, in these chapters except to bring together the doubtful transcripts. I succeeded in finding eight transcripts and these were the following:—The Book of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia translated by Ibn al Mukaffa, the Book of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia translated by Muhammad Ibn al Jaham al Barmak, the Book of the History of the Kings of Persia which was taken out of the treasury of the Khalif Mamun; the Book of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia which was translated by Zaduya son of Shahuya of Ispahan; the Book of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia which was translated or compiled by Muhammad Ibn al Behram Ibn Mutyan of Ispahan; the Book of the Chronology of the Kings of Persia which was translated or compiled by Heshan Ibn Kasum of Ispahan, the Book of the Chronology of the Kings of the Sasanian Dynasty which was improved upon by Behram son of Mardan Shah, Mobed of the district of Shabur in the country of Fars. And when I had collected together all these works, I compared one with the others and then acquired what was necessary for the writing of this chapter.

[Sidenote: Incorrect translations from Pahlavi.]

And says Abu Mashar, the astronomer:—The majority of their [Iranian] histories are interpolated and corrupt, and there is the corruption because they have come down from a great many years ago and because they have been translated from one writing into another and from one tongue into another and hence there have been mistakes of either excess or defect.

"And the Persians start their assertion from the Book which was brought to them by Zaradusht and which was called Avesta. This is the Book of their religion. It alleges that there have elapsed since the reign of Kayumarth, the father of mankind, down to the reign of king Yazdegerd, 4182 years, 10 months, and 19 days."

[Sidenote: Corrupt texts and faulty translations.]

Says Musa Ibn Isa al Kesravi in his book: I saw the Book which is called the Khoday Nameh and which is the Book which when it was translated from Persian into Arabic was entitled Kitab al Muluk al Fars. I carefully examined the copies of this Book and looked through the narratives in them, and I found them in disagreement with each other so that I could not find even two copies which agreed with each other, and this was on account of the doubts in the minds of the translators who turned from one writing into another.

[Sidenote: Mobed Behram the historian.]

And turning back to what I have related in the previous chapter as regards the chronology [of the Persians], I relate what has been stated by Behram son of Mardanshah, Mobed of the district of Shabur in the province of Fars. Says Behram the mobed: I collected together a little over twenty copies of the book called Khoday Nameh and I put together properly the chronology of the kings of Persia from the times of Kayumarth, the father of mankind, till the last days when the empire was transferred from them to the Arabs.

[Hamza describes the dress of the kings according to a book in which they were depicted just before their death. And he gives the buildings which each of them erected, especially the fire-temples they established along with the villages on the produce of which they were to be maintained.]

[Sidenote: Avesta.]

"I have read in the book which has been translated from one of their books called Avesta," and so on Hamza proceeds regarding the beginning of creation.

(1st Series, Vol. 2, page 675.)

[Sidenote: Fire-temples in India.]

It is related by historians versed in the antiquities of Arabia and Persia that Bhishtasb, son of Kay Loharasb, when he assumed the crown, said:—To-day we have become sovereign and we shall employ our thoughts, our action, and our knowledge for the acquisition of the good. And it is said that he built in Fars a city called Fasa and he built fire-temples in India, etc., and appointed herbeds to the same. He assigned several dignities to seven of his noblemen in his dominions and appointed each of them to the charge of a district.

[Sidenote: The appearance of Zoroaster.]

[Sidenote: Wars of Iran and Turan.]

Zaradusht son of Isfayman appeared in the thirtieth year of his reign and laid claim to apostleship and endeavoured that his religion might be accepted by the king. The latter refused and then Zaradusht satisfied him. Upon which the king accepted his claim. And he brought to him a Writing which he claimed was a revelation. And the said Writing was inscribed on 12,000 cow hides and they were embellished with gold, and Bishtasp deposited the same in a place in Istakhar called Darbesht and he appointed herbeds in that connection. He prohibited the teaching of it to ordinary people…. [Here follows a passage which is not very clear regarding the difference that arose between the king of Iran and the king of the Turks relating to this new religion which Bishtasb had adopted. The name of the Turk sovereign is given as Khurzasaf.] Now when the messenger arrived with the epistle to Bishtasb there were gathered together the Ahl-bayat[1] and the noblemen of the empire, including Jamasaf the Wise, and Zarrin son of Loharasaf. Then Bishtasb wrote to the king of the Turks a strongly worded reply challenging him to a war and expressing his determination not to withdraw the step that he had taken and saying that that even if he refrained from fighting there would be all the people on both sides who would continue the struggle. On that day there were in the council of Bishtasb his brother Zarrin, and Nastur son of Zarrin, and Isfandiyar and Beshotan, the sons of Bishtasb and all the progeny of Loharasb. On the side of Khorasaf there were Ju Hormaz, and Hudarman his brother, and the Ahl-bayat and Baidarafsh, the magician. In the battle Zarrin was killed which was a heavy blow to Bishtasb and a great booty was taken by his son Isfandiyar, and Baidaraf was killed which was a calamity to the Turks. There was a huge slaughter and Khorsasaf fled. Thereupon Bishtasb returned to Balkh. Now when a number of years had passed after this war a person called Karzam attacked Isfandiyar. There was also an estrangement between Bishtasb and Isfandiyar. Order was issued for his imprisonment in a castle in which there were ladies, Bishtasb then proceeded in the direction of Kerman and Sagistan and proceeded towards a mountain called Tamdar. [The various manuscripts write the word differently and the editors have printed it without the diacritical marks so that it can be read in a variety of ways], for the purpose of teaching the religion and of spreading it there. And he left behind him his father Loharasaf in the city of Balkh and the treasures and the properties along with the harem including Khatus, his queen, were also left with the old man. [As the Editor points out Khatus is the Hutaosa of Gosh Yast 26, and Ram Yast 36[2]]. Now this fact was conveyed by the spies to Khorasaf and when he learnt it he collected an innumerable army and proceeded from his country towards Balkh and Khorasaf thought that this was an opportunity of attacking Bishtasb and his country. Thus when he approached Takhun he sent forward Ju Hormaz, his brother, with a large army and directed him to continue his march till he reached the centre of Bishtasb's country and to invade it and attack the people and the cities. And this was done by Ju Hormaz who shed a large amount of blood and carried off incalculable booty. And Khorasaf followed him and set fire to the archives and slew Lohorasaf and the herbeds and destroyed the fire-temples, (buyut-an-niran) and he took possession of the properties and the treasuries and took two of the daughters of Lohorasaf prisoner and one of them was called Khumay and the other Bazafreh. [This of course is according to Firdousi Beh Afrid]. He captured a great standard which was called Dirafsh Kabyan and he pursued Bishtasb who was fleeing from him.

[Footnote 1: Ahl-bayat, or people of the house, is the Arabic equivalent of the Iranian Visputhra and was applied by Arabs to the superior Persian noblemen.]

[Footnote 2: Here is evidence, on the one hand, that the Arab historians had Iranian histories at their disposal and on the other, that the latter are still reflected in the yasht literature.]

[The historian narrates how Isfandiyar went into the heart of the kingdom of the Turk and reached his capital which was called "Dez Ruin" and he proceeds to say "and being interpreted in Arabic it means the palace of copper." There is further reference to the canals and castles which we can trace to the BUNDEHESH. The struggle between Rustum and Isfandiyar is also described. This is followed by a curious passage regarding Zoroaster.]

PAGE 26, CAIRO EDITION.

THE CALL OF ZARADUSHT.

[Sidenote: Rustam and Isfandiyar.]

And it is said that Zaradusht the head of the Magians came to Bishtasb the king and told him, "I am the Apostle of God to you", and gave him the Book which the Magians possess. Then Bishtasb believed in him and accepted his religion which is that of the Magians and exhorted the people of his kingdom to the same and they also accepted it nolence volence. And Rustam the Strong, was at that time the Governor of Sagistan and Khorasan, and he was powerful of body and possessed of great vigour. And when this happened it was reported to Kaykobad the king, this, about the admittance of Bishtasb into the Magian religion and his abandoning the religion of their forefathers. Kaykobad became exceedingly angry at this, and said that this was forsaking of the religion of their forefathers who had inherited it from one generation to another. Then the people of Sagistan were gathered together and they wore incited to destroy Bishtasb. And they revolted against him. Upon this Bishtasb called upon Isfandiyar who was the strongest man of his time and said to him, "Oh son, the kingdom will be entrusted to you. But the affairs will not improve except by killing Rustam, and you know his strength and vigour. But you are his match in power and prowess. So do you choose from the army whomever you like and then proceed against him." So Isfandiyar selected 12,000 Persian knights from the forces of his father, and marched against Rustam. And Rustam proceeded towards him between the boundaries or Sagistan and Khorasan. Isfandiyar suggested to Rustam that their armies should be excused from attacking each other, but that they two should engage in single combat and that whoever killed the other should be held to be the victor. Rustam agreed to the proposal and the covenant. Then the two armies stood abide and the two warriors engaged in a duel. Now the Persians have a good deal to say in this matter and that it was Rustam who killed Isfandiyar and that the latter's army returned to Bishtasb and informed him of what had happened to his son Isfandiyar. The king was overwhelmed with grief fell ill and died. And the kingdom, came to the grandson Bahman, son of Isfandiyar, and it is related that soon after Rustam returned to his residence in Sagistan, he died.[1]

[Footnote 1: Note that Dinawari had obviously before him Iranian traditional materials for his history.]

DINAWARI TREATS OF THE FOLLOWING IRANIAN SUBJECTS IN HIS CLEAR AND SUCCINCT FASHION.

The reign of Baywarasaf, Farasiyab; Dhahak, the end of the reign of Minosher and the beginning of the reign of Farasiyab, the reign of Zab son of Budkan and Kaykohad Zab; the reign of Kaykawuys son of Kaykobad, the reign of Kai Khosro, the reign of Lohrasf and the invasion of Bukht Nasar; the reign of Bhishtasb in Persia; the call of Zaradusht, the reign of Bahman Ibn Isfandiyar in Persia and the emancipation of the Jews, the reign of Khumani (Humay) the queen of Bahman; the reign of Dara Ibn Bahman; the war of Dara with Greece; the reign of Darayush; the origin of Alexander; the invasion of Alexander against Dara; the reign of Ardwan; One para. is devoted to the Muluk ut Tawaef, and then regularly follow all the Sasanian kings beginning with Shahan Shah Ardeshir.

(Vol. I., PAGE 110 CAIRO EDITION.)

Account of King Loharasp and his son Bishtasb and the appearance of Zaradusht.

[Sidenote: Zend and Pazend.]

And we have related that Kai Khosrou, when he was at the point of death, bequeathed the crown to the son of his uncle Loharasp; and when he acquired the sovereignty he got possession of the throne of gold adorned with jewels. For him was built in Khorasan the city of Balkh which was called Husna (charming). He established archives and strengthened the empire by the selection of soldiers and by advancing agriculture. He took taxes for the purpose of wages for his soldiers. At that time the Turks were in great strength and he went down to Balkh to fight them, and he was a favourite with his people and strong in overpowering his vigourous enemies, kind to his well-wishers, and of great intrepidity. He raised great buildings and cut a number of canals, built cities. The kings of India and China and the occident used to pay tribute to him and addressed him in their despatches as their 'Lord' out of fear and respect for him. Subsequently he abdicated the empire and throne and engaged himself in devotion, appointing in succession to him his son Bishtasb to be king. And his reign endured for 120 years. After him Bishtasb became king and in his days appeared Zaradusht son of Sakiman [it should be Safiman, the difference being only that of a dot] who claimed to prophesy and the Magians followed him. And according to what is stated by writers, Zaradusht belonged to Palestine and was a personal servant to one of the disciples of Armaya, the prophet. He was unfaithful to him and told him a lie so that God cursed him and he was afflicted with leprosy and went away to the country of Azarbayjan and there started the religion of Magians. And it is also stated by others that he was a Persian and that he composed a Book and went about with it in the world. But no one knew its meaning. And it was alleged that it was in a heavenly language and was called as such. It was entitled Ashta [this is clearly a misformation of Avesta]. Then he left Azarbayjan and proceeded towards Fars. No one knew what was in the book and no one accepted it. Then he went to India and produced it before the kings there. Next he went to China and Turkey. But no one acknowledged it, and he was driven out from their countries, and started for Farghana whose king prepared to slay him so that he fled from there and bent his steps towards Bhishtasb son of Loharasp; who ordered his imprisonment and he was consequently in captivity for a time. Now Zaradusht wrote a commentary on his Book called the Zend which means interpretation. Next he commented upon the Zend in a book called Bazand, that is, interpretation of interpretation, and therein are various sciences like astrology, astronomy, medicine, etc., with reference to the history of past ages, and the books of the prophets. And in his book is stated,—"Adhere to what I have brought you till the time when there will come to you the man of the red camel," which means Muhammad the Prophet. This was at the beginning of the year 1600 and it was on this account that there has been enmity between the Magians and the Arabs and it has been mentioned in the history of Sabur Dhul Aktaf that this was one of the reasons justifying the raids on the Arabs. But God knows the best.

[Sidenote: The Eternal fire.]

[Sidenote: Royal archives forbidden to the Vulgar.]

Then Bishtasb caused Zaradusht to present himself before him since he was in Balkh. And when he came to him he commenced with his religion. Bishtasb admired it, followed it, and forced his people to embrace it, and slew a large number of them till the rest adopted it. But the Magians assert that he was by origin from Azarbayjan and that he came to the king from the roof of his palace and that there was in his hand a cube of fire with which he played without its injuring him; that whoever took it from his hand did so without hurting himself. He caused the king to follow him and to accept his creed. And he built fire temples in the country and lighted them with that fire. For it is stated that the fires which are in their fire-temples are burning from that fire to this day. But they are telling an untruth since the fire of the Magians was extinguished in all their temples when God sent Muhammad down as his apostle as we shall describe, God willing, in the sequel, as well as the appearance of Zaradusht after thirty years of the reign of Bishtasb. And Zaradusht brought a writing which is alleged to be revelation from God and is inscribed on 12,000 cow hides inlaid with gold. Bishtasb deposited them in a place in Istakhar and forbade the teaching of thorn to the vulgar.

Kitab-at-tanbih.

[Sidenote: The Kohan Nameh and the Ain Nameh.]

The Persians have a book called the Kohan Nameh in which are mentioned all the officers of the Persian monarch amounting to 600 and classed according to their respective ranks. This book formed part of the Ain Nameh.[1] The meaning of Ain Nameh is the 'Book of regulations'. It is a book containing several thousands of leaves and no one can find a copy of it anywhere except among the mobeds and others invested with authority. The mobed of the Persians at the moment of writing this history, that is in the year 364, for the country of Jabal in Iraq and for the countries of Ajam, is Ammad son of Ashwahisht. Before him these countries had for their mobed Isfandiyar, son of Adarbad, son of Anmid, who was killed by Radi at Baghdad in 325.

[Footnote 1: A remarkable passage from this Pahlavi treatise has been
embodied in a close Arabic version in Ibn Kutayha's Uyun-al-Akhbar.
The credit of discovering and translating this unique passage into a
European language belongs to M.K. Inostranzev.]

I have seen in the city of Istakhar in Fars in the year 303 in the house of a high noble Persian, a large book in which were set out along with the descriptions of several sciences the histories of the kings of Persia, their reigns and the monuments which they had erected,—fragments which I have not been able to find anywhere else in Persian books, neither in the Khoday Nameh, nor in the Ain Nameh nor in the Kohan Nameh or anywhere else.

[Sidenote: Portrait of Sasanian kings taken just before their demise.]

[Sidenote: Persian Imperial archives: Translation into Arabic.]

In this book were pictures of the kings of Persia belonging to the house of Sasan, twenty seven in number, twenty five men and two women. Each of them was represented as at the moment of death, whether old or young with the royal ornaments, with the tiara, hair, beard, and all the features of his face. This dynasty reigned over the country for 433 years one month and seven days. When one of these kings died his portrait was painted and it was deposited in the treasury in order that the living princes may know the features of the dead kings. The representation of every king who was painted as a warrior was in a standing posture; that of every king who was occupied with government affairs was in the sitting posture. To it was joined the biography of each, of them detailing his public and private life together with the important events and facts concerning the most interesting incidents of his reign. The book which I saw was redacted according to the documents found in the treasuries of the kings of Persia and it was completed in the middle of the second Jamada of the year 113. It was translated for Hisham son of Abdal Malik son of Merwan from Persian into Arabic. The first of the kings of this dynasty whom one sees there is Ardeshir. The distinctive colour in his portrait was of a brilliant red. His trousers were of sky-blue and the mitre was green on gold. He held a lance in the hand and he was standing. The last was that of Yezdegerd, son of Shahariyar, son of Kesra Abarvez. His distinctive colour was green. His trousers were sky-blue and his mitre vermillion. He held in his hand a lance and rested the other hand on his sabre. This painting was made with Persian colours which are no longer to be found now-a-days and of gold and silver dissolved and of pulverised copper. The leaves of the book were of a purple colour and of a marvellous tint. It was so beautiful and prepared with such care that I do not know whether it was paper or whether it was thin parchment. (P. 250.)

[Which stands for Pahlavi and not modern Persian.]

[Sidenote: Zoroaster, Avesta, and Avesta Script.]

Zaradusht brought to the king the book of Avesta, the name of which in Arabic has received a final kaf and has thus become Abestak. The number of chapters of book is twenty one, each chapter comprising 200 leaves. In this book we find a total of sixty vowels and consonants each with a distinct character. Some of these characters are found elsewhere and others have fallen into disseutude. For this script is not confined to the language of the Avesta.

[Sidenote: Extent of Avesta.]

[Sidenote: Persian translation of Avesta.]

[Sidenote: Contents of Avesta.]

Zoroaster invented this writing which the Magians have called Sin Dabireh, that is to say, the 'sacred writing'. He incised his writing into 12,000 cow skins and filled it with gold. It was in the ancient language of Persia of which no one has any knowledge to-day. Only a few portions of its chapters have been translated into the modern Persian. It is this Persian translation which they have in their hands when, they say their prayers. The translation contains fragments like the Ashtad, the Chitrasht, the Aban Yasht, the Hadukht, and other chapters. In the Chitrasht are found the recitals of the origin and the end of the world. Hadukht comprises exhortations.

[Sidenote: commentaries on Avesta.]

Zoroaster composed the commentary on the Avesta which he called the
Zend, and which in the eyes of his followers was revealed to him by God.
He subsequently translated it from Pahlavi into Persian. Zoroaster,
further, prepared a commentary on the Zend and called it Bazend.

[Sidenote: Their destruction.]

The Mobeds and the Herbeds, learned in the science of religion,
commented in their turn on this commentary and their work was called the
Barideh, and, by others, the Akradeh. After he had conquered the Persian
Empire and put to death Dara son of Dara, Alexander burnt them….

[Sidenote: Synopsis of Zoroastrian beliefs.]

Besides the two modes of writing which they owe to Zoroaster, the Persians have five other methods in many of which Nabatian words have been introduced. We have explained all these in our books already cited with quotations of portions regarding the miracles of Zoroaster, the marks and the proof of his revelation, the belief in the five eternal principles which are Ormazd or God, Ahriman which is the same as Satan, the wicked, Kah or time, Jay or space, Homa or the good spirituous liquor, the grounds on which they support these doctrines, the reasons why they render homage to the two luminaries and to other heavenly lights, the distinction which they make between fire and light, their discourses regarding the origin of the human species, on Mashya son of Gayomert, and Mashyana his daughter, and how the Persians trace their geneologies back to these two personages, and finally, other things connected with the exercise of their religion, the practice of their cult and the various places where they have established their fire sanctuaries.

[Sidenote: Confutation of prejudice Moslem theologians.]

Certain Musalman theologians and authors of books on various sects, and several authors who have set before them the task at different times of refuting Zoroastrianism have alleged that it is believed in their religion that from the reflexion of God on himself has issued an evil spirit or the devil and that God, indulgent towards him, has accorded him a certain time during which to tempt mankind. These authors further cite as appertaining to this religion propositions which the Magians themselves have always rejected. I believe that they must have heard these particulars from ordinary people and that they have recorded them as the authentic expression of the followers of the religion of Zoroaster.[1]

[Footnote 1: Our celebrated Arab polyhistor not only does not malign the faith of Zoroaster but proceeds to confute his prejudiced co-religionists who pretended to refute the old faith of Iran.]

KITAB AL MILAL VAL NIHAL.

(Page 112, Bombay Edition. Compare also page 83 of the Egyptian Edition on the margin of Ibn Hazm.)

THE MAGIANS.

These people believe in two Principles as we have already stated; only, that the original Magians were of the belief that it was not possible that there should be two Principles eternal and without beginning, but that the light was without beginning and darkness was only produced; and they were of different views as regards the origin of its rise,—whether it arose from light, since light cannot bring something that was partly evil. How then could the principle of evil or anything else arise since there was nothing at first which participated with light in its production and in its being eternal? Here the error of the Magians becomes apparent. They also assert that the first of persons was Kayumarth, though they sometimes say that he was Zarwan the great, and that the last of the prophets was Zaradusht. The Kayumarthiya assert that Kayumarth was Adam; Kayumarth appears as Adam in the histories of India and Persia. But all the histories are against this.[1]

[Footnote 1: I have constantly referred to Haarbrucker's German
translation and to the German passages cited by Gottiel in the Drisseler
Volume which was very kindly presented to me by our Prof. A.V.W.
Jackson. Gottiel has omitted the sections regarding the Kayumarthiya.]

These are the followers of Zaradusht, son of Budashab who appeared in the time of Bishtasb, son of Lohrasb, the king. His father came from Azarbayjan and his mother from Ray and her name was Doghd. They assert that they had prophets and kings and that they had Kayumarth who was the first king on the earth and that his residence was at Istakhar, that after him came Haushanj, son of Farawal, who descended on India. After him came his son Jam; the king. Then followed prophets and kings among whom was Minochehr. He proceeded to Babel and settled there, and it is related that Musa, (may peace be on him!) appeared in his time. Things continued like this till the sovereignty came to Bishtasb, son of Lohrasb. In his time appeared Zaradusht al Hakim or the Wise….

[Sidenote: Miracles of Zoroaster.]

[Sidenote: Essence of his teachings.]

[Sidenote: His Cosmogony.]

Then the child [Zaradusht] laughed a great laugh which was noticed by all those present, and people contrived so as to put Zaradusht in the way of cattle and the way of horses and in the way of wolves. But each of them stood up to protect him from its own kind. After he had attained to an age of thirty God sent him as his prophet and apostle to his creation, and he turned himself with his calling to king Bishtasb and the latter accepted his creed. His creed consisted in the reverence of God and the non-reverence of Satan, in the obedience to good and in the prohibition of the evil, and in abstaining from unclean things. He said that light and darkness were two original principles which opposed each other antagonistically, and so were Yazdan and Ahriman and that both were the beginning of the created things in the world. That the composition of it was the product of the co-mingling and that the variety of forms were given rise to by means of the various unions, but that God was the creator of light and darkness and of both the prime origins. He was one without a companion, without an opponent, and without anyone who was his like, and that it was not possible to trace to him the existence of darkness in the way in which the Zarwanites trace it, but that good and evil, pure and impure, holy and unholy, were brought forth only by the co-mingling of light and darkness, and had not the two fore-gathered the world would not have come into existence. They were pitched each against the other and they fight each other till light shall overcome darkness, and good evil. And then the good will be liberated and come to its own, and the evil will be hurled down to its own world and that will be the cause of the emancipation. God, the Almighty, however, has in his wisdom compounded and co-mingled them. Sometimes they make out that light is the original principle and express themselves thus: The existence of light is a real existence. Darkness, however, is only a consequence like the shadow of a person. It was alleged that darkness was a thing produced though not created in reality, and that God had produced light and that darkness had come out as a consequence, because contrast was a matter of necessity in existence. Hence the existence of darkness was also essential. And thus it had become a thing created although not as in the first view, as brought out with reference to a man's shadow.

[Sidenote: Zend Ave-ta.]

He [Zaradusht] also had composed a book about which people said that it was revealed to him, namely, the Zand Awasta which divides the world into two parts, Mino or the spiritual and Geti or the corporeal; that is to say, into spiritual and corporeal worlds, or in other words, into mental and physical. And just as the creation is divided into two worlds, so according to him, all that was in the world was again divided into two, namely, Bakhshis [Haarbrucker translates Bakhshis by gnade or favour, but the original Arabic expression is takdir which means destiny, and kunish or deed, by which are meant pre-destination By God and human action.]

[Sidenote: Zoroastrian Ethics.]

Further, he discussed the duties relating to the religious law and these have reference to the movements of man. He divided them into three parts Manish, Guyish and Kunish, meaning thereby belief, speech, and act, and these comprehended all the duties. When in this a man is wanting he is out of obedience and out of creed. But if he conducts himself in these three movements according to the standard of the law and the ordinance he attains to the highest good.[1]

[Footnote 1: Here is an instance where the Arab philosopher and writer hands down to posterity the spirit of Zoroastrianism without prejudice and with precision.]

[Sidenote: Some Miracles explained.]

The Zaradashtiya ascribed to Zaradusht a number of miracles including that while Zaradusht was thrown into prison the forefeet of the horse of Bishtasb entered into its body. When he was set at liberty, the feet of the animal came out. Next, it is said that he happened to pass a blind man at Dinawar and to have told him, "Take the herb", which he described to him "and press its juice into your eye and you will be able to see". This was done and the blind man was restored to his sight. This, however, is to be attributed to his knowledge of the properties of the herb and so it is in no wise a miracle. (Here Gotthiel omits one section on the Saisaniya and the Bihafridiya[1]).

[Footnote 1: The Bihafridiya formed a heresy from Zoroastrianism in the time of the Moslems. The sect furnishes the strongest proof that there was no persecution worth the name in Persia at the time. Not only in those days were the Zoroastrians permitted to follow their own faith but here is a curious pars from Al Biruni which proves that both the original Zoroastrians and the heresy were permitted to flourish side by side under the Khalifs:—"When Abu Moslem came to Nishapur the mobeds and herbeds assembled before him telling him that this man [the founder of the Bihafridi sect] had infected Islam as well as their own [Zoroastrian] religion. So he sent Abdalla to fetch him. He met him in the mountain at Badjeh and brought him before Abu Moslem to put him to death together with such of his followers as he could capture. His followers called the Bihafridians still keep the institutes of their founder and strongly resemble the Zam-Zamis among the Magians." Shaharastani adds that they were the most hostile of God's creatures to the Zamzami Magians. The entire chapter on the Iranian sects in Shaharastani is worthy of careful and deep study. It explains the divergence between the prescriptions of the Vendidad and the practice of the bulk of the Iranians. The Vendidad was, it would appear, the authoritative scripture of one of the sects of Zoroastrianism. At any rate it is not too extravagant to deduce from the careful studies of the Iranian religion by Arab writers that as the teachings of Sakya Muni developed into more Buddhisms than one so there were several creeds with the common designation of Zoroastrianism.]

[Sidenote: The dignity of Mobedan Mobed.]

The Magians and the followers of the Two Principles and the followers of Mani and the other sects which are related to the Magians are known as the adherents of the Great creed or the Great religion. All the kings of Persia were the followers of the religion of Ibrahim, subjects and all those who belonged to the country among them during the reign of each of them followed the religion of their rulers. But these latter relied upon the chief of the ecclesiastics, Mobed Mobedan, the sage of sages, and the wisest of men according to whose instructions the kings conducted themselves and without whose judgment they undertook nothing; to him they showed reverence such as is shown to the Khalif of the time.

KITAB AL FASAL FIL MILAL WAL HAWA WAL NAHAL.

(PAGE 112, VOL. 1, EGYPTIAN ED.)

As regards the Magians they believed in the prophetship of Zaradasht….

And as regards Zaradasht it is said that the majority of Moslems believed in his prophetship….

[Sidenote: "Majority of Moslems believed in the Prophetship of
Zoroaster."]

And the Book of the Magians and their religious Law were for a long time during their sovereignty in the possession of the mobeds and 23 herbeds. Each of the herbeds had a volume which was individual and separate. In it was associated none of the other herbeds and no outsider had any concern with it. Subsequently there was a break on account of Alexander setting fire to their books at the time when he invaded Dara, son of Dara, and they admit with unanimity that a portion of their scriptures to the extent of a third has perished. This has been mentioned by Bashir and Nasik and others of their men of learning….

[Sidenote: History of Zoroastrian Sacred literature.]

And Magians compiled all the scriptures (ayat) regarding the miracles of Zoroaster such as that of the brass which was spread over and melted on his chest and which did not injure him, and the feet of the horse which had penetrated his belly and which were drawn out by him, etc.

[Sidenote: Zoroastrians are Kitabis.]

And among those who assert that the Magians are Ahal Kitab are Ali Ibn Talib and Khuzayfa, may God be pleased on these two, and Said Bin Al Musib and Karadah and Abu Thaur and the whole of the sect of the Zahurites. And we have set out the arguments of the validity of this statement in our book entitled the Isal in the chapters on Jehad, Ceremonial Slaughter, and Nikah. And therein is sufficiently proved the validity of the acceptance of Jaziya by the prophet of God from them. For in the clear statement of the Qoran in the last verses of the chapter of Burat, God has declared unlawful the acceptance of the Jaziya from non-Kitabis….

Now as regards the Magians they admit that the books of theirs in which is incorporated their religion were destroyed by fire by Alexander when he slew Dara son of Dara,—that more than two-thirds of them have perished the remnants being less than a third,—that their religious law was comprised in what has disappeared. Now since this is the condition of their religion, then their claims are void altogether became of the disappearance of the majority of their books; since God does not held responsible any person with reference to anything that has not been entrusted to him.

[Sidenote: Zoroastrians extant scriptures are corrupt.]

And among their books there is one entitled the Khudhay to which they pay great reverence, in which it is related that king Anushirwan prohibited the teaching of their religion in any one of the cities except Ardeshir Khurrah and the religion spread from Datjird. Before this time it was not taught anywhere except Istakhar and it was not proper for anyone to engage in its study except a special class of people. And of the books which remained after the conflagration by Alexander there were 23 volumes and there were appointed 23 herbeds, one herbed for each volume. And no herbed transgressed upon the volume of another. And the MOBED MOBEDAN was the superintendent of the whole of those scriptures. Now whatever is in this condition has its contents altered and modified and each of the transcripts is in this state. Hence they are corrupt and do not deserve to be regarded as authentic. Thus whatever is in their books cannot be held to be authentic except by reason of faith alone since there are evident falsehoods in them like the statement that their king mounted on Iblis and rode on him wherever he willed, that man in the beginning originated from a vegetable like grass called Sharaliya, and the birth of Bayarawan Siyawush son of Kay Kawash who built a city called Kangdez between the earth and the heaven and settled therein 80,000 men belonging to the people of family, that they are there to this day, and that when Behram Hamawand manifests himself on his bull to restore to them their sovereignty that city will descend to earth and will help him to restore their religion and Empire. Says Abu Muhammed, may God be pleased with him. And every book in which is incorporated a falsehood is invalid and fictitious. It does not come from God. Thus there is corruption in the religion of the Magians just as there is in the religion of the Jews and the Christians to an equal degree.

Ibn Haukal has been edited in the Bibliotheca Geogra phorum Arabicorum by De Goege, but as the text is not available the following excerpts from a translation of it made over a century ago by Sir William Ouseley will indicate its importance. He flourished in the middle of the 11th century.

[Sidenote: Fire Temples.]

"There is not any district nor any town of Fars without a fire temple. These are held in high veneration. We shall hereafter minutely describe them. Also throughout Fars there are castles one stronger than another.

[Sidenote: Nirang.]

"There is not any district of this province nor any without a fire temple. One near Shapur they call Kunbud Kaush…. And in the religion of the Guebres it is ordained that 'Omnis Foemina quae tempore gravid it at is aut tempore menstruorum, fornicationem seu adultarium fecerit, pura non erit, donec ad Pyraeum (seu templum Ignicolarum) accesserit (et) coram Heirbed (sacerdote) nuda ferit et urina vaccae se laverit.'

"In the province of Fars, they have three languages—the PARSI, which they use in speaking one to another, though there may be some variations of dialects in different districts yet it is in fact all the same and they all understand the languages of each other and none of their expressions or words are unintelligible; the Pahlavi language which was formerly used in writings; this language now requires a commentary or explanatory treatise; and the Arabic language which at present is used in the Divans or royal courts of justice and revenue, etc.

[Sidenote: Maritime commerce.]

"As to the manners of the people in Fars those who are the chief men and occupy the higher offices in the service of the sovereign are polite and courteous. They have fine palaces and are very hospitable. The people in general, are kind and civil in their manners. The merchants are remarkably covetous and desirous of wealth. I have heard that there was a certain man of Siraj who had forty years at sea never leaving his ship during this time. Whenever he came to a port he sent some of his people on shore to transact his commercial affairs, and when the business was finished he sailed on to some other place. The inhabitants of Siraj devoted their whole time to commerce and merchandise. I myself saw at this place several persons who possessed 4,000 thousand dinars and there were some who had still more and their clothes were those of labourers.

[Sidenote: Parsis in Fars.]

"In Fars there are fire worshippers, Guebres, and Christians and some Jews. And the practices of the Guebres, their fire temples, and their customs and ceremonies and Guebreism or Magism, still continue among the people of Fars and there are not in, any country of Islam so many Guebres as in the land of Fars. It has been their capital or residence."

[Like all other Arab authors Ibn Haukal mentions the celebrated men belonging to each of the provinces he describes. Among the celebrities of Fars are reckoned Hormuz, "Guebre", who in the time of Omar was taken by Abdulla Ibn Omar and put to death; and Salman Farsi who was one of the illustrious men. His piety is celebrated throughout the world. He sought the truth of religion in all quarters only to find it at Medina with the Prophet. In consequence of this Selman became a true believer. Abdulla Ibn Mukaffa also belonged to Fars. In the territory of Istakhar is a great building with statuettes carved in stone and there also are inscriptions and paintings.]

IBN KHALLIKAN

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

Dehkan is a Persian word signifying both a farmer and a historian. It is generally used to designate a person of ancient Persian family possessing hereditary landed property. (P. 77).

Ispeh Salar. This word signifies commander of the troops. (P. 228). KATIBS or writers were the persons employed in public offices: the directors, clerks and secretaries in government service were all called katib.

[Sidenote: Nauruz in Baghdad.]

Khalifs' Nauruz.—This another name for Nauruz Khasa "New Year's day proper," in which it was customary to offer presents to the sovereign. This festival was held on the sixth day of the month of Ferwardin (end of Marob). The old Persian custom of celebrating Nauruz existed at Baghdad under the Abbaside Khalifs. (See P. 203 of this work, see also an anecdote of Ahmed Ibn Yusuf al Khatif in his life of Al Mubarad.) (P. 340).

"In the year 499 Ak Sunkur was directed by the sultan Muhamed to lay siege to Tikrit which was then in the possession of Kaikobad Ibn Hazarasb (about 1125)." (P. 227.)

[Sidenote: Ibn Mukaffa.]

Ibn Khallikan has devoted seven pages to the life of Ibn Mukaffa who is called the Katib and was renowned for the elegance of his style. He was the author of admirable epistles. He was a native of Fars and a Magian. But he was led to the profession of Islam by the uncle of the two first Abbaside Al Safar and Al Mansur. He then became a secretary and was admitted into intimacy. It was related that Mukaffa went to Isa Ibn Ali and said that he was persuaded of the truth of Islam and wished to make a profession of that faith. Isa answered, "Let it be done in the presence of the leaders and chiefs of the people who come here to-morrow." On the evening of that very day he went to dine with Isa, and having sat down he began to eat and to mutter according to the custom of the Magian, "How" said Isa, "he mutters like the Magian although resolved to embrace Islam?" To this Makaffa replied: "I do not wish to pass a single night without some religion." The next morning he made to Isa his solemn profession of Islam. Notwithstanding the eminent merit of Mukaffa he was suspected of infidelity and Al Jahiz states that his religious sincerity was doubted (P. 431). Ibn Kallikan says, "It was Mukaffa who composed the book entitled Kalileh Wa-Dimneh. But some state that he is not the author of the work which they say was in Pahlavi, and he translated it into Arabic, and put it in an elegant style. But the discourse at the beginning of the work is by him."

Ahmed Ibn Yusuf addressed to Al-Mamun a verse with a present of an embroidered robe on the day of Nauruz. (P. 32).

Al-Marzubani received his surname of Al-Marzubani because one of his ancestors bore the name of Al-Marzuban, a designation applied by Persians to great and powerful men only. This word signifies guardian of the frontier, as we learn from Ibn al Jawaliki's work called Al-muarrab. (P. 68).

A reference to the game of chess which originated in India, and the game of Nerd as invented by the Persian king Ardeshir.

We often come across names like Dhia-ad-Din Abu Said Bahrain Ibn al-Khidr, just as we have Paul Pakiam indicating the bearer of the name was originally Hindu but had adopted subsequently Christianity. (P. 296).

[Sidenote: Nominal converts.]

Abl-Hasan Mihyar Ibn Mirzawaih, a native of Dadam and secretary for Persian language was a Fire-worshipper, but afterwards adopted the Moslem faith. It is said that he made his profession to Sharif ar-Rida who was his professor and under whom he made his poetical studies. It seems, however, the conversion of Mihyar was only nominal. Ibn al-Athir al-Jazari says in his Annals that one Ibn Burhan said to him. "Mihyar, by becoming a Musalman you have merely passed from one corner of hell to another." "How so?" said Mihyar. Ibn Burhan replied: "Because you were formerly a fire-worshipper and now you revile the companions of our blessed Prophet in your verses." (P. 517.)

Ibn Khallikan adds that "Mihyar and Mirzawaith are both Persian names.
Their signification is unknown to me."

Instances of hybrid compound names, the Iranian component being retained.

Izz ad-Din Kaikaus son of Ghiath ad-Din Kaikhosru. (P. 487).

Ala ad-Din Kaikobad. (P. 489).

Abu Mahfuz Ibn Firuz. (P. 384).

Abu Manzur Al Muzaffar Ibn Abi I-Husain Ardeshir. (P. 365).

Abu Mansur-Sheherdar Ibn Shiruyah. (P. 11).

Sultan ad-Dawlat, Fanakhrosru (which is no doubt equivalent to Panah
Khurso.) (P. 278).

The word abna signifies sons. It was generally employed to designate persons one of whose parents was an Arab and the other of a foreign race. At the time of Mahomed and afterwards there was in Yeman a great number of Abna whose fathers were Persians and whose mothers were Arabs. (P. 334).

Dress of the Ulema. (P. 273).

Yahya Ibn al Munajjim whose real name was Abban Hasis, the son of Kad, the son of Mahavindad, the son of Farrukhdad, the son of Asad, the son of Mihr, the son of Yezdigerd, the last of the Sasanian kings of Persia.

Story of the onagar with the inscription on its ear written by Bahramgor in the Kufic character. Ibn Khallikan quotes Al Khawarezmi's Mafatih-al-Ulum. (P. 85).

[Sidenote: Old castles.]

Istakhri refers to the castle of Jiss in the district of Arrajan about which we have a more exhaustive notice by other writers. "Here lived the Magians," says Istakhri, "and here also are to be found memorials of the past of Persia. The place is strongly fortified. The castle of Iraj is also strongly fortified. The fastnesses which cannot be subjugated are so many that it is not possible to detail them."

Describing the city of Jur Istakhri says that it was built by Ardeshir. "It is said that here water used to be collected as in a lake. The king had taken a vow to build a city and to erect a fire temple at the place where he had defeated his enemy. He had the place drained, and when it was dried he built the city of Jur on the site. The city in its extent is like Istakhr, Sabur, and Darabgird. It had mud walls and moats and many gates, the eastern one being called the gate of Mihr, the western the gate of Bahram, the northern the gate of Hormuz, and the southern the gate of Ardeshir. In the centre of the city is a building with a cupola built by Ardeshir. It is said that it is so high that it commands a view of the city and its surroundings. High at its top is a fire altar.[1]" (P. 56).

[Sidenote: Languages of Iran.]

In another portion of his book Istakhri describes the inhabitants as thin, with little growth of hair and of brown colour. "In the colder tracts," he continues, "the people are of a taller stature with a thick growth of hair and very fair. They speak three languages,—the Parsi, which everybody speaks and which is employed in their letters and their literature; the Magians who dwell among them use the Pahlavi in their writings, but it needs for a thorough understanding an explanation in Parsi; and Arabic which is the language used in the correspondence of the Sultan, the Government Boards, the grandees and the Amirs." (P. 67).

[Footnote 1: This goes to confirm the hypothesis of Sir John Marshall that the curious structure with probably a fire-altar at the top excavated by him at Taxila near Rawal Pindi is a Zoroastrian atash-kadeh.]

[Sidenote: Tardy Converts.]

In the same place he makes mention of a numerous settlement of the Magians. "Here are," he says, "a goodly number of Magians in the neighbourhood of Istakhr. There is a large stone building with carvings and pillars about which the Persians relate that it is the mosque of Solomon; the son of David, and that it is the work of genii. In bulk it is comparable to the buildings in Syria and Egypt" "In the neighborhood of Sabur is a mountain on which the representations of all the kings, governors, servitors of temples and grand mobeds who were celebrated in the times of the Persian monarchy are to be found. On the pedestals of these figures are engraved the events in connection with and the deeds of these personages." Describing the Karen mountains Itakhri says, "The mountainous region is inaccessible and the inhabitants hold commerce with no one outside. During the Omayad period they persisted in their adherence to Zoroastrianism, and they could not be subjugated, and were worse than the inhabitants of the Koz mountain. But when the Abbasides came to power they embraced Islam. These Magians were extraordinarily brave. Yakub and Amru the sons of Leith, commenced their rule and power here and drew their supporters from these hills." "Mokan," says Istakhri, "contains many villages which are inhabited by the Magians." (P. 71.)

IN THE NUZHAT AL KULUB OF HAMD-ALLAH

MUSTAWFI

BY G. Lestrange.

The following fire-temples are mentioned:—At [Transcriber's note: word unreadable] there was an ancient fire temple called Ardahish. (P. 56)

A dragon was slain by king Kaikaushro who then built on the spot a fire temple afterwards known as Dayr Kushid. (P. 69).

Turshid was the chief city of the Kohistan province and near it was the village Kishwaz famous for the great cypress trees planted by Zoroaster as related by Firdausi in the Shah Nameh, (Turner, 1. Macar Vol. 4, line 1061). Near Tushiz were four famous castles one of which was called Arthush Gah or the Fire temple. (P. 80).

Herat was watered by the canals of the river Hari Rud. It had a famous castle called Sham Iram built over the ruins of an ancient Fire temple on a mountain two leagues distant from the city. Mustawfi adds a long account of the town, its markets and its shrines, giving the names of the various canals derived from the Hari Rud. (P. 85).

(BIBLIOTHECA INDICA)

[Sidenote: Zoroastrians are treated like Jews and Christians.]

The religious bodies which enjoy rights of subjects under the protection of law are four,—the Jews, the Christians, the Majus, and the Sabiah. (P. 67-69).

[Sidenote: Nauruz and Miherjan.]

The worshippers of idols in Sind are not of the Dhimma, nor those under the protection of Islam; it is on this account that they are exempted from the poll tax. The Majus are counted with the Dhimma; for Omar ordered them to be treated in the same way as the people of the book (the Jews and Christians;) the fact that we call the followers of one and the same code of doctrines by two names, one of praise and one of blame, does not arise from eulogising or reviling on our part; our object is merely to shew what others think of any sect, and by what names they call them. (P. 7).

EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY H. ZOTENBERG.

And Behram was matchless among kings, perfect in manners and facile of tongue. For he used to converse on the days of public assemblies and courtly meetings in Arabic and in matters of receiving petitions and granting of the gifts in Persian, and when giving public audiences he used the Dari language, and when playing polo he used Pahlavi, and Turkish while at war, and when out hunting the language of Zabulistan and in legal matters Hebrew, in questions of medicine the Indian language, in Astronomy the language of the Greeks, and while on voyage he used the Nabatian language and while speaking with women he used the speech of Herat. (P. 555).

That Thaalibi knew the correct distinction between Pahlavi and Persian can be seen from the fact that he says at p. 633 of his history with reference to the book of Kalileh wa Dimna as follows:—When Burzuyeh arrived at the court and presented himself before Anushirwan he recounted to him what had happened to him and announced to him as a happy event that he was in possession of the book. Then he made a present of it to the king. (Anushirwan was charmed with it and he gave the order to translate the book into Pahlavi.) Burzuyeh requested and got from the king the permission to place at the head of the first chapter the king's name, and a notice of his life. And the book remained carefully guarded with the kings of Persia until Ibn Muquaffa translated it into Arabic and Rudaki at the command of Amir Nasr Ibn Ahmad turned it into Persian verse.

Reference to Kitab al Ain. (P. 14.)

Reference to the murder and burial of the last Sasanian king, (P. 748.)