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Books

Zoroastrian Iconographies from Pre-Islamic Persia and Central Asia

Compareti, Matteo. 2024. Studies on Zoroastrian Iconographies from Pre-Islamic Persia and Central Asia. Roma: WriteUp.

Sogdiana was an Eastern Iranian land situated in the territories of modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It never formed a significant political or military force although, between the 6th-9th centuries, Sogdians became the main actors in the caravan and maritime trade networks commonly called the “Silk Road”. Most of archaeological and artistic materials about Sogdians come from excavations in ex-Soviet Central Asia, especially the site of Penjikent (Tajikistan). Wall paintings from this important Sogdian site show a native polytheistic faith with Zoroastrian background, which is still puzzling experts of Iranian studies. During the centuries, local artists adopted external cultural elements that – once individuated – could help to shed light on unidentified deities of the Sogdian pantheon. Their comparison with Zoroastrian deities depicted in pre-Islamic Persian arts represents an invaluable instrument to improving our knowledge of this fascinating but still enigmatic field of studies.

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Journal

Iran and the Caucasus 28 (1-2)

The first and second issues of volume 28 of Iran and the Caucasus are published and contain several interesting contributions. Below are listed the articles that deal with ancient Iran:

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Books

The Afterlife of Avestan Manuscripts

Gholami, Saloumeh. 2023. The afterlife of Avestan manuscripts: Colophons and marginal notes. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.

The book is also available as open access e-book.

This study investigates the role of paratext in Zoroastrian scribal tradition, with a focus on the Avesta manuscripts. It examines how paratexts, such as colophons and marginal notes, contribute to organizing and interpreting the content of these manuscripts. These elements not only structure the knowledge but also reflect the roles and activities of individuals involved in the manuscript’s lifecycle, from creation to reception. Additionally, the study explores how paratexts facilitate access to the main text, acting as a bridge that documents the history of each manuscript, its actors, and interaction with society. The analysis includes a diverse range of colophons and marginal notes, examining their structure, content, and relationship to their respective manuscripts.

Short summary
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Events

Topographies of Rhetoric

Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina, University of Oxford, will deliver four public lectures at the École Pratique des Hautes Études:

Topographies of Rhetoric and Moral Reasoning in Sasanian and Post-Sasanian Zoroastrianism

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Journal

Estudios Iranios y Turanios (Vol. 6)

Cantera, Alberto, Junajo Ferrer-Losilla & Céline Redard (eds.). 2014. at̰ hōi aōjī zaraϑuštrō paōuruuīm ¿Habló Zaraϑuštra? Homenaje a Jean Kellens en su 80o aniversario (Estudios Iranios y Turanios 6). Girona: Sociedad de estudios iranios y turanios (SEIT).

Estudios Iranios y Turanios 2024, Vol. 6, has now been published. The issue is homage paid to Jean Kellens on his 80th anniversary.

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Articles Journal

On the Etymology of pourušaspa-

Volume 28, Issue 1, of Iran and the Caucasus has been published. We would like to point out Mehrbod Khanizadeh’s contribution in the issue:

Khanizadeh, Mehrbod. 2024. On the etymology of the Avestan personal name pourušaspa-. Iran and the Caucasus 28(1). 72–86.

This article discusses the formation and meaning of the Avestan personal name of Zarathuštra’s father, pourušaspa-. Taking side with the current scholarly view on the etymology and meaning of the word, i.e., *pourušāspa– → pourušaspa– ‘one who has grey horses’, it is argued here that the shortening of the vowel can be explained by an analogical model in Wištāsp Yašt 1.2, where pourušaspa– m. is described as pouru.aspa– ‘having many horses’. The article also challenges the view that Wištāsp Yašt 1.2 is a recent text.

Abstract
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Articles

The Xorde Avesta and the structuring of time

König, G. 2024. The Xorde Avesta and the structuring of time. Berkeley Working Papers in Middle Iranian Philology 2(4). 1–21.

The Xorde Avesta is considered a collection of shorter Zoroastrian liturgies. Until recently, neither the architecture of the manuscripts in which the Xorde Avesta was handed down was analyzed in detail, nor was the relationship between manuscript and practice adequately described. This article develops the thesis that the representation of the Xorde Avesta in manuscripts and liturgical practice can be understood from the point of a ritual structuring of circular units of time.

Abstract
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Articles

Beyond the theosophical paradigm

Errichiello, Mariano. 2024. Beyond the theosophical paradigm: Ilme kṣnum and the entangled history of modern Parsis. Journal of Persianate Studies. Brill 1–25.

In the early twentieth century, an esoteric interpretation of Zoroastrianism known as Ilme kṣnum became popular among the Parsis of India. Although research on the subject is scant, most scholars suggest that Ilme kṣnum draws largely upon the ideas promoted by the Theosophical Society in India. By examining primary sources in Gujarati, the present article illustrates the interpretation of the Zoroastrian cosmology proposed by Ilme kṣnum. Through a comparative analysis of its main concepts and terms, Ilme kṣnum is historicized in the context of the relations of the Parsi community with the Persianate and Western worlds. By framing Ilme kṣnum as a reconciliation between Persianate and Western forms of knowledge, the present article looks at historical entanglements as resources for the Parsi quest for religious authenticity, placing Zoroastrianism in global religious history.

The Abstract

This is an open access publication ahead of the print.

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Books

Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity

Vevaina, Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw. 2024. Zoroastrian Hermeneutics in Late Antiquity. Commentary on the Sūdgar Nask of Dēnkard Book 9 (Iranica 32). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

The Sūdgar Nask of Dēnkard Book 9 is one of the most enigmatic and yet fundamental texts of Zoroastrianism. It is a commentary on the ‘Old Avesta’ of the 2nd millennium BCE produced in Pahlavi (Zoroastrian Middle Persian) in the Sasanian (224–651 CE) and early Islamic centuries. This commentary purportedly based on earlier Pahlavi translations and commentaries of lost Young Avestan tractates commenting in turn on the ‘Old Avesta’ is a value-laden, ideologically motivated discourse that displays a rich panoply of tradition-constituted forms of allegoresis. This terse yet highly allusive text mobilizes complex forms of citation, allusion, and intertextuality from the inherited Avestan world of myth and ritual in order to engage with and react to the profound changes occurring in the relationships between theology, religious praxis, national identity, and imperial politics in Iranian society. Despite its value and importance for developing our nascent understanding of Zoroastrian hermeneutics and the self-conception of the Zoroastrian priesthood in Late Antiquity, this primary source has attracted scant scholarly attention due to the extreme difficulty of its subject matter and the lack of a reliable translation. Volume 32 serves as an intertextual commentary on this often-bewildering text. It contextualizes and historicizes the traditional intersignifications of the Sūdgar Nask which evince indigenous hermeneutical interventions that violate the ‘plain sense’ of meaning, thus challenging our philological approaches to understanding the archaic corpus of the ‘Old Avesta.’ Reading the Sūdgar Nask is a hermeneutic process of traversing texts, genres, and rituals in both the Avestan and Pahlavi corpora, thus activating nodes in a web or network of textual and meta-textual relations that establish new forms of allegoreses or meaning making. It is argued that this entire hermeneutical complex of weaving a ‘new’ text composed of implicit proof text and explicit commentary renews, extends, and, ultimately, makes tradition.

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Articles

Avestan ī̆šti-

Musavi, Fatemeh. 2024. The Avestan ī̆šti- in Middle Persian texts. BSOAS FirstView.

Middle Persian translations and interpretations of Avestan texts employ the word īšt in the translation of the Avestan ī̆šti- “capability, capacity, competence”. The word became a vocabulary item in the Middle Persian corpus. It seems to be a calque of its Avestan counterpart. The Avestan ī̆šti- has presented challenges in the Avesta scholarship and is translated with words from different semantic domains. This article discusses the definition of Avestan ī̆šti- and how it is reinterpreted and understood in the Middle Persian translations. It is argued here that Av. ī̆šti- refers to “capability, capacity, and competence”. However, it is understood and interpreted in the MP texts as “wealth, property”, “remuneration”, or “reward”. It is sometimes translated to a verb form from xwāstan “desire, want”.

Abstract