Sassanian Iran1 seems to offer an ideal setting for a genesis of literary allegory comparable to that of medieval Europe. From its very inception the Zoroastrian religion is permeated with a deeply allegorical mode of perception, in which good and evil, salvation and damnation, even the relation between the individual and the Absolute, are all characteristically viewed as personifications.2 Yet there is no evidence in the extant Pahlavi literature of anything like the structure or psychological impulse of what we typically think of as European allegory -- whether psychomachia, dream vision, or spiritual pilgrimage.3 Instead, the allegorical spirit of the culture seems to have found its fullest, most dynamic expression within another aesthetic form entirely, that of historical legend. The large body of myth and legend, both oral and written, which had accumulated from early Iranian times had as a matter of course absorbed much that was allegorical in the religious tradition. This remains for the most part latent, however, until under the epic hand of the poet Ferdowsi a legend like that of Zahak becomes transformed into a profound and quite un-European type of psychomachia.

What I would like to be able to show is why this allegorical propensity should have taken the direction it does, while failing to develop anything comparable to the European genre. A direct answer would be impossible. What can be demonstrated is, first, the way in which a conscious artist has been able to exploit the allegorical aspects of the religious background to produce this particular type of allegory; and, conversely, how it is in part the nature of that background which determined the specific form this allegory takes.

Moreover, in considering the second problem, it may be possible to suggest indirectly an approach to the first. Some especially significant differences between Zoroastrian and medieval Christian habits of thought can be pointed out at once. The form characteristic of European allegory arises in part from two conditions of the intellectual environment -- a strong propensity for logical analysis and the Realist conception of the general idea as "more real" than the particular object.4 Although these conditions are both present to some degree in Zoroastrian thinking as well, there they are significantly qualified. The objective, often visual, apprehension of abstractions, for example, is usually accompanied by an emphasis on the concrete and the individual; and in some instances the general is actually viewed as deriving its existence from the specific.5 The Zoroastrian sense of the inseparableness of matter and spirit, body and soul, in turn influences profoundly the nature of allegorical personifications.6 Personified abstractions in European allegory are usually fairly consistent as visual images; in Zoroastrian expression, however, the dichotomy which such figures imply between absolute and individual, concrete and abstract, objective and subjective points of view is a highly unstable one, and the perspectives of vision are forever shifting and merging. Thus for Zoroastrians the "Lie" appears alternately as person and principle, as Negater of the Divine word and its Negation; or, shifting from absolute to particular, it becomes the spirit of falsehood, destruction, or perversion in a society, an individual, or a single word -- as well as the personified demons this spirit engenders.7

This "synthetic," distinction-effacing mode of perception is an important characteristic of Zoroastrian thought as a whole, and stands in contrast to the essentially analytical basis of most European allegory. There, the general concept of sin, or love, or nature is broken down into its component aspects in order to be brought under rational control, to be understood. In the Zoroastrian psychomachia, on the other hand, there tends to be only one all-important distinction, that between Truth and the Lie, between the domain of Good and that of Evil.8 It is this distinction which must be seen in absolute clarity if the individual is to make justly his crucial decision between the opposing camps.9 Beyond this, although the concept of Evil is to some extent divided into lesser personifications -- especially of the two principal attributes of Ahriman, Az (Lust) and Xashm (Rage) -- these distinctions are rather descriptive and qualitative than definitive. Once the Lie has been separated from Truth, the important thing is not to analyze it still further, but to be able to recognize, beneath its myriad forms, the single unchanging and dangerous reality.

This synthetic vision also shapes the Zoroastrian conception of moral action. There is no real sense of dichotomy between the individual, social, and cosmic realms of action. It is within the material world, through the agency of individuals in society, that the cosmic battle is primarily waged; consequently, whatever one does or fails to do plays a part not only in his own personal drama of salvation, but in the social and cosmic psychomachia as well. Thus, individual figures, as they move and act within the greater pattern, take on the character of others before and after them who share their role. (Here, in this essentially typological point of view, Zoroastrian expression has perhaps its closest affinities with the European tradition, in that of interpretative allegory.)

It is this characteristically Zoroastrian habit of thought and perception which most profoundly influences the form of allegory in Ferdowsi's work, although more specific contributions of the religious tradition -- certain personifications and symbols, philosophical attitudes, and patterns of action -- likewise play an important part. Consequently, to indicate how these are used by Ferdowsi, it will be necessary to give a summary description of the religion, especially in its allegorical aspects.

Ferdowsi's most obvious debt to his Zoroastrian background is the basic framework of his action -- the archetypal paradise-fall-salvation pattern, described in terms of a psychomachia, a battle between the forces of Truth and those of the Lie.10 The poet goes beneath the surface significance of this opposition, however, to a perception of deeper implications lying at the heart of the Zoroastrian spirit, the sense of the crucial importance of the polarization of good and evil.

This perception, along with a vision of strict monotheism, had been the great contribution of Zoroaster's prophetic message. Before him, the largely amoral deities of the Indo-Iranian pantheon had been at once invoked as beneficent and propitiated as evil forces; in opposition, Zoroaster proclaimed the worship of the one all-good Wise Lord, and an uncompromising warfare against the forces of evil and the Lie, against all that repudiated the Divine Word.11 The origin of evil he explained as the consequence of free will: the Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda, created twin spirits, one of whom chose Wisdom, the other the Lie. All humans possess this awesome freedom of choice, and, like the twin spirits, become holy or demonic according that which they choose and worship.12 The very essence of the Prophet's message was this two-fold vision: the necessity that good and evil not be confused, but be clearly, sharply distinguished; and the necessity that each individual make his crucial choice between them.

A further important contribution was Zoroaster's subjection of the moral universe to the illumination of Reason.13 Not only were Unreason and the violent and irrational daevas now identified with the Lie, but the whole conception of the universe and man's place in it were translated into rational -- often allegorical terms.

Zoroaster considered the creation as having been thought into existence by Ahura Mazda through the agency of his Holy Spirit.14 In the late Sassanian Denkart, this rationalist conception is further emphasized. In the beginning, God as Wisdom and the faculty of knowing is only potential; in the incomplete knowledge of Ohrmazd's accession to consciousness, Ahriman originated. In order to eliminate this destructive force, Ohrmazd turns within to "know himself as he is . . . . This saving knowledge engenders endless light . . . , the symbol of spiritual illumination . . . , the light of Wisdom . . . , which 'descends from the light on to the earth and by which [men] see and think well.'"15 Through the Spirit of Wisdom, God creates finite Time and the material universe. Ahriman, impelled by the "'substance of envy'" and the "'will to smite,'"16 invades the material creation and destroys the Primal Bull and Primal Man along with the rest of the things then created; but in his innate Unwisdom he allows himself to be thus trapped within the material universe, unable to escape again to his Endless Darkness. As a result, his ultimate defeat is inevitable. Moreover, his victory over creation was only apparent; from the dying Gayomart came the first human couple, and from the death of the Bull the whole multiplicity of created things.17

Until the coming of the savior Saoshyans in the last millennium, the battle between Light and Darkness, Truth and the Lie, will be fought on the battlefield of this earth. On the personal plane, as each person aligns himself in the conflict, he makes the choice of his own fate after death.18 One is seen as led to salvation or damnation by his own personified conscience, whose appearance is the product of his own "thoughts, words, and deeds" on earth. The soul which has fulfilled its "khwarr," or destined role on earth, is led by its Conscience, appearing as a beautiful maiden, to the House of the Good Mind, the House of Song. The soul which has betrayed its "own-work," however, is dragged unwillingly by an ugly hag to the House of the Lie, or the House of the Worst Existence, where it is tormented by demons engendered by its own evil actions during life. Hell, in other words, is no other than the misery of a soul no longer able to escape the vivid, externalized consciousness of its own sin.19

Throughout Zoroastrian writings, great emphasis is laid on the importance of Wisdom as the soul's chief instrument against the forces of the Lie. Zoroaster had conceived of the personification of the Good Mind as mediator between individual reason and absolute Truth, as the one of the seven Bounteous Immortals, or personified attributes of God, which could be shared in by the man who cultivated a right relation with God.20 Later, in Sassanian times, Vahoman (the Good Mind) came to share his functions with Khrat (Wisdom) and with Sraosha (later Sorush), the divine messenger, personification of Zoroaster's concept both of man's "harkening" to God's will and God's response to man's devotion.21 Khrat is also identified with the Good Mind as Creative Logos, through whom the world originated, and by whom it is sustained.22

The spiritual and intellectual vacuum left in the soul where Wisdom has not been cultivated amounts to open invitation to the Lie to enter, under cover of one of its myriad disguises -- as Xashm (Rage and all destructive aspects of the Lie)23 or Az (Lust and all its perverting aspects).24 For it is precisely spiritual ignorance which cannot distinguish good from evil. And this is the principal concern of Ferdowsi's "Zahak," as it was of the original teaching of Zoroaster -- the sense of the danger of moral confusion and the necessity that Good and Evil be polarized and seen clearly for what they really are. The significance of Zoroaster's radical transformation of spiritual perception was in part psychological. The primitive terror of the unknown "destroying force" was thus rationalized, and, as the Lie, could be observed as it influenced human life, and thereby conquered. This significance of the cosmological psychomachia, only implied in Zoroastrian writings, is richly and profoundly realized in Ferdowsi.

In the early legends from which Ferdowsi worked, Zahak is monster rather than man -- "Azhi Dahaka," the "destructive serpent" with "three heads, six eyes, and three jaws," or simply the "dragon king," human on his father's side, but demon on his mother's.25 Jamshid, as he appears in pre-Zoroastrian legends, was the first man and ruler over a golden-age paradise.26 After achieving much good, he becomes guilty of a "Lie" and loses his God-given "khwarr" (here the embodiment of the inner spirit of kingship.)27 His throne is seized by Azhi Dahaka, who finally murders him by sawing him in two28; and the dragon king is himself ultimately defeated and chained beneath Mount Damavand by the hero Fereydun, who becomes king in his stead.29

In Ferdowsi's version of the story, however, the monster is no longer supernatural and irrational, but wholly human. Zahak is initially simply a man, with a somewhat less than usual degree of spiritual and intellectual perception. Instead of assuming the monster, Ferdowsi demonstrates it -- in the gradual dehumanization of Zahak's soul as he accepts, allies himself with, and is finally united to the external power of Evil. When the demon Eblis first approaches him in the guise of a righteous and eloquent man, Zahak fails to recognize the "substance of evil" beneath the outer form, and soon "entrusts to him his ear, his heart, his mind, and his pure soul," swearing to keep hidden whatever passes between them. When the two black snakes grow from Zahak's shoulders where he permitted Eblis to kiss him, this external transformation only symbolizes the transformation which has already taken place within his soul.

On a larger scale, Ferdowsi rationalizes not only the monster motif, but that of the whole hero-monster confrontation, in his treatment of the relation between Jamshid and the Zahak-Fereydun myth. We see in Jamshid, from the outside, a process of spiritual disintegration similar to that which occurs with Zahak. He too confuses good and evil, and forgets the "lesson of the fathers" as to the necessity of continual battle against the demons. At the beginning of his reign, he subjugated the demons; but once they are under his control, he first learns skills from them, then has them build houses, and finally has them construct his own throne, brilliant like the sun and reaching the heavens. He has allied himself with, and finally become dependent on, the demons or "lies" he had thought to control. As his very throne, his government and source of glory, comes to rest upon their power, he is no longer able to distinguish truth from falsehood, and himself utters the Primal Lie: "I myself am the Great Lord. Fall down and worship me." It is here that he betrays his God-given royal "kwarr," that he abdicates the true responsibility and thus the glory of the kingship. Nevertheless, in Jamshid, unlike Zahak, good and evil exist together, unevenly mixed; they are thus more difficult to distinguish, and his character more difficult to judge. In a sense, as man and as ruler, when he finally abdicates in fact to Zahak and "vanishes" for a hundred years, he is abdicating his responsibility to his whole personality, as well as to the kingdom. He is leaving them open to invisible and unchecked conquest by the powers of absolute Evil; or, viewed subjectively, he is acquiescing in the growth of pure Evil within the soul. The figure of Zahak, then, represents to some extent the Potential Evil or Unwisdom in Jamshid's personality as it is allowed to become fully actualized.

Yet, in that the evil within Jamshid is externalized and objectified in Zahak and his snakes, in that now it can be seen clearly as monstrous, the first step has been achieved in its final defeat. The second step is the moral repudiation of the evil which one has recognized. However, one can see only if one wills to see; and at first it seems that no one does. Jamshid's people, in their present support of Zahak, have not repudiated but followed the evil way first marked out by their ruler. His sisters, corrupted by Zahak in lust and sorcery, praise his spirit as the light of the world; and his nobles willingly subscribe to a testimonial Lie, Zahak's attempt to disguise his evil by changing its name, by gaining from them the statement that he has never been other than good and just to his people. It is only when the former Jamshid, the whole personality, is once again brought to light and is sawed in two by the dragon-king, that the polarization of his character is, symbolically, complete. The Potential Good within him, however, is only gradually actualized. First the good cooks Garmael and Armael undermine Zahak's strength in secret. Then Kaveh, the Blacksmith, defies him openly, tears the testimonial Lie to shreds, and raises a revolutionary army among the workers of the bazaar, who then leave in search of Fereydun to lead them. The necessary negative attack against the Lie, its courageous repudiation, has taken place. Now is needed a positive force to replace it: the kingly Fereydun to take the throne; trained Wisdom to drive out Unwisdom and the Lie.

The opposition thus set up between Zahak and Fereydun appears principally as a conflict between Wisdom and the Lie. One might expect here the presence of at least the most obvious Zoroastrian personifications -- Vahoman (the Good Mind) or Sorush in direct opposition to the Lie (or to Az and Xashm). Actually, personifications of this sort are unnecessary, since the force of the abstraction lies at hand just beneath the surface of the religious framework, and can readily be evoked through a wide variety of other figures. Besides, by not limiting the characters to clearly demarcated abstract functions, Ferdowsi is able to project the significance of the story simultaneously in the three realms of moral action. Characters represent at once concrete individuals acting out their own or the social destiny within the objective universe; potentialities within the individual interacting within the arena of the soul; and the absolute powers of Wisdom or the Lie as they act through and ultimately unite with the individual people who worship them. Once again, it is the relationships and the patterns of action, rather than the individual characters in themselves, which are primarily allegorical. Ferdowsi draws upon the typological mode of perception inherent in the myths themselves: since all human action necessarily enters the battle for or against Truth, anyone who takes a stand and plays a role in the cosmic pattern inevitably takes on the character of those before and after him who share that role and that choice. The allegory in "Zahak" thus operates, as in the religion, at once in individual, social, and cosmic terms -- not in three distinct "levels" of interpretation, but in three interrelated realms, rather like concentric circles than dissociated planes.

Ferdowsi's story of Zahak is first and most obviously an allegory of the political situation of the poet's own nation, which, grown proud and decadent, had fallen to evil foreign powers and had collaborated with those powers despite their tyranny, but which could regain its identity once again through the courageous leadership of individual people, whatever their rank. Beyond this, however, it becomes an allegory of the society in general, showing what must inevitably happen to a people who "forget the lesson of their fathers" and instead ally themselves with the powers of darkness, becoming one with them. But this pattern embodied in society, the fall and ultimate redemption, is likewise only a type and particular instance of the cosmic pattern, as well as a general instance of the struggle within the single soul. On all three realms, the battle is really the same.

Since Ferdowsi does not usually make use of abstract personifications to convey allegorical significance, what kinds of figures does he in fact employ, and how do they contribute to the multi-level power of the work? Aside from its embodiment in Zahak, the Lie appears in a variety of forms at once human and absolute, particularly in the succession of Eblis-characters associated with Zahak (Eblis as holy man, as cook, as doctor, and perhaps also as the steward Kond-Row, or "Dopey" ("he who is dull and slow-moving"). But it likewise proliferates into the many more specific manifestations of Az and Xashm. The snakes themselves are symbols first of the force of Evil as it has become united with the soul of Zahak; secondly, of the effect of that evil on Zahak as it turns inward, forcing him to assuage its pain by feeding it more and more from outside himself; and finally of its effect on the kingdom Zahak rules. It is possible to view the various manifestations of Zahak's evil nature as representations of the two all-inclusive "attributes" of Evil, Xashm and Az. Zahak's influence on his kingdom is of these two kinds: direct destruction, and the more insidious evil of perversion and corruption. We see Az in its physical and intellectual aspects in his corruption of the two sisters of Jamshid in lust and sorcery; and we see Xashm first in Zahak's willed murder of his father, then in his direct destruction of the wonderful cow, Por-Mayeh, his destruction of "all four-footed animals," and his destruction of the palace of Fereydun. And both these forms of evil are encompassed in the snakes, who must be fed with the fresh brains of young men, suggesting the perversion of people's talents and intellects in the support of an evil government, and the physical elimination of those whose minds cannot be thus spiritually devoured. Characteristic of Ferdowsi's technique, this perversion of intellects is portrayed not only symbolically but directly as well, in the testimonial given Zahak by the nobles.

The figures associated with Fereydun and the cause of Truth are likewise diverse in nature. As Fereydun himself represents Potential Wisdom, or the good man through whom absolute Wisdom can operate on earth, so the figures with whom he is allied represent various aspects of Wisdom. The most interesting is the cow, Por-Mayeh, who nurses (nourishes) Fereydun for his first three years. Hers is one of the few apparently allegorical names of the work (though it does not have anything like the clear denotation typical of comparable figures in Western allegory). Somewhat loosely translated, her name means "creative source" or "creative abundance," and her role seems somewhat analogous to that of a personified Nature, or the Creativity of Nature. Described as being bright as the sun, her head "encompassed with wisdom" and her skin all the colors of a peacock, showing a different aspect to each mind which perceives her, she suggests a fusion on Ferdowsi's part of the Zoroastrian image of the Primal Cow or Bull through whose death all the multiplicity of creation arose30, and the concept of Wisdom as the Creative Logos, originator and sustainer of all life.

Fereydun's second guardian, like Por-Mayeh, suggests Wisdom but does not personify it. When Fereydun's mother hears of Zahak's efforts to find and destroy the child, she is instructed by God, through "Wisdom which awakened in my mind," to flee with him to a Parsa who lives at the top of Mount Alborz "in India." "Parsa" can mean simply a "hermit," but as an adjective it also means "self-restrained," "pure," and "righteous."31 In the context of the story, as Fereydun received physical nurture from Por-Mayeh, it is from Parsa that he receives conscious training in spiritual and intellectual Wisdom. Up to this point, however, his training, his wisdom, is still only potential, not actual. Once he has learned from his mother of his father's and Por-Mayeh's deaths at the hands of Zahak, and thus of the role he himself is destined to play, he goes out into the world to act; and it is in this that his potential virtue is at last realized. Here, too, on the journey to Zahak's (once Jamshid's) palace, he has a vision of Sorush, who "teaches him all things" and assures him that the path he follows is in fact of God and not of Ahriman.

The forces of revolt are supported by the symbolic reappearance of the spirit of Por-Mayeh -- not only in the leather-bound, cow-headed mace of Fereydun, but also in the banner of Kaveh, made of his leather smith's apron, transformed now by the brilliant jewels of "all the colors of the rainbow" with which it is studded. Por-Mayeh's spirit appears likewise in something of the function of the "personified conscience" of the Zoroastrian tradition. (In one work, the Conscience is in fact personified as a cow, either beautiful and beneficient or ugly and terrible.)32 Her memory, embodied in the mace and banner, give encouragement to the forces of good; but as they are revealed to Zahak in his dreams it brings only the anguished consciousness of his own evil and the terror of his impending doom.

And in effect Zahak is shown as damned by his own conscience; he is defeated simultaneously by his loss of the people's support to Fereydun and by his own psychological disintegration. He responds to his dreams of Fereydun and his mace by screaming out in terror; he faints on hearing the dream interpreted; and he attempts to assuage the pain of conscience, symbolized now in the snakes, through a perverted ritual-bathing in the blood of his people.

Zahak's ultimate defeat does not, in fact, involve even a direct confrontation with Fereydun. Here in the last scenes of the story, the three realms of the action are most clearly apparent, especially in the image of the palace. The palace was originally Jamshid's when he ruled in the paradisal golden age before his fall; it is called Huakhtash, or the "House of Purity," and is described as being brighter than the stars of heaven; and it stands in the Holy City, across a river which Fereydun and his army are forbidden by Zahak's boatmen to cross, but which they manage miraculously to swim across safely nonetheless. When he arrives at the palace itself, he immediately turns out Zahak's human supporters; but once established on the throne, he seems totally unconcerned that Zahak is rushing to the city from India with an army of demons. Instead of leading his army against Zahak's he remains in the palace -- receiving tribute from the repentent nobles, and baptizing and instructing the sisters of Jamshid. Zahak arrives at the palace to do battle with Fereydun in person; but as he perceives the newly-enthroned king, teaching the truth of good and evil, his strength seems to wither away, as his great army of demons (or "lies") had likewise seemed to vanish. The palace thus seems to represent at once the Good Creation, temporarily usurped by Ahriman, but finally to be restored in the last days by the savior Saoshyans33; the paradise archetype, symbolizing the original, intended state of man's soul; and the House of the Good Mind, the Zoroastrian image both of heaven and of the individual purified soul.34

Ferdowsi indicates explicitly the allegorical nature of the work in the closing lines: "You, Reader, are my Fereydun." Most men are sheep, he continues, and follow to Good or Evil whoever leads them. But they need not be. Each man may, like Kaveh or Fereydun, himself become a shepherd and lead society from evil into justice, or the individual soul out of darkness into the light of Wisdom.

(originally written 1965, for a graduate seminar in allegory taught by Paul Piehler, English Department, University of California, Berkeley)

1. 226 CE - 651 CE.

2. The Lie, the Bounteous Immortals, the personified Conscience of the individual, the Good Mind, etc.

3. In the Arda Viraf Nameh and the Menok-e Khrat (cf. "Bibliography") the basic elements of a Boethian or Dantean allegory seem to be present; but their peculiar organic spirit is strikingly lacking.

4. In Medieval philosophy, realism was the doctrine that universal concepts are objectively real, as opposed to nominalism, which held that abstract terms are names only and do not correspond to any reality.

5. Zaehner, 34, 40. Cf. 320, from the Datestan-i Denik: "After the Rehabilitation there will be no demons because there will be no deceit, no Lies because no lying, no Ahriman because no aggressiveness . . . ."

6. Zaehner, 76, 274-275.

7. -------, 304.

8. -------, 248; 252: Greater Bundahishn 2.12-3.6.

9. -------, 238, 260, 272, etc. ". . . his crucial decision. . .":
Zoroastrian doctrine holds that the first woman (often referred to as the "Whore") defected to Ahriman; thus there is a frequent association of women with "wickedness," as in the Judeo-Christian tradition. In keeping with this fundamental misogyny and mistrust
of women, I will use the masculine pronoun when referring to the individual's religiously defined responsibilities, and will wait for another chance to consider the implications of this misogyny for Zoroastrianism and other early religions of the Middle East.

10. -------, 261: Greater Bundahishn 38.9.

11. -------, 65, 71, 121-123, etc.

12. -------, 42-43.

13. -------, 275. [Cf. Zaehner's quotation from Madan's edition of Denkart (306.2-12): "The essence of man is reason which holds sway in the body over the will. . . . It is like a horseman who drives his horse on or restrains it with his bridle."]

14. -------, 53-54: Denkart 309.11-13.

15. -------, 221: Denkart 222.3-4. Cf. also Zaehner, Zurvan, A Zoroastrian Dilemma.

16. -------, 252, etc.

17. -------, 261-267.

18. -------, 55: Yasna 31.20.

19. -------, 303-304; cf. also D. C. Pavry, The Zoroastrian Doctrine, New York, 1926, 30-39.

20. -------, 44-49, 56.

21. -------, 55, 96, 281, 287, etc.

22. -------, 290-292.

23. -------, 30, 90, 101, 314. Xashm is the form in Farsi; in the Gathas it is eshma or aeshma.

24. -------, 225-231.

25. Müller, F. Max, ed., The Sacred Books of the East, 128.

26. Zaehner, 142.

27. -------, 141.

28. -------, 142.

29. Müller, 131.

30. Zaehner, 261-267.

31. Cf. the definitions given in Haim's Dictionary.

32. Jackson, A. V. W., Zoroastrian Studies, New York, 1928, 101-102.

33. Zaehner, 92, 93, etc.

34. Pavry, 30-39.

I. Texts

Dhalia, Maneckji Nusservanji. Ancient Iranian Literature. Karachi, 1949. (Good summaries of the major Pahlavi texts.)

Ferdowsi, Shahnameh. [I worked from the Farsi text of the Jamshid and Zahak legends in the one-volume edition edited by Amir Bahudur and published by Ali Akbar Elmi in Tehran. This edition unfortunately does not give line numbers; the text runs from pages 6-14. The only complete English translation is that of A. G. Warner and E. Warner: 9 volumes, London, 1905-1925; it is not very good. A much better translation is the French version of J. Mohl in 7 volumes, published in Paris, 1838-1878.

Müller, F. Max, ed. The Sacred Books of the East: Pahlavi Texts, transl. E. W. West. Oxford, 1880, 1885. Part I includes The Bundahis [The Origin of Creation], Bahman Yast, and Shayast la-shayast. Part III includes Dina-i Mainog-i Khirad, or Menok-e Khrat [The Spirit of Wisdom].


II. Secondary Material

Bailey, H. W. Zoroastrian Problems in Ninth-Century Books. Oxford, 1943. [Excellent, especially on the concept of the khwarr.]

Cassirer, Ernst. Language and Myth, transl. Susanne K. Langer. Dover Publications, 1946.

Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques. La Religion de l'Iran Ancien. Paris, 1962.
__________________. The Western Response to Zoroaster. Oxford, 1958.

Gray, Louis H. The Foundations of the Iranian Religions. Bombay, 1925.

Jackson, A. V. Williams. Zoroastrian Studies. New York, 1928.

Khabardar, Ardeshir Framji. New Light on the Gathas of Holy Zarathustra. Bombay, 1951. [A translation of the Gathas into English, with commentary.]

Moulton, James Hope. Early Zoroastrianism. London, 1913.

Pavry, Jal Dastur Cursetji. The Zoroastrian Doctrine of a Future Life. New York, 1926.

Rypka, Jan, ed. Iranische Literaturgeschichte. Leipzig, 1959. [Cf. especially Otakar Klima on "Das Mittelpersische Schrifttum," 33-35, and Jan Rypka, "Die epische Tradition Irans," 152-169.]

Return to 

Personal Home Page

If you like what you see here, great; if not, don't blame Cal Poly Pomona.
Send your comments to me.