Namaeh Farhangistan

Namaeh Farhangistan

about some words and their meanings in Zoroastrian Persian texts

Document Type : Original Article

Author
yalda shokoohi
Faculty member of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature
10.22034/nf.2026.534996.1428
Abstract
The collection of Persian Zoroastrian narratives contained in the Dārāb Hormazdy‌ār’s Rivāyāt, the most famous Persian Zoroastrian work in verse and prose, includes the religious customs and traditions of the Zoroastrians of Iran and India, as well as moral, historical, and legendary narratives. In this article, three words or terms, āγār, zādmarg and astavān, have been specifically examined in separate narratives, and an attempt has been made to obtain the reading and meaning of these words by looking at their function in Pahlavi texts. In the meantime, in order to properly understand the concept of the narratives, difficult words and terms of each narrative have also been examined and explained. The meanings and pronunciation of the mentioned words in Persian dictionaries and other researches have also been examined, citing evidence from Persian Zoroastrian texts. In this research, based on the documents referred to in the article, we find that āγār in the Persian narrative is the same as agār Pahlavi, which has undergone phonetic transformation and should be corrected to aγār in the narrative by analogy. Regarding the term zādmarg, according to evidence from Zoroastrian Persian texts, it is known that it was the place where the deceased was kept before being transported to the crypt. Regarding the third word, according to the etymology and evidence of it in Zoroastrian Persian verse texts at the place of rhyme, contrary to what has been recorded in Persian dictionaries so far, the pronunciation of astavān/ astavān seems to be correct. The present study was conducted based on four copies of the Dārāb Hormazdy‌ār’s Rivāyāt: the manuscript of the Islamic Consultative Assembly Library, the manuscript of the National Library of France in Paris, and the manuscript of the National Library of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as the lithographic copy of Unvala.
Keywords
Persian Zoroastrian texts
Darab Hormozdiyar rivayat
āγār
zādmarg
astavān
Subjects
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Namaeh Farhangistan
Volume 25, Issue 4 - Serial Number 104
Nameh Farhangestan (Languages ​​and dialects of Iran)
September and October 2026
Pages 49-68

  • Receive Date 19 July 2025
  • Accept Date 25 July 2026