Danse Persane et Afghane au Musée Guimet

  • چرا زبان پارسی واژه‌های نو نمی سازد؟

    نوشتۀ Mehran ERSHADIFAR

    این روزها بار دیگر گفتگو در بارۀ پاسداری و بهسازی زبان پارسی در میان دوستداران این زبان گسترش یافته است. بی گمان چنین رویکردی، با خواست همگانی بازگشت به فرهنگ، پیوندی آشکار و دیرین دارد. از گذشته تا کنون، هرگاه مردم از دشواریها و ناسازگاریها به ستوه می آمدند، بازگشت به فرهنگ از جایگاه ویژه‌ای در گفتمان نخبگان برخوردار می شد و در گام نخست، پالایش زبان، که آینۀ فرهنگ است، در دستور کار جای می گرفت. در همۀ این سالها، به ویژه از روزگار مشروطه، هر بار که سخن از زبان پاک به میان آمده است، اندیشمندان تنها واژه‌های بیگانه را نشانه رفته اند و یگانه راه پالایش زبان را ساختن واژه‌های نو با ریشه‌های ایرانی دانسته اند بی آنکه پاسخی روشن برای چرائی این آلودگی زبانی بیابند. زبان پویا و زنده واژه‌هایش را می سازد یا واژه‌های نوئی را که از زبانهای دیگر می گیرد چنان در چنبرۀ آرایه‌های دستوری می پیچد و به زبان پیوند می دهد که دیگر بیگانه نمی (...)

  • Scythian Suite

    by Babak KHANDANI

    Trusting Wikipedia (sacrilege!), I reproduce here their article about the Scythian Suite. The Scythian Suite, Op. 20 is an orchestral suite by Sergei Prokofiev written in 1915. Prokofiev originally wrote the music for the ballet Ala i Lolli, whose story takes place among the Scythians. Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet was written to a scenario by Russian poet Sergey Gorodetsky. But when Diaghilev rejected the score even before its completion, the composer reworked the music into a suite (...)

  • Gifts to a Magus : Indo-Iranian studies honoring Firoze Kotwal

    Dastur Firoze Kotwal is a High Priest of the Parsi Zoroastrians of India and perhaps their greatest scholar in the Priestly tradition. From the age of 19 he has spent many hours each day studying Zoroastrian Manuscripts, particularly at the Meherjirana Library, Navsari, Gujarat. He has been Advisor to the UNESCO Parzor Project in its Module of Manuscript preservation. Firoze, aged two and a half, with grandfather Ervad Pirojshah Adarji Kotwal. The volume consists of articles by renowned scholars (...)

  • The Horse, the Wheel, and Language

    In this study of language, archaeology and culture, Hartwick College anthropology professor Anthony hypothesizes that a proto-Indo-European culture emerged in the Ponto-Caspian steppes 4,000 years ago, speaking an ur-language ancestor to the Romance, German and Slavic family of languages, Sanskrit, Persian and modern English. Citing discoveries in the Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan made possible only after the fall of the Iron Curtain brought together Soviet and western scientists, Anthony combines evidence from radioactive dating, demographic analysis of migration patterns, linguistic analysis and the study of epics such as the Iliad and the Rig Veda to substantiate his contention. Central to his thesis is the role of the horse, originally domesticated for food and first ridden to (...)

  • Late antique motifs in Yezidi oral tradition

    Yezidis are a Kurdish religious minority of a few hundred thousand souls, living mainly in Northern Iraq, as well as Syria, Turkey and the Caucasus. Yazidi religious practices have been described as a blend of Eastern religions with hints of the ancient Zoroastrian and Mithraic practices, as well as elements of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. All the monotheistic prophets are recognized, but Abraham and Noah are especially venerated. Yezidis follow a highly syncretistic religion of their own, based exclusively on oral tradition. Yezidi mythology, beside showing the influence of both Sufism and a pre-Zoroastrian Western Iranian mythology, has also incorporated and adapted to its particular religious system certain myths and motifs which once enjoyed widespread popularity among the (...)

  • Greeks and Parthians in Mesopotomia

    Wolfram Grajetzki has participated in excavations in Egypt and Pakistan and has taught Egyptology at Humboldt University, Berlin. Palmyra Gate in the defensive walls of Doura Europos Doura Europos has served as a military colony, a fortress and a caravan city, and still offers great views over the Euphrates river to the present-day visitor. The coming of the Parthians changed Mesopotamia even less than the (...)

  • Old Avestan Syntax and Stylistics

    There are also substantial sections on word order, stylistics, and figures of speech. Translations are provided for almost all passages quoted. The work will be welcomed by Iranianists as well as by historical linguists with wider Indo-European interests. Old Iranian Avestan and Old Persian are the two languages which have been preserved from the oldest recorded period in the development of the Iranian language (...)

  • Alexander and the East: The Tragedy of Triumph

    At the same time Alexander’s views of empire are investigated, his attitude to his subjects, and the development of his concepts of personal divinity and universal monarchy. Analogies are thus drawn with the Spanish conquest of Mexico, which has a comparable historiographical tradition and parallels many of Alexander’s dealings with his subjects. Although of concern to the specialist, this book is equally directed (...)

  • فردوسی و آرامگاهش

    کوشش ارزنده‌ای که آرمانی بنيادين دارد. آرمان و هدفِ به راه خردگرائی رهنمون شدن مردمان کشور و یا کشورهای سرزمینهای پهناور ایران، که بنا به خواست دشمن، زبان مادریشان داشت به فراموشی سپرده می شد. مردمان پشتۀ ايران، از هر تيره و تباری، زبان پارسی را چون زبانی ملی و همگانی برگزیده بودند و به ياری آن به آسانی می توانستند از تاريکی چند سده‌ای بيرون بيايند و به گلستان فرهنگی خود از دريچۀ شاهکاری نوين که همان شاهنامۀ فردوسی باشد، به نيکی بنگرند و بار برگيرند. پی بردن به (...)

  • Zoroastrian toponyms in the Republic of Azerbaijan

    Mentioned in Avesta, the Vourukash sea is actually associated by some scientists with the Caspian Sea [1]. By tradition, Zoroastrian doctrine later was perceived by the Median tribe of Magi/Mugi. The name of this tribe is preserved in the name of Mugan (مغان), which is an area located east of Karabakh to the Caspian Sea coast. Starting from the early Middle Ages the word mug (مغ) has come to mean “Zoroastrian” in (...)

  • Two Sasanian ossuaries from Bushehr, Iran

    Specifically, several bones were missing, others were damaged on their surfaces, were stained, or broken, all of which can be interpreted as resulting from exposure, carrion feeding, as well as being placed in an ossuary. An overall lack of tooth marks on surviving bones and the observed differential pattern of limb and torso survival suggest that bones from the ossuaries had been exposed to bird carrion (...)

  • Dakhma in Quba district of Azerbaijan Republic

    A few such structures are found in some areas of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The approximate date of construction of the remaining dakhmas of Azerbaijan is early Middle Age. Dakhma near Buduh village. Consider one dakhma, which remained near the Buduh village in Quba district. This dakhma composed of roughly worked stones and has the main towers and buttress. The (...)

  • Bombay Duck

    Part One Scenes in London, Edinburgh and Delhi. Gerald Bloom, unacclaimed actor of Caribbean origin, assumes the name of Ali Abdul Rahman and finds fame and fortune. His greatest moment arrives when David Stream, international impresario and guru of cross-cultural hype, casts him as Lord Ram in his dream project – a stage adaptation of the Hindu epic, Ramayana. Success (...)

  • مانتراهای زرتشتی

    راستی بهترين نيكی است. خرسندی است. خرسندی راستين از آن كسی است كه راستی را برای بهترين راستی بخواهد. دیرزمانی بود که چشم به آن داشتم تا شاید بتوانم این مانتراها را با دبیرۀ اوستائی و برگردان انگلیسی کاملتر کرده، به چاپ برسانم که تا کنون چنین نشد. امّا از آنجا که برخی از دوستان خواهان در دسترس داشتنش هستند، بر آن شدم تا برای دوستان منتشر سازم. با امید که آنان که دوست دارند بهره ببرند و آنان که نمی خواهند پوزش مرا (...)
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