Book of Arda Viraf

The Book of Ardā Wīrāz (Middle Persian: Ardā Wīrāz nāmag, sometimes called the "Arda Wiraf") is a Zoroastrian religious text of the Sasanian era written in Middle Persian. It contains about 8,800 words.[1] It describes the dream-journey of a devout Zoroastrian (the Wīrāz of the story) through the next world. The text assumed its definitive form in the 9th-10th centuries after a long series of emendations.[2]

Part of a series on
Zoroastrianism
Atar (fire), a primary symbol of Zoroastrianism
 Religion portal

Title

The full title is Ardā Wīrāz nāmag, "Book of the Just Wīrāz".

Due to the ambiguity inherent to Pahlavi scripts (the Pahlavi script have considerable ambiguity in the pronunciation of certain consonants), Wīrāz, the name of the protagonist, may also be transliterated as Wiraf or Viraf, but the Avestan form is clearly Virāza, suggesting the correct reading is z.[3][4] The Ardā of the name (cf. aša, cognate with Sanskrit ṛta) is an epithet of Wīrāz and is approximately translatable as "truthful, righteous, just."[5] Wīrāz is probably akin to Proto-Indo-European *wiHro--, "man", see Skt. vīra.[4] Finally, Nāmag means "book".

Textual history

The date of the book is not known, but in The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Prof. Charles Horne assumes that it was composed fairly late in the ancient history of Zoroastrianism, probably from the period of the Sasanian Empire (from 224 to 651), when Zoroastrianism experienced a state-sponsored revival.[6] Most modern scholars simply state that the text's terminus ad quem was the 10th or 11th century.[4]

Plot summary

Wīrāz is chosen for his piety to undertake a journey to the next world in order to prove the truth of Zoroastrian beliefs, after a period when the land of Iran had been troubled by the presence of confused and alien religions. He drinks a mixture of wine, mang, and Haoma, after which his soul travels to the next world. Here he is greeted by a beautiful woman named Dēn, who represents his faith and virtue. Crossing the Chinvat Bridge, he is then conducted by "Srosh, the pious and Adar, the yazad" through the "star track", "moon track" and "sun track" – places outside of heaven reserved for the virtuous who have nevertheless failed to conform to Zoroastrian rules. In heaven, Wīrāz meets Ahura Mazda who shows him the souls of the blessed (ahlaw, an alternate Middle Persian version of the word ardā[5]). Each person is described living an idealised version of the life he or she lived on earth, as a warrior, agriculturalist, shepherd or other profession.[7] With his guides he then descends into hell to be shown the sufferings of the wicked. Having completed his visionary journey, Wīrāz is told by Ahura Mazda that the Zoroastrian faith is the only proper and true way of life and that it should be preserved in both prosperity and adversity.[7]

Quotes from the text
  • They say that, once upon a time, the pious Zartosht made the religion, which he had received, current in the world; and till the completion of 300 years, the religion was in purity, and men were without doubts. But afterward, the accursed evil spirit, the wicked one, in order to make men doubtful of this religion, instigated the accursed Alexander, the Rûman,[8] who was dwelling in Egypt, so that he came to the country of Iran with severe cruelty and war and devastation; he also slew the ruler of Iran, and destroyed the metropolis and empire, and made them desolate.[9]
    • Introduction
  • Then I saw the souls of those whom serpents sting and ever devour their tongues. And I asked thus: 'What sin was committed by those, whose soul suffers so severe a punishment?' Srosh the pious, and Adar the yazad, said, thus: 'These are the souls of those liars and irreverent [or 'untruthful'] speakers who, in the world, spoke much falsehood and lies and profanity.[9]
    • Section 4, Hell
gollark: That's horrible.#
gollark: processor : 0vendor_id : AuthenticAMDcpu family : 23model : 1model name : AMD Ryzen 3 1200 Quad-Core Processorstepping : 1microcode : 0x800111ccpu MHz : 3410.279cache size : 512 KBphysical id : 0siblings : 4core id : 0cpu cores : 4apicid : 0initial apicid : 0fpu : yesfpu_exception : yescpuid level : 13wp : yesflags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb hw_pstate sme ssbd sev vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 rdseed adx smap clflushopt sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves clzero irperf xsaveerptr arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif overflow_recov succor smcabugs : sysret_ss_attrs null_seg spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypassbogomips : 6989.20TLB size : 2560 4K pagesclflush size : 64cache_alignment : 64address sizes : 43 bits physical, 48 bits virtualpower management: ts ttp tm hwpstate eff_freq_ro [13] [14]
gollark: Look, it even lists the bugs!
gollark: Get a stupid home.
gollark: But neither C++ nor PHP are Rust, you see.

See also

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2018-05-21. Retrieved 2008-11-11.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. Ardā Wīrāz-nāmag at Encyclopædia Iranica
  3. Gippert, Jost. "TITUS Texts: Arda Viraz (Pahlavi): Frame". titus.uni-frankfurt.de.
  4. Ardā Wīrāz at Encyclopædia Iranica
  5. ahlaw at Encyclopædia Iranica
  6. Horne, Charles Francis. "The sacred books and early literature of the East; with an historical survey and descriptions". New York, Parke – via Internet Archive.
  7. http://www.avesta.org/pahlavi/viraf.html Translation of the Book of Arda Viraf
  8. Alexander the Great was called "the Roman" in Zoroastrian tradition because he came from Greek provinces which later were a part of the Byzantine Empire - The archeology of world religions By Jack Finegan Page 80 ISBN 0-415-22155-2
  9. http://www.avesta.org/mp/viraf.html
Full texts

Further reading
  • Kassock, Zeke, (2012), The Book Of Arda Viraf: A Pahlavi Student's 2012 Rendition, Transcription And Translation , ISBN 978-1477603406
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.