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Mahmoud Fazilat; Abdolreza Seif; Arad Gholami
Abstract
The roots of many literary stories can be found in historical narratives. In this research, we focus on four historical and literary narratives that have a special type of deception as their motif. At first, we give a summary of each of these four narratives (descriptive level) and then we explain their ...
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The roots of many literary stories can be found in historical narratives. In this research, we focus on four historical and literary narratives that have a special type of deception as their motif. At first, we give a summary of each of these four narratives (descriptive level) and then we explain their commonalities and differences (analytical level). The first narrative is about a Persian man named Zopyrus, who helped Darius the Great to conquer Babylon. The second narrative tells the story of a man from the companions of the ruler of the Hephthalites, who led to the defeat of the Sassanid army by gaining the trust of Peroz I. The third narrative depicts the conflict between crows and owls which ends in favor of the first group with the cleverness and cunning of a crow. The fourth narrative is the story of a Jewish king who, with the trick of his minister, causes internal conflict and mass killing of Christians. In all these narratives, gaining the enemy’s trust by harming oneself is used as a motif, but the method of processing this motif is different in the aforementioned stories. This research, according to its topic and method, is conducted as library research. The findings of this research show that the main plot is the same in these four narratives, but their processing is different. In addition, the historical narrative of Zopyrus can be considered an ancient source for three other narratives; a source that has been neglected until now.
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Homeyra Zomorodi; Mina Akbari Farahani
Abstract
The discussion of moral virtues and vices is one of the common ideas in the moral and mystical beliefs of ancient Iran and India. According to the idea of dualism, vice traits are caused by the forces of evil and darkness, and good traits are influenced by the forces of good and light. Avoiding vices, ...
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The discussion of moral virtues and vices is one of the common ideas in the moral and mystical beliefs of ancient Iran and India. According to the idea of dualism, vice traits are caused by the forces of evil and darkness, and good traits are influenced by the forces of good and light. Avoiding vices, especially the vice of anger, is emphasized in this common thought and its expression in Avesta, Pahlavi, and Manichaean works of ancient Iran and the works of Vedic, Brahminical, and Buddhist literature of ancient India. In the Shahnameh, the battle of these two forces of good and evil can be seen in the thoughts, words and actions of the characters in Ferdowsi's stories and words. In Mawlavi's Masnavi, there is a battle between good and evil in human existence. In this research, the attribute of anger in ancient Iran and India has been investigated based on Shahnameh and Masnavi, with a comparative and analytical method. According to this study, anger is used in the two concepts of the demon of anger and the vice of anger in the works of Iran and ancient India. We can see the reflection and influence of these two concepts in Shahnameh and Masnavi. Therefore, the research shows that the devil makes people feel demonic through the unpleasant attribute of anger and moves them away from the group of goodness and light and closer to the group of evil and darkness. Now, this anger can have a demonic face or a blasphemous quality. Therefore, by analyzing the evidence of the works, we have shown that Ferdowsi and Molavi, as two great poets of the Islamic period, have well expressed these concepts of ancient Iranian and Indian thought in the Shahnameh and Masnavi, and have adhered to the continuity of their ancient Aryan culture.
