The Turanians stayed in Zabolestan until they had eaten everything there was and destroyed whatever they could—out of ignorance and merely for a moment’s amusement. Then they were struck by famine and resolved to head west to plunder the Iranian cities in that direction; but winter overtook them, and they realized that if they went west or north they would die of cold, and the land of Turan had no provisions for them to return home. They were forced to remain in Zabolestan and, from extreme hunger, began eating the animals they had slaughtered; by carrion-eating they fell ill and, one after another, perished in the fertile land of Zabolestan.
The Turanians in Zabolestan died of hunger and disease, but Rud, the Iran-ban, and his family, and the Iranians who had migrated with him to Zabolestan, did not soon return there for fear of the savage Turanians.
In the region of Qohestan they laid new foundations for life and, with delight, realized that wheat and barley could be sown on the fertile slopes of Qohestan’s mountains, and that the fields that formed on those slopes, like the former fields (Sialk), needed no irrigation: wheat and barley grew of themselves and ripened.
In Qohestan, the means for stock-raising were available as in Zabolestan, and broad pastures existed on the mountain slopes of that region. Rud and the members of his household, and the other Iranians who had gone to Qohestan, turned out their herds onto those pastures without fear of the Turanians.
One of the remarkable phenomena that appeared at that time was that from the mating of the horse and the donkey the “mule” came into being, and until then the mule had not existed.
Tem, the husband of Rud II, who—as we said—was young and strong, domesticated several mules and loaded them; and because he ranged widely in the mountains he discovered that, for pack-carrying in the mountains, the mule was better than the horse and did not tire—especially on uphill mountain paths, where using a mule is better than a horse; for a horse, after climbing uphill for an hour, collapses from fatigue, whereas a mule carries loads from dawn to dusk without any sense of weariness.
Tem traversed the mountains of the Qohestan region without great difficulty, and although before the Iran-ban’s migration from Zabolestan to Qohestan no one lived in the latter land, there were passable routes in the mountains; for, millions of years earlier, various animals—especially flocks of wild sheep—had traversed mountain routes, and their passing had created paths that humans too could use.
Rud the Iran-ban, with his active intelligence, had realized that the sun (khur) endowed every plant it produced with a property, and that no plant exists without benefit.
In Qohestan, Rud became the innovator who perfected the art of cooking.
Up to that time the dishes Iranians prepared were simple and lacked varied ingredients. In Qohestan, following his native wit, Rud set out to add different plants little by little to the cooking pot to discover how they affected the food’s taste; and he perceived that some plants made food delicious, while others rendered it unpalatable or even bitter.
One plant that made food bitter was the konar (sidr/jujube); its stem did not make the food bitter, but its fruit made it intensely bitter.
Another plant that made food sharply unpalatable was asafoetida (anghuzeh), which existed in great quantity in the mountains of Qohestan. Iranians had noticed that if they chewed the stem and root of that plant and sucked its sap, their thirst was quenched; and anyone who felt thirsty in the mountains and could not find water would pull up a clump of asafoetida and suck its stem and his thirst would be eased.
Among the plants that made Rud’s food tasty was pennyroyal (puneh), which the Iran-ban and his family picked along the streams; after a while they realized that if they sowed pennyroyal seed, the plant would sprout.
What led the Iranians to sow pennyroyal in Qohestan was that the plant was not always obtainable and grew only in spring along the streams. Since the Iran-ban enjoyed cooking with that herb, they decided to plant it so they would always have pennyroyal to add to food; and after a time of sowing it, from its seed they obtained a more flavorful herb, which today is called mint (na‘nā).
Rud II, the Iran-ban’s daughter, had discovered that pennyroyal had an antidotal property: if it was pounded and applied as a poultice to a snakebite, the severity of the bite was reduced and the victim survived.
Another plant that existed in great quantity in the mountains of Qohestan was parsley; but like pennyroyal, parsley was available only in a particular season, and Iranians could not obtain it in other seasons. So they set out to sow its seed; and after some time of sowing parsley seed, the plant—which at first had been coarse—became delicate and acquired a finer fragrance.
If we were to list all the plants the Iranians found in the mountains of Qohestan and used to flavor their food, the account would grow long; we would have to name most of the plants that today are considered useful herbs. Therefore we forgo naming them all and instead say that, while the Iranians used plants to make their food tasty, they also came to understand their medicinal properties.
At first, no one tested a plant to learn what medical benefit it might have; rather, the Iranians’ aim was to learn how a plant would taste after being mixed into food and cooked, and what effect it would have on the dish’s flavor. These experiments led to the inference of plants’ medicinal properties.
It is clear that discerning the medicinal properties of plants was not something accomplished in one or two generations; it took time before the Iranians were able to recognize plants’ therapeutic virtues.
But the study of plants with a view to discovering their medicinal properties began in Qohestan and spread elsewhere; and it can be said plainly that in the ancient world every well-known medicinal plant used by the people was introduced to them by the Iranians, and that the recognition of plants’ medicinal properties is a science that arose in Iran. It can also be said with near certainty that the medicinal plants of Iran were discovered by women 1; for in learning about different plants they were more inquisitive than men, and from very ancient times women had realized the therapeutic properties of some plants and could treat some illnesses with them, staunch bleeding of body parts, and even prevent the continuation of abnormal uterine hemorrhage.
With this in mind, one can assert without doubt that the first physicians of Iran were Iranian women, and people would seek them out to treat illnesses. The Iranians’ life in Qohestan—their comings and goings on the mountain slopes of that region—and their search for various plants in the mountains led, gradually, to the people of Iran making their way north, where they were able to discover places suitable for settlement in the northern parts of Qohestan—what is today Khorasan—which at that time was uninhabited. Some assertions made in the past by certain historians have taken on the force of revelation, though they rest on conjecture rather than historical fact. One such claim is that Khorasan was settled by “Aryans” who came from the north. This idea has so fixed itself in people’s minds that today, if someone says the Aryans did not enter Khorasan from the north but set foot there from the south, he is condemned as a scientific heretic. The historians who supposed that the Aryans entered Khorasan from the north did not try to determine their route or explain why the Aryans would have abandoned the well-watered, fertile banks of the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers to consign themselves to the barren deserts of Turkestan in order to reach Khorasan. The reality is otherwise: Khorasan was settled by people who came from the south—Iranians who, after migrating from Zabolestan and going to Qohestan, took the road to Khorasan, because there they found mighty rivers (which no longer exist today, though their beds remain across the plains).
The migration routes of peoples in the past were paths they could not alter, for they could not cross mountains, seas, and barren deserts; whenever a people migrated over a mountain they used routes that animals, over millions of years, had laid down. In later ages, as civilization expanded, some peoples managed—essentially by waging war—to cross barren deserts in migration, just as the Mongol army crossed the desert of Qirq-Qum in Turkestan (albeit along the water-bearing margins of the desert) to reach Khorasan.
But the early peoples, who migrated under duress and were driven by hunger, did not have the ability to cross dry, barren deserts; and we do not suppose there are any who would claim the Aryan peoples migrated for purposes of geographic exploration, or merely from a romantic desire to learn where the sun rises and where it sets.
For if they had migrated for that purpose, their line of travel should have been east–west, not north–south—yet, according to earlier historians, the Aryan peoples’ line of movement was north–south.
In any case, after the Iranians entered the Khorasan region and settled by its rivers, they found fruit-bearing trees that did not exist in Qohestan and took delight in eating the delicious fruits 2. In Khorasan, Rud—and shortly thereafter her husband “Zab”—passed away; and Rud II, in place of her mother, became the Iran-ban, that is, the ruler of Iran. Rud II was a very intelligent sovereign, endowed with what we today call taste; during the reign of that clever and gifted woman several noteworthy events occurred, among them the differentiation of the words for “man” and “woman.” Up to that time, although men and women had personal names, their common noun was “man (man).” The Iranians, instead of the word mard (man), used the word man, and instead of the word zan (woman), used san; and when, in conversation, the word man was uttered, it was not clear whether a man or a woman was meant. Rud II established the word zan (woman) as the counterpart to man, so that the generic names for male and female would differ; and the word man passed from Iranian into the languages of other Aryan peoples and is seen today in English, German, and others 3. Another thing Rud II introduced into Iranian life was, for the second time in Iran’s history, the cultivation of aesthetic taste among her compatriots. The first awakening of aesthetic sense in Iran occurred in the city of Sialk and manifested through images and designs on pottery. The second time, aesthetic taste was awakened by Rud II through the cultivation of flowers in Iran, and, with the encouragement of their crowned lady, Iranians raised flowers for their color, form, and fragrance.
Thousands of years before any trace of civilization appeared in Europe, Iranians loved flowers, cultivated them, and extracted perfume from them.
We do not know during the reign of which queen of Iran the first perfume was produced; but we do know that the first perfume derived from flowers was obtained in Iran. Wherever in the world anyone presents a bouquet or a spray of flowers to another on any occasion, that custom is learned from the Iranians; and whenever a woman or man anywhere in the world buys perfume and makes themselves fragrant, that too is something learned from the Iranians.
Footnote:
- “Of the three thousand medicinal plants mentioned in the French Encyclopedia of Drugs and Toxicology, two thousand were identified in Iran, and many are native to Iran.” — Wikander, German scholar.
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“All the well-known fruits of Europe are fruits that came from Iran to Europe, and some of them—such as apple, peach, pomegranate, sour cherry, and melon, which are seen today in European countries—were transferred from Iran to Europe; the finest kinds are still obtained in Iran itself.” — Madijān Molé, French scholar.
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“From the book From — Word — Man — In — Iranians (on the word mard ‘man’ in Iranian), by the English scholar William Bayley; other works by this Iranologist also exist.”
