Some modern historians who wish to write something about the history of Iran pay attention to two things: first, the works of ancient Western historians such as Xanthus, from the country of Lydia, Herodotus the Greek, Diodorus, born on the island of Sicily and holding Greek citizenship, Tacitus, from the country of Rome, and others; second, the works that have been obtained during the last forty years in Iran and in some Middle Eastern countries as a result of historical excavations.
In their view, only these two sources have authenticity, and they do not use the historical sources of Iran itself in any way. They consider all the historical sources of Iran relating to the period before Islam to be legends.
The historical legends of Greece and Rome are, in the view of some modern historians, worthy of attention, and thick books have been written about the origins of those legends and about whether those legends originally had historical reality. “Marijan Molé”, the contemporary historian whose historical works, along with those of several others, we use a great deal, has prepared a list of books written about the historical genealogy of those legends, and if we translated it into Persian, it would occupy several pages of this book.
But until recent times, none of the Western historians attempted to carry out research or produce a noteworthy work in order to justify those things that exist in the histories of Iran and that Western historians regard as legend.
Whereas some of our historical books, and according to some modern historians some of these legends, are noteworthy from the point of view of linguistics and have an authentic and undeniable background.
Most modern historians, apart from the Shahnameh, even consider the Avesta to be legend, whereas they regard the Pentateuch, that is, the first five books of the Torah, and also the four Gospels as having historical value.
However, during the last twenty years, a number of Western historians and researchers have paid attention to the histories of Iran and have produced works in which an attempt has been made to compare Western histories with Iranian histories.
The names of these hardworking men who, in America and Europe, attempted to compare the ancient histories of Iran with modern histories are numerous, and mentioning their names one after another would bore the readers. We shall gradually mention their names during our discussion so that the readers do not become bored.
Some Middle Eastern nations, too, have for some time attempted to use the historical sources of Iran in order to understand their own past. For example, the Turks have accepted that “Frangrasyan”, who is named in the Avesta, was one of their ancient kings, and that the Frangrasyan of the Avesta is the same as the Afrasyan of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Ferdowsi knew the language of the Avesta and read Frangrasyan in the very form that we see, but for the sake of the metre of his poetry, he changed it to Afrasyan; and a copyist who had not seen the original word in the Avesta changed the final letter “n” of the word Afrasyan into “b”, and as a result Frangrasyan became Afrasyab.
Ferdowsi not only knew the language of the Avesta, but he also lived in a period when the Sasanian Pahlavi language was still understandable among the learned class, and they used Pahlavi Persian words in speech and writing. But in later periods, the Sasanian Pahlavi language was abandoned and completely forgotten, and the copyists who wanted to write the Shahnameh did not understand the meanings of some words and, imagining that the previous copyist had written them incorrectly, changed the words or the verse.
German Orientalists who have studied the Shahnameh extensively believe that most of Ferdowsi’s verses were altered by ignorant copyists who did not know the language of the Avesta, and today perhaps one fifth of Ferdowsi’s verses remain untouched, while the other four fifths are verses that have been completely or partly replaced, the reason being the copyists’ ignorance.
Endnote
Ferdowsi’s famous verse with this meaning:
“Powerful is the one who is wise;
Through knowledge, the heart of the old becomes young”
was not in this form. It had this form:
“Powerful is the one who is wise;
In every task, the ignorant one is helpless.”
The copyist could not understand what “In every task, the ignorant one is helpless” meant, and instead of it placed a hemistich in this form: “Through knowledge, the heart of the old becomes young,” whereas the original second hemistich of Ferdowsi’s verse had this meaning: “In every task, the ignorant person is powerless.” This hemistich completes the meaning of the first hemistich, whereas the forged hemistich of the copyist has no direct connection in meaning with the first hemistich.
Ferdowsi did not use difficult and unfamiliar words in the Shahnameh, and the words “bastuh” and “kana” were among the common words of his time. After Pahlavi Persian was completely abandoned, these words and other words that existed in the Shahnameh and were changed by the copyists were forgotten. Translator.
