SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The Pahlavi Rivayat Accompanying the Dadestan I Denig is a collection of sixty-five miscellaneous texts, of varying length, all connected with the Zoroastrian religion (legend, mythology, ritual, customs, ethics, wisdom, precept). In its present form it is attributed to the tenth century of the Christian era, "but this redaction comprises much material which is thought to be considerably older, derived from the older, written and oral, priestly tradition of the religion. The Pahlavi Rivayat Accompanying the Dadestan i Denig was edited by B.N, Dhabhar and published in Bombay in 1913. H.K. Mirza presented a transcription and translation, with notes, of the majority of the Pahlavi Rivayat Preceding the Dadestan i Denig (omitting four previously published chapters and the three chapters following the Dadestan i Denig). as a PhD. thesis to the University of London in 1942. Although my own work is quite independent of Dr. Mirza's work, I have paid attention to some of the valuable analysis and etymological explanation of the earlier thesis, in particular because Dr. Mirza was supervised in his work by Professor W.B. Henning. I acknowledge in my thesis any instances where I include textual emendations, translations or explanations which were the result of Dr. Mirza's work with Professor Henning. Like Dr. Mirza, in establishing the text of the Rivayat I have also used two manuscripts which were not accessible to B.N. Dhabhar: K35 and a ms, in the India Office Library, London. I have, however, as the title of the present thesis indicates, translated the whole of the text in Dhabhar's edition, including the concluding (three) chapters omitted by Dr. Mirza, but excluding chapter 58 The exclusion of chapter 58 - a- long and problematic text of extracts from the Nirangistan - is regrettable, in that it disrupts the otherwise continuous treatment of the text, but necessary because this chapter requires a separate study in its own right and in the context of a study of the Nirangistan (which is, fortunately, currently being undertaken by Dastur Dr. Firoze Kotwal in Bombay). Because the transliteration of Pahlavi script is problematic and open to widely different interpretation, I present a full transliteration of the text; this is accompanied by a parallel transcription, with footnotes of significant alterative readings in the mss. There follows a new translation of the text and a commentary. This latter comprises an attempt to understand the subject matter of the Rivayat in its religious (theological and ritual) and historical context.