The colophons of Iranian Avestan Manuscripts
Final Report Abstract
The DFG-funded project deals with the secondary life of Avestan manuscripts focusing on colophons and marginal notes. The new findings of Avestan manuscripts made a large number of colophons and marginal notes available, which are of particular importance for the study of the history, culture, and religion of Zoroastrianism. The current project makes available a collection of Middle Persian and Persian colophons and marginal notes, all which have been excerpted, transcribed, translated and analysed for the first time from the Avestan manuscripts copied mostly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This study presents characteristic features of colophons and marginal notes from a linguistic, cultural, and religious point of view. This work was prompted by the consideration that these hitherto inaccessible and therefore untapped documents have been generally unknown to Western scholars as primary sources for Zoroastrian studies. Through the present project and cooperation with both national and international scholars, institutes and projects, a considerable number of Avestan manuscripts have been located, digitized, indexed, and made available, and have been used in the present project. One of these important discoveries was the Pouladi Collection, found in in February 2016 in a Zoroastrian house in the Priests’ Quarter [Mahalle-ye Dasturān] in Yazd in Iran. The Avestan manuscripts (four Videvdāds, five Yasnās, one Vājyasht Gahanbār with Doruns and one Khorde Avesta) discovered in this collection offer support for relevant developments in the history of the transmission, codicology, and genealogy of Iranian Avestan manuscripts. Avestan manuscripts are from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The oldest dated Avestan manuscript in this collection is from 1645. Two Videvdād manuscripts of this collection are of particular significance for Avestan studies. One of them is apparently the oldest manuscript of the Videvdād discovered so far, while another one is the only illuminated manuscript from the Marzbān family, a famous scribe family of Avestan manuscripts. This collection and other discovered manuscripts in the framework of the present project have caused relevant developments in Avestan studies. Many scholars, institutes, and projects in the field of Avestan studies have contributed to the results achieved by the project.
Publications
- (2015): “The Death of Zoroastrian Dari in Kerman”, In: The Middle East in London, SOAS, University of London, Vol. 11, N. 5, October-November 2015, pp. 7,8
Gholami, Saloumeh
- (2016): Zoroastrian Dari (Behdīnī) in Kerman. Estudios Iranios y Turanios. Supplementa Didactica. 1, Girona
Gholami, Saloumeh; Farahmand, Armita
- (2016): “Zoroastrians of Iran vi. Linguistic documentation.” In: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Columbia University, USA
Gholami, Saloumeh
- (2017): “Colophons, more than a scribe’s memorial.” In: Bagheri, M. and Azarandaz. A.: Proceedings of the International Seminar of Ancient Iranian Languages (Kerman, October 20 to 21, 2015). Bahonar University of Kerman, pp. 13-29
Gholami, Saloumeh
- (2018): Endangered Iranian Languages. Wiesbaden: Reichert
Gholami, Saloumeh (ed.)
- (2018): “Pronominal Clitics in Zoroastrian Dari (Behdīnī) of Kerman”. In: Saloumeh Gholami (ed.), Endangered Iranian Languages. Wiesbaden: Reichert, pp. 111-122
Gholami, Saloumeh
- (2018): “Remnants of Zoroastrian Dari in the Colophons and Sālmargs of Iranian Avestan Manuscripts”. In: Iranian Studies 51: 2, pp. 195-211
Gholami, Saloumeh
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00210862.2017.1378070)
