Description

Journal N0.63 (129 pages; 1999)

 This issue of the Journal contains seven articles, including three by Dr Pallan Ichaporia that are based on the Government Research Fellowship lectures delivered by him at the Institute and deal with his studies of Zoroastrian religious literature.

 

The first article was on the “Historical and Theological Aspects of the Yashts” with emphasis on theMithra and Tishtriya Yashts. Dr Ichaporia examines the many attributes of Mithra, the advent of Mithraworship and its spread through the Roman Empire.

Dr Ichaporia’s second article is a translation of the Fravardin Yasht which he undertook in cooperation with Dr Helmut Humbach.

The third article is devoted to the Zamyad Yasht. Dr Ichaporia shows how the liturgy is actually a combination of the fragments of two earlier Yashts – Zam and Kayan.

Dr John Hinnells, Professor of Comparative Religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies, seeks to redress the negative assessment by historians and the Zoroastrian community of Muncherji Bhownagree, the second Indian to become a member of the British Parliament. The subject emerges as a man of substantial intellectual and organisational ability and one capable of seeing past his own personal prejudices.

The next article is by Mr Burzine Waghmar, a doctoral candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He presents his English translation of Professor Richard Frye’s original article in German,“Zoroastrians in the Early Islamic Period.” In this piece written in 1965, the author analyses the social position of the numerically dwindling Mazdean community in early Islamic Iran.

“The Han Dynasty Origins of the Tomb of Rustam and Raksh” is the subject of the next paper by Dr Parivash Jamzadeh. She retraces the Shahnameh description of Rustam’s funeral and the entombment of his horse to the funerary art and free standing statuary common in China.

The final article in this issue of our Journal is by  Dr Shahab Setudeh – Nejad. Titled “The Impact of Persia’s  Civilisation in Siam and Southeast Asia,” the author traces the migration, interface and diffusion of hybrid legacies of west and central Asiatic peoples in the peninsular zones of the far-east.

This publication is priced at US$18.00, inclusive of packing handling and air-mail postage.