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90-554: The Middle Persian term engendered the better-attested Arabic زنديق zindiq , with the same semantic field but related to Islam rather than Zoroastrianism. In the Islamic world, including Islamic-era Iran, the term was also variously assigned to Manichaeans , Mandaeans , Mazdakites , Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Christians, and free-thinkers in general, including Muslims. Whether zandik was also used in any of these ways in Zoroastrian times

180-487: A Christian Psalter fragment, which still retains all the letter distinctions that Inscriptional Pahlavi had except the one between t and ṭ ; and the Pahlavi found in papyri from the early 7th century CE, which displays even more letter coincidences than Book Pahlavi. The Manichaean script was an abjad introduced for the writing of Middle Persian by the prophet Mani (216–274 CE), who based it on his native variety of

270-523: A Manichaean technical term for 'listeners' (i.e. lay persons, as contradistinguished from the Manichaean elite). Bevan's derivation was widely accepted until the 1930s, especially amongst scholars of Semitic languages, but was discredited following a comprehensive review of both Arabic and Iranian usage by H. H. Schaeder (1930). Schaeder pointed out that the substantive was zand , not zandik (an etymology would thus have to explain zand , not zandik ), as -ik

360-536: A currently more popular one reflecting the Sassanid-era pronunciation, as used by C. Saleman, W. B. Henning and, in a somewhat revised form, by D. N. MacKenzie (1986). The less obvious features of the usual transcription are: A common feature of Pahlavi as well as Manichaean spelling was that the Aramaic letters ṣ and ḥ were adapted to express the sounds /t͡ʃ/ and /h/ , respectively. In addition, both could use

450-468: A different shape from a historical point of view, by under- or overlining them: e.g. the heterogram for andar 'in' is transliterated B YN , since it corresponds to Aramaic byn , but the sign that 'should' have been b actually looks like a g . Within Arameograms, scholars have traditionally used the standard Semitological designations of the Aramaic (and generally Semitic) letters, and these include

540-921: A large number of diacritics and special signs expressing the different Semitic phonemes, which were not distinguished in Middle Persian. In order to reduce the need for these, a different system was introduced by D. N. MacKenzie , which dispenses with diacritics as much as possible, often replacing them with vowel letters: A for ʾ , O for ʿ , E for H , H for Ḥ , C for Ṣ , for example ORHYA for ʿRḤYʾ ( bay 'god, majesty, lord'). For ''ṭ'', which still occurs in heterograms in Inscriptional Pahlavi, Θ may be used. Within Iranian words, however, both systems use c for original Aramaic ṣ and h for original Aramaic ḥ , in accordance with their Iranian pronunciation (see below). The letter l , when modified with

630-558: A less common view is that /x/ and /ɣ/ were uvular instead. Finally, it may be pointed out that most scholars consider the phoneme /w/ as being still a labial approximant, but a few regard it as a voiced labial fricative /v/ . The initial clusters of /s/ and a stop ( /sp-/ , /st-/ , /sk-/ ) had acquired a prosthetic vowel /i/ by the time of the Manichaean Middle Persian texts: istāyišn ( ՙst՚yšn ) 'praise' vs Pahlavi stāyišn ( ՙst՚dšn' ) 'praise'. Stress

720-614: A particular orthodoxy is also indicated by other sources, such as the Letter of Tansar , which additionally suggests that the systemization of the Zoroastrian church was part of a greater state-sponsored "revival" of Iranian values, apparently as a Sassanian reaction to the perceived cultural "corruptions" of the preceding (likewise Iranian, but Hellenistic) Arsacid Parthian dynasts. The Arsacids were probably not as culturally " un-Iranian " as Tansar's/Ardashir's propagandistic justification to overthrow them indicates, and it isn't even clear whether

810-461: A script derived from Aramaic . This occurred primarily because written Aramaic had previously been the written language of government of the former Achaemenids , and the government scribes had carried that practice all over the empire. This practice had led to others adopting Imperial Aramaic as the language of communications, both between Iranians and non-Iranians. The transition from Imperial Aramaic to Middle Iranian took place very slowly, with

900-561: A slow increase of more and more Iranian words so that Aramaic with Iranian elements gradually changed into Iranian with Aramaic elements. Under Arsacid hegemony , this Aramaic-derived writing system for Iranian languages came to be associated with the Parthians in particular (it may have originated in the Parthian chancellories ), and thus the writing system came to be called pahlavi "Parthian" too. Aside from Parthian, Aramaic-derived writing

990-467: A special horizontal stroke that shows that the pronunciation is /l/ and not /r/, is rendered in the MacKenzie system as ɫ . The traditional system continues to be used by many, especially European scholars. The MacKenzie system is the one used in this article. As for Pahlavi, c is used for the transliteration of original Aramaic ṣ and h for the transliteration of original ḥ . Original Aramaic h , on

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1080-542: A thousand of these in the Book Pahlavi variety. In addition, their spelling remained very conservative, expressing the pronunciation of the Arsacid period. The two most important subvarieties are: Other known Pahlavi varieties are the early Pahlavi found in inscriptions on coins issued in the province of Pars from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century CE; the relatively conservative Psalter Pahlavi (6th–8th centuries CE), used in

1170-406: Is a major difficulty for scholars. It has also been pointed out that the Pahlavi spelling does not express the 3rd century lenitions, so the letters p , t , k and c express /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ and /z/ after vowels, e.g. šp' for šab 'night' and hc for az 'from'. The rare phoneme /ɣ/ was also expressed by the same letter shape as k (however, this sound value is usually expressed in

1260-461: Is any immediately identifiable mention of Manichaeans, who were intermittently persecuted by the Sassanid establishment, also by Kartir, who is explicitly named as one of Mani's persecutor's in Manichaean sources. There are three suggested reasons to explain this anomaly: a) The conventional view is that Kartir includes them under the term 'Maktak'; b) an alternate position is that Kartir's text dates from

1350-574: Is cited in the inscriptions of Shapur I (as well as in the Res Gestae Divi Saporis ) and the Paikuli inscription of Narseh . Kartir also had inscriptions of his own made in the present-day Fars Province (then known as Pars ). His inscriptions narrates his rise to power throughout the reigns of Shapur I ( r.  240–270 ), Hormizd I ( r.  270–271 ), Bahram I ( r.  271–274 ), and Bahram II ( r.  274–293 ). During

1440-432: Is expressed in a synchronic alternation: at least at some stage in late Middle Persian (later than the 3rd century), the consonants /b/ , /d/ , /ɡ/ appear to have had, after vowels, the fricative allophones [ β ] , [ ð ] , [ɣ] . This is slightly more controversial for /ɡ/ , since there appears to have been a separate phoneme /ɣ/ as well. A parallel development seems to have affected /d͡ʒ/ in

1530-420: Is far more common for the letter l to have that function, as in the example plhw' for farrox . In the relatively rare cases where l does express /l/ , it can be marked as ɫ . Kartir Kartir (also spelled Karder , Karter and Kerdir ; Middle Persian : 𐭪𐭫𐭲𐭩𐭫 Kardīr ) was a powerful and influential Zoroastrian priest during the reigns of four Sasanian kings in the 3rd century. His name

1620-569: Is in this particular late form of exclusively written Zoroastrian Middle Persian, in popular imagination the term 'Pahlavi' became synonymous with Middle Persian itself. The ISO 639 language code for Middle Persian is pal , which reflects the post-Sasanian era use of the term Pahlavi to refer to the language and not only the script. In the classification of the Iranian languages, the Middle Period includes those languages which were common in Iran from

1710-399: Is nevertheless often the old pronunciation or a transitional one that is reflected in the Pahlavi spelling. 2. Voiceless stops and affricates, when occurring after vowels as well as other voiced sounds, became voiced: This process is thought not to have been taken place before Sassanid Pahlavi, and it generally is not reflected in Pahlavi spelling. A further stage in this lenition process

1800-666: Is spelt mtr' . In contrast, the Manichaean spellings are gʾh , ngʾh , šhr , myhr . Some other words with earlier /θ/ are spelt phonetically in Pahlavi, too: e.g. gēhān , spelt gyhʾn 'material world', and čihr , spelt cyhl 'face'. There are also some other cases where /h/ is spelt /t/ after p : ptkʾl for pahikār 'strife', and /t/ may also stand for /j/ in that position: ptwnd for paywand 'connection'. There are some other phoneme pairs besides /j/ and /d͡ʒ/ that are not distinguished: h (the original Aramaic ḥ ) may stand either for /h/ or for /x/ ( hm for ham 'also' as well as hl for xar 'donkey'), whereas

1890-427: Is that Arsacid word-initial /j/ produced Sassanid /d͡ʒ/ (another change that is not reflected in the Pahlavi spelling). The sound probably passed through the phase /ʒ/ , which may have continued until very late Middle Persian, since Manichaean texts did not identify Indic /d͡ʒ/ with it and introduced a separate sign for the former instead of using the letter for their native sound. Nonetheless, word-initial /j/

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1980-477: Is unknown; in that context, the term is only attested in three texts (two from the same author), and in all three appears as a hapax legomenon used in a pejorative way, but with no additional hints from which to infer a meaning. In several now-obsolete studies related to Zoroastrianism, the word was also speculated to be the proper name of a particular (but hypothetical) priestly tradition that embraced Zurvanite doctrine. The conventional translation as 'heretic'

2070-647: The Pahlavi Psalter (7th century); these were used until the beginning of the second millennium in many places in Central Asia , including Turpan and even localities in South India . All three differ minimally from one another and indeed the less ambiguous and archaizing scripts of the latter two have helped to elucidate some aspects of the Sasanian-era pronunciation of the former. The vowels of Middle Persian were

2160-571: The Zoroastrian religion and as an insurer for harmony and prosperity of the empire. His ancestry from the early Sasanian family probably also played a role. Kartir was one of the nobles who supported Narseh, which is attested in the Paikuli inscription . Narseh's reign marked the return to the policy of religious tolerance which had been practiced by his father. Kartir fades into obscurity in historical records under Narseh, due to not doing anything noteworthy as mowbed "high priest". According to

2250-638: The imperial variety of the Aramaic alphabet used in the chancelleries of the Achaemenid Empire . As is typical of abjads, they express primarily the consonants in a word form. What sets them apart from other abjads, however, is the use of Heterograms , and more specifically Aramaeograms , i.e. words written in Aramaic (sometimes, in later periods, with distortions) but pronounced in Middle Persian: e.g. LY (Aramaic 'to me') for man 'me, I'. There were about

2340-481: The w and n have the same graphic appearance. Furthermore, letters used as part of Aramaic heterograms and not intended to be interpreted phonetically are written in capitals: thus the heterogram for the word ān is rendered ZK , whereas its phonetic spelling is transliterated as ʾn' (the final vertical line reflects the so-called 'otiose' stroke, see below ). Finally, there is a convention of representing 'distorted/corrupt' letters, which 'should' have appeared in

2430-442: The "old" language (i.e. Middle Persian) and Aramaic-derived writing system. In time, the name of the writing system, pahlavi "Parthian", began to be applied to the "old" Middle Persian language as well, thus distinguishing it from the "new" language, farsi . Consequently, 'pahlavi' came to denote the particularly Zoroastrian, exclusively written, late form of Middle Persian. Since almost all surviving Middle Persian literature

2520-412: The 10th–11th centuries, Middle Persian texts were still intelligible to speakers of Early New Persian. However, there are definite differences that had taken place already by the 10th century: Texts in Middle Persian are found in remnants of Sasanian inscriptions and Egyptian papyri , coins and seals, fragments of Manichaean writings , and Zoroastrian literature , most of which was written down after

2610-444: The 3rd/4th-century inscriptions of Kartir , Tansar's successor and high priest under three of Ardashir I's successors. In his own inscription on the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht , Kartir states ( KKZ 8–9) that he persecuted "Jews, Buddhists, Brahmins, Nasoreans (Judeo-Christians), Christians, 'Maktaks' (Mandaeans, Manichaeans?) and zandiks ." Kartir's inscription is the earliest epigraphic evidence of

2700-723: The 7th-century, the Sassanids were overthrown by the Arabs. Under Arab influence, Iranian languages began to be written in Arabic script (adapted to Iranian phonology ), while Middle Persian began to rapidly evolve into New Persian and the name parsik became Arabicized farsi . Not all Iranians were comfortable with these Arabic-influenced developments, in particular, members of the literate elite, which in Sassanid times consisted primarily of Zoroastrian priests. Those former elites vigorously rejected what they perceived as ' Un-Iranian ', and continued to use

2790-420: The Aramaic distinctions between ḥ and h and between k and q were not always maintained, with the first often replacing the second, and the one between t and ṭ was lost in all but Inscriptional Pahlavi: thus YKTLWN (pronounced о̄zadan ) for Aramaic yqṭlwn 'kill', and YHWWN (pronounced būdan ) for Aramaic yhwwn 'be', even though Aramaic h is elsewhere rendered E . In the rest of this article,

Zandik - Misplaced Pages Continue

2880-477: The Aramaic script of Palmyrene origin. Mani used this script to write the known book Šābuhrāgān and it continued to be used by Manichaeans until the 9th century to write in Middle Persian, and in various other Iranian languages for even longer. Specifically the Middle Persian Manichaean texts are numerous and thought to reflect mostly the period from the 3rd to the 7th centuries CE. In contrast to

2970-447: The Arsacid sound values, but is known from the more phonetic Manichaean spelling of texts from Sassanid times. As a result of these changes, the voiceless stops and affricates /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , /t͡ʃ/ rarely occurred after vowels – mostly when geminated, which has protected them from the lenition (e.g. waččag , sp. wck' 'child'), and due to some other sound changes. Another difference between Arsacid and Sassanid-era pronunciation

3060-494: The Avesta also retain some old features, most other Zoroastrian Book Pahlavi texts (which form the overwhelming majority of the Middle Persian corpus as a whole) are linguistically more innovative. In view of the many ambiguities of the Pahlavi script, even its transliteration does not usually limit itself to rendering merely the letters as written; rather, letters are usually transliterated in accordance with their origin regardless of

3150-461: The Iranian languages begins around 450 BCE and ends around 650 CE. One of those Middle Iranian languages is Middle Persian, i.e. the middle stage of the language of the Persians, an Iranian people of Persia proper , which lies in the south-western highlands on the border with Babylonia . The Persians called their language Parsig , meaning "Persian". Another Middle Iranian language was Parthian , i.e.

3240-477: The Manichaean script and a maximally disambiguated transliterated form of Pahlavi do not provide exhaustive information about the phonemic structure of Middle Persian words, a system of transcription is also necessary. There are two traditions of transcription of Pahlavi Middle Persian texts: one closer to the spelling and reflecting the Arsacid-era pronunciation, as used by Ch. Bartholomae and H. S. Nyberg (1964) and

3330-560: The Pahlavi scripts, it is a regular and unambiguous phonetic script that expresses clearly the pronunciation of 3rd century Middle Persian and distinguishes clearly between different letters and sounds, so it provides valuable evidence to modern linguists. Not only did it not display any of the Pahlavi coalescences mentioned above, it also had special letters that enabled it to distinguish [p] and [f] (although it didn't always do so), as well as [j] and [d͡ʒ] , unique designations for [β] , [ð] , and [ɣ] , and consistent distinctions between

3420-523: The Pahlavi spellings will be indicated due to their unpredictability, and the Aramaeograms will be given priority over the 'phonetic' alternatives for the same reason. If a word expressed by an Arameogram has a grammatical ending or, in many cases, a word-formation suffix, these are generally expressed by phonetic elements: LYLYA ʾn for šab ʾn 'nights'. However, verbs in Inscriptional Pahlavi are sometimes written as 'bare ideograms', whose interpretation

3510-513: The Sasanian collapse, Middle Persian continued to function as a prestige language . It descended from Old Persian , the language of the Achaemenid Empire and is the linguistic ancestor of Modern Persian , the official language of Iran (also known as Persia) , Afghanistan ( Dari ) and Tajikistan ( Tajik ). "Middle Iranian" is the name given to the middle stage of development of the numerous Iranian languages and dialects . The middle stage of

3600-478: The Sasanian era. The language of Zoroastrian literature (and of the Sasanian inscriptions) is sometimes referred to as Pahlavi – a name that originally referred to the Pahlavi scripts , which were also the preferred writing system for several other Middle Iranian languages. Pahlavi Middle Persian is the language of quite a large body of literature which details the traditions and prescriptions of Zoroastrianism , which

3690-411: The adjectival zandaqa had broadened and could loosely denote many things: Gnostic Dualists as well as followers of Manichaeism, Agnostics & Atheists . Early examples of Arabic zindiq denoting Manichaeans, and this possibly being the meaning of the term in the early attested use in Middle Persian (see below ), led A. A. Bevan to derive Middle Persian zandik from Syriac zaddiq 'righteous' as

Zandik - Misplaced Pages Continue

3780-597: The backing of Bahram I, Kartir laid the foundations for a Zoroastrian state church. As a result, Bahram I became applauded in Sasanian-based sources as a "benevolent and worthy king." His son Bahram II succeeded him as emperor; he may have been aided by Kartir to ascend the throne instead of Narseh . This most likely frustrated Narseh, who had now been neglected from succession several times. Bahram II , like his father, received Kartir well. He saw him as his mentor, and handed out several honors to Kartir, giving him

3870-424: The brief reign of Bahram II's son and successor Bahram III , Kartir was amongst the nobles who supported the rebellion of Narseh, who overthrew Bahram III and ascended the throne. During Narseh's reign, Kartir faded into obscurity. Kartir's name is spelled in several ways in the engravings; Middle Persian <kltyl, kltyly, krtyr, kltyr>, Parthian <krtyr>, Greek Karteir , and Coptic Kardel . The name

3960-429: The cluster *θr in particular), but it had been replaced by /h/ by the Sassanid period: The phoneme /ɣ/ (as opposed to the late allophone of /ɡ/ ) is rare and occurs almost only in learned borrowings from Avestan and Parthian , e.g. moγ (Pahlavi mgw or mwg 'Magian'), maγ (Pahlavi mγ ) 'hole, pit'. The sound /ʒ/ may also have functioned as a marginal phoneme in borrowings as well. The phoneme /l/

4050-411: The coinciding forms: thus, even though Book Pahlavi has the same letter shapes for original n , w and r , for original ʾ and ḥ and for original d , g and y , besides having some ligatures that coincide in shape with certain individual letters, these are all transliterated differently. For instance, the spelling of gōspand 'domestic animal' is transliterated gwspnd in spite of the fact that

4140-454: The country, with court cases most likely being based on Zoroastrian jurisprudence except when representatives of other religions had conflicts with each other. Under Bahram II, Kartir unquestionably becomes a powerful figure in the empire; the latter claimed on his inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht that he "struck down" the non-Zoroastrian minorities, such as Christians , Jews , Mandaeans , Manichaeans , and Buddhists . According to

4230-521: The early Middle Persian of the Arsacid period (until the 3rd century CE) and the Middle Persian of the Sassanid period (3rd – 7th century CE) is due to a process of consonant lenition after voiced sounds that took place during the transition between the two. Its effects were as follows: 1. Voiced stops, when occurring after vowels, became semivowels : This process may have taken place very early, but it

4320-464: The early period of Bahram I's rule when Mani still had Shapur I's and Hormizd I's protection; c) the third view is that Manichaeans are included in 'zandik'. The term zandik appears once in the 9th/10th-century texts of Zoroastrian tradition (the so-called Pahlavi books ). In this one instance, in Daedestan i Menog-i Khrad 36.16, the term appears as an abstract noun ('zandikih') and is explained to be

4410-610: The fall of the Achaemenid Empire in the fourth century BCE up to the fall of the Sasanian Empire in the seventh century CE. The most important and distinct development in the structure of Iranian languages of this period is the transformation from the synthetic form of the Old Period ( Old Persian and Avestan ) to an analytic form: The modern-day descendants of Middle Persian are New Persian and Luri . The changes between late Middle and Early New Persian were very gradual, and in

4500-408: The following year; Bahram I, who was never considered a candidate for succession of the throne by his father, ascended the throne with the aid of Kartir, whose authority and influence had greatly increased. Bahram I then made a settlement with his brother Narseh to give up his entitlement to the throne in return for the governorship of the important frontier province of Armenia , which was constantly

4590-479: The following: It has been doubted whether the Middle Persian short mid vowels /e/ and /o/ were phonemic , since they do not appear to have a unique continuation in later forms of Persian and no minimal pairs have been found. The evidence for them is variation between spelling with and without the matres lectionis y and w , as well as etymological considerations. They are thought to have arisen from earlier /a/ in certain conditions, including, for /e/ ,

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4680-422: The hereafter. The word zandik was even speculated to be the proper name of a particular (unattested) priestly school that embraced Zurvanite doctrine, to which a number of unappealing aspects of Zoroastrian religious praxis were then attributed. Modern Iranian scholarship is much less inclined to wild speculation, and these hypothetical constructs are no longer followed today. Noticeably absent from Kartir's list

4770-609: The inscription. Shapur I, a "lukewarm Zoroastrian", was known for his tolerance towards other religions. Although admiring the teachings of his own religion and encouraging the Zoroastrian clergy, Shapur I let the Jews , Christians , Buddhists , and Hindus to freely practice their religion. He was also friendly towards the founder of Manichaeism , Mani , whom he allowed to preach freely and even to be an escort in his military expeditions. Shapur I religious practices seems to have been somewhat unusual, with animal sacrifice being made for

4860-483: The language of the northwestern Iranian peoples of Parthia proper , which lies along the southern/south-eastern edge of the Caspian sea and is adjacent to the boundary between western and eastern Iranian languages. The Parthians called their language Parthawig , meaning "Parthian". Via regular sound changes Parthawig became Pahlawig , from which the word 'Pahlavi' eventually evolved. The -ig in parsig and parthawig

4950-467: The later forms are an (Manichaean ՚n ), and meh (Pahlavi ms and Manichaean myh ); indeed, some scholars have reconstructed them as monosyllabic any , mahy even for Middle Persian. Middle Persian has been written in a number of different scripts. The corpora in different scripts also exhibit other linguistic differences that are partly due to their different ages, dialects and scribal traditions. The Pahlavi scripts are abjads derived from

5040-496: The letter p to express /f/ , and ṣ to express z after a vowel. The widespread use of Aramaeograms in Pahlavi, often existing in parallel with 'phonetic' spellings, has already been mentioned: thus, the same word hašt 'eight' can be spelt hšt or TWMNYA . A curious feature of the system is that simple word stems sometimes have spellings derived from Aramaic inflected forms: the spellings of verb stems include Aramaic inflectional affixes such as -WN , -TWN or -N and Y- ;

5130-438: The modern historian Parvaneh Pourshariati : "[I]t is not clear, however, to what extent Kartir's declarations reflect the actual implementation, or for that matter, success, of the measures he is supposed to have promoted." Indeed, Jewish and Christian sources, for example, make no mention of persecutions during this period. Before Bahram II, all the previous Sasanian emperors had been "lukewarm Zoroastrians". He died in 293 and

5220-431: The modern historian Prods Oktor Skjærvø, "In both Iranist and non-Iranist literature, there has been a tendency to elaboration and hyperbole. Several scholars have taken a strict and critical view of Kartir from their modern, and so irrelevant, vantage point." Zaehner called Kartir a "religious zealot of quite uncommon ardour" and to "the process of intolerance initiated and zestfully developed by Kartir". Russell called him

5310-437: The other hand, is sometimes rendered as ẖ . For original ṭ , the sign ṯ is used. The special Manichaean letters for /x/ , /f/ , [β] , /ɣ/ and [ð] are transcribed in accordance with their pronunciation as x , f , β , γ and δ . Unlike Pahlavi, the Manichaean script uses the letter Ayin also in Iranian words (see below) and it is transliterated in the usual Semitological way as ՙ . Since, like most abjads, even

5400-582: The pairs [x] – [h] and [r] – [l] . Since knowledge of Pahlavi decreased after the Muslim conquest of Iran , the Zoroastrians occasionally transcribed their religious texts into other, more accessible or unambiguous scripts. One approach was to use the Avestan alphabet , a practice known as Pazand ; another was to resort to the same Perso-Arabic script that was already being used for New Persian , and that

5490-429: The persecution of his followers by Kartir and the Zoroastrian clergy, who used the persecution of religious minorities as a method to increase and spread their vast influence. Mani was seen by the Zoroastrian clergy as a heretical philosopher and a threatening pagan who was presenting an obscure perception of Zoroastrianism, which had been tainted by non-Zoroastrian (i.e., Jewish , Buddhist , and Christian ) ideas. With

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5580-473: The presence of a following /n/ , sibilant or front vowel in the next syllable, and for /o/ , the presence of a following labial consonant or the vowel /u/ in the next syllable. Long /eː/ and /oː/ had appeared first in Middle Persian, since they had developed from the Old Persian diphthongs /ai/ and /aw/ . The consonant phonemes were the following: A major distinction between the pronunciation of

5670-543: The rank of wuzurgan "grandee" and appointing him as the dadwar "supreme judge" of the whole empire, which indicates that thenceforth priests were given the office of judge. Kartir was also appointed the steward of the Temple of Anahita, Istakhr , which had originally been under the care of the Sasanian family . The Sasanians thus lost much of their religious authority in the empire. The clergy from now on served as judges all over

5760-442: The same position, possibly earlier; not only was it weakened to a fricative [ʒ] , but it was also depalatalised to [z] . In fact, old Persian [d͡ʒ] and [ʒ] in any position also produced [z] . Unlike the case with the spirantisation of stops, this change is uncontroversially recognised for Sassanid times. The lenition of voiceless stops and affricates remained largely unexpressed in Pahlavi spelling, which continues to reflect

5850-428: The soul of the kings and queens of the Sasanian family. This presumably seemed "pagan" to Zoroastrian priests. Kartir, who "abhorred animal sacrifice" was unable to stop Shapur I from doing them. Shapur I died in 270, and was succeeded by Hormizd I , who gave Kartir clothes that were worn by the upper class, the cap and belt ( kulāf ud kamarband ) and appointed him as the chief priest ( mowbed ). Hormizd I died

5940-411: The spellings of pronouns are often derived from Aramaic prepositional phrases ( tо̄ 'you' is LK , originally Aramaic lk 'to you', о̄y 'he' is OLE , originally Aramaic ʿlh 'onto him'); and inalienable nouns are often noun phrases with pronominal modifiers ( pidar 'father' is ABYtl , originally Aramaic ʾby 'my father', pāy 'foot' is LGLE , originally Aramaic rglh 'his foot'). Furthermore,

6030-514: The state of affairs in living Middle Persian only indirectly. The surviving manuscripts are usually 14th-century copies. Other, less abundantly attested varieties are Manichaean Middle Persian , used for a sizable amount of Manichaean religious writings, including many theological texts, homilies and hymns (3rd–9th, possibly 13th century), and the Middle Persian of the Church of the East , evidenced in

6120-465: The subject of war between the Roman and Sasanian Empires. Narseh held the title of Vazurg Šāh Arminān ("Great King of Armenia"), which was used by the heir to the throne. Nevertheless, Narseh still most likely viewed Bahram I as a usurper. The previous Sasanian emperors had pursued a policy of religious tolerance towards the non-Zoroastrian minorities in the empire. However, with Bahram I 's accession to

6210-437: The systemization had any effect on the general populace in Sassanid times itself (or whether this first occurred in the post-Sassanian period). However, literary and epigraphic evidence from the third century onwards indicates that Sassanid-era priests in positions of authority persecuted individuals who held beliefs that were in not in accord with their (Sassanid-mediated) brand of Zoroastrianism. Among this epigraphic evidence are

6300-439: The term was commonly assumed to first explain 'Manichaean', and to then have developed a meaning of 'heretic' as a secondary development. In that model, the term referred to Manichaeans because of their disposition to interpret and explain the scriptures of other religions in accordance with their own ideas. Under the Sassanids (224-651 CE), the previously informal indigenous Iranian religious tradition now known as 'Zoroastrianism'

6390-459: The thirteenth most heinous crime. Middle Persian Middle Persian , also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script : 𐭯𐭠𐭫𐭮𐭩𐭪 , Manichaean script : 𐫛𐫀𐫡𐫘𐫏𐫐 ‎ , Avestan script : 𐬞𐬀𐬭𐬯𐬍𐬐 ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire . For some time after

6480-404: The throne, and the rise of the authority of the Zoroastrian priesthood and the increasing influence of Kartir, this changed; when Mani reached the city of Gundeshapur , much uproar occurred, in the same fashion as Jesus entry into Jerusalem . Kartir, along with other Zoroastrian priests protested and made Bahram I have Mani imprisoned and sentenced to death in 274. Mani's death was followed by

6570-451: The transition of /θ/ to /h/ in some words (in front of /r/ this reflex is due to Parthian influence, since the Middle Persian reflex should have been /s/ ). In such words, the spelling may have s or, in front of r – t . For example, gāh 'place, time' is spelt gʾs (cf. Old Persian gāθu ) and nigāh '(a) look' is spelt nkʾs ; šahr 'country, town' is spelt štr' (cf. Avestan xsaθra ) and mihr 'Mithra, contract, friendship'

6660-628: The transliteration). Similarly, the letter d may stand for /j/ after a vowel, e.g. pʾd for pāy 'foot' – this is no longer apparent in Book Pahlavi due to the coincidence of the shapes of the original letters y , d and g , but is already clearly seen in Inscriptional and Psalter Pahlavi. Indeed, it even appears to have been the general rule word-finally, regardless of the word's origins, although modern transliterations of words like xwadāy ( xwtʾd ) and mēnōy ( mynwd ) do not always reflect this analogical / pseudo-historical spelling. Final īy

6750-475: The use of original Aramaic h is restricted to heterograms (transliterated E in MacKenzie's system, e.g. LGLE for pāy 'foot'). Not only /p/ , but also the frequent sound /f/ is expressed by the letter p , e.g. plhw' for farrox 'fortunate'. While the original letter r is retained in some words as an expression of the sound /r/ , especially in older frequent words and Aramaeograms (e.g. štr' for šahr 'country, town', BRTE for duxt 'daughter'), it

6840-399: The word zandik . Although the precise meaning of zandik is not evident from Kartir's use of the term, it is commonly assumed to mean 'heretic', or 'unorthodox' in relation to Kartir's ideology. However, none of Kartir's inscriptions actually define the contents of his orthodoxy. From this inscription and another at Sar Mashad, it appears that the only doctrine that Kartir was concerned with

6930-732: Was a regular Middle Iranian appurtenant suffix for "pertaining to". The New Persian equivalent of -ig is -i . When the Arsacids (who were Parthians) came to power in the 3rd-century BCE, they inherited the use of written Greek (from the successors of Alexander the Great ) as the language of government. Under the cultural influence of the Greeks ( Hellenization ), some Middle Iranian languages, such as Bactrian , also had begun to be written in Greek script . But yet other Middle Iranian languages began to be written in

7020-516: Was adopted for at least four other Middle Iranian languages, one of which was Middle Persian. In the 3rd-century CE, the Parthian Arsacids were overthrown by the Sassanids , who were natives of the south-west and thus spoke Middle Persian as their native language. Under Sassanid hegemony, the Middle Persian language became a prestige dialect and thus also came to be used by non-Persian Iranians. In

7110-461: Was already common in the 19th century when Christian Bartholomae (1885), derived zandik from Avestan zanda , which he treated as a name of certain heretics. Zindīq (زنديق) or Zandik (𐭦𐭭𐭣𐭩𐭪) was initially used to negatively denote the followers of the Manichaeism religion in the Sasanian Empire . By the time of the 8th-century Abbasid Caliphate , however, the meaning of the word zindīq and

7200-609: Was also used in the northeastern Iranian world, being spelt <krt'yr> in Sogdian and as Kirdira in Bactrian . Kartir may have been a eunuch , due to being depicted without a beard in the Sasanian reliefs. He first appears in historical records in Shapur I's inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht , which was most likely created between 260 and 262. Kartir is the only religious bureaucrat mentioned in

7290-411: Was mediated and formalized into the systemized configuration with which it survives today. The Denkard , a 9th-11th century work of Zoroastrian tradition, attributes this systemization of doctrine—in which certain beliefs and traditions were seen as definite while others were considered unacceptable—to an initiative by Tansar, high priest under Ardashir I , the founder of the dynasty. The development of

7380-552: Was merely a regular Middle Iranian adjectivizing suffix. An alternative interpretation that explains both 'Manichaean' and 'heretic' derives the substantive in zandik from Avestan 𐬰𐬀𐬥 zan 'to know, to explain', which is also the origin of Middle Persian ' zand ' (a class of exegetical commentaries) and ' Pazand ' (a writing system). In this explanation, the term zandik came to be applied to anyone who gave greater weight to human interpretation than to scripture (perceived to be divinely transmitted). Prior to Schaeder's review,

7470-419: Was on the last syllable. That was due to the fact that any Old Persian post-stress syllables had been apocopated : It has been suggested that words such as anīy 'other' (Pahlavi spelling AHRN , AHRNy d , Manichaean ՚ny ) and mahīy 'bigger' (Manichaean mhy ) may have been exceptionally stressed on the first syllable, since the last one was apocopated already in the course of the Middle Persian period:

7560-452: Was referred to as Pārsī. Since these methods were used at a relatively late linguistic stage, these transcriptions often reflect a very late pronunciation close to New Persian. In general, Inscriptional Pahlavi texts have the most archaic linguistic features, Manichaean texts and the Psalter exhibit slightly later, but still relatively early language stages, and while the Pahlavi translations of

7650-425: Was regularly written y d . In the same way, (w)b may also correspond to a w in the pronunciation after a vowel. The fortition of initial /j/ to /d͡ʒ/ (or /ʒ/ ) is not reflected either, so y can express initial /d͡ʒ/ , e.g. yʾm for ǰām 'glass' (while it still expresses /j/ in the learned word y z dt' for yazd 'god'). Some even earlier sound changes are not consistently reflected either, such as

7740-555: Was retained/reintroduced in learned borrowings from Avestan . Furthermore, some forms of Middle Persian appear to have preserved ǰ (from Proto-Iranian /d͡ʒ/ or /t͡ʃ/ ) after n due to Parthian influence, instead of the usual weakening to z . This pronunciation is reflected in Book Pahlavi, but not in Manichaean texts: Judging from the spelling, the consonant /θ/ may have been pronounced before /r/ in certain borrowings from Parthian in Arsacid times (unlike native words, which had /h/ for earlier *θ in general and /s/ for

7830-446: Was still relatively rare as well, especially so in Manichaean texts, mostly resulting from Proto-Iranian *rd, *rz and, more rarely, *r. It also occurred in the combination /hl/ , which was a reflex of Old Persian /rθ/ and /rs/ (cf. the words 'Pahlavi' and 'Parthian'). The sound /xw/ may be viewed as a phoneme or merely as a combination of /x/ and /w/ . Usually /x/ , /xw/ and /ɣ/ are considered to have been velar ;

7920-442: Was succeeded by his son Bahram III . Four months into Bahram III's reign, Narseh was summoned to Mesopotamia at the request of many members of the nobility. He met them in the passage of Paikuli in the province of Garmekan , where he was firmly approved and likely also declared shah for the first time. The reasons behind the nobles' favour of Narseh might have been due to his jurisdiction as governor, his image as an advocate of

8010-420: Was the belief in a hereafter, a heaven and a hell, with one or the other as the final destination of the soul as reward or punishment for deeds in this life. Nonetheless, in 1920s-1960s scholarship, Kartir's silence on the subject precipitated an ex silencio view that the 'heresy' in question must have been Zurvanism , a now-extinct branch of Zoroastrianism influenced by Hellenistic and/or Babylonian notions of

8100-491: Was the state religion of Sasanian Iran (224 to c. 650) before the Muslim conquest of Persia . The earliest texts in Zoroastrian Middle Persian were probably written down in late Sasanian times (6th–7th centuries), although they represent the codification of earlier oral tradition. However, most texts date from the ninth to the 11th century, when Middle Persian had long ceased to be a spoken language, so they reflect

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