Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 561 g
The Zoroastrian Book of Creation
Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 561 g
ISBN: 978-0-19-087904-4
Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR
The Bundahišn, meaning primal or foundational creation, is the central Zoroastrian account of creation, cosmology, and eschatology. Compiled sometime in the ninth century CE, it is one of the most important surviving testaments to Zoroastrian literature in the Middle Persian language and to pre-Islamic Iranian culture. Despite having been composed some two millennia after the Prophet Zoroaster's revelation, it is nonetheless a concise compendium of ancient Zoroastrian knowledge that draws on and reshapes earlier layers of the tradition.
Well known in the field of Iranian Studies as an essential primary source for scholars of ancient Iran's history, religions, literatures, and languages, the Bundahišn is also a great work of literature in and of itself, ranking alongside the creation myths of other ancient traditions. The book's thirty-six diverse chapters, which touch on astronomy, eschatology, zoology, medicine, and more, are composed in a variety of styles, registers, and genres, from spare lists and concise commentaries to philosophical discourses and poetic eschatological visions. This new translation, the first in English in nearly a century, highlights the aesthetic quality, literary style, and complexity and raises the profile of pre-Islamic Zoroastrian literature.
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
- Foreword by Shaul Shaked
- Introduction
- Prologue
- 1: On Material Creation
- 2: On the Creation of the Lights
- 3: On Why Creation Chose to Fight
- 4: On How the Adversary Attacked Creation
- 5: On the Opposition of the Two Spirits
- 6: On the Stages of the Battle of the Material Creation against the Evil Spirit
- 7: On the Likenesses of the Creatures
- 8: On the Nature of the Lands
- 9: On the Nature of the Mountains
- 10: On the Nature of the Seas
- 11: On the Nature of the Rivers
- 12: On the Nature of Lakes
- 13: On the Nature of the Five Forms of Animals
- 14: On the Nature of Mankind
- 15: On the Nature of the Birth of All Species
- 16: On the Nature of Plants
- 17: On the Mastery of Men, Animals, and Everything
- 18: On the Nature of Fire
- 19: On Sleep
- 20: On Songs
- 21: On the Nature of Wind, Clouds and Rain
- 22: On Vermin
- 23: On the Nature of the Wolf Species
- 24: On Various Things: How they were Created, and how their Adversaries Came
- 25: On the Religious Year
- 26: On the Great Deeds of the Spiritual Deities
- 27: On Ahriman and the Demons' Evil Deeds
- 28: On the Human Body as the Measure of the Material World
- 29: On the Mastery of the Continents
- 30: On the Cinwad Bridge and the Souls of the Departed
- 31: On the Celebrated Lands of Iran, and the Kayanid House
- 32: On the Glorious Kayanid Palaces, which they call Wonders and Marvels
- 33: On the Calamities that have Befallen Iran, Millenium by Millenium
- 34: On Resurrection and the Final Body
- 35: On the Family and Lineage of Kayanids and on the Lineage of Porusasp
- 36: On the Chronology of the Arabs of Twelve Thousand Years
- Afterword by Guy G. Stroumsa
- Bibliography
- Notes
- Index
