 Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Before I begin, I just want to take a minute or two to just explain what I will be discussing. I am talking about how Zoroastrians in the Sasanian period mainly attempted to reconstruct their past. When they did it, how they thought about it and how much do we know? Perhaps the paper is more about how much we don't know than how much we know because people like myself pontificate quite a lot about how and how they constructed the sacred history. So that is what the talk is about, okay? Approximately at the time when Mohammed Ibn Jarir al-Tabari was compiling his tariqa Rasul wal-Muluk, al-Durbadi imidon was compiling the dinkad and along with other Zoroastrian sages, they were attempting to redact the important pahlavi texts. Thus, the coming of the Abbasids and establishment of Islam appears to have propelled many to write a history of the past according to their communal perspective. This includes Christians and Jews as well. This, of course, had already begun during the late Sasanian period for the Zoroastrians. It seems necessary to put to pen the events of the past so that the leaders of the community of those of the good religion, Behdi Naan, would be able to pass down their memory to the future co-religionists. In this new sacred historiographical report, which the dinkad four is the best known source in terms of sacred narrative, the two most important polarizing and devastating events is the coming of Alexander and that of the Arabs. One killed Majaz and tore Sunder the Avesta and brought doubt and heterodoxy. So much so that even with the coming of the Sasanians, high priests such as Kairdir, Adour Badeh Meir Spandan and Behshapur had to go through ordeals and make journeys to heaven and hell and meet deities to establish an orthodoxy if such a thing ever existed. The Arabs in turn invaded Iran's Shah and stayed there where they spread their religion and weakened and enfeebled the good religion. Certainly, our authors believe that no calamity compared to this that had be fallen Iran Shah and the Zoroastrian religion. It was now up to Adour Badeh Emidon and others to retrieve the scattered knowledge and the commentary on the Avesta to bring yet again the lost orthodoxy emits the rampant heterodox movements. If we are to follow Patricia Crona's new work entitled Nativist Prophets, indeed there were many of these heterodox movements, including those led by Sonbat, Baabak, Ishaq, Al-Muqannah, Baha Farid, Ustad Sees and a host of other motley prophets, trans-migrators of soul and time, which had all sorts of Zoroastrian elements attached to them. Indeed, if there was a time to put to pen the events of the past to protect the true history of the good religion, it must be now emits the religious chaos in the relative calm of Baghdad. As Duminash observed long ago, as Islam was gaining grounds and epics were being absorbed into the Persian literature, in a Muslim-like garb, there was an anxiety to preserve what was important for Zoroastrianism. Thus, in the ninth century, a history or memory of the past was redacted in response to Islam. At the moment that the Islamic histories were appropriating, histories of the conquered people, so namely, again, Tabari, Dinawari, Hamz al-Isfahani and others who were indeed stripping the nature of this Persian past. But this process of Zoroastrian history had begun in the Sassanian period. Certainly, by the sixth century, when history was put into writing, where now a literary, along an already existing oral tradition, side by side was retelling the stories of the past, where one was fixed while the other was changing continuously. In this talk, I intend to discuss the way the religious and mythical or historical traditions were used in order to construct a new history in late antique Iran. By late antiquity, I'm talking about between 206 or 700 CE or AD. Initially, I had made up my mind that I would say something about perhaps before the sixth century, and I will in some ways, and the refashioning of the past. Now, when I started writing this paper, I think we can say very little about the time before the fifth century BC, in terms of what the Sassanians historically believed in, or what they inherited in terms of historical knowledge. In fact, if we are honest, one can not say anything concretely about the historical memory of the Iranian people before the fifth or sixth century of common era. Even someone like Arthur Christensen, whose historicizing tendencies is well known, had stated, I quote, the vague idea that Persia had been in continual warfare with the Greeks is perhaps the only remembrance which had remained from the Achaemenid times, i.e., the past, meaning not much of a historical memory. One should, I think, always look at the work of the older scholars because they have said much of what we try to say again, and this is what Christensen had already said in 1931 on his book on the Qianids. Let us see what the evidence is for the third century with the establishment of the Sassanian Empire, where there seems to be a change in religious ideology, even though our ancestors or other, I'm sorry, though our sources are late in this regard. Professor D. Jung's sober skepticism raises some important points which we take, I think, for granted. I'd like to reiterate the now much discussed notion that the early Sassanians and the Sassanian inscriptions in the third century, specifically Shopwood I's natural stem inscription, there the king of kings that is Shopwood I could not recount more than three of his generations before him, his ancestors, at the Shirbawak and Sassan. So his Ahinegan, as in Middle Persian or ancestors beyond this point, cannot be established, and there are hundreds of articles about this and several books, and none of it is convincing, I think. While by the time the Middle Persian texts, these are the late Pahlavi texts, the Bundahish in the ninth century, and Tabari, approximately the same time, what we have is a detailed genealogy of the Sassanians which was constructed that goes all the way to the past, to the distant past, to give legitimacy to the Sassanian king, well to the Sassanian kings and the dynasty. Ardeshire Babakan, in his genealogy, at least in the late Sassanian, early Islamic period, he's connected to Darayid Darayan, which could be Darayid's the third most probably, the last Achaemenid king, or as Akhtar Sherba has suggested, the conflation of the last Achaemenid king of kings with the memory of the kings of Persis, since we had Daraz, as they are found in Pahlavi texts. And again, this, after all, is a late sixth or seventh century compilation, and as the Karnamagya Ardeshire Babakan, the vitae of Ardeshire, the son of Babak, suggests, as Franz Grenin has also mentioned, it was a reading staple of the late Sassanian or the Abbasid court, and I think Antonio has given interesting dating in regards to the text itself. That is, the text is late. In the Karnamagya Ardeshire Babakan, the gentleman right here that you're seeing his coinage and the rock relief, it is said that Ardeshire is from the Nafe Daray Shah, from the lineage of King Daray. But this is a late source and an epic romance, and as a historian, I'm talking here, of course. So we can only turn to the perhaps the Manichean papayur, which Heinrich and Conan edited and published, which provides the tantalizing name Dariv Ardachshir for the founder of the Sassanian Empire. This has made some waves and people discuss this because they say, at least an alternative source and earlier, perhaps, is relating the last Achaemenid king to Ardeshire. But this papayuri is a fifth century work. So even the papayuri is late, is not from the time of Ardeshire. Then what do we know of what the early Sassanians knew or said of their past in the third century? Almost nothing. Everything is basically guessed. The classicists will turn to us and say, well, I'm Janus Marcellanus, and then Herodian in the fourth century turns and tell us about how the Sassanians make proclamations that, you know, this part belong to our ancestors. But that's within the context of classical historiography. They may be refashioning this based on their knowledge of the Achaemenids. We don't know if the Sassanians are saying, in fact, these matters. It is in the late fourth century and through the actions of Shopul, who you're seeing here all the way to the right-hand side, the second, that changes begin to develop in Sassanian views of themselves and probably their past. Again, I'm saying probably, so you see I'm still on shaky grounds. Shopul, the second after 350 CE, middle of fourth century, turned his attention to the east as the chronicle of Arbela gives us some interesting information and probably defeated his foes and established Sassanian domination over the Kushans. So Eastern Iran mainly now going to the Indo-Iranian borderlands. The two Middle Persian inscriptions that we possess from the time of Shopul, the second, mention his eastern boundaries, that is the boundaries of the Sassanian empire in the east, to send Sistan and Turan. Again, that is not clear. Amianus, writing almost at the same time, lists the provinces of the Sassanian empire and gives us this very deep Sassanian incursion into the east. So where he mentions the Bactriani, the Soctiani, Scythia at the foot of Imauus, and beyond that, Arkhazia and Gedrosia. Finally, most of the gold coins minted by this gentleman who you are seeing his rock relief are from eastern mints, such as Mav, where the Kushans also minted coins. So it's based on this evidence. We can probably say that yes, he was present in the east and it's the first time the Sassanians have made this deep inroads into the east. And I should say there's a large quantity of now copper coins that are known from the time of Shopul, which are again from the mints of Sistan and Kabul, so exactly where the Kushans are at least in Kabul. And that's where we're finding this gentleman's or this king of kings coinage. It is also during Shopul's or Shopul II's rule that we, with regards to Zoroastrianism, hear of the towering figure of the 4th century, namely Adurba the Maharspandon, which is credited with some sort of codification of the Vesta and the weeding out of heresy. Again, here Dinkert IV beside Dinkert III is a very good source. I quote, Shopul, the king of kings, son of Hormuz, induced all countrymen to orient themselves to God by disputation and put forth all traditions for consideration and examination. After the triumph of Adurba through his declaration put to trial by Ordeal, which all those sectaries and heretics were recognized or studied the NASCs, parts of the Vesta, he made the following statement. Now that we have gained an insight into the religion and the worldly existence, we shall not tolerate any one of false religion and we shall be more zealous. Thus it appears that there was a great Senate or council, at least if we can get from this passage, in which all people, Middle Persian, Kishwari Ghan, probably meaning Zoroastrian theologians as well, discussed the Zoroastrian material available. It is clear that there was difference of opinion because we are supplied with the host of terms for different Zoroastrian sects, Jutri Stagon, those of different groups, Jutsar Dagon, and those who studied the NASC, NASC or Shmurdan of the Vesta. In the apocalyptic Pahlavi literature, Shopul II is fondly remembered as the one who arranged the world or arranged law or religion, Daad Arayid, and made salvation current among the creatures, Bukhtagipad Daman of the world. And Adurbad is remembered as the restorer of the religion, Din Rast Virast Dar, against the heretics, Jutri Stagon. Shopul II with the aid of Adurbad probably attempted to bring about order and doctrinal unity in the Zoroastrian religion. No doubt the threat of Christianity induced the King of Kings to not only persecute Christians at the time when they were proselytizing, but also create strong Zoroastrian structures for his co-religionist, still no history, I think, in terms of the construction for this time. So it's in the fourth century, and with Shopul, that I would suggest several important developments are taking place. One may suggest that the Sasanians are being reintroduced to this eastern Iranian world, and there are some suggestions that in fact they're encountering the epic tradition and perhaps the Avestan tradition, or some form of the tradition that existed in the Avesta. Secondly, I think Zoroastrianism begins to have some sort of organization more concretely, which is in reaction, of course, to Christianity. And it's at almost the same time that Talmud is being composed. And third, finally, this is just my fleeting suggestion, I would suggest that Persian became an important language, which in time became the lingua francaf, Central Asian, Greater Khorasan. The big question is when did Persian take hold in this Central Asiatic or Greater Khorasan? And I think this deep incursion of Shopul, the second, and stationing is the beginning of this process in mass. By the fifth century, as a result of encounter with the east, resulted probably in the Sasanian adoption of Avestan names as well and titles. I will just read some of these fifth century kings, Kabat, Kabus, titles, Ram, Shah, Kai, and then, of course, the name of the great, one of the last great Sasanian kings, Khosro, are all connected with this sacred, either you want to call it epic or the Avestan tradition. And of course, the inclusion of the word Khware on the coinage of Khosro, I don't think it's on this coinage of Khosro, but it appears from the 11th year of the reign of Khosro, that is 610. I think is a further indication with this preoccupation and this interest in this past of the Iranian world that something had changed in the ideological orientation of the Sasanians in the fifth century. On the other hand, dialogue and interaction with Jews and Christians from the time of Yazgert the first to Yazgert the second and these are fifth century monarchs. Biblical tradition related to Achaemenids began to be reminded to the Sasanians as their ancestors. This we have to accept if we are to believe Christian and Jewish sources where the memory of the past that is the Achaemenids were put forth to the King of Kings. We're told that in 544 CE, 6th century, a Nestorian ecclesiastical council called Khosro the first the new Cyrus. But how much of this type of statement affected the Sasanians? We cannot tell. They could have used such a propaganda when needed but in all effects we hear and see is different where the world of the Avesta and its tradition has taken hold with the Sasanians. Now this could be the oral tradition and not text necessarily. Talking about the Avesta and its dating is a daunting task at the moment and I wouldn't even dare to say anything but my colleague and friend Johann Rewiner never lets me forget that the oldest Avesta manuscript is from the 14th century and Jean Kellens' recent article and the Achaemenids and the Avesta he has again given some interesting ideas and also said that even the term itself Avesta and anything such as a book is from the Sasanian period. It is a Sasanian production but if we also take the idea that the Avestan alphabet was being invented also in the 4th century during the time of Shahpur II then there was a good moment to have an Avestan book come into being by the 5th or 6th century. By the 6th century when Khosrow the 1st ordered the composition of the Khudai Namak so now we have some more concrete evidence that for the first time it's the 6th century Khudai Namak the Book of Lords the Book of Kings to be written this oral tradition was probably partly put down for posterity as the history of Iran's past this past had as it appears from the Khudai Namak inspired sources dimension of traditions in the east captured in the Avesta. Jean Kellens has again made very important observations that the Avesta provides the mythical history of the Arya and the Iranians and how the Qianids are made into a dynasty and whatnot. If one previews the Avesta with a historical eye one can deduce that the Yash specifically Yash 5th, 10th, 13th and 19th among others provides glimpses of a narrative which the Sassanians considered to be their ancient history. These hymns along the Vedic Dodd demonstrate a geographical setting for the Iranians as well. It is significant that the Avesta was put in its final form during the Sassanian period probably very close to the time that the national history of the Iranians or the Sassanians that is the Khudai Namak is also being put to writing. So it is no surprise that the Khudai Namak is heavily influenced by Avestan lore geographically and historically. What is important to note is that this geographical horizon and kings and heroes of the past began to be associated with the Iranian Plateau and its late antique or late ancient kings the Sassanians one can even go further and state that many of the Sassanian kings acted and conducted themselves according to the customs of the ancient kings and potentates of the Avestan yashes. In a sense they were playing a part in the narrative epic of the past and I will give you one example at the end of this talk. This ancestral past is then connected with the tragic murder of Dara which we talked about earlier and the destruction of the Zoroastrian priest and the Avesta by Alexander. Whatever and wherever this memory came from and it could be perhaps genuine priestly tradition which in turn also preserved Dara the coming of Alexander is an important point in the great break from the past. Then the Arsasids make a brief a very brief appearance in the sacred tradition with Balaksh that is in the Dinkad who is responsible for collecting the sacred tradition and then in the Shah Name those who probably most of you have come across this this passage I read Chokhuta Bodshakhohan Bi-Khishan Nagu'yat Jahan Didi Tari-Khishan Az-Iraj Az-Nam Nash-Nidam Nadar-Namay-Khusravan Didam Since their genealogy and lineage was short no worldly person can retell their history. From them I have heard nothing but their name nor have I seen anything in the book of kings. One could argue that it may be that the Arsasids who were aware of the Achaemenids or were aware of the Achaemenids what is interesting is the change in Arsasid imperial ideology which pushed these Philhelens friendly to Greek cultures lovers of Greek culture to gravitate towards the Iranian tradition specifically those of the Achaemenids but this connection even if known by the Sasanians would have brought little interest in the preservation in the national history or tradition. In Zoroastrian memory the Arsasids were never rehabilitated. In a unique and interesting Middle Persian text this is the MU manuscript there is a short apocalyptic text the memory of the Arsasids make an appearance. I quote and the third the brazen branch which Hugh Zoroaster saw is the rulership of the Arsasids Ashkianian is manifested where they conducted themselves sinfully and ruled Iran Shahr in the manner of Alexander of evil lineage and they will destroy the good religion. This clear indictment of the Arsasids however a late Pahlavi text may be suggests a disdain for this dynasty which ruled the Iranian plateau for almost five centuries and probably by Alexander they're including the solucid so there's a 500 year period of rulership which is just condensed into very little and then another past is created by the late Sasanian five minutes thank you so by the late Sasanian period the sacred history was refashioned which reused ancient monuments of the Iranian plateau with a western type tradition from eastern Iran coordinating and moving the sacred history and location from the east to the Iranian plateau in this way Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrians refashioned Iran's textual and topographical history this history was temporarily temporarily removed from what the Judeo-Christian tradition knew and what the Greco-Romans had remembered this new historical orientation had ideological underpinnings which gave cause to the Sasanian interaction with their eastern and western neighbors meaning the Romans and the Turks since I have five minutes I'll just rapidly talk to rather than actually read but not rapidly talk but according to Persian tradition which is based on this reconstruction of the late Sasanian period of course the world is divided by Feredun to his Trissons right Sal, Tour and Eiraj and of course there is a fratricide that goes on and then you might say the war of the worlds began right and we have not only Pahlavi materials related to that but also we have of course the Book of Kings telling us of course in the Avesta the frauashis the spirits of all of these three groups are remembered kindly so the frauashis of the Aryan countries the Turanian countries and the Sairiman countries all of them are in fact nicely recounted it is in the Pahlavi and later the of course Persian literature and epic texts that we see are much different perhaps or more drastic I think difficulty between these three tribes or three groups of people I would say the Sasanians then saw a constructed relation of the past between themselves and their neighbors the Romans and their other neighbors the Turks in a very different light they are working within this very epic or you might call it religious historiography where these people were they're related to them and in fact in Latin when we were told by Amianus Marcellanus and then by other classical sources Procopius Tiophylactus Simucata in Greek that the Roman or Byzantine emperors called the Sasanian kings Fratrimio my brother the Sasanians actually were taking this literally as their brother according to their sacred narrative this is just not a gesture which of course the Romans were bestowing on the Sasanians but the Sasanians were taking it very differently to conclude to just make an example of how these kings are playing out in this epic past and in this new historiographical tradition when Hosro the second the last here is the Grotto of Hosro when he has difficulty with Vahram and Chuvine in years 595-91 he has to run to the west and his father Hormoz the fifth at least in the book of kings tells him and I will skip the Persian he says if you desire to leave your land and home then swiftly go from here to Rome and tell the Caesar what I in my hard-pressed condition seek from him as aid in that place there are men and provisions he is well-equipped with weapons and truths but this is more important the descendants of Feridun in that land are your kinsmen when your affairs are in difficulty they will come to you and hence I think there is actually genuine at least historiographical construct by the seventh century that these are their kinsmen and so so they're operating on a very different level to conclude to read one passage I would say that this explains much in terms of the foreign relations between the Sasanians and the Romans which the Romans couldn't exactly understand what these guys are talking about I would conclude with this passage from Minug-e-Kharat chapter 20 which gives us this late Sasanian early Islamic period view of Zoroastrian historiography in the pure religion it is clearly manifested that the central reason for the animosity of the Romans and the Turks towards Iranians is because of the revenge which they implanted with the killing of Iraç and till the restoration at the end of time it will continue thank you so thank you very much indeed ladies and gentlemen dear colleagues before to begin my talk I would like to thank the organizers of this wonderful exhibition for their kind invitation which gives me the opportunity to present a large public with an intriguing subject as that of early Iranian vision of heaven and or with a more archaic definition that show called uranography that is the vision of the Uranus of the heaven this intricate subject is certainly linked with Iranian celestial mythology that we can analyze on the basis of the Avestan and Middle Iranian sources in particular from Zoroastrian Pahlavi books and Middle Persian Parthian and Soviet documents in Manichaean texts and fragments but also with the help of a number of Arabic and medieval Latin astronomical and astrological books normally it is ignored that we have certain Latin astronomical texts which contain translation from Arabic astrological texts which are full of Pahlavi words full of Middle Iranian concepts and ideas just in Latin and we don't have the intermediate version in Arabic so you will see that this matter is compellingly multicultural and multi-linguistic and this makes it very thrilling because it shows the high level of communication existing in antiquity in subjects as astral lore astronomy and astrology in order to make things very clear astral mythology and astrology are not the same thing for instance then we find an astral myth as vet of Tishtria in Avesta the star Sirius we have no astrological ideas in it there is no reference to any zodiacal constellation or to any geometrical figure determined by the positions of different stars and planets as we will see more in detail this is just a mythic event which reflects some astronomical facts it's true but here astrology is completely absent astrology as we can see for instance from the Pachlavi horoscopes of the Bundahitian is a sort of grammar of the heaven based on a geomathematical vision of the heaven a clear division of the ecliptic into houses and into signs with a good knowledge of the planetary phenomena and of the planetary position so for instance here you see Mercury which is Tyr a good knowledge of the movements and of the position of the single constellations and planets and of the moon of the phenomena of the moon and of the sun with a well developed competence in the interpretation of the mutual geometrical positions of the planets the luminaries according to the different hours of the day and of the night it's fundamental also the presence of references to the four cardiness medium celli emum sorry medium celli emum celli ascendant and ascendant so the four points of the horoscope which in reality have been misused in popular tradition because for instance in the so-called what we call horoscope is not a horoscope it's a thema and if it is referred to the birth day of a person it's a thema natalis so the description of the destiny of a person with regard to starting with the day of his of the day and the hour of his birth but horoscope technically means the ascending point on the horizon so we normally use to name horoscope what it is not an horoscope but it is the ascendant all these terms this technical expression refers to astrology and belong to a technicality which is completely inexistent in a western sources but it is part of a culture of middle Persian literature and of course it was part of late antique and inevitably also partian and surely Zoroastrian middle Persian tradition for this reason so we can speak simply of Avestan celestial mythology and of early Iranian uranography if we refer to the ancient past of the Iranians only middle Iranian text we will find well developed astrological conception ultimately of Greek Indian and in particular cases also of Egyptian and Babylonian origins these traditions were mixed or superposed to the old Iranian heritage with very interesting solutions some of which I would like to describe today the Avestan texts clearly mentioned the sun Khvar Khwarek Shaita Khorshid of course in later Iranian languages the moon Makh the stars star as single bodies or in form of constellations while no patent reference is given to the planets this datum testifies the antiquity and for a certain extent the primitivism of the Avestan uranography we can also underline that apparently no lunar mention or station seems to be attested in the Avesta while 27 or 28 lunar stations or nakshatras appears only in the pachlavi text but very probably through an Indian influence the sun the moon and the stars we are considered minor divine beings to be properly called yasatas or venerable ones the sixth and the seventh hymns of the Avestan corpus are in fact dedicated to the sun and the moon while the eighth yasht is that which was offered to the yasata tstria the star sirius this hymn is very important for all knowledge for all knowledge of all the Iranian celestial mythology the star sirius in fact was represented as the rain bringer par excellence tstria is the Iranian protagonist of the myth of the liberation of the waters more or less like indra in the edict literature according to his mythological cycle the waters are imprisoned in the vorukasha sea by a demon named apasha tstria before fighting with this demon changes his body in that of a young of a 15 years old man then in that of a golden horde bull and finally in that of a beautiful white horse with golden ears and a golden bridle each transformation takes on 10 days at this point tstria descends to the vorukasha sea and attacks apasha which is described like an horrible black horse in its turn also the vorukasha sea seems to assume the form of a mare after a first combat during three days and nights tstria is defeated and runs away sadly lamenting his defeat then he prays our amazda and our amazda offers a sacrifice in order to strengthen his champion Sirius given with these new powers tstria again moves against apasha and finally beats and defeats him frees the vorukasha sea and the waters they are imprisoned the clouds and the mists rise from the sea and the wind and the star satavisa the star having 100 servants probably which should be identified with formal hout alfapri pishis austrini distribute the reins with the help of apam napat and the reins are given to the seven parts of the world the seven kishvars or karshvars as in a western the second part of the tstria was dedicated to another mythological tradition or to the struggle of Sirius and his army the fixed stars against the pyrikas the witches also called staro kermo or star worms and in particular against their chief the pyrika dujjairia the bad year which I have explained this myth if supposing that these pyrikas represent the shooting the shooting stars sorry in fact these starred worms are described as falling between the earth and the sky unfortunately in the pachlaby literature they play no role and we only know from the bundahisna the mush parig the mouse which called dumbo mand tailed which was probably a sort of comet if this explanation of the myth is correct a western cosmology shows an interesting idea the fixed stars with very regular movement of our orbit represent the cosmic order while the shooting stars comets or meteors contrary wise represented disorder famine and drought this solution is well fitting with the Zoroastrian dualistic patterns it is also interesting to underline that according to the tishtaryasht chapter 39 Sirius overcomes the pyrikas whom Angra Mainu flung with intention to oppose all the stars the originators of the rains in this image I just give the references to the meteoric showers showing that in the month in which the eliacal rising of Sirius was at the top so it was very high in the heaven the meteoric showers had a very high evidence and presence so that a correspondence between the presence of Sirius and the presence of meteors can be really assessed in any case I would like to attract your attention on some problems connected with the cycle of tishtarya the importance given to the star Sirius is probably linked with the mesopotamian background in fact Sirius is described as an arrow thrown by the best archer of the Arians Urksha Ursus while already in Sumerian documents the star Sirius was named Mulkak Zizá arrow a word which was explained in Akkadian with the forms Shiltahu and Shukudo Thus it is certainly interesting to note that also Vedic Tisya to be identified with Sirius co-operate is an archer who cooperates with Rudra and Krishan in the Rigveda in China because also I have given here the Chinese constellation we have the Celestial Emperor who is Tien Lang who is the archer again so we have in any case the same pattern the star Sirius or is a star or is the archer or it is in any case connected with constellation which has the form of a bow with an arrow this happens from China to Egypt too it is clear that the Iranian peoples made a strong re-elaboration of the myth of the liberation of the waters and Tishtria was given with a particular function according to a special view of the sky thus as the brightest star of heaven he was called the lord and overseer of all the stars as Zaratustra is the lord or the overseer of the of man in addition we must consider the strong antagonism attested in the Zoroastrian cosmology between fixed stars and shooting stars strictly connected with the cycle of the liberation of the waters I would like also to remark that just as the Vedic tradition employed its own tools in order to rework the myth of the liberation of the waters so did the Iranian tradition the elements that combined to shape the image and role of Tishtria where the peculiar qualities of the star Sirius he took on in ancient Iran this could well account for the evident insubstantiality of Tishtria's Vedic counterpart Tissia who belonged to a different context and tradition and remained divine figure of minor importance before to conclude the presentation of this myth we can add few remarks first the reference to the three transformations of Sirius each one of 10 days clearly evokes his heliacal rising when the star day after day started to rise earlier than the rising of the sun and then a little bit earlier every day so that after one month it was high in the sky when the sun was rising and this phenomenon which is repeated every year was considered substantially substantial fundamental in many ancient culture in Egypt and in Mesopotamia the reference to the 30 days shows that the Iranians knew a month of 30 days since early antiquity although we cannot dispute about the structure of a primitive Masdian calendars because of a lack of sources free the observation of Sirius heliacal rising was taken as an omen referring to the forecoming year and its season as expressly openly stated in the Tishtar Gyast this is again not astrology but celestial divination for only when Sirius was very high in the sky he started to fight against the meteoric showers which in fact are and were very impressive not in the month of Tishtar but a little bit later now we can just mention the other important Avestan stars and constellation the only constellations clearly attested in the Avestan text are Haptoiringa Aftoreng and Pachlavi text identified with Ursa Maior Tishtriaene thecanis minor or lesser dog Paoiriaene the playads other asterism have not been identified apart from Hapta Srauo which I supposed to be Ursa Maior we know only the names of some of the principal stars Tishtria Sirius Vananthe Vega Uppa Paoiria Aldebaran Sata Waisa probably formal out the main reason for this is probably the scarcity of texts related to uranography and astronomy in the Avesta another star according to Henning should be Meresu identified with a polar star Henning insisted on this identification also trying to deduce a chronology of the text in fact he said I will find Meresu sorry okay okay a polar star but in reality polos in greek does not mean polar star five minutes okay when we have references to the polos in greek astronomical text greek astronomers clearly say polos cannot stay the pole is empty technically we don't have any polar star from the end of the second millennium BC till 800 AD tuban I was about the third millennium a the real own polar star and here you see the polis so for because of tuban the indologist had enormous problems because some scholars try to say oh drova in sanskrit is the polar star but it is not clear it is not called drova tara or drova tara I simply say drova the fixed the pad in the sky and so if they had the polar star they should have seen a polar star so they were in the arctic area this was tilak probably well known to some of you and for this reason they composed the rigveda in the third millennium BC but more simply drova was the peg of the heaven as the axis mundi has a a peak and this peak is in line with the peg of the heaven it's unnecessary to have a real a real star this happened later so in probably later texts when we have mechigach this is the polar probably the polar star but at that time they had a real polar star in antiquity is a necessary so probably when we found when we find references to merezu merezu just represent a cosmological peg in correspondence with the taera with a peak of the highest mountain in the middle of the irean avaeja the original homeland of the Aryans before to to conclude I would like to sorry to underline one interesting fact which shows that the Iranians when they adopted the names of the planets strongly followed the interpretatio mesopotamica so they clearly had an idea what the Babylonians have done and they did as the Greeks made so Aura Mazda was the planet the name of the planet corresponding to Marduk as the Greek denominated the same planet Zeus so this was the ratio it was the racionale it was followed but the problem we have it's a theological problem for the Zoroastrians in middle-person literature the planets are demons so we have a demon named Ormazd in Pahlavi text we have a demon named Anahid we have a demon named Vahram which which one is the explanation the explanation I think is very simple the Zoroastrians and in any case the Iranian people learned the planet thanks to the Mesopotamian astronomers and observers of the heaven then they adopted the terminology but at that time they did not know how to manage with these strange bodies with later speculation they place the planets in the same family of the shooting stars the shooting stars disappear in Pahlavi text and the planets take their position in fact Pahlavi text associate the planets with a paragon which is the translation of the Avestan pyrica so we can give an explanation for this strange phenomenon and we can also remark that the Zoroastrians did not change the name of the planets because these names were too old too ancient so deeply eradicated in the tradition that it was practically impossible to change again this shows the enormous importance of the Iranian tradition in the intercultural relation with other cultures also because the planets played a fantastic role in the Sasanian speculation in particular and I'm closing on the doctrine of the so-called conjunction of the two planets Saturn and Jupiter which was a thrilling subject for all the medieval astrologers still the European Renaissance and this was probably an invention of the Sasanian scholars concluding we have to remark that history of science and history of the astral lore and astronomy and astrology in Sasanian Iran shows that an intellectual body of astrologers was in the position to read and to comment Greek sources Indian sources and to mix also them because we have Greek text which contain part which were calculated in the Sasanian period with Sasanian expression and also a lot of Arabic sources depending on the Middle Persian tradition so we are at the center of a really thrilling crossing point for the culture of late antiquity and of early middle age thank you before I begin I would like to thank the conference organizers for having me here today speaking it so as is a real dream come true so there's good news and bad news tends to be in my talks there's going to be no philology no foreign words but instead what you get is some postmodernism so be prepared historically the vast bulk of scholarship and Zoroastrian studies has focused on reconstructing the history of pre-modern Zoroastrianism consequently little formal attention has been paid to our sociology of knowledge that is to questions of location position relation and boundaries in the present regarding our knowledge production as scholars my talk today therefore seeks to raise a number of questions related to the insider outsider problem in the study of religion is the insider outsider divide to be seen in ontological epistemological or in social terms what are the intellectual disciplinary and social implications of recognizing that knowledge of various types is distributed unevenly along the insider outsider divide how do we as scholars conceive of speaking and writing about pre-modern stages of a still living religion especially a small minority one where our cultural capital is highly sought after by various insider groups to legitimate their own communal and political agendas how do we meaningfully and responsibly engage with questions of faith theology and the diverse practices of living Zoroastrians in Iran, India and the global diasporas while both acknowledging contemporary experiences and yet maintaining critical distance and scholarly authority I would like to argue that these amongst other disciplinary questions need to be addressed in order to develop more reflexive and critical theories and methods for the study of Zoroastrianism in the 21st century when I have spoken about the insider outsider problem with many of my colleagues I often hear the old refrain that regrettably they don't do living religion they study old texts I do too such viewpoints while sounding perfectly reasonable at face value do not acknowledge that access to knowledge for both the past and the present is always negotiated in social terms while we usually pay lip service to respecting the self-perceptions of insiders their contemporary beliefs and practices are often dismissed entirely or treated as mere data to be mined for archaisms that relate to the Zoroastrian past and yet many of us work in archives in India that are controlled by Zoroastrians the Kama Institute and the Mirjirana Library spring to mind and we give lectures at conferences like the present one which are sponsored by and attended by insiders besides the archive and the conference there are multiple sites of intervention where insiders and outsiders interact for example the classroom religious community centers publications and of course museum exhibits in his pioneering work on living Zoroastrianism Philip Krenbrook produced a typology of Parsey insiders I thought it might be instructive perhaps even provocative to impose a similar typology of us scholars of Zoroastrianism for the insider-outsider divide I don't believe a word I'm saying from this point on in the sense that I'm just using the typology as a heuristic device and maybe even a cheap rhetorical tool but be that as it may my quadripartite typology is ultimately derived from the sociological work of Buford Junker and Raymond Gold from the 1950s very modern and adapted by Kim Knot for religious studies in her chapter insider-outsider perspectives in the Routledge companion to the study of religion edited by our own John Hinnells ranging from a quote-unquote complete participant or full insider to a complete observer or full outsider we can add the categories of observer as participant or occasionally embedded outsider and participant as observer or critical insider let me begin with the complete participant or full insider a member of a class of scholars trained communally and seen as religiously and publicly authoritative the rabbis, muftis, pandits, etc of other religious communities drawing on traditional sources of authority and primarily speaking from within the tradition this category might seem like the most straightforward of the four in the Zoroastrian context but it is in many ways the most ambiguous since some of the most illustrious scholar priests of the 28th century like Dr. Kottwal and Dr. Jamaspasa have doctorates from western institutions of learning this one included which problematized the often absolute categories of insider-outsider knowledge, power, and authority as Dr. Dustur Kottwal himself has noted in an academic publication we have priests now performing their rituals using Gelner's editions edition in addition we have a number of productive monographs produced in collaboration with insiders and outsiders Dustur Dr. Kottwal's philological work with Philip Kreembroek and Almut Hinsa come to mind as well as Eriva Dr. Ramya Karanjia's work on death rituals with Dorothy Alutikins and his collaborations with Michael Stausberg I illustrate these examples to suggest that our knowledge production for both contemporary and pre-modern Zoroastrianism is shared across the so-called insider-outsider chasm and in that sense the idea of using or citing either the quote-unquote insider perspective or knowledge as an unmediated access to quote-unquote traditional or authentic learning and your edition is not simply suspect but epistemologically untenable the history of orientalism with regard to the study of Zoroastrianism is replete with examples of collaborative work between Western scholars and their Zoroastrian counterparts these hybridized intellectual collaborations produced a form of knowledge that cannot be simply reduced to quote Western or Eastern discourse that of the academy versus that of the madrasa but something quintessentially modern blended and implicated in questions of power and authority let me turn to the other end of the spectrum the complete observer or full outsider the methodological claims associated with this type of scholar generally focus on objectivity neutrality and social scientific and philological rather than religious or theological approaches to their object of study any number of scholars might fall within this category regardless of whether they work on pre-modern or contemporary issues Michael Stausberg Maria Matsu Jean Kellen's Antonio Panaino Alberto Canterra all come to mind Jean Kellen's for example has made a point of stating that he works on the quote-unquote archaic mind of the older Vesta and ancient Iranian religion and literature rather than on Zoroastrianism or the Zoroastrian tradition and he has stated quite unequivocally that and I quote we must consider the Avesta as a mythological book that of an archaic religion with which nobody today has familiar sentiments purely and simply because despite all possible and imaginable traditions the evolution of thought over three millennia has wrought deep inexorable and unconscious changes for Kellen's we are all outsiders to the world of the Avesta regardless of our ascriptive or chosen identities as Zoroastrians as scholars or as Zoroastrian scholars Mr. Anushirvani's comments today capture this point quite elegantly Kellen's quest for methodological independence from the later Zoroastrian tradition has and will continue to have a profound impact on how much fidelity we see in the later Zoroastrian hermeneutical traditions vis-a-vis the Gathas regardless of whether we choose to read them as products of group composition of inherited Indo-Iranian poetic forms or as the Ipsissima verba of a prophet's revolutionary message let me be perfectly clear this is not a critique of Kellen's but rather an acknowledgement that what is good for the goose may not in this case be good for the gander what might be healthy for Old Avestan studies from a particular methodological perspective based on a theoretical position of scientific objectivity may not be productive for the study of later Zoroastrian texts commenting on the Old Avestan from another methodological point of view one of hermeneutics we are back to the old debate between the causal explanations of social scientists and the hermeneutical understanding of humanists the more you read the Old Avestan in an autonomous fashion from the rest of the Zoroastrian textual legacy the harder it becomes to claim historical continuities and to then read Zoroastrianism as a single continuous quote unquote tradition Albert De Jong discussed this issue of approach to early Zoroastrianism in his book in the late 1990s and it remains critical for us to grapple with the social implications of forms of our knowledge production that nominally rely on shared philological tools but espouse radically different intellectual goals this may sound like scholarship internal debates unconnected to the insider outsider problem but I assure you that is hardly the case we have Zoroastrian reading groups in Boston and Houston for example comparing the various philological editions of the Avesta in order to create meta translations of scripture which appeal to them personally but have little fidelity to the original quote unquote philologically rigorous translations they do so by simply collapsing the methodological genealogies that Professor Kellan stakes such pains to lay out in order to distinguish his approach from many of his contemporaries whom he sees as lacking critical distance from the modernist hagiographies of insiders let me now discuss the category of observer as participant or occasionally embedded outsider as I like to term it often associated with the empathetic approach to religion espoused by the phenomenologists this approach is also based on Max Weber's notion of Fishtain or understanding with the process of inquiry resulting in the researcher being able to put him or herself in the shoes of the quote unquote other value free translation of foreign concepts beliefs and mores is often seen as the goal of such an approach what Nenian smart termed methodological agnosticism that is the requirement of neutrality with a concomitant need to bracket out truth claims and judgments on the part of the researcher as Eileen Barker one of the world's great specialists on new religious movements formerly known as cults has said passing value judgments should be an enterprise that is separate from social science this particular approach was very popular in the 70s and 80s prior to the postmodern movement which called into question both the dichotomies between inside and outside in terms of constructed identities and the related dichotomies of self and other subject and object subjectivity and objectivity and the relationship between power and knowledge once again a number of our colleagues might fall within this category as they attempt to work on and with Zoroastrian insiders on a variety of topics James Boyd John Hinnells and Philip Cranbrook are probably the three scholars who have done the most sustained work with Parsis as any of our scholars who have dealt with members of the various Zoroastrian communities can attest the ability to remain neutral is less of a question than the definition of neutrality in the first place Michael Stausberg in his review of John Hinnells Zoroastrians in Britain raises the question of Hinnells' involvement in Zoroastrian communal life in Manchester but the lack of any mention of such in his book while Professor Hinnells responded in his Zoroastrian in his Zoroastrian diaspora one would have liked to know more about his personal involvement with the various diaspora groups and their influence on his research and his on their organizational governance the challenge of course being that many of the most important revelations of community politics and governance were surely revealed to Professor Hinnells in confidence often in people's homes where he was a guest here we have the classical challenge of ethnography I'm sure over his long career Professor Hinnells more than any of us has been asked for his quote unquote opinion or help in adjudicating social and doctrinal issues that hold tremendous contemporary significance for real people's lives in his co-authored book on interviews Professor Crayonbrook acknowledged the lacuna of liberal and secular Zoroastrians in his work when he stated that and I quote the impossibility of holding an in-depth interview on religion with someone who's wholly uninterested in the subject cause an important section of the community to be left unrepresented here end quote I would agree with Professor Crayonbrook that it is impossible to study secular members of an ethno-religious community when for many of our scholars Zoroastrianism is often seen as a primarily trans-historical religious entity reducible to certain unique core beliefs and practices that are seen as continuing constituting its quote unquote essence this is not a critique of Professor Crayonbrook's methodology in that book nor does he hold such essentializing views but simply a reflection on how the construction of our quote unquote outsider categories of analysis affect the definition of who counts as a representative insider and the fact that our disciplinary location generally as philologists and historians of religion fundamentally shapes not only what we decide is worth studying but also whom it seems to me that Parsi corporate identity for example could just as easily be studied as a western Indian colonial and post-colonial mercantile phenomenon with religion being just one variable amongst a host of other more historical geographical and materialist concerns but then we scholars of religion would have to at least partially seed Parsi identity to anthropologists historians sociologists and economists more insiders and outsiders just in this case in the disciplinary sense let me turn to the last of the four categories of scholars the participant as observer or the quote unquote critical insider here we might include Jamshi Choksi Burzin Waghmar and myself as scholars of religion who are from the community what distinguishes this ladder group from that of dust or coat while in Ervat Karanjia is that while both groups are published and publishing in academic venues using mutually agreed upon scholarly methodologies the ladder group sees its authority being primarily derived from institutional affiliations of a communal and sacral nature versus the former group who derives its authority from the western academy these two groups of insiders problematize the question of scholarly writing on Zoroastrianism by highlighting the differences between their primary identities and discourses distinguished along the lines of normative, prescriptive and didactic claims about religious matters versus descriptive or critical ones respectively this distinction is also highly porous for the priests scholars because they often wear two hats the largely embedded nature of such a positionality is well illustrated using professor Choksi's research on the Zoroastrians of Sri Lanka where he has discussed the importance and influence of Kehoshro Choksi in the communal affairs of a tiny diaspora community family matters indeed my own experiences with the insider-outsider question could fill a talk just on their own but I will cite two examples to illustrate the often politically fraught nature of complex academic and communal identities in a trip to Mumbai a few years ago Kajeste Mistri asked me to speak to a group of priests at a fire temple 10 to 15 priests from the 20s to the 60s sat arms folded in a semi-circle and proceeded to ask me questions grilled me politely on a variety of historical doctrinal and sociological questions my discomfort was probably most pronounced when a young priest asked me if he could tell his temple-goers that intermarried couples would not be reunited in the afterlife because one believed in reincarnation and one in true Zoroastrian notions of heaven and hell I glibly responded as I do often that I had no way of verifying their ultimate metaphysical destinations being simply a scholar of old texts I used the same neutrality discourse as many of the outsider scholars and I proceeded to suggest as is my usual modus operandi that the Zoroastrian theologians writing in Pallavi have much to say about contemporary issues I do that all the time at the time I was struck by the fact that quote unquote traditional priests wanted a young western educated secular parcy to tell them what their theology was all about neo-orientalism is alive and well but it was only later that the full import of the interaction struck me when one of the young priests offered me a ride home and wanted to discuss the controversial topics of boundary maintenance more privately as he expressed grave reservations about publicly supporting the quote unquote orthodox line taken by most employed priests in Mumbai regarding the children of mixed marriages our opinions as scholars count far more than we often realize simply because of the powerful legacies of orientalism and colonialism and in that sense even my dodge of looking back to pre-modern zoroastrianism has very real political import even if I did not realize it or fully realize it as I was trying to be so self-reflexive about whether I had any authority to speak for and hence reify is supposedly unbroken trans-historical theological tradition quote unquote untainted by the orientalist intervention and modernist re-imaginings of pre-modern religious discourse my second example is from 2009 when I was living in Southern California and was asked by the California Zoroastrian Center to conduct religious education classes on a few Sundays for Iranians Zoroastrians interested in learning more about their faith from a Parsi scholar of Pallavi I was of course concerned that they understood that my classes would be strictly educational rather than theological in any way but I agreed because it seemed like an excellent opportunity to interact with Iranians Zoroastrians who I had little contact with while living in Bombay and Boston while I read sections of the Menueh Rad in translation with the four to five young men I observed that their knowledge of the Zoroastrianism as I typically experience it with Parsi's seemed rather impressionistic their names were ambiguous no Ali's or Muhammad's but I slowly got the impression that I was being tested by Ali Jaffrey's followers embedded among the Iranians or Zoroastis they of course wanted to know my views about conversion and I Parsi's wanted to know about intermarriage and conversion and I did my usual song and dance it's complicated we have to define what we mean by religion we have to define what we mean by ethnicity we have to look at religious practices and identities contextually and geographically Armenia Georgia and Central Asia being different from Iran and blah blah so I didn't answer the question in both encounters the outsider academic power and authority of the ethnically insider academic was being engaged with by either insiders or outsiders even I'm not sure which to serve political and social ends far beyond what I was trained for as a philologist in my interactions with them at this point in my quasi-autobiographical and largely anecdotal typology many of you scholars are probably wondering where you might fall on this spectrum I would love to know where my California compatriots Jenny Rose and Tourette Daryoi would locate themselves they have the best stories and some of you undoubtedly would reject the premise and value of such typologies altogether as I actually do I hope to have shown that the very antinomies suggested by the insider outsider divide are deeply problematic if we choose to understand such identities along strictly ontological or epistemological lines rather than as a scriptive or chosen identities which are fundamentally social in nature and hence deeply powerful ironically their power is often reified by the very agents tasked with examining them critically us scholars I would like to suggest to the social view of identity that I espouse must be consistent both for our object of study Zoroastrian knowledge and cultural production in the past and the present and for ourselves as scholarly subjects so rather than argue that we're talking about absolute identities I would instead suggest the distinctions between these four types and we can add many there are many more types here that I didn't discuss are always contextual and often shifting much like the very diverse Zoroastrian identities that we encounter reconstruct and define in temporal and geographical terms in the past when we as scholars make Zoroastrian identity in fact many of the identity shifts of us as scholarly actors are directly related to our ability to acquire or maintain privileged access to knowledge resources and hence authority in the present I'm well aware of the irony of this line of argumentation on my part which could be read as self-justificatory in the extreme given my positionality as both a parcy and an academic hence my ability to participate in authorized discourse on both sides of the insider outsider divide Pierre Bourdieu eloquently argued for the importance of symbolic capital with regard to these questions of representational power and group legitimation when he stated and I quote in the struggle to impose the legitimate vision in which science itself is inevitably caught up agents possess power in proportion to their symbolic capital i.e. in proportion to the recognition they receive from a group the positive reception of this talk on the sociology of our knowledge by you my insider colleagues as well as you my insider community members will determine my symbolic capital in our shared intellectual enterprise cheeky attempts at self-referentiality aside symbolic capital in broader disciplinary terms is precisely what is at stake for all of us insider scholars of Zoroastrianism in the early 21st century increasingly in our contemporary academic world hyper-specialized and esoteric fields such as ours find it increasingly difficult to transfer newly acquired specialist knowledge efficiently as we leave the world of the guild and enter that of the corporation as representational strategies and here I am speaking about the university as representational strategies for studying the world's religious traditions have become increasingly complex sophisticated and nuanced we in Zoroastrian studies must become relentlessly self relentlessly reflexive in order to understand and be able to articulate the broader intellectual genealogies of our respective academic projects whether we agree with each others or not it's not the point a field of study that does not engage in such an intellectual movement risk losing all forms of institutional support representational power and disciplinary legitimacy ultimately we are all writing the autobiography of both Zoroastrian studies and Zoroastrianism in the past and the present and in that sense the need to maintain our symbolic capital as scholars of Zoroastrianism is critical at a moment in history when we now potentially face disciplinary extinction in our insider world the academy thank you we've had a very varied selection of papers although there's a there's a broad title up there I can hardly think of three papers more more different from one another but if anyone can come up with the question that actually links them together that would be particularly brilliant anyway the floor the floor is open yeah you have religious ceremonies in the Iranian world which are centered around the fire and these were in open air and for fire to be visible it had to be at night so these ceremonies what when they were officiating they had a star-studded sky above them and for the priest to communicate with his followers he had to point out to some celestial bodies he had the moon which was very visible and it was qualified as Gao Chitra and you had the stars qualified as Ash Chitra and especially Sirius which is the most the brightest star in the sky at night time but it seems that on the Iranian side very quickly they realized that you have Sirius and two other stars that form the winter triangle Betelgeuse and Procyon yeah but they are not mentioned in the text they are not mentioned in the text but what you have is in the coinage you have three dots that I think reflect that and this is a very powerful auspicious sign that then carries on Tamerlane has it the Ottoman have it the Derbysch orders have it tattooed on their arms and sometimes is three dots but they always come back to the fact that you have an equilateral triangle and it seems that there was something magical about the equilateral triangle that made it auspicious and that is something that does is not reflected in the in the Mesopotamian side or in the Egyptian side I think that's how I see it you want to respond well it's a working hypothesis you can try to develop it but we need supportive arguments so we can we regard also to archaeoastronomy and astronomical reconstruction we can explain everything I could explain that these flowers stay here and that they are in line with the Eliacal Ryzen or the Eliacal setting of a number of constellations and I think in three we hear we could invent a full ominous system but this is the problem we have when we attach these problems because the risk to develop too much without supportive evidence is too strong so I what I tried to do was just to underline what we have in the sources and what we can actually deduce and seriously present as reasonably acceptable for the scientific community the rest is a little bit is more dangerous so this is my is what and also because your references are to stars which unfortunately are not mentioned in Pahlavi literature in Sogdian literature in all the Middle Iranian literature they do not appear so it's a problem of course if we will find it will be a good solution okay I think we have a question the back there Malcolm no no excuse me but I was calling upon another questioner actually behind you but in a moment in a moment thank you Professor Sims-Williams my question is specifically to Johan in a sense first of all I congratulate you for bringing this sensitive topic out in the public domain because I think it's very I think you touched in many sort of different sensitive issues which I think both the academics face as well as members of the community but my question especially in question answer sessions that's correct but I won't put you in that in that sort of sensitive issue with my question but my question is this that first of all as a community and as a religious community are we rather slightly unique in this matter because or does this issues arise with other faith communities vis-a-vis the academics because usually the faith communities have their own religious structure when it comes to discourse within certain matters in the community and my second question on the same subject may I answer quick the only thing unique about Zoroastrian is how obsessed they are with being unique all right that's the reason why I asked that question and it may sound like I'm saying this with my Parsi hat I'm actually saying this with my academic hat because all these categories apply these are categories I mean they can be applied from any of these communities yes and I think especially for Zoroastrians I would say it's extremely important to recognize that there are minority communities that are maybe not quite as old sometimes important but they are much smaller than us with much greater us see much greater a risk of being of going extinct the Mendians are a fantastic example the Samaritan yeah I mean no hence the rationale behind the question because we work within this what's called the interfaith domain and they have a similar issue but the leading on from that question is this that are the academics then trained within the field to answer these questions the reason is this coming back to Professor Hinell's what you mentioned because when he was asked his certain opinions he used to always keep mum in public and at times you've seen some of the other academic scholars who have ventured into the public domain to give their opinion and it's slightly got into his troubled waters well this it's actually a really important question right when we talk about Zoroastrianism if we choose to think of Zoroastrianism primarily as an ancient religious tradition then yes they're very well equipped to tell us about everything in in the context of philology history astrology if we're talking about it is Zoroastrianism as well as a is a living tradition then it gets more problematic because just don't have the the anthropologist the sociologist this is why students often come to me and say oh I want to read the Gathas it's like oh come on let's you know there's so much more interesting stuff going on here with living people before they get wiped out and it's not a matter of choosing one over the other it's a matter of having of recognizing that our interests I want to read the Gathas is a quest for origins it has a certain romantic aspect to it a decision to say I want to study the present has an aspect of saying we want to preserve the community we want to preserve we want to understand this small little identity as it's dying out there's not there's no such thing as apolitical reading everything is political and so we just have to recognize that and be willing to say these are our politics and I don't mean politics in the grand sense but we have to recognize where we are located and what our projects are in many senses I feel uncomfortable with the typology I gave for the scholars because I see four or five of them sitting in a row and I don't think they have the same intellectual projects I don't mean that in any negative way they're doing different things there's so few of us that each of us represents a sort of school of thought in our own right and that's also very problematic thank you now sir there's a microphone coming as I said this time I have a real question for professor Dariai but before doing that I wanted to just thank Johan for mentioning my name and I'm really very glad that he survived all the Jaffer implants in Southern California his presentation is truly deserves to become a landmark account of the issue that he addressed now my question is do you agree professor Dariai that during the time of Shahpur the first or Shahpur Iyakum early on during Sasanian time Shahpur actually became to Mani the founder of Manikism or Manikian religion and supported him financially and otherwise to the point that Mani dedicated one of his books to him calling it Shahpur Gan and also during Qawad the first or Qawad Iyakum he became a Mazdaqi actually and gave away the treasures became a communist basically gave away the treasures of Sasanian which was tremendous some of them of course and also I think one of the Yazgerts during one of the Yazgerts could have been Yazgert the third but there was a convention the first convention of Christians took place in Solukye if that's the case what conclusion should we draw from all that that happened during Sasanian time that third century is different from fourth century that is different from fifth sixth and seventh religiously things are quite dynamic this is a dynamic empire it's not a static empire that is unchanging from the third to the seventh century different things are developing so some I mean these are various religions competing at an important time the king sometimes plays one against another one try to keep power and at other times they lose power or you know the things go out of hand or they use them so things are quite fluid and things are changing continuously so we have to try to actually explain this change rather than say here's Sasanian empire this is what it is I agree with you the first, second and the third supposition okay thank you very much we've now just about reached the official lunchtime and I think therefore we've had one question to each of our panel which is just perfect so thank you very much