Conférence - Touraj Daryaee : The Vision of the World in Late Antique Erānšahr

Frantz Grenet

Histoire et cultures de l'Asie centrale préislamique

Collège de France

Année 2025-2026

Conférence - Touraj Daryaee : The Vision of the World in Late Antique Erānšahr

Touraj Daryaee

Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies & Culture, University of California - Irvine

Résumé

The Zoroastrian texts supply kind of division of the world and the reason for it which is important for understanding the Persian view of the world in Late Antiquity. In the Middle Persian texts, we come across a story which is not present in the surviving portion of the Avesta, and that is the division of the world by king Frēdōn. Frēdōn in the Avesta is one who after the fall of Yima receives the kauuaēm xvarənah- or the Kayānīd Glory, rules over the world. However, he divides his possession into three portions, between his sons (Persian) Iraj (Avestan *Airiiaēča-/ Middle Pesian Ērēz), Tūrč (Avestan Tūra- / Middle Persian Tūč) and Salm (Avestan Sairima- / Middle Persian Sarm). This act of Frēdōn is seen as not specifically a "sin" in the epic Persian literature, but its consequence has a negative effect, and it plunges the world into war. It is this division that creates, not a "bi-polar," but a "tri-partite," vision of the world, where "malice" (kēn), drives Ērānšahr in its battle with an-Ērān, toward total war and the last great "War of Antiquity."