Representation of the position of women in Zoroastrian tombs based on the Pahlavi text of Ardavirafnameh

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Doctoral student of pre-Islamic Iranian history, Lar, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Theology and Islamic Studies, Farhangian University, Shiraz, Iran.

10.22077/jcrl.2025.7733.1131

Abstract

Ardavirafnameh is one of the most important Middle Persian texts of Zoroastrianism. It seems that this religious text belongs to the 6th century AD and during the reign of Khosrow Anushirvan Sassanid (531-579 AD), which was written with the aim of bringing order to social anomalies and religious sins. This text is a description of the path of an intuitive named Viraf who, in his spiritual ascension, learned about the conditions of past people and observed their punishments and rewards. In fact, the understanding of this text shows the concern of the custodians of religious affairs regarding the social and religious problems of the Sassanid era and the need of the society to remember moral and religious concepts. Based on the descriptive and analytical approach and relying on the available translations from Middle Persian and Old Zoroastrian sources, the present essay aims to analyze the position of mourning women based on the Pahlavi text of the Arda Virafnameh and seeks to answer the question that the perspective of the text of the Arda Virafnameh What has happened to bereaved women and what factors affect it? The analysis of the text has drawn a thoughtful picture of the position of women in mourning. Based on the findings of the research, Arda Virafnameh can be considered the most objective Zoroastrian religious document, which, with a gender perspective, considered women to be the main element of the mourning ceremony and warned against this issue in the form of severe punishments.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics