Fatalism in Persian Epics

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Fatalism in Persian Epics

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Preface

In preparing a work on fatalism in pre-Islamic Arabia and in Islam I came across two problems which called for consideration of Persian material. On one hand the problem of a possible influence of Iranian ideas on the Arabian belief in Time as an agent of Destiny could not be solved without knowing the exact form of the Iranian idea in question, on the other hand, Caskel, in his work on Destiny in early Arabic poetry has raised the question whether the fatalism professed by Firdausi was influenced only by Islamic ideas or perhaps also by ancient Arabian beliefs. But since an exhaustive investigation of Firdausi’s fatalism has never been made, none of the questions could be answered without an examination of the Iranian material. The present work is the result of an attempt to collect that material, including not only Firdausi but also the epic of Vis and Ramin, and to determine the ancient Iranian background to the fatalistic beliefs of the two epics. Since it is often difficult to render poetry in a language that is not one’s own, I have determined to use the English translation of the Shahnamah by Warner — which is sometimes better than Mohl’s French prose translation — but as soon as the translation deviates from the original on some point that is important for our discussion, I have given a more literal translation in a note; when the Persian wording is of any interest I have put the words of the original in brackets. As to Vis u Ramin I have sometimes quoted the German translation by Graf, but when I have had to make a translation of my own I have tried to make it as literal as possible. For the Pahlavi texts I have consulted the most modern translations, in most cases comparing them with the original text. For Indian texts I have had to rely on translations which are not always modern, but I hope that this fact should not cause any serious inconvenience. It remains to me to express my warm thanks to Prof. James Carney, Dublin, who has read my manuscript and the proofs with special regard to the English expression. Uppsala, October 1952

Tends:

Abbreviations

AfO AV BSOS C EI ERE GrlarPhil J As

JRAS M Mbh MO RHR RoB SBE

Sh UUA Vv VAB VR Ww ZDMG ZI1 ZRGG

Archiv fiir Orientforschung. Atharvaveda. Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies. the Calcutta edition of Shahnamah. Enzyklopadie des Islam. Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Grundriss der Indoarischen Philologie und Altertumswissenschaft. Journal asiatique. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Mohl’s edition of Shahnamah. Mahabharata. Le monde oriental. Revue de l’histoire des religions. Religion och Bibel. Sacred Books of the East. Shahnamah. Uppsala Universitets arsskrift. Vuller’s edition of Shahnamah. Vorderasiatische Bibliothek. Vis u Ramin.

1) Warner’s translation Zeitschrift Zeitschrift Zeitschrift

translation

of Shahnamah,

2) Wardrop’s

of Vis u Ramin. der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft. fiir Indologie und Iranistik. fiir Religions- und Geistesgeschichte.

Introduction

We

are

but

chessmen,

destined,

it is plain,

That great chess player Heaven to entertain; Us

men

Then

it moves

in the

box

about

the

of death

board

shuts

up

of life, again.

Omar Khayyam

Everyone who has read the famous quatrains of Omar Khayyam has certainly been impressed by the fatalistic tone of the poems. Men are but chessmen on the great chessboard of Destiny, entirely dependent upon the merciless action of irreversible Fate, and the only thing they can do is to enjoy what life can give as long as it lasts. In this respect the quatrains do not stand alone in Persian literature. The fatalistic trend is very strong in all Persian poetry, and it has been observed long since that the great epic writers of the early period of Persian literature, Firdausi and Fakhr ad-din Gurgani, have very much to say about Fate’s ruthless play with mankind. Several scholars have adverted to this fact!, but none has made it the subject of a de-

tailed investigation. Firdausi’s Sdhnamah? and Gurgani’s Vis wu Ramin? offer very rich material for an analysis of ancient Persian fatalism. There is scarcely a single page of Firdausi’s gigantic work in which he does not hint at Fate’s mysterious action in the events of life and history. As to Vis u Ramin, belonging as it does to the category of ‘love story’, there is less 1 Warner

Firdousi gottheit

in the introduction

et Vépopée

nationale,

pp. 44 ff., Widengren,

of his translation

pp.

253

of Shahnamah

ff., Scheftelovitz,

I pp. 52 f., Massé,

Die Zeit als Schicksals-

Hochgottglaube im alten Iran pp. 282 ff., 307 ff., ef.

also Coyajee, Studies in Shahndmeh

pp. 16 ff.

2 This work is quoted here according to the edition of Mohl, using the system adopted by Wolf in his Glossar. Moreover,

of Warner,

references are given to the translation

in which the pages of Vuller’s edition and the Calcutta edition are

indicated. 8 Quoted from the edition of Minovi. fied translations

pp. 375—431);

into German

are

a brief summary

found

A summary of its contents with some versiin Graf, Wis

in English

und

by Minorsky,

Ramin

BSOS

(ZDMG

23/1869

11 p. 745 ff.

6

Helmer Ringgren

frequent mention of Fate, but nevertheless we learn from it a great deal of man’s bitter lot and predestined misfortune. It is no easy task to classify the innumerable statements concerning Fate in the two epics in order to give some sort of a systematic account of the fatalism that is professed by their authors. The system adopted here is simply based upon the different words that are used to express the idea of lot, fate and destiny, and we classify them roughly into four groups: 1. words meaning “Time”: razgar, zaman, zamanah and the Arabic dahr, 2. words for “‘sky’’: dsman, sipihr, Carx, falak, gunbad, gardin, 3. the word bazt, lot, fortune, and 4. the Arabic loan-words gada@ and gadar, both meaning ‘‘decree of fate, destiny’’. For each of these groups we shall first state the use of the words in question in Sahnaémah and Vis u Ramin and then try to find out the historical and religious background of the ideas involved. Finally two other questions must be discussed, namely, the relation between God and Destiny and the attitude of man towards his destiny. A few words must be added here about the character of the sources. Firdausi’s Book of Kings and Gurgani’s epic of Vis and Ramin both belong to Islamic times, and it may be questioned whether they reflect true Iranian concepts or are influenced by the ideas of Islam. A detailed discussion of this matter is not possible here, but we shall have to touch upon the problem later from our special point of view. At present it will suffice to mention some purely literary facts.

It is evident that Firdausi made extensive use of available sources, mythical, legendary, and historical.1 But it is also clear that he very often interspersed the traditional material with his own reflections, and it is largely in these sections that we find statements concerning Fate. Gurgani begins his epic with an introduction, in which he praises Allah, the Creator of all and the Determiner of Destiny; then he sings the praise of some contemporaries and relates the circumstances under which the poem was written. He found the story, he says, written in Pahlavi prose, and he has undertaken to translate it into Modern Persian and to give it a poetic form.? That this story of the love of Vis and Ramin contains much valuable information concerning ancient Iranian religious ideas was first pointed out by Widengren in his Hochgottglaube im alten Iran.? This is only natural if the story is really trans1 Cf.

Nédldeke,

Das

iranische

2 Cf. Graf, op. cit. p. 376 f. 5P

256;

Nationalepos.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

g

lated from a Pahlavi original, and the author’s assertion that this is the case is now confirmed by the observations of Minorsky.! There exists also a Georgian prose version of the Vis w Ramin, translated into English by O. Wardrop.? In this version the first seven chapters — i.e. the author’s introduction — are missing. For the rest, the Georgian version sometimes follows the Persian text rather closely, even literally, but occasionally it is considerably shorter or shows other deviations. It is not likely that the original of this version was the old Pahlavi text, nor could it have been the poetic version of Gurgani, but it was more probably another Modern Persian edition of the epic. Here it need only be pointed out that literal agreement between the Georgian and the Modern Persian text is rather frequent in the passages dealing with Destiny. If the Georgian version represents an older form of the cpic, this would imply that the ideas of Fate in V2s w Ramin are considerably older than Gurgani’s time. But this question must be left open for the moment, since no literary and philological investigation has been made concerning the interrelation of the two versions.

1 BSOS 11/1943-46 p. 741 ff, 12/1947 p. 20 ff. 2 Oriental

Translation

Fund, N.S. Vol. 23.

CHAPTER

Time

as the Power

I

of Destiny

If we except the Arabic word dahr, which occurs only a few times, the words for “‘time” in Shahnamah are three: zaman, zamdnah, and ruzgar. All of these are of course very common in their proper sense. But it is obviously not a far step, when one speaks of time, to think of its contents, the events and circumstances which it comprises. Just as we speak of good or happy times, or of a hard time, Firdausi often speaks of e.g. bad rizodr, a bad, or evil time, meaning misfortune or affliction.2 It is also easy to understand that “time” acquires the sense of “‘life-time”’; in Firdausi this is very common in the phrase sar admad zaman, he accomplished his time, that is, he died.? From these two ideas we are easily carried to that of Destiny: if that which human life contains of good fortune and misfortune and its final end in death are conceived of as predestined by an obscure and mysterious power, which we may call Fortune or Fate, it is easy to understand how it comes about that the words for “‘time’”’ are used to denote this power. It is also clear that reflections on the passing of time are easily combined with statements concerning old age, corruption and death. ‘‘Time (riizgar) has bent me’’, says Kavah, the smith, to Zahhak‘, and using a similar phrase the aged Sam complains in a letter to Minochihr, that his strength is gone and time (zamdnah) bends him to the earth. When Jamshid has met his fate at the hands of Zahhak, the poet makes the following reflection: For fortune (zamdnah) whirled him like a yellow straw, and both his throne and greatness passed away.® 1 zamanah 2 E.g. Sh

also means 13 g, 1218;

3 zaman = life-time 6, 1136

“‘world’”’,

41, 2321;

e.g.

Sh 4, 4; 12.c, 229;

13 b, 666;

13f,

e.g. Sh 6, 210; 13, 797; 13 b, 38; 15, 4244; zamdnah

etc.

4 Sh 5, 220 (W I, 155).

5 Sh 7, 1220 (W I, 298) (Sumy 6 Sh 4, 208 (W I, 140).

182.

42, 39; 43, 129.

A395 5b).

4, 112;

10

Helmer Ringgren

It is Time (zamdnah) that causes the warrior’s death on the battle-field?; and when Giv in despair asks Gurgin about the fate of Bizhan, he says: “Has Time (i.e. Fate) chosen somebody in his place, or did he himself disappear from your sight?’’? The inevitability of death is often stressed, as in the following: No one can root out death, sew up the eyes of destiny (zaman) with needles.?

And when Isfandiyar speaks to his troops before battle, he expresses the typical fatalistic view in the following verses: See that ye fear not death or anything,

for none will die but at his fated time (bi-zamdnah), and if so be that fated time hath come’, what is more glorious than to die in battle?®

The idea of predestination is still more clear in passages which tell

us that Fate (or Time, zamanah) leads a man to a certain place where he is to meet his death: as fate impelled him onward with his host to perish by thy hands.*

Or: Thy fate doth drive thee on, man of Kashan! Since here no place is left thee save the dust.”

The same fate awaits us all’: when our time (razgd@r) is accomplished we must die.® The poet’s thoughts often revolve round the predestined hour of death: 1 Sh 13 f, 167. The verb used is .,%8 ys ? to seize, to carry away; (IV,

17):...

Destiny

will make

short

work

W translates

of thee.

2 Sh 13 e, 522 (W III, 312). 8 Sh 12, 147

(W II, 37), Scheftelowitz p. 49. Cf. 12 d, 815 (W II, 235): ‘‘sew up

the eye of fate with treasures”; eyes up, so that none death

20, 228 (W VI, 96): “fortune ... had sewn

could see another’.

—

from his body’’.

rs

Lit.: if time (ruizgar) must turn (change).

a

Sh 15, 650f. (W V, 65).

a

Sh 12 c, 1339

x

Sh 13 b, 1563 (W III, 189), cf. also Sh 8, 201, (W I, 348). Sh 6, 445 (W I, 196). Sh 12d, 629 (W II, 225).

C) ©

(W II, 181); Scheftelowitz

their

‘“‘Root out death’’, lit.: “‘to remove

p. 50.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

1

“The sky (gardun)”, Kubad replied, gave

me

my

hath

come,

share

long since, and he whose

will have

to die where’er

hour

(zamdn)

he be:

that time (zaman) is not ill-timed at any time.’’!

Similarly in Piran’s words to Giv before the battle: The mighty lion springing spake this saw: — “Whene’er the stag hath reached its destined day (zaman)

fate (zamdnah) reckoneth each breath drawn by the prey till it shall cross a lion on the way.’ So fortune (zaman) now hath brought thee in my path.?

Nobody dies when his time has not come (b7-zamdnah, lit. “‘without time’, or “in un-time’’)’, but when the hour of death has arrived, not even the mightiest king can withstand it with his troops.t Thus Destiny

metes out our life-time: ““Time (zamdanah) did not give him a long lifetime’, it is said of Hdshang®, and the same idea is certainly to be seen behind the statement that Time (zamdnah) reckons the breaths of man.§ If “time” is often equal to “‘life-time’’, it may come to be used to denote that with which life is filled, that is, good luck and ill luck: nzk u bad rizgar is “good and evil fortune’’.? In many of these cases we might also speak of man’s “‘lot’’ or the like. “I hope that God, the Creator, will make my time (rézgar) happy’, says Kai Khosrau8, and he apparently means that he wishes for victory in the coming battle. Zal, who has received a favourable answer from the astrologers, thanks the

Creator “for this great mercy and his blissful fate (rizgdr)’”.® When Faridin ascends his throne, prayers are sent up for a happy time (rizgar) 1 Sh 8, 202f.

(W I, 348).

2 Sh 12e, 885 ff. (W II, 383). Other instances Sh 13, 1585 (W III, 101), 15, 4255 (W V, 271), 12 c, 1150 (notice here 1154: time, zamdnah, is thirsting for your blood, 1156: time has given you the key to my death;

W II, 171); 20, 1636 (W VI,

172): “Thou foughtest them / upon their fated day which altereth not’’, 20, 1786 (W VI, 181): I have had my lot “and waned life waxeth not’’.

3 Sh 13 b, 69 (W III, 113), 15, 650 (W V, 65), 3314 (W V, 218), cf. 13 f, 1573 (W IV,

85): his time

4 Sh 15, 2553

has not yet come.

(W V, 175) —

zamdnah.

5 Sh 2, 45 (W I, 124). ° Sh 43, 409 (W VIII, 217); 48, 3922 (W VIII, 407), cf. 12 e, 885 quoted above (and 13, 365/W III, 36, where heaven is the subject); Scheftelowitz, p. 50.

? E.g. Sh 19, 268 (W VI, 49). 8 Sh 13 f, 1052 (W IV, 61). ® Sh 7, 840 (W I, 280).

12“

Helmer Ringgren

for him. “May evil time (bad rizgdr) be far from thee’, says Afrasyab to Shidah?, and on another occasion the same man says: “I do not know

whether this means luck (bazt) for Kai Khusrau or a new ‘time’ over my head.”? Among the questions put to Biizurjmihr at the banquet of Nishirvan is: What is the goodliest destiny (ruzgdr) for me

from this exalted and unstable sky (¢arz)?4

“The lot (‘time’, rizgar) of the brave is terrible’, it is said, “when oppression gets the upper hand on them’’.® The change of time furnishes the explanation of the misfortunes that happen to men. “It is Time (or Destiny, zamanah) and not you that has caused my bad luck (rizgar)’, says the dying Isfandiyar to Rustam, “what was to be has been’’.6 Destiny has only used Rustam as a tool’; it is Destiny that has directed the arrow into the eye of Isfandiyar, as it was foretold: Aim at his eyes...

... and Destiny (zamdnah) will bear the arrow thither straight. He will be blinded.

And therefore, when Rustam has done his task, he can say: I set his destiny® (zaman) upon my bow,

and when his day (riz) had come IJ shot the arrow. Had fortune (baxt) been with him, how could a shaft of tamarisk avail me any whit?2°

When the fortune of war fails, it is Time (zamdnah) that turns against the loser.1! Or it is said that Time (zamdnah) turns its face away from him; and then guile and force are equally useless.12 Time (zamdnah) BH

Sh 6, 42 (WI, Sh

13 g, 428

176).

(W IV,

Sh 13 g, 1559 (cf.

161).

W IV, 220).

Sh 41, 1220 (W VII, 293). Sh 13 f, 2194 (cf.

W IV, 121).

Sh 15, 3856 f. (W V, 248). Cf. also Sh 15, 3837 f. (W V, 247). Sh 15, 3711 (W V, 240). Mohl:

So Wwe OO © +

‘‘sa vie” = life-time.

® Sh 15, 3839 f. (W V, 247).

H So =a

Sh 13, 1403 (W III, 92).

12 Sh 13 f, 2028 (W IV, 108).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

13

treads down those who reject a wise man’s counsel!, and scatters the dust of those who have fallen.? It strikes with cruelty?, it brings grief4 and conflict®, it refuses the unfortunate wine and pleasure.6 Time (rizgar) plays with men’, it is bitter in the days of misfortune.’ It is treacherous and faithless®, man can never be sure of its benevolence!, never rely upon it: He feared a change of fortune (gardis i riizgar), well knowing its inconstancy (nist vafd) and how *tis ever prone to tyranny.}!

The instability of Time (or Destiny) is a constantly recurring theme. It elevates and abases!”, it honours and humiliates, it is sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter.1% Go through this world rejoicing by her side, and take thou heed of time’s vicissitudes (gardis i riizgar), how it will raise one to the heights of heaven,

and bear him all unharmed by care and anguish, then how that heaven will fling him to the dust, where all is fear, anxiety, and dread!14

Another hath to walk a treacherous way, whiles up, whiles down. Such fosterage we meet

from fortune (rizgar), but the thorn-prick will outstay the blushing of its rose. . .15

But know that circling time (dahr) is ever thus — at whiles all sweet, at whiles all venomous.!¢% 1 Sh 13 b, 739 (W III, 147) —

zamdanah.

2 Sh 13 f, 1789 (cf. W IV, 95) — zamanah. 2 Sh 13 e, 650 (W III, 319: “‘hardship and affliction’). 4 Sh 13 e, 760 (W III, 324).

5 Sh 13 b, 933, 989 (W III, 156, 159: “‘strife and battle’, ‘woes of war’’). 6 7 8 ®

Sh Sh Sh Sh

12, 430 (W 7, 47 (W I, 43, 222 (W 12d, 2272

II, 51). 239); cf. p. 23, 39, 52, 57. VIII, 208). (W II, 308) — bivafa, cf. 13 f, 826 (W IV, 50) where the same

word is applied to the world (jahdn).

19 Sh 6, 562 (W I, 203). 11 Sh 13 f, 2022 (W IV, 108).

122 Sh 6, 938 (W I, 223), 13 f, 1468 (W IV, 80). 13 Sh 6, 880 (W I, 220), cf. 13 b, 1589 (W III, 190). 14 Sh 13 e, 1378 ff. (W III, 356 f.). 15 Sh 13 g, 87 (W IV, 144). 16 Sh 13d, 119 (W III, 278), lit.: brings you sometimes honey, sometimes

poison;

cf. the same phrase about dahr 12 d, 669 (W II, 227), 14, 745 (not in W), 15, 2197

14

Helmer Ringgren

Thus Destiny may change at any time, for the worse! — which may mean death — or for the better. When Faranak learns that her son Faridiin has become king, she sings the praise of the Creator “‘because of this most happy turn of fortune (ruzgar)’?, and similarly we read about Kai Khusrau receiving the news of a victory: He offered praises to the Omnipotent for that glad turn of fortune (gardis 1 riizgar).?

Thus Destiny brings not only misery and death but also success and happiness. ‘‘God has given me joy, and Time (rézgar) has granted me happiness, when my son has been victorious’, writes King Kaiis to

Kai Khusrau.‘ It is Time (zamdnah) that in its favour gives the king his dignity®; people hope for its support in battle®, it favours some men.? When the victor looks back on the day’s events he says: To-day’s affair hath prospered for us to our hearts’ through

When

fortune’s favour

Kai Khusrau

content

(rizgdr) .. .8

says:

/God/ saved me from thy bale and mischief, fate (zamdnah) had secrets for me.. .°

he apparently means that Destiny had other plans for his life and prepared better things for him. And Faridin expresses the wish that Time shall give him security (aman) for so long that he may see sons of his

son Iraj.?° But it is unknown to man what Time has in store; nobody knows what (W V, 154), 43, 691 (W VIII, 232). The antithesis of nus —

zahr is found

19 times

in Sh, ef. Wolf, Glossar s. v. — Cf. also 8, 274 (W I, 351): time casts one in the dust, and gives another a royal diadem. 1 Sh 15, 651 (quoted above), cf. 12 b, 412 (W II, 101): when he saw that time (zamanah)

had

turned

(changed)

in this way...,

13g,

1211

(W IV,

202).

Sh 6, 19 (W I, 175), cf. 13, 327 (W ITI, 34): Ashkash congratulated him upon the happy turn (change) of time (gardi§ i rizgdar). we

rs)

Sh 13 g, 1699 (W IV, 228).

rs

Sh 13 g, 1856 (W IV, 237).

on

Sh 6, 318 (W I, 190).

ro

Sh 6,717 (W I, 212):

x

Sh 13 g, 2028 (W IV, 246: “‘fortune’s fruits”) —

oo

Sh 39, 108 (W VII, 177).

C-)

Sh 13 g, 1258 (W IV, 205).

10 Sh 6, 580 (W I, 204).

riizgar.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

15

the future will bring. “Who knows to whom the turn of Time (gardi¥ 7

rizgar) gives victory?’! “Who knows what Time (zamdn) will bring to-morrow?’ The plan of Destiny is a secret, which it conceals in its heart.? The troops hesitate to begin the battle, “for we did not know for certain if Fortune would support us’’.4 There is an extremely common expression: to wait and see what Time will bring, that is, to await the turn of events.® This is the typical attitude: since you do not know what is to happen because of predestined fate, you had better wait and see and not act rashly. The power of Fate is irresistible, and no one can escape its hand.® “What can we do against Time (rizgdr), from the very beginning (of our life) it is our master.’’? It is said of Piran in his last battle: Piran saw well enough how matters stood, and knew that God had caused that change of fortune (gardis),

yet he acquitted him right manfully and strove against the purposes of fate (ruzgar).®

But there could be but one result: he must succumb to almighty Fate. Man has no choice against the decrees of Fate®; he has only to follow where Destiny leads: A fate (zamdanah) not of thy choice is written now, and what He causeth will be in the end,!°

or more literally, as it leads you, you must go. Nobody can evade Fate, it reaches all, even him who might seem to deserve a better lot: If valour could avert the fatal day time (zamdanah) had not taken Rustam’s stance away, but know that circling time (dahr) is ever thus — at whiles all sweet, at whiles all venomous.! r=

Sh 12 d, 1096 (W IT, 250).

is)

Slee

Ce

Sh 6, 304 (WI,

dO

(VV Lh 17). 189), cf. 13 g, 1258 above.

Sh 6, 717, ef. above. a

Cf. Sh

12 6, 696; 13, 1658; 13 b, 141; 13 c, 141; 13 f, 1475; 13 g, 891; 15, 1473,

3401 ete. 6 Sh 16, 47 (W V, 285) — _ )

Sh 13 f, 2012 (W IV, 107).

°

Sh 15,

10

zamdnah.

W:

“‘the clutch of Fate’’, cf. below p. 19.

Sh 13 f, 1790 (not in W).

Sh

ment.

12, ..

4016 (W V, 256). 789

(W

II,

156);

oy

11 Sh 13d, 118 f. (W III, 278).

Mohl

better:

“Te

sort

(zamdnah)

a

écrit

autre-

16

Helmer Ringgren

The following verses express excellently the all-vanquishing power of Fate and the powerlessness of man: ‘*A man, whose time is not yet come (bi-zamdan)”’, he said, “not yet o’ertaken by the turning sky (gardis i Gsmdn), will stand secure, and drugs will profit naught,

because the chance of time (gardis 1 rizgar) protecteth him, but when the hour for passing is at hand then no precaution will avert his fate (zamdnah).}

Thus Destiny must have its course; “what is to be will be” is a phrase that is repeated over and over again.? Inexorable, not listening to anybodys advice, Fortune sends death and misery: Thus fortune (rizgdr) changeth sides from day to day, it heareth not what counsellors may say,

but (zamanah) rendeth, having dipped its hands in bane, the lion’s heart and leopard’s hide in twain.

In spite of this we sometimes hear of protection from Fate. When Giv sets out to seek Kai Khusrau, he says to Gidarz: “Take care of my son Bizhan, and protect him from Time (rizgdar)!’’4 And Isfandiyar says to Rustam: blest is he that hath a stay like thee, for he will be unscathed by evil fortune.®

But these cases Isfandiyar:

are

exceptional,

and

when

If I resign to him the imperial throne .

King

Gushtasp

says

of

.

he will be safe from every turn of fortune (gardis i rizgar),

and favouring stars will be his monitors,

the astrologers can only answer: Who can escape the process of the sky? None can avoid by courage

or by might the sharp-clawed Dragon

above our heads. What is to be, will be.®

1 2 5 4

Sh 41, 4093 (W VIII, 34). K.g. Sh 15, 2462 (W V, 170); cf. p. 128, 58, 62, 721. Sh 13 f, 2047 £. (W IV, 109). Sh 12 e, 561 (W II, 366).

° Sh 15, 2884

(W V, 193), lit: .. . he will be safe from hard time (rizgar i durust).

6 Sh 15, 2457, 2459 ff. (W V, 170).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

17

One easily gets the impression that the blows of Fate hit men without plan or meaning, and this idea also finds expression in the epic itself. But on the other hand, there are also passages that seem to presuppose a reasonable meaning in the actions of Fortune. This holds true especially for those cases where it is said that Fortune punishes or takes

revenge. Thus “he who abandons his teacher’s way, to him Time (riizgar) will bring misfortune’’.1 And similarly: Fate (rizgar) will avenge? if he doth wickedly, but do not thou provoke the evil eye.®

When Rustam is about to kill Isfandiyar, the bird Simurgh says to him: Whoe’er shall shed that hero’s blood will be

himself pursued by fortune (rizgdr).4

Or more generally expressed: When any youth is slack in business

the heart of fortune (rézgar) will grow sick of him, disease will make him prematurely old.®

But Fortune also rewards man for his good deeds: him fortune (zamdnah) treateth with benevolence so long as he is just in all his ways.

Some other passages make it clear why fortune here appears as the guardian of morals. Siyavush says: Will God approve

or fortune (rizgar) profit me

if I desert the Faith and fight again?’

Another passage runs: ... since God approveth not of ill from us and bad men writhe ’neath time’s vicissitudes (gardis 1 zamdan).8 1 Sh 12, 8 (W II, 30). 2 Lit.: he will writhe because of time. wo

Sh 15, 3916

-

Sh 15, 3686 (W V, 238).

a

Sh 41, 1446 (W VII, 306).

a

Sh 41, 1222 (W VII, 293).

_

Sh 12 d, 1104 (W II, 250). Sh 13 g, 2989 (W IV, 302), cf. 13 g, 2800 (W IV, 290): God’s punishment

)

(W V, 251).

bad time. 2—527028

Helmer Ringgren

and

18

Helmer Ringgren

And in his answer to Piran’s letter Giidarz writes: Mark what the Maker will bring down upon thee for thine ill deeds; time (zamdanah) hath uncloaked thy crimes, and ill is manifest, requiting ill.

In these passages Time appears as it were the representative, or the very substance of a moral world order, or as a personification of the law of retribution. But then fortune is conceived of as a manifestation of God’s will; it is sent by him as punishment or reward for men’s deeds. Here is nothing of irrevocable predestination, nor of blind chance and morally indifferent Destiny. It is remarkable how rare are the passages in which the idea of Time as Destiny is expressed in concrete figures. Only once does Time appear as a mower; this is in a passage where death is represented as the inescapable lot of all men and which is perhaps worth quoting in full: Time (zaman) is the mower; we are like the swath; the grandsire and the grandson are the same to him, not making young or old his aim, but chasing each that cometh in his path.? The use and process of the world are so?: no mother’s son is born unless for death. By this door we arrive, by that we go,

and time (zamdanah) meanwhile accounteth every breath.!

A similar figure is found in the following verse: Thou wilt repent at last, but then repentance

will profit naught, fate’s (zamadnah) sword have reaped thy head.

A motif that is familiar in Arabic poetry, that of the cup of destiny, is practically absent in Firdausi. But probably there is a similar conception behind the often repeated phrase that Fortune gives sometimes. honey, sometimes poison.® The same holds true of the following verse: Expect not foolishly that thou shalt find balm in a place that fate (rizgdar) hath filled with bane.’ 1 Sh

13 f, 1296

menacent)’’,

2 Mohl:

the

f. (W IV, 72). For text

YY,

bad,

“crimes”

Mohl

has

“‘les malheurs

evil.

“il abat toute proie qu’il rencontre”

(better).

S| Soccees \yo lage. + Sh Fal47ott. (Wal, 311): 5 Sh 13 f, 209 (W LIV, 19). 8 Cf. above p. 13, n. 16.

7 Sh 12d, 598 (W II, 223); “balm”: Atos sam, “bane”: p@)}.

(qui te

Fatalism in Persian Epics

19

In one passage the poet mentions fruit in connexion with Fortune: Plant not in time of happiness a tree whose fruitage fortune (rizgar) will convert to bane.

But it is evident that the figure is merely chosen for the occasion to express the idea that one should not bring calamity upon himself. The figure is not in any way exclusively connected with the conception of Destiny. If these figures are created ad hoc there is probably no reason to seek for mythological motifs behind them. But in another case we may be justified in suspecting the mythological origin of a figure, viz. when the claws of Fate (Time) are spoken of. The Persian word cang, it is true, means both “hand” and “claws’’, and translators often assume the former meaning here, as for example: and let not bravery thy thoughts elate,

for stretched above thee is the hand of Fate (zamdn).?

Similarly, “‘when the hand of time had fallen upon’ Kai Kubad he finds no pleasure in the towns he has built and speaks in resignation of “the mighty who had passed away’. But in other cases there can be no doubt that “‘claw” is the right translation: Our good and ill beyond all doubt

will pass and not escape time’s clutch. The lion and dragon of the wood can not escape the clutch of Fate® Fate (zamdanah) stretched its lion’s claws and brought me down as though an onager.®

The same picture is also used about death: ‘Death is inexorable,”’ the Shah made answer. ‘““How

canst

that Dragon’s piercing clutch.’’? = to ) rs on a _

Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh

12 d, 2402 (W II, 315). 13 b, 1592 (W III, 190). 11, 221 (W II, 23). 20, 4 (W VI, 85). 16, 47 (W V, 285). 15, 3827 (W V, 246). 20, 1151 (W VI, 146).

thou

escape

20

Helmer Ringgren

One might assume that the concept of a death-demon has influenced the poet’s language! But perhaps there is still another possibility.

There are representations of the Greek god Chronos (‘“Time’’), who has probably some connexion with the Iranian time-god Zurvan, showing him as a man with a lion’s face, and four wings, and a serpent twining around him.2 We may ask whether a similar monster was in the poet’s mind when he wrote of the claws of Time. *

Passing now to the epic of Vis and Ramin, we find quite similar conceptions of Time as the agent of Destiny. Here, as in the Shahnamah, there are several cases where there may be some doubt as to whether

we should really translate a word for “time” as “Destiny”. When the poet says: “When Vis in his love took pity on Ramin, Time (zamdnah) wiped off from her heart the rust of enmity’, we might of course think of “time that heals all wounds’’, but, on the other hand, the Georgian version seems to have thought of Fate, for it speaks of “the smith of Fate’’ wiping off the rust. Often we may speak of “time and all that it comprises’’, the sense

being not far removed from “‘lot’’ or the like. ““May your time (rizgdar) be good for ever, may your lot (bazt) be happy’, says Ramin saluting the king’, and “‘time’’ is obviously not very different from the parallel word bazt, lot, hence: your life-time and all that it comprises. The same

parallelism is found in the complaint of Vis: ““How topsy-turvy is my fortune (baxt) and my time (rizgar), how unsuccessful and difficult are my affairs (kar)!”’> “I don’t know’’, says Bihgiiy giving advice to Ramin, “what the end of thy work will be, what good and evil thy time (rizgdar) 1 Cf. Scheftelowitz p. 51: “der Todesgott . . . der mit seinen Klauen sein Opfer anpackt.”’ Cf. also Wikander, 11, 27-30, where mouth

the death

Vayu p. 76 f., who quotes a passage from Bhagavadgita demon

Gandareva

dripping with blood; he is also equated

2 Cf. below p. 45 f., and see Scheftelowitz, ments I. p. 80. 3 VR such

is depicted as a monster

with his

with Visnu.

op. cit. p. 42, Cumont, Teates et monu-

45, 5 (W 101). Cf. a similar phrase 45, 40 (W 102: “Fate has given thee

light that thou wilt wipe the rust from

unhappy

Fate.”

The

Persian

text

has ©4=% for the first “Fate” and gs. uo», the unhappy, for the second). 4 VR 92, 17 (not in W, cf. 360). 5 VR 44, 28 (W 99: “Woe is me! How black and wretched is my fate! And how

topsy-turvy

are

my

affairs!’’).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

21

will show.”! “I fear that my time (rézgdr) will be dark’’?, says the nurse when she fears the king’s wrath. Similar instances are numerous, but those quoted are probably sufficient to show, that “time” (rizgdar) often means “‘life, life-time, lot, and fortune’. But time may also be objectified as Destiny. This process is in course of development in the following passage, where, however, the parallelism with baat is still present. The nurse is speaking to Vis and trying to persuade her to yield to the force of love: — if you have only experienced true and strong love, she says, dann siehst auch du wie ich in hellem Scheine, ob ich es gut, ob iibel mit dir meine,

ob dieser Anlass (bihanah)? kommt ob nicht vom Gliick (bazt), ob mild ob hart mit dir ist das Geschick (zamdnah).4

We also see how Time brings corruption and death. ““Time (zamanah) has shed the yellow pallor of the rose upon my face and mixed my musk with camphor’’®, says Vis’ mother Shahri deploring her lost youth and beauty. It is a simple and impressive figure, not without parallels in modern literature. But in the following quotation referring to Shah Modbad, who, in fear of his life, roves about seeking for Vis, we perceive

a more fatalistic tone: ““He feared the damage of Time (zamanah), that death one day should find a pretext (behdnah) against him.’ The main stress is laid on Time as the bringer of misfortune and on its caprice. Time is hostile to man; its hostility manifests itself in misfortunes. “Why does Time (zamdnah) bear hostility to you?’’? laments the nurse when Vis has been carried off by the Shah. Time deprives man of the dearest and most precious things he has. When Shah Mdbad comes without Vis, her mother breaks out in a lament: O mean Time (zamdnah), you have stolen from me the unique pearl... Surely, you, like me, were

very fond of the pearl,

for like a treasure you have hidden it in the earth. 1 VR

70,53 (W 210:

“I know not how the matter will end ... I know not what

thy fate will be’’). 2 VR

42, 213 (W 92: “‘ill should befall me’’, G 401).

3 See below p. 91 f. 4 VR

41, 177f.

5 VR

10, 27 (G 381, not in W, whose

(G 398, cf. W

81, much

abridged).

text is much

shorter, p. 6).

6 VR 56, 46 (W 139: “He feared somewhere from the treachery of Fate a lonely death as a wanderer in the wilderness’, cf. G 409).

7 VR

34, 6 (W 52: “why has Fate become thy foe?’’).

22

Helmer Ringgren. Surely, when you saw this paradise cypress,

you planted it in the eternal garden. Why did you uproot this jessamine-scented cypress, and having uprooted it, why did you turn it upside down?

Inexorably, ruthlessly and meaninglessly does Fortune act towards men. Time (zamdnah) “shows a wicked face’?, says the poet, when it brings misery upon men — the same figure is applied by Firdausi to the sky as an agent of destiny.® Sometimes Time takes men into its service to carry out its designs. When people come from Khorasan to complain about the rampagings of the Byzantine emperor, it is said that “‘they cried and asked justice against the injustice of Time (zamdanah)’.* The injustice of Time is nothing other than the emperor’s ill-deeds. It will be readily understood from the foregoing discussion that these conceptions of Destiny gave rise to a strongly pessimistic outlook. ““To me death in the snow is better than the tyranny of Time (riézgar) and a lover’s wrath’’>, says Ramin on one occasion. And on another we

hear

of Virti cursing the turn of Time (zamdnah) because its arrow

assigned to him separation from his wife Vis. But curse and complaint

are of no avail; it is better to be resigned: “Time (zamdnah) has not caused you this evil in order that you should have a pretext for so much weeping’’.? The capriciousness and instability of Time is a frequent subject of the poet’s reflections. It may take and give manifold in return: Hat ein Gliick (kam) auch das Schicksal (zamdnah) dir genommen, liess hundertfach es and’res zu dir kommen.®

1 VR

65, 25, 27-29

(W 186, where the last line runs:

‘‘Why didst thou let her

grow up so beautiful, O Fate? and since thou hast let her grow up, why hast thou

cast her down so unfeelingly?” and not “‘to let grow up”) 2 VR 67, 155 (ef. W 197).

But Gy» is “to dig up, uproot, extirpate”

3 See below p. 62.

4 VR 60, 15 (W 157, ef. G 413). 5 VR

87, 428

the baseness

(W 328:

“For me, death in the snow is much more pleasant than

of Fate and the sight of a lover become

6 VR

31, 14 (cf. W

7 VR

34, 42 (W 53: “What

weep so many 8 VR

45, Widengren,

Hochgottglaube

hostile’’.) p. 285).

has Fate done to thee that thou shouldst wish to

tears?”’, G 392, Widengren,

41, 57 (G 396, Widengren,

op. cit. p. 285).

op. cit. p. 285).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

23

Time is fickle and gives sometimes good, sometimes evil. It carries on its game with men mercilessly and sports with them: O strange and treacherous Time, which holds its evil for us! Now it holds joy, now sorrow, now it bears love, now hatred. This mean one plays with us as a juggler with a pearl.

The change of Time is also the theme of the following verses, in which Ramin laments his fate: If you want to test somebody, give him a jewel; if he does not want the jewel, give him a coal of fire. The hand of Time (zamdnah) gave me a jewel,

when I threw it away, it gave me a coal instead. For two months I have ‘measured the way’ in hardship;

at its end, what did I see? Misery. When I showed ingratitude to Time (zamdnah), Time showed unacquaintance to me. When I said: I do not thank for anything,

Time (zamdnah) said: I do not know you either.?

Ramin has himself been the cause of his misfortune, and Destiny here seems to act according to the principle of retribution. But generally man never knows what Fortune has in store for him: I do not know what my end will be,

what Time (ruzgar) will do with me.?

It is not difficult to see that those conceptions of destiny that we have dealt with here are rooted in older Iranian ideas. In the Pahlavi religious texts, and especially in Menok i Xrat, we often meet with the idea of man’s life being predestined by an omnipotent power, above all

associated with Time (Pahl. zaman or zamanak). In many cases we also 1 VR 89, 1-3 (W 342: “Fate makes sport of every man, and turns the inclinations and

natures

and

sometimes

of man

as a conjurer turns a (glass) bead.

sad, sometimes

jealous’’).

2 VR 90, 84-88 (W 347). 3 VR 60, 48 (W 158).

friendly, sometimes

Sometimes

hostile, and

he is merry

persecuted

by the

24

Helmer Ringgren

find the god Zurvan (i.e. Time) as the determiner of destiny. Thus we read in Ménok i Xrat, chap. 27: The activity of the whole world is carried on by destiny (bréh or baxs) and time (zamdnak) and decision of fate (vidir 7 brin), which is itself Zurvan', the sovereign

and long-continuing

ruler. For at each time, that which

is

to happen to each to whom a lot is assigned, happens to him.?

We can agree with Nyberg when he states that this passage and some preceding chapters in Ménok i Xrat teach that “‘predestination is a power that is one and indivisible and determines good and evil” and that “it excludes every human activity, since it is in itself the only efficient cause’. This last doctrine is evidently in opposition to the orthodox Zoroastrian teaching’, which represents an intermediate standpoint: “that there are some things through destiny, and some through action’’.® It clearly represents the Zurvanite system of theology, having TimeZurvan as its chief divinity. According to Nyberg, chap. 27 of Ménok i Xrat implies that “the activity of the Fatum comprises three stages: 1. baxs, predestination; the preliminary determination of the lot that is to fall to each man, 2. zamanak, the moment: the moment when the predestined lot passes from the virtual state to the actual, 3. widir 7 brin, the final decision: the full accomplishment of predestination’. These three phases represent the beginning, the middle, and the end of one and the same phenomenon, says Nyberg, and they represent, according to his translation of the text, “essential attributes” of Zurvan, “i.e. the fatum, seen under three aspects, is identical with the god Time, who comprises its successive manifestations’. It may be that this is the intention of the author here, but it must also be admitted that such a systematization of the different expressions for “‘destiny’’ cannot be observed elsewhere. 1 Nyberg: * Ménok

“‘attributs essentiels de Zurvan”’. 7 Xrat

27, 10f., ef. Darmesteter,

Ormazd

et Ahriman

p. 318, HERE

V

p. 792 b, Christensen, MO 25 p. 32, Nyberg, JAs 214/1929, p. 201 f., Scheftelowitz, Die Zeit als Schicksalsgottheit

p. 47 {., Bailey,

Zoroastrian

Problems

p. 38.

3 Nyberg, JAs 219/1931 p. 62.— seems to be a slip.

For “‘indivisible’”’ Nyberg has “invisible”? which

4 Cf. Nyberg, ibid. and Junker, vorstellung, p. 141.

Uber iranische Quellen der hellenistischen Aion-

5 Datastan

i dénik

71, 3.

6 Nyberg, JAs 219 p. 54.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

25

According to Scheftelowitz, bréh (or bahr as he reads it) is “das Geschick’’, zamdadnak is time, endless but limited through creation, and finally, he speaks of “die héchste Entscheidung des von selbst existierenden Zarvan’’.t This solution is simpler and on the whole more in accordance with the Zurvanite system. The meaning is obviously that the destiny of man is dependent upon some kind of predestination, which can only become reality within the limited time. How the connexion with the god Zurvan is conceived of, is not quite clear, but it would seem that the whole process is dependent upon him. In Dénkart there is a chapter with the heading ‘Of the colour of Time and the quality of that colour’. It begins: This concerns

the colour of Time

essence of the Bounteous Spirit (Gand-Méndk)

—

good and evil: good is of the very

Spirit (Spéndk-Méndk);

proceding

from

evil is of the Destructive

an outside essence.

good and evil, which have their beginning

in Time

The categories of

and with which

Time

is dyed, are eight.

Then four pairs of opposites are enumerated: bounteous — destructive, Vayik (pertaining to Vayu) — Varanik (lustful), bestowing — taking away, of good nature — of evil nature. Then we learn how these principles manifest themselves in the world: the first category, spénakik (bounteous) “includes chiefly Priesthood, religion, wisdom, good conduct, righteousness, and beneficence’’, its opposite, ganakik, comprises “Tyranny ... infidelity, bad conduct... falsehood and ingratitude’’, etc. In other words: everything that happens in the world, good or evil, all professions and activities, are comprised in Time, which has different colours according to whether it is good or evil. Time is what you might call a comprehensive conception of the whole existence. In the sequel we read: The

creator

Ohrmazd

for the purpose

dyed Time

of increasing

(zamdnak)

creatures

with

by its own

colour — nature

with good,

through

good,

and of vanquishing the evil of the Adversary which is from an evil origin; and with evil, that the evil of the Adversary

from without and confound more

them...

might

come

upon

creation

In that time (zamdanak) which has

the colour of evil, evil will exceed good in that same

time; but when

its period passes away, then comes its defeat, that is the time of Rejuvenation (fraskart) by the force of good, the complete defeat of evil in the times

and periods (6vamiha ut zamanakiha).* 1 Op. cit. p. 47 f. 2 Dénkart ed. Madan p. 307 ff., Widengren,

21, 15 (Sanjana I p. 18

Hochgotiglaube p. 290 f.

ff.), Zaehner,

BSOS

9/1937—39

26

Helmer Ringgren

In the present age the evil colour is predominant, but at the end of this age good will conquer evil and the world will be restored to its previous condition of purity. The remarkable thing in this passage, however, is that Ohrmazd has given Time both of its colours: though the Adversary is mentioned he does not seem to be the real and ultimate author of evil. This monistic view is as incompatible with the consistent dualism of Zoroastrian orthodoxy as the Zurvanite doctrine of Méndk i Xrat.} This text should be compared with another passage in Dénkart, where we read: This concerns Time

the four instruments

(kandrakimand

zaman)

ordained through

by the wise, decisive

(or: in) Limited

creator,

Ohrmazd,

for

the four kinds of agents: Two are powers of good, and through these powers arises good action for increasing progress; two are powers of evil, and through these forces arises evil action for decay and ineffectiveness.

For these com-

prise all adjustment and action within the period of the six millennia: through them Limited Time turns and revolves (vastan vartitan), and from their action the mode of the times (6vam) is revealed even to the end of the world.

In the sequel the significance of these four “instruments” is set forth; they are “the robe of Priesthood, the ordering of good in its pure state ... to insure his final victory over the Adversary’’, comprising all kinds of good actions and associated with “the good and godly luminaries” (i.e. the Zodiac and probably the sun and the moon); number two is “the robe of Tyranny, the ordering of evil in its pure state’, associated with the planets and comprising all kinds of evil deeds; further, “‘the robe of Warriorhood” which is not purely, but predominantly good,

associated with Vayu, “whose name is the Wheel (Ras), that is the Heavenly Sphere (Spehr)’’?; and finally “‘self-will, the ordering of evil in its contaminated state’’.? Here, too, the symbolism is clear in so far as the mixture of good and evil in the present age is intended. The symbolism of the robes can hardly be separated from that which is found in Great Bundahi8gn p. 31 f., where it is described how Ohrmazd puts on three robes, viz. the robes of the three Aryan estates, priests, warriors and peasants. Widengren interprets this correctly when he states that it implies that the god makes all activity in the world his own: he comprises all that happens. 1 Cf. Nyberg,

ZDMG

2 Cf. Wikander,

82/1928 p. 221 f.

Vayu p. 86.

3 Dénkart, ed. Madan 4 Op. cit. p. 248.

203, 16 ff., BSOS

9 p. 303 ff., Widengren,

op. cit. p. 287f

Fatalism in Persian Epics

27

Though the robes are here of another nature, the meaning is obviously the same: Time comprises everything that happens in this age, both good and evil. But this is here, it must be again emphasized, a work of Ohrmazd, the wise creator, who has thus brought into existence both good and evil. Now Widengren has pointed out that behind Time (zaman) we have a right to assume the god Zurvan.! Then it should be noticed that Zurvanism, too, is monistic, and that this monism is here transferred to Ahura Mazdah, who is the creator of Time. A monistic doctrine with Time as the determiner of destiny is also found in a passage in the beginning of Bundahign which has been dealt with in detail by Nyberg in an article in ZDMG. He has established its metrical structure and considers it to be an old hymn to Zurvan that has been inserted in a context that is otherwise Zoroastrian. Time (zaman) is more powerful than the two creations. Time is the measure for the work and the law.

Time is richer than the rich. Time is more informed than the well-informed. In a determined time a house is founded. And by time also a building is broken down.?

The soul cannot escape it, even if it should go upwards, even if it should go under the earth.

That Time is “stronger than the two creations’? means according to the context, that the time that was created by Ohrmazd will be endless after 12000 years. When this period has passed, the creation of Ahriman will be destroyed and the creation of Ohrmazd wholly transformed, time alone being left unchanged; therefore time can be said to be stronger than the two creations.® Scheftelowitz thinks that this fully accounts for the power of Time here, and that it is not necessary to assume an old hymn to Zurvan in this passage. On the other hand it must be admitted that the text would suit such a purpose very well, and the subsequent lines seem to speak in favour of Nyberg’s suggestion. In any case, this 1 Op. cit. p. 298.

2 ZDMG 3 For

82/1928 p. 217 ff.

the

Pavan. 4 Bundahisn

translation

of these

two

lines,

ed. Anklesaria p. 10, Nyberg,

see ZDMG

Bailey,

Zoroastrian

Problems

82 p. 224. Text in the main

according to Nyberg, in a couple of cases closer to the written text. Cf. Scheftelowitz, op. cit. p. 44f., Widengren

5 Scheftelowitz p. 45.

p. 273.

28

Helmer Ringgren

discussion does not alter the fact that Time is here conceived of as a power having control of man’s destiny. It is a power that rules omnipotently the life of man and that nobody can escape either in life or in death.t Nyberg draws attention to a parallel statement in Aogemadaééa, in which it is the demon of death, Astdviddtus, who is the inescapable one whom man cannot flee from, wherever he tries to go.? That Time determines the length of life is testified in several places. In Zatspram 4,5 we read: “It was a decree of Zarvan, the bringer of decision (bringar Zarvan): For 30 years I create Gayomart in... soundness of life.’’? It makes no essential difference, that we have here the old divine name Zurvan and not. the ordinary Pahlavi word for Time, for in a parallel passage in Bundahi&n, it is said: “As Zaman had said before the attack (of Ahriman) that strong Gaydmart would have life and sovereignty for 30 years.’’4 Another passage in Bundahisn runs: From the predestination (brihénisnih) of Time (zaman) is the sky (spihr) and Zurvan,

the long-continuing

ruler,

and the god-given lot of the body

(tan bayé-baaxtih).®

The sky is also, as we shall see, connected continuing ruler, is the present age of the lot of the body is so to speak the individual can hardly be anything other than endless, Zurvan. Shortly before, the text has told

with fate; Zurvan, the longworld, the limited time; the destiny of man®, and zaman unlimited Time, i.e. the god us that the long-continuing

ruler Time (zaman) has been created by Ohrmazd in order to ward off and to neutralize the attack of the Evil Spirit, and that he was given the shape of a young man of fifteen years, “brilliant, with light eyes, tall, strong’, and with a strength that is not from evil or violence but from virtue. Time, that is, the time that constitutes our present age of the world, seems consequently to be a good entity. 1 Cf. Scheftelowitz p. 46.

2 ZDMG

82 p. 227f., JAs 219 p. 43 f.

3 Scheftelowitz p. 47, cf. Schaeder Synkretismus p. 222 ff.

in Reitzenstein-Schaeder,

Studien

zum...

4 Bundahisn ed. Anklesaria p. 68, 15 f., cf. Scheftelowitz p. 47. 5 Bundahisn ed. Anklesaria p. 31, Nyberg, JAs 214 p. 230 f., 219 p. 60, Widengren op. cit. p. 248, cf. Wikander, Vayu p. 28.

§ Otherwise Nyberg p. 60 f.: “le corps universel’’. Widengren: ‘‘das baga-geschaffene Los des Kérpers’’. the god-given p. 98.

lot’’.

Another

Cf., for the

possible translation meaning

would

of tan, Bund.

be: ‘the body

[and]

101, 8-14, quoted below

Fatalism in Persian Epics

29

There is also some external evidence of the Iranian concept of time ‘as Destiny. This evidence is well known, and may be briefly referred to here. Theodor of Mopsuestia says that the Persians think that Zarouam is the ruler of the universe and identifies him with Tyche i.e. baat, lot, fate.t The Armenian bishop Eznik tells us about Zurvan, whom he also calls baat or “‘glory’’, p‘ark*, i.e. farr < xvaranah —and we shall see that this concept is on several occasions associated with the idea of destiny.” A well-known inscription from Kommagene speaks of all human genera-

tions “‘which limitless Time (ypdvocg &ze1p0¢) makes succeed each other through their especial fate (idt« Btov wotex)’. Finally we may cite also a witness from the ninth century A. D., the bishop Theodor Abi Kurra, who says that Zurvan is identical with baht (i.e. baxt, fortune).4 It is evident that many of the texts concerning Time are of a strongly speculative character, and we may suspect that the combination of Time with Destiny is the result of some kind of religious speculation. A passage in the Bundahi§gn gives us a hint of the direction in which we have to seek for the explanation of these ideas. The text mentions Heaven as the distributor of good things to mankind, and proceeds to say that this distribution is carried out through (or: in) Time (zamdn)°, i.e. that which is assigned to men through the distribution of Heaven is realized and reaches men in and through the passing of time. Though Time is here identified with Vai (Vayu), it does not seem to be personified, it is rather an abstract conception: events are produced through the agency of time, and time contains them. In order to arrive at a deeper understanding of these speculations we shall quote further from some texts, all belonging to the collection of

“Zurvanica”’

edited by Zaehner in BSOS

9. In the first chapter of

Zatspram there is an account of the creation conceived of as “‘the mixing of the Bounteous Spirit and the Destructive Spirit’. Here we find the well known story of Ohrmazd and Ahriman in the original dualistic state of the world. Ahriman prepares an attack on the world of light. Then the text says: Ohrmazd in his spiritual wisdom saw that what Ahriman had threatened,

he could do, unless the time (zamdnak)

of the conflict were limited. He

1 Cf. Widengren, op. cit. p. 271. 2 Cf. Widengren p. 271 f. and here p. 86 f., 94 f. 3 Cf. Scheftelowitz p. 48.

4 Nyberg, ZDMG

82 p. 234.

5 Bundahisn ed. Anklesaria p. 166, cf. Widengren p. 232 f. and below p. 73.

30

Helmer Ringgren begged Time (Zamdn) to aid him, for he saw that by means of no light thing would (Ahriman) desist. Time is a good helper and right orderer of. both; there is need of it. (Ohrmazd)

made

it in three periods, each period

three thousand years. Ahriman desisted.!

This obviously means that Ohrmazd takes from unlimited time, “eternity’’, a limited period and assigns it to the activity of Ahriman and the condition of mixture. The creation of time in its philosophical meaning is a means in the hands of Ohrmazd to limit the destructive work of Ahriman. (A contrary view is represented in the Rivayat when it

says that Ahriman “‘raised his head with the aid of Time (zamdn) to wage war against Ohrmazd’”, and that it is Time (zamdnah) that makes Ahriman succeed in his attack. But the conception of time is the same

in both cases.) A little farther down in the same chapter in Zatspram we read of Ohrmazd creating sky, water, earth, plants, animals, and men. But for 3000 years creation remained ‘‘corporeal and motionless’: “‘sun, moon, and stars stood still in the heights and did not speed forward’”’. But when the 3000 years had passed, Ohrmazd began to ask himself what could be the use of having a motionless creation. And with the aid of the sky (spihr) and Zurvan he fashioned creation forth. Zurvan was able to set the creation of Ohrmazd in motion without giving motion to the creation of Ahriman,

for the principles were

harmful

to each other and mutually opposed. Pondering on the end he (Zurvan) delivered to Ahriman a weapon (fashioned) from the very essence of darkness, mingled with the power of Zurvan, as it were a skin‘, dusky, black and ashen. And as he handed it to him he

said: ‘““By means of these weapons Az (Lust) will devour that which is thine, and he himself shall starve, if at the end of 9000 years thou hast not accomplished that which thou dost threaten, to finish off the treaty, to finish off

Time (zaman).°

Here a distinction is made between Zurvan and zaman, time in the philosophical sense of the word. Zurvan aids Ohrmazd in giving motion to the good creation, but he also gives Ahriman a weapon to carry out the evil work that is proper to him. Zurvan here exhibits the characteristic duality of the god of destiny; zaman, on the other hand, is still an entity 1 Zatspram

1, 8-11, BSOS

9 p. 574, 577.

2 P. 162, 1. 6, Widengren p. 285.

3 P. 162, 1. 15, Widengren p. 285 f. ‘ For this translation see Widengren p. 286 and Zaehner p. 584. > BSOS 9p. 575 ff.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

31

that is in the service of the good and that will not be finished off by Ahriman. The speculative character is still more pronounced in some passages from the Dénkart, which have all been treated of by Zaehner in Zurvanica III.1 Here we learn that “‘the existence of all has need of Time (zaman), and that ‘‘without Time one can do nothing that is or was or shall be’. But here we meet also another concept, Space: “That within which every essence is, yet itself is within nothing, is Space (gyan)’’.? And further we learn that “‘creation had to be created by means of Time and in Space’’.3 This is a purely philosophical statement of the fact that it is necessary that the world exists in time and space. Something similar might be said of the long exposition of the ‘“‘motion’’ and the causes of good and evil. The good originates from the Bounteous Spirit and the Good Religion, and its motion is eightfold: “it is Wisdom and the Light of Wisdom... and Will, Power, Means, Effort, Space and Time.” The origin of evil is the Destructive Spirit and the evil religion, and its motion “is in Lying Falsehood and the Darkness of Lying Falsehood... and Will, Power, Means, Effort, Space, and Time’’.® The six last terms are the same in both series; they denote the metaphysical conditions for the realization of a good or an evil action. With this we should obviously compare another passage in the Dénkart, which is quoted by Junker: : The world is stimulated through these six things: through the wise decision of Time, and Creation, and Knowledge, Diligence.

and Assistance,

Of these six, three are of heavenly

nature: Time, Creation, and Knowledge

nature

and Activity, and

and three of earthly

are of heavenly nature, and Assist-

ance, Activity and Diligence are of earthly nature.

Concerning Time we learn that “Time was originally limitless; then it was subjected to limitation; at the end it returns to limitlessness.’’? “That which was before creation was Limitless Time; that which coincided with the very act of the Creator’s creation was limited Time; that which was after creation was action (continuing) till the Rejuvenation.”’® BSOS 9 p. 871 ff. Dénkart ed. Madan p. 128 1. 16 ff., BSOS Dénkart p. 132 1. 21 ff., BSOS ep NY oOo

9 p. 879 f.

9 p. 880.

Cf. Dénkart p. 416 1. 18-22, transl. by de Menasce in Skand gumanik vitar p. 248. Dénkart

p. 2211.

Dénkart

(Sanjana) XII p. 85, § 83, 2, Junker,

11 ff., BSOS

9 p. 881 f.

Deénkart p. 282 1. 7 ff., BSOS

9 p. 884.

Dénkart p. 2901. 8 ff., BSOS

9 p. 884.

ana ont

op. cit. p. 159 f., n. 33.

32

Helmer Ringgren

In other words, before creation, time was unlimited, it was eternity that prevailed, through creation time was limited, i.e. time in the proper sense of the word came into being, and within this time action can take place. It is a matter of indifference whether we say that time came into being through creation, or that creation took place within, or with the aid of time, both being interdependent. Or, as de Menasce puts it, “limited and divisible time is the condition and the foundation, the necessary accompaniment (hdn 1 apdk) of creation’. The Rejuvenation implies that time ceases to exist and eternity begins anew. We may quote de Menasce once more: “‘Opposed to this cosmic time is the ‘infinite’ time or eternity, in which the former will be reabsorbed at the end, just as it has issued from it at the moment of creation.’ We may add here another text from the Dénkart: Creation,

limited

Time

it is said,

is within

Time. And

in God will be the course of

successively according to the arrangement of the totality of

the beings.?

That is, creation takes place within limited time. The course of events in this world is the temporal consequence of creation, the periods of time following one after another. What is to be will be, and what will be, is to be.4 That this speculation on the necessity of Time for the existence of creation could be carried so far that even the Creator himself has become dependent upon Time, is shown by a passage from a Parsi Rivayat, quoted by de Menasce: Ohrmazd has been produced by Time (zamanah). Time is like milk, and that which is produced is like the butter that is in the milk; when the butter has been extracted from the milk, the milk becomes like whey. The form of Ahriman

comes

he knew

that he was very hostile to him. He thought:

hostility.

from

Darkness.

He thought

again:

When

Ohrmazd

if I destroy

saw him, dark and black, I will destroy that

it, he will make

another

Time.

Then he saw his decree, according to which he (Ahriman) was to exist for 12 000 years. Then he produced the sky .. .§

We notice that Time is here something good, and that Ahriman is prevented from creating his own Time. But Time is clearly the origin of 1 de Menasce, op. cit. p. 251.

Ui. ’ Dénkart * Junker,

(Sanjana) IX p. 460, op. cit. p. 135.

5 Anthropos

35-36/1940-41,

§ 31 f., Junker,

p. 451.

op. cit. p. 159, n. 31.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

33

Ohrmazd, the Creator. The same idea is expressed in the Ulama-i-Islam in the following words: “except Time everything is created and is a creation of Time’’.? There is no explicit relation between Time and destiny in these texts, but evidently it is not difficult to establish one, since everything that happens must take place within time. Perhaps there is another indication of the fatalism of the Zurvanite doctrine in the following passage from Skand-gumanik vitar: Another error is that of the atheists called Dahari (“Timeists’’), who are averse

to religious

duties

and

effort

in practising

virtue.

Now

consider

their unbridled clamour which they frequently let loose: for they opine that this world with its manifold changes and dispositions of its members and instruments, and the opposition of one to another, and the intermixture of one

with another is (derived) from the Principle of Infinite Time;

further

that virtue

is unrewarded

and sin unpunished,

that Heaven

and and

Hell do not exist, and that there is no one who directs virtue and sin; and further that objects are only material, and not spiritual.?

Now it is evident that the author here refers to an atheistic and materialistic doctrine which is known in Islamic literature by the name of dahriya? and which, by itself, can hardly be called Zurvanism.* But the derivation of everything from Infinite Time seems to indicate some kind of Zurvanite influence, whether this has taken place in the author’s mind or should really be ascribed to the dahriya. From what has been said it is clear that the identification of Time and Fate was current at the time when our Pahlavi writings were composed. Now the question arises whether these ideas are still older or are a new invention of later Zoroastrianism. Several scholars, as, for example, Nyberg and Widengren, think that the essential parts of these speculations are inherited from an extremely old form of religion in western Iran, according to which Zurvan was the great, undifferentiated high-god, god of destiny and sky-god. Others, such as Scheder® and de Menasce*, maintain that the Zervanite ideas are relatively 1 Christensen, MO

25/1931 p. 32.

2 Skand gumanik

viéadr 6, 1-8, transl.

3 Cf. de Menasce,

op. cit. p. 77. Cone. the dahriya v. Goldziher in Enzyklopddie

BSOS

9 p. 888.

des Islam. 4 Zaehner, op. cit. p. 900, referring to a passage from the Dénkart combines them with the sophists, and thinks that

“the Zervanites

have nothing to do with the

Daharis’’.

5 ZDMG

95/1941 p. 268 ff.

8 Anthropos 3 — 527028

35-36 p. 451, also Duchesne-Guillemin,

Helmer

Ringgren

Zoroastre p. 95 ff.

34

Helmer Ringgren

late and in any case not older than Manicheism, which exercised a considerable influence on them. A final solution of this problem is hardly possible, since the sources at our disposition are so scanty and disparate. What we know about the god Zurvan is drawn mainly from the Pahlavi writings and from rather late non-Iranian sources. The following facts should be taken into consideration: 1. The word zruwvdn is used as a common noun in the Avesta with several shades of meaning. It denotes a fixed time when something happens. The divine forces make the plants grow “at the fixed zruvan’’; the beaver clothing of the goddess Anahita is made ready ‘“‘at the fixed zruvan’’; and as a legal term zruvdn is the term of a trial. It means a time, the length of which is not exactly defined: Tistrya will give rain for a certain zruvdn; and finally a more indefinite length of time: a long zruvan when no rain falls and nothing grows, or: for how long a zrwvan does the impurity caused by a dead body last? Thus it is fully evident

that the word means “‘time’’.! (The later form zaman may be influenced by a Semitic word — cf. Ace. simanu, Aram. 2°man — secondarily connected with zruvan). 2. The god Zurvan is mentioned only a few times in the Avesta and always in very late passages: NyayiS

1,8: We

Yasna

72,10

worship

(=Sihrdéak

unlimited

we

worship

long-ruling

1,21 and 2,21): We

Time,

worship

the day of Raman

Time.

with the good herds, the day of Vayu, whose action is most high, of sovereign

Heaven

(properly:

the atmosphere,

Thwasa),

of unlimited

Time

and

of

long-ruling Time. Vendidad

19,13

(cf 19,16): Invoke,

O Zarathustra,

the sovereign

Heaven

(ThwaSa), unlimited Time and Vayu, whose action is most high... Vendidad

19,29: The demon, named Vizarsa carries off in bonds the soul of

the short-lived men [the unfaithful, daeva-worshippers]. On the roads,, made by Time, the soul of the unfaithful man as well as that of the righteous. man

arrives

at the

bridge

Vendidad 19,9: To me in unlimited Time.2

of Cinvat...

Spenta Mainyu gave it (the word), he gave it to me

The last-mentioned passage perhaps does not speak of the god Time, but of the philosophical concept. Vend. 19,29 has something to do with death’, but apart from that, we learn practically nothing of the character of the god Zurvan. We might agree with Christensen, when he says: 1 Junker,

op. cié. p. 129.

These passages, except the last one, > V. Nyberg, JAs 219 p. 119 ff. 2

are given by Nyberg,

JAs

219 p. 117.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

35

“From these passages we could not draw any conclusions concerning the role of Zurvan in the theology of the Avesta.’! Nevertheless, we might possibly infer from the fact that he is invoked along with Thwasa and Vayu, that he belongs to the divinities who are associated with the sky, the atmosphere, and fate. 3. The name Zurvan seems to be attested in cuneiform documents from the 13th century B.C.2, but we learn nothing about the character of the god in these documents. But it can hardly be assumed that a god carrying the name of Time can have originated without having had some association with time, its passing and its contents (i.e. fate). If a god named Zurvan existed in the 13th century, he must in some way have been connected with the belief in fate. It is hardly probable that a sky-god should be called Time for any other reason. The myth of Zurvan’s twin sons is of less importance in this connexion. Our next task will be to consider whether or not these Iranian ideas of Time are in some way connected with Indian Kala speculation.? Kdla means ‘“‘time’’, “due or proper time’’*, but the etymology of the word is uncertain; some scholars derive it from the root kal “‘to drive on’’®, others think it is connected with Greek xa1od¢8, or combine it with non-Aryan words meaning “dark” or ‘“‘black’’.? Kdla is used as a common noun for “time” but it is also one of the words used in epic literature to denote Destiny, sometimes personified as a god of Destiny. As a god Kala appears especially in two hymns in the 19th book of the Atharvaveda, from which we quote the following extract. 53:1.

Time,

the steed, runs

with

seven reins, thousand-eyed,

ageless, rich

in seed...

2. With seven wheels does this Time ride, seven naves has he; immortality 15 WIS 8X16 %.\.7 3. ... they call him Time in the highest heaven.

4. He surely did bring hither all the beings (worlds), he surely did encompass all the beings

(worlds).

Being their father, he became

their son; there is,

verily no other force, higher than he.

5. Time begot yonder heaven, Time also (begot) these earths. That which was, and that which shall be, urged forth by Time, spreads out. 1 Christensen,

2 AfO

Htudes

sur

le Zoroastrisme

12 p. 29 ff., ef. Widengren,

3 Cf. Scheftelowitz, 4 Cf. Giintert,

p. 54.

Hochgottglaube p. 310.

op. cit.

Der arische

Weltkénig

und

Heiland

5 Wist, ZII 5/1927 p. 165f., Scheftelowitz p. 31. § Giintert, op. cit. p. 232. 7 Przyluski, La grande déesse p. 194 f.

p. 232.

36

Helmer Ringgren 6. Time created the earth, in Time the sun burns. In Time are all beings, in Time the eye looks abroad. 7. In Time mind is fixed, in Time breath, in Time names;

when Time has

arrived all these creatures rejoice.

8. In Time tapas (creative fervour) is fixed, in Time the highest, in Time brahma is fixed; Time is the lord of everything, he was the father of Prajapati. 9. By him this (universe)

was

urged forth, by him

it was

begotten,

and

upon him this (universe) was founded.... 10. Time

created

the creatures,

and

Time

in the beginning

(created) the

lord of creatures (Prajapati); the self-existing KaSyapa and the tapas from Time were born. 54:1. From

Time the waters

did arise, from Time

the brahma,

the tapas,

the regions. Through Time the sun rises, in Time he goes down again. 2. Through

Time

the wind blows, through

the great sky is fixed in Time.

In Time

Time

the son

(exists) the great earth; (Prajapati)

begot of yore

that which was, and that which shall be. 5. Having conquered this world and the highest world, and the holy worlds and their holy divisions; having by means of the brahma

conquered all the

worlds, Time, the highest God, hastens onward.

Here we meet Kala (i.e. Time) as the highest principle, which pervades and encloses everything, without which nothing exists. This Time is conceived of as the highest power in the universe, the highest God, even older and greater than Prajapati, the creator, who is his son. The concrete mythological features in the beginning of the hymn may be due to a transference of epithets from the sun god?; otherwise the whole section gives the impression of being derived from philosophical speculation. It is remarkable, however, that the hymn to Kala is practically unique

in Vedic literature. In Rigveda the word kala is found only once (X, 42,9), and it is uncertain whether it really means “time”’ in this place.? In Atharvaveda, it occurs also in XIII, 2,39—40, where it is said that Rohita is Kala, Prajapati and the great lord of the gods.4 Rigveda knows “the wheel of Time’’® and “‘the web of Time’’¢ but uses other words for “time” in these expressions. In Atharvaveda X, 7,42 we learn that day and night are two sisters who weave the web of year and time. It 1 Quoted from SBH XLII. * Bloomfield

in SBH

p- 231 f., Wikander,

XLII

p. 683,

Gr IarPhil

2, 1B

Vayu p. 34, 158. Cf. the hymn

p. 89, Giintert, op. cit.

to Rohita

3 Scheftelowitz p. 31. 4 Cf. Shende, Bull. of the Deccan Coll. Res. Inst. 9 p. 226. SURGE leticse Vi whens ® Cf. also AV

X, 7, 42, VIII,

4, 37, v. Scheftelowitz

p. 10.

AV

XIII,

2.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

37

is only in epic literature — which is considerably later — that Time appears as Destiny. Indian epic pays much attention to the question of Destiny, and the ideas as well as the manner of expressing them are extensively analogous to what we find in Iranian literature. Kala is not the only word that is used to express a belief in Destiny. There are also such words as dista, “appointed’”’, daiva, ““divine’’, vidhi, “disposed” and the related vidhana, bhagya and bhagadeya, “‘the ‘portion’ given by the gods’’, or bhavitavya, “that which is to be’’.1 They are often used interchangeably without any discernible difference in meaning; in Mahabharata XII, 28,18 f. Daiva, bhavitavya, Kala, dista, vidhi, and vidhdna are all synonymous?: Wealth

and

poverty,

destiny

(vidhdna).

to each

one’s

agreeable

and

disagreeable

are

a conseqence

of

Seat, bed, high position, food and drink always fall

lot through

Kala.

Noble

birth,

strength,

health,

beautiful

stature, happy existence and enjoyment are attained through ‘dispensation’

(lit.: that which is to be, bhavitavya). That poor men have many children, and the rich have none is the strange procedure of fate (vidhi).3

Similarly in III, 273,6 we read: The exalted Time, the destiny created by fate (daiva vidhinirmita), and the ‘dispensation’ (bhavitavya) fall to the lot of the beings.4

The most comprehensive exposition of Kala speculation is found in a dialogue in the Mahabharata between Indra and Bali, who has been overcome by the god. It is possible that Bali here stands as a representative of a certain philosophical and religious school, since some of the opinions expressed by him do not seem to be in full harmony with the outlook shown in other parts of the epic. Thus it cannot be regarded as typical of the Mahabharata that Indra, too, is subject to the domination of Kala. But nevertheless the passage is highly instructive as representing a typical and elaborate Kala speculation, and the following extract from Bali’s speech gives us an interesting picture of the role of Time in Indian belief in Fate, and at the same time, shows some instances of close agreement between Indian and Iranian ideas in this field. 1 Hopkins, Lpic Mythology p. 73 ff., Scheftelowitz p. 6 f. » Hopkins, op. cit. p. 74.

3 The quotations from the Mahabharata

are adapted from the translation of

Pratap Chandra Ray utilizing Scheftelowitz and Deussen, Vier philosophische Teate. — This text Scheftelowitz p. 16.

4 Scheftelowitz p. 13.

Helmer Ringgren

38

A person obtains happiness and misery through the course of Time (kala). Thou hast, O Sakra, obtained the sovereignty of the universe through the course of Time, but not through thy work. It is Time that leads me on in its course. That same Time leads thee also onward. It is for this that

I am

not what thou art today, and thou also art not what we are... Men are incapable of averting, by even a thousand means, an impending calamity, in spite of intelligence and strength. There is no rescuer of men that are afflicted by Time’s course...

Through Time I have vanquished thee, through Time thou hast vanquished me.

Time is the mover

in the beings that move.

(kalayatr) the beings... In Time’s course many

thousands

It is Time that drives on

of Indras and of deities have been

outrun by Time in the course of the yugas, for Time cannot be overrun... Restrain

thyself,

delightful Time’s

world

course,

an

O Indra, for Time of

living beings

will soon thou

come

art now,

object of adoration...

over thee...

In this

only in consequence

of

Time is the one who causes and

transforms; everything else is without effect... Thou

braggest

before one who, when

been struck by Time’s fire and bound

the course

of time has come,

strongly in Time’s

has

cords, but that

dark genius of the world (i. e. Time) is difficult to vanquish. He, Rudra’s son stands

there, having

bound

Gain and loss, happiness captivity and release

—

me

with a chain like an inferior animal.

and misery, lust and wrath, birth and death, these

all one

receives

from

Time.

I am

not the

actor. Thou art not the actor. He is the actor who, indeed, is omnipotent.

That Time ripens me like a fruit that has appeared on a tree. Everything that a man acts

are

achieves is combined

likewise

combined

with happiness by Time; and these very

with grief by Time.

Therefore

it behoves

not

the knower of Time -to complain when he is assailed by Time.1

In his answer Indra admits the omnipotence of Time: . Like thyself I also know has been

thrown

into

Time’s

that this world is not eternal, and that it fire that

is dreadful,

hidden,

continuously

burning, and endless. Nothing that is assailed by Time can escape, neither subtile, nor gross elements, when they reach ripeness in Time. Time has no master, Time is ever heedful. Time brings the elements to ripeness. Time is ceaselessly Time,

going

can escape

on.

No

one

therefrom.

who

has

Heedful

come

among

to annihilation the heedless,

within

Time

this

is awake

among men?... Time cannot be avoided, and not be overleapt. Like a usurer

adding up his interest, Time adds up the months and the days and the nights, the minutes, seconds, thirds, and quarts... Wealth, comforts, rank,

prosperity, Time 1 Mbh

all fall a prey to Time.

snatches away

XII, 227, 28 ff., Deussen,

op. cit. p. 309 ff.

2 Cf. baxt 1 bidar below p. 83 f. 3 Mbh

Approaching

every

his life. Exaltation ends with fall. . .3

XII, 227, 92 ff., Deussen p. 315 f.

living creature,

Fatalism in Persian Epics

39

From these quotations we get a vivid impression of Time as the omnipotent power ruling over everything in the universe, a power to which even the gods must yield. But it is also evident that the proper meaning of the word Time is never lost sight of. Time determines all events, it 1s said, just as if we were concerned with a divine being, but. it is not forgotten that this very Time consists of months and days and nights. There are many other passages in the Mahabharata as well as in other works of Indian literature, which speak of Time as the determiner of Destiny. Since it is not our intention to investigate the Indian ideas, we may content ourselves with quoting a few of them, which show either some striking similarity or some characteristic difference in comparison with the Iranian material. It is Time that takes away everything, it is Time that gives everything, through Time everything is ordained; do not brag of thy manliness. Indeed,

if Time

had

not assailed

me,

I would

have

(Indra) with only a blow of my fists notwithstanding

today

killed thee

thy thunderbolt...

It is Time that arranges everything, Time that brings everything to ripeness.? That sovereign sway which I had, O chief of the gods, is no more. now

assailed by the forces of Time.

I am

Those things, therefore, are no longer

seen to shine for me. I am not the doer, thou art not the doer, none else, O lord of Saci, is the doer. Through the revolution of Time are the worlds ruled, O Sakra, as chance ordains it. He whose dwelling is the months nights, whose

robes

are day and night, whose

gates are

and fort-

the seasons

and

whose gable is the year, should be regarded as the universe.? Thee, too, O Sakra, that art possessed of swelling might, the king of the gods, when thy hour comes, allpowerful Time will extinguish.* Time

plays

(with the creatures)

as with

playthings®,

which

he throws

to and fro at his will, with lions... with elephants... serpents... with learned men, who fall into irremediable misery, with heroes, who are destroyed by fate. This man Time,

has departed, bitten by Time.’

the mighty

the exterminator

1 Mbh

XII,

serpent

which

is lying cn the bottom

of the well, is

of all corporeal beings.

224, 25. Deussen

p. 295.

2 Mbh XII, 224, 38 f. Deussen p. 296. 3 Mbh

XII,

224, 44-47.

Deussen

p. 297.

4 Mbh XII, 224, 56. Deussen p. 298. 5 The same expression applied to Usas RV I, 92, 10, Giintert op. cit. p. 233 f. 6 Tantrakhyayika _

Tantrakhyayika

oo

Mbh

(Hertel)

p. 36 1. 115; Scheftelowitz

p. 61, Scheftelowitz

XI, 6, 8. Scheftelowitz

p. 18.

p. 31.

p. 17 n.

1.

40

Helmer Ringgren Who

can avert, by his wisdom,

the decrees of fate (daiva)? No one

can

leave the road marked out for him by Destiny (vidhdtar). Existence and non-existence, pleasure and pain, all have Time for their root. Time creates all things, and

Time

destroys

all creatures.

that snatches away all creatures. evil, in the world. Time alone is awake

when

Time

makes

Time

overcomes

fate

(daiva)

all states, the good and the

destroys all things and creates them

all things are asleep; unchangeable,

anew.

Time

irresistible Time

comes to all things.? I think

that

what

A text quoted about

a

has happened

by Meyer

child whose

fate

is due to the cords of Time.?

in his T'rilogie altindischer

was

Mdchte® tells us

written on his forehead by a deity on his

sixth day: he was to be bitten by a snake four days after his wedding day.

And when the day was

come

Yama’s

messengers

came

at the order of

Kala to carry him away.

The Puranas they obviously primordial god, caying’’, is said

contain more speculative statements about Time, but presuppose the same basic ideas. In Visnu-Purana the identified with Visnu, “‘unborn, unperishable, undeto comprise “the discrete and the indiscrete”’ and to

“exist in the form of Purusa (Spirit) and of Kala (Time)”. “Visnu, being thus discrete and indiscrete substance, spirit and time, sports like a playful boy, as you shall learn by listening to his frolics (lila)”4 — the last phrase seems to apply to the creation of the world. “The deity as Time is without beginning and his end is not known, and from him the revolutions of creation, continuance and dissolution unintermittingly succeed’’.® One might ask if all the similarities that can be observed in these texts between Indian and Iranian ideas can be due to mere chance or are caused by the nature of the common topic. Now it is true that our sources, in India as well as in Iran, are relatively late, and that the extant sources do not tell us anything of such speculations from the more ancient epochs. Thus it is not possible to trace a common origin for these concepts in the texts. But we should bear in mind that if we conclude that Time speculation did not exist before the time of our 1 Mbh

I, 1, 248-252,

* Mbh- XVII.

Scheftelowitz

p. 15.

1,3, ci. XVI, 5, 10land TMS 157,:45;sRamuos oos20s iyo

2neos a.

Scheftelowitz p. 20.

3 Op. cit. II p. 207 quoting from the Karttikamahatmya in Sanatkumarasamhita (see 7b. p. 13) 12, 4 ff. 4 Visnu-Purana, zelt p. 506 f.

Sal beap. 60m.

tr. Wilson p. 9, quoted from Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmels-

Fatalism in Persian Epics

41

written texts, we make use of an argument e silentio, and the silence of the sources may be due to chance. There may, nevertheless, be some sort of connexion between Zurvan and Kala in spite of this silence. Kala is once described as quadriform and four-faced (evidently having reference to the four world-ages)! — and Zurvan is “the four-shaped god’’. Scheftelowitz says: ‘Just as Siva, the master of all the worlds, is watching in the beginning, in the middle and at the end, so Kala watches in the beginning, in the middle and at the end’’? — this is another feature

which reminds us of Zurvan. (This tripartition is common in deities who are concerned with time or destiny, e.g. the Norns of Nordic mythology, Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, representing the past, the present and the future. In other cases the aspect of eternity is prevalent, as in the well known hymn to Zeus: ‘‘Zeus was, Zeus is, and Zeus will be, O great Zeus’, or the Biblical ““He who is and who was and who is to come’’, or a passage in a Rigveda hymn to the Dawn (Usas), in which its existence in the past, the present and the future is alluded to.4) Another, perhaps more superticial, similarity between Kala and Zurvan may be found in the fact that both are mentioned along with the sky, the stars and Vayu; there is a passage in the Mahabharata that says that “‘the quarters of the horizon, Time (dla), the sun, the shining celestial bodies, planets, wind (Vayu), water, and stars are from Siva’’> — it may be recalled in this connection that in the Avesta Zurvan is mentioned together with Thwasa, Vayu and the star Tistrya.® There seems to be no uniform belief in Time and Fate in Indian literature, not even in the Mahabharata. In the Upanisads there are discussions as to whether the gods existed before Time or only within Time. The problem is often solved by the assumption that the primordial deity Brahman existed before Time and is timeless.’ Fate is often derived from a god or the gods; it is said: “‘So it has been disposed by the Disposer, the divine cannot be overcome by man’s act... wish 1 Hopkins,

op. cit. p. 75.

2 Op. cit. p. 26, Mbh XII, 122, 52 f. Pe Pans

Mbh XIII, 14, 202. Scheftelowitz p. 13. 6 Above p. 34. 7 Scheftelowitz p. 11.

4/1952 p. 103

Iranian Manichaean texts: God Up. 4, 13.

42

Helmer Ringgren

not to change Fate’’.1 But as we have seen, there are also pronouncements implying that the gods, even mighty Indra, have to yield to

Time (Kala).2 But Kala may also be thought to be dependent upon karman, or to personify karman?, or there may be cooperation between the deeds of man and Fate. We get the impression that the belief in an impersonal Fate does not fit well into the ancient Vedic religion. There was a conflict between them, and the result is seen in various solutions with the mark of compromise. This vacillation is well expressed in a passage in the Mahabharata quoted by Hopkins: Those priests

who say

teach

that

that one’s own

the karma

the divine nature

doctrine

(daiva)

preach

is efficient;

the efficiency natural

of the act;

philosophers

say

is the chief thing.®

There seems to be good reason for accepting Hopkins’ explanation “‘that Fate or destiny is a power developed into individuality out of the general concept of divine power, until it merges with Time = God’’.6 The use of dawa, “‘the divine’, and bhagadeya, “‘the god-given portion’’, as words for Fate point in the same direction. We have already pointed out that Kala’s connexion with the course of time is quite apparent. It is also obvious in the following quotation: The months,

divisions

of time, viz. kalds,

constellations,

kadsthas, muhirtas,

planets, seasons,

and years

days,

fortnights,

are mingled with each

other; thus the wheel of Time revolves with these divisions.’

And “as an entity Time is subdivided, and the four ages, Yugas, emerge as divisions having separate names as the constituents of an aeon, or whatever it may be called, one of the ceaseless revolutions which bring the universe back to its beginning, the wheel of time conceived by ages’’.8 It should also be mentioned that Kala sometimes is called the son of the pole-star; this star is so to speak the axle of the universe, around which the celestial sphere turns in measuring time. rary

Mbh IX, 62, 77, Hopkins, op. cit. p. 75.

Above p. 37 f. and Scheftelowitz p. 22. Scheftelowitz p. 21. Ib. p. 10. Mbh XII, 233, 19, Hopkins p. 74. Op. cit. p. 73.

Mbh XIII, 32, 12. Hopkins, op. cit. p. 75 f.

wo fF Yaa WD oe

Fatalism in Persian Epics

43

Some of the passages from the Mahabharata which we have quoted above indicate that there is a tendency to associate Kala with the planets and the stars, and consequently there are certain relations between Kala and astrology. Scheftelowitz even goes so far as to think that the figure of Kala has its origin in astrological speculation: the belief in Fate owes its existence to astrology. We shall treat the question of astrology in our next chapter, so a few remarks will suffice at this point. In the Svetasvatara Upanisad we learn that the belief in Kala is “the system of the astrologers’’!, and there are numerous instances of astrological ideas in epic literature. But it must be admitted that the passages that expressly combine Kala with astrology are extremely few, if any at all. When Kala is mentioned together with sun, moon and planets, it is generally in statements that “‘sun, planets, wind, water and stars are from Siva’? or that the creator, Svayambhi, after creating the world, the gods and the Vedas, “‘created Time, the divisions of time, the moon houses, and the planets’. Everything seems to indicate that it is as Time that Kala is a god of destiny, and this is possible without postulating dependence upon elaborate astrological principles. But it is also clear that a relation between Kala speculation and astrology is easy to establish, when once the astrological principles have been formulated. Before leaving the problem of Time as Destiny, however, we should have a glance at some comparable phenomena in Greece. Kisler® has drawn attention to the great conformity between Indian and Iranian speculation concerning Time and some traits in the Orphic cosmogonies. Here we find Chronos, i.e. Time, as an original principle. Thus according to Pherecydes the universe is derived from three first principles: Zas (Zeus), Chronos and Chthonia (or Chthon). ““The cosmogony begins when Chronos produces from his seed Fire, Air, and Water, who then in turn beget the five families of the gods. Thus gods and elements alike are the offspring of Time.’’® In the so-called Rhapsodist cosmogony Chronos stands at the summit of the system, followed by Aether (bright, fiery substance + and Chaos (Space). “After Aether 1 Darmesteter, 2 Mbh

XIII,

Ormazd

et Ahriman

14, 202, Scheftelowitz

3 Manu 1, 24, Scheftelowitz 4 The oldest instance in AV

5 Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt IV p. 146 b.

p. 13.

p. 15. VI, 110, XIX,

and Altpers. Religion p. 225. ° Burns, HRE

p. 323, Hisler, op. cit. p. 496.

I.

7f., cf. Scheftelowitz,

op. cit. p. 1

44

Helmer Ringgren

and Chaos comes the Egg, which is viewed sometimes as the offspring of Chronos and Aether, sometimes as that of Aether and Chaos... Finally, there issues from the Egg the first Orphic god’’, Phanes, a ‘“‘polymorphic, beast-mystery god”’, described in a fragment quoted by Proclus in the following way: Heads had he many, head of a ram, a bull, a snake, and a bright-eyed lion.

Phanes, then, gave birth to the world. In another Orphic cosmogony, that of Hieronymus and Hellanicus, we find not Chronos, but water and slime at the head of the system. Chronos springs from these two. He is “‘a winged dragon with the heads of a bull and a lion, and betwixt them the face of a god. He is ChronosHeracles-Ananke-Adrasteia. Heracles betokens his might, Ananke his necessity, Adrasteia his inevitability. Next, Chronos produces Aether, Chaos [conceived as “humid’’], and Erebus [described as “misty’’]. Lastly, in the midst of the vaporous space... Chronos produces an Egg’, from which the Maker and ruler of the world issues.? We are not interested here in a discussion of the relation of these cosmogonies to each other. We only wish to point out the similarity between the description of Phanes in the Rhapsodist cosmogony and that of Chronos in Hieronymus and Hellanicus. This shows that both have been working with the same material. Burns thinks that Chronos in Pherecydes “‘naturally denotes the Time in which everything happens, and occupies an analogous position to Space in Hesiod’s cosmogony’’.? Gruppe points to some statements in which Time is connected with the sky (e.g. Aristotle: ““The sphere of the universe is considered to be Time, for everything is in time as well as in the sphere of the universe’’*), and expresses the opinion that Chronos is “‘here as in later theogonies the principle of variability, or rather... that part of matter that is movable and causes motion, the outermost celestial sphere, that of the fixed stars’’.6 The animal faces of Chronos are thought by Gruppe to symbolize the constellations. Eisler 1 HRE IV p. 147b.

2 HRE IV p. 148 a. 3 ERE IV p. 146 b. 4 Phys. IV, 10 s. 218 b 5. Further evidence Gruppe, Griech. Mythol. wu. Rel.gesch. p. 427 n. 4. Cf. also: “‘Aether is the working, Earth

the suffering one, Time is that

in which the existing things are” (Ps. eur. Peisithoos fr. 594), Gruppe p. 608 n. 5.

5 Gruppe, op. cit. p. 427 f.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

45

has pointed out some more facts that seem to verify Gruppe’s assumption. When Chronos is once invoked as “‘the all-surveying daimon’’, he says, this must be explained from the fact that in a fragment of Critias, the indefatigable Chronos is said to guard the pole together with the two bears.? And, furthermore, the Orphic conception of Chronos as a “twisted dragon’? must be compared with a Gnostic statement that “the dragon has been placed at the northern pole and observes and watches everything’. Now, the conception of Chronos as Time is not at all incompatible with his identification with the celestial sphere and the constellations. On the contrary, it is in total agreement with what we know of Zurvan and of Kala. Our last quotation concerning Chronos cannot definitely be ascribed to Orphic literature. It is doubtful whether Eisler is right in assuming that all that is said about Chronos in Greek texts presupposes the Orphic god.® Pindar calls him “‘the father of all’’®, Nonnus speaks of Zeus “‘sitting on Chronos’ winged, four-yoked chariot’’’?, Simonides mentions Time’s sharp teeth’, Plato says in Timeus that Time came into existence together with the sky®, and finally, there seems to be an allusion to Chronos’ association with destiny in the following epigram ascribed to Plato: Aeon

carries all, long Time

can change name,

and form, and nature,

and

fortune.?°

Eisler sums up the similarities between Zurvan, Kala, and Chronos in the following words: “In the first hymn to Kala in Atharvaveda Time is called a horse1, just as the hymn of the magi paraphrased by Dio Chrysostomus says that in the 1 Epitaph 2 Diels, Cf.

Kala

on the fallen of Cheronea,

Vorsokratiker® as the

3 Abel, Fragm.

son

II p. 384,

of the

pole

star,

orph. p. 164, No.

CIA

II, 1680.

1. 14 ff., quoted above

by Lisler,

op. cit. p. 388.

p. 42.

41, Hisler, p. 3941, cf. Euripides,

fr. 937 N?,

Hisler p. 3887. 4 Hippol. philosoph. IV, 6 § 3, Hisler p. 389. 5 Cf. Guthrie,

Orpheus

6 Ol. II, 17, Gruppe, 7 Dionys.

and Greek religion p. 85. op. cit. p. 10641, Hisler p. 386.

II, 423, Gruppe

p. 10641, Hisler p. 387 f.

8 Fr. 176, Gruppe p. 10641. Eisler, p. 387, calls attention to “‘der lowenképfige ‘Chronos

der Orphiker mit seinem

scharfzahnigem, grinsenden Rachen’’, ef. above

p- 20. ® Tim.

38 C, cf. Eisler p. 408, 500.

10 Anthol. Palat. IX, 51, Eisler p. 408°. 11 AV XIX,

53, 1, above p. 35.

46

Helmer Ringgren last apocatastasis the four horses of the chariot of Time merge into one fiery horse, which is of the same nature as the soul of the driver — i.e. Time itself.1 Of the chariot of Time which is familiar to the Orphics? as well as to the Persian, it is said that it drives on with seven wheels with seven

naves — the planets — with immortality as its axle?... Like Time with the Zurvanites, Kala in Atharvaveda

is the first god, the highest god; like

the Aeon of the Orphics and the Zurvan of Mithraism, Kala is enthroned in the highest heaven.t As the Orphic Chronos is a&yneatoc ageless®, as Zurvan

is azarman®, so Kala is called ajaro’ [the three words are etymologi-

cally the same]. As the Chronos of Pherecydes and the Zurvan of Mithraism . .

create

the elements, water and fire’, so it is said in the second hymn of

Atharvaveda

that water and wind came into being from Kala. And fire is

only spoken of because Time itself... — owing to the unmistakable solar conception of the god!° — passes for the highest form of fire, as also Firmicus

Maternus addresses the three-headed deity of Mithraism with serpents twining around him as an incarnation of fire!!... As Zurvan is the datus6, creator!2, and Chronos all beings, the mover and

earth.

Kala

the téxtwyv of the world!3, so Kala is the creator of and supporter of the universe, the father of heaven

is the spirit and breath

of the world!4, and Chronos the

world soul.*® As Orphic Chronos causes the second creator Phanes adtéyovoc!* to issue from himself, so Kala is called the father of the creator Prajapati!’ and

of the

Self-conceived

One,

Svayambhi!’,

who

is identical with the

latter.’’1? 1 Cumont,

Textes et monuments I p. 60 ff. —

Notice that Kala, too, is associated

with fire, above p. 38 and Eisler p. 498. 2 Nonnus,

see above,

and Abel, Fr. orph. No 41, Eisler p. 388.

3 AV XIX, 53, 2, above p. 35. pul

os eo:

5 Damascius, Diels, Vorsokratiker® I p. 12,1. 3.

6 Ménok immortal

i Xrat (amarg)”’,

INNS RID

8, 9: ‘“‘unlimited Time is undecaying

(ageless, azarmdn)

and

Hisler p. 422, cf. here p. 77.

Joy ile

8 Above p. 43 f.

® AV XIX, 54, 1 and 2. 19° Cf. above p. 36. De

err. prof. relig. c. 4, Cumont,

Textes

et monuments

II p. 14.

12 Hisler gives no evidence for this. The word is a form of da@va, creative, creator, but it is used in the Avesta only of Ahura Mazdah. that Zurvan

has been considered

Nevertheless, there is no doubt

as creator.

13 Hisler, op. cit. p. 412, 440. 14 AV XIX, 53, 4-9, above p. 35 f. 15 Hisler p. 4412. 16 Hisler p. 388’, who gives evidence only for Phanes (Nonn. and Aeon with a similar attribute (adté0mT090¢, ib. VII, 73). 7 AV XIX, Tb

53, 8, above p. 36.

woos lOs

19 Hisler, op. cit. p. 497-499.

Dionys.

IX,

157)

Fatalism in Persian Epics

47

Even if we take a critical view of many of Hisler’s identifications, we have to admit that there is striking agreement on many points between the three Time-gods, and it seems improbable that all resemblances should be due to mere coincidence. This impression is reinforced when we take into consideration the connecting links between Indo-Iranian thought and some Greek conceptions that have been worked out by Rénnow! and Olerud.? But then it would be impossible that the whole Zurvanite doctrine should be later than Manichzism. The conception of Time as Destiny seems consequently to go back to far antiquity in Indo-Iranian thought. As far as I can see the god Zurvan has no prominent features as a god except his role as creator and determiner of destiny. This may be due to the fact that he is originally a personification of time with everything that happens in it, although not as an abstract concept, but rather of time in its concrete manifestation in the sky and the celestial bodies, which are the visible signs of the passing of time and instruments for measuring it. It is also significant that the Persian epics do not use a single word for “time”’ in this connection, but several synonyms. This must imply that the important thing is the conception of time, and that epic fatalism is no mere reproduction of ancient Zurvanism. There is another fact that seems to point in the same direction, viz. the use of jahdn or giti, “the world” in a sense which comes very near to ‘fate’. We quote a few examples: The use and fashion of this world it is to take with that hand and to give with this; we are aggrieved because of its caprice, and alternate ’twixt summit and abyss.? *Tis ever thus with this world! He that would obtain the reins, must bathe his hands in blood, slay or be slain.4 The world is not ashamed of such ill-doings, for it respecteth no one; and, although for ever dominating good and bad, 1 Zagreus och Dionysos, RoB 2/1943 p. 14 ff. 2 Tidée de macrocosmos et de microcosmos dans le Timée Goétze,

ZII

Wikander,

2/1923 RoB

pp.

3/1944

60ff.,

Reitzenstein,

p. 51 f.

§ Sh 12e, 1438f. (W II, 411). 4 Sh 13, 1644 f. (W III, 104).

Studien

zum

de Platon. — antiken

Cf. also

Synkretismus,

48

Helmer Ringgren ensueth not the peace of anyone. Such is the manner of our earthly lot (sipanji sardy)', it leadeth us alike to good and ill. . .?

Thus went the world with Zal and showed its purpose.® Such is the wont and fashion of the world! No fostering will rescue us from death,

earth’s only cradle is the sepulchre.4

We easily see that “‘world’’ is here used to denote that which happens in the world, just as “‘time’’ means that which happens within time. The word may then be used for man’s destiny in the world. 1 This expression, is very common Pahlavi pat

writings,

adn, “Hold

by Warner

to denote e.g. the

Handarz

world

8 Sh 7, 1742 (W I, 324).

i Andsahrevan

more

literally “‘this wayside inn”’,

life on earth.

It occurs also in

§ 10: gétik pat aspanz

for an inn and the body for a dwelling

Widengren, ZRGG 4/1952 p. 113. 2 Sh 13 e, 1383 ff. (W III, 357). 4 Sh 8, 226f. (W I, 349).

often rendered

the brevity of man’s

darét u tan

(house)”’, see

CHAPTER

II

Destiny and the Sky.

Astrology

Our second group of words used to express the idea of destiny, comprises several words which properly mean “‘sky”’: sipihr, dsman, Carx, gardin, gunbad, falak. On the whole the references to the sky as an agent of destiny are very similar to those concerning time, but a systematical examination of them will nevertheless reveal some new aspects of the problem. First we notice that the revolution of the sky is bound up with the course of time. “The sky revolved” often merely means that time has passed.t But the idea of fate is very close at hand: The sky (stpihr) revolved awhile with matters thus, and years of varied fortune (ginah) passed away.?

And when the poet says: But matters have gone further than we purposed,

and heaven (falak) hath turned above him otherwise’,

it is clear that the revolution of the sky and the progress of events or ‘matters’ are the same thing. In another passage we read: Fate (rizgar) troubleth me, and I am all concern about the process

of the turning sky (gardin).4

The close relation between time and heaven as agents of destiny is here expressly stated. On another occasion night and day represent Time: The nights and days of high revolving heaven (sipihr) are both thy source of safety and mishap.°®

1 Big. Sh2;°2; 12) d, 17, 817, 1663; 13, 148; 15, 2416; 17, 81 (V); 18: 118 (V); 29, 135 (W VI, 335); 35 b, 113 (W VII, 106); 41, 1660 (W VII, 322). 2 Sh 18, 118 V (W VI, 27). Ginah, prop. “colour”; ‘with matters’? has no equivalent in the original.

3 Sh 13 f, 2333 (ought to be 2433) (W IV, 128). 4 Sh 43, 3303 f. (W VIII, 372). 5 Sh 29, 602 (W VI, 358 f.). 4 — 527028

Helmer Ringgren

50

Helmer Ringgren

Then it is not surprising that the sun and the moon can take the place of the sky as intermediaries of fate: From every side troops at my call will come; thou canst not strive against the sun and moon.!

Under such circumstances we easily understand that the revolution of the sky may also be connected with the idea of corruption and death: ... since life continueth

not, and this same

sky (¢arz)

which turneth over us may play the tyrant.?

And: Such is the custom of this turning sky (¢arz) »

alike with monarch and with paladin:

All kingdom too departeth in the end; it is the quarry and the hunter death.? “The sky (gardin),’’ Kubad replied, “gave me my share (dad) long hath

come

will have

since, and he whose

to die where’er

hour

(zamdn)

he be:

That time is not ill-timed at any time’’.4

The share apportioned to man, the length of his life and its certain end is ordained by heaven and its revolutions.® We die by nature or by violence; *tis better not to mark the why and how, for all must go as soon as time is up.

Blame not the circling of the sky (asmdan).°

Thus death is the only thing that is certain, the end which all shall reach at last: Though thou liv’st long the end will come; none can evade the sky (asmdan).? 1 Sh 13 f, 1210

(W IV, 202). Lit.: “the revolution

of the sun and moon’’.

2 Sh 13g,

(W IV, 213). Mohl more

“‘et la rotation

répandre

1425

des malheurs

(better:

violence)

literally:

sans

nombre

sur

du ciel peut

qui elle veut”’.

8 Sh 19, 359 (W VI, 54). 4 Sh 8, 202 f. (W I, 348). Notice the last line, which is often repeated; cf. Widengren, Hochgottglaube

p. 284; Scheftelowitz,

5 Cf. Sh 43, 2755 (W VIII, 342). 6 Sh 13 by 1272)f..(W IIL, 173): 7 Sh 15, 4252 (W V, 271).

op. cit, p. 51 mistranslates

the phrase.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

51

It is the circling sky (Carex i garddn) that apportions death on the battlefield to king Faryan.1 It is still more frequent, however, that misfortune and adversity in general are ascribed to the activity of heaven. When misfortune strikes, it is a sign that heaven refuses its favour to man. Piran tells us how Farangis dealt with him: Thus did he bind me head and foot with lassos and, when that was done, by oaths,

I know not why the sky (sipihr) hath ceased to love me.?

And somewhat battle:

later the same

Piran expresses his fears of defeat in

And I am fearful that the turning sky (sipihr) will wholly cease to favour us.

On another occasion the author goes still further, saying that love is never to be expected from the turning sky: For since the turning sky (sipihr) proved so unfair to him, expect no love or justice there.

Thus bad dsman becomes the same as misfortune: We verily have brought

Heaven’s wrath (bad dsmdn) upon ourselves... our souls are hurt by fate (axtar)® our flesh by arrows, the sire is sonless and the son is sireless,

for so revolving heaven (¢arz) hath decreed.®

It is also said: ““A sky of bale (sipihr 2 bala) turned over them’’’?, when fortune of war is unfavourable, and in a similar situation we read that “Heaven (sipihr) as it turneth crieth ’Blood’’’.8 More generally it is

said that the revolution of the sky (gardis i €arx) is ‘inverted’ (vazin)?, 1 Sh 20, 758 « (not in M; W VI, 125). 2 Sh 12 e, 1024 f. (W II, 390). Mohl better: “‘Je ne sais quelle est la secréte inten-

tion du ciel, qui parait me refuser toute faveur, car tantot il tire ma téte et mes bras au lacet de mon

Se Shmiseil3a07

ennemi,

(WoL,

tantdét il m’assujettit

& des serments

77):

rs

Sh 41, 4610 (W VIII, 69).

oO

Lit. “‘star’’, cf. below p. 67 f.

a

Sh 19, 241, 243, 250 V (W VI, 47f.).

_

Sh 13 c, 1019 (W III, 245).

wo

Sh 43, 1828 (W VIII, 292).

©

Sh 18, 1496 (W III, 96: “‘his fortune proved averse’’).

et & des liens.”

52

:

Helmer Ringgren

when fortune is failing, or that heaven (Carz) is nobody’s friend!, that it brings oppression (W: ills) upon man?, that it makes sport of him, or

that it wounds.‘ “It was the turning sky (gardin) that fettered me’, says the imprisoned prince of Chin, Parmiidah, to the Persian general Bahram Chibinah, and he does not wish to blame the Persian, for he was merely the servant of the sky and carried out its decision. A more unusual expression is found in the poet’s reflections on Kai Kubad’s successful war against the Turkmans: The manner of this ancient sky (gardin) is so, at whiles like arrow and at whiles like bow.®

Heaven directs the steps of man and forces him to go to meet his destiny, as is seen in Isfandiyar’s words, when he is about to lead an expedition to Zabul: Grant

that my

life

shall finish in Zabul; ’tis Heaven’s that draweth me thither...’

The change Firdausi, and This idea has the worsening

(asmdn) process

and inconstancy of fortune is a very common topic in it is often connected with the idea of the turning sky. an especially personal tone in the poet’s complaints of of his lot as old age approaches:

High-springing arch of heaven (carx)! Oh, why dost thou, when eld is on me, keep me thus forlorn? Thou madest much of me in youth but now thou passest my decrepitude with scorn... ... thou wast a mother to me long ago, who needs shed blood-drops at thy tyrannies. I find no wisdom or good faith’ in thee; thy dark proceedings aggravate my lot.® Hh to ) > on o na

Sh 13, 1780 (W IIT, 233: “‘yon unloving sky’’).

Sh 7, 758 (W I, 276). Sh Sh Sh Sh

13, 660 (W III, 52). 13 g, 1878 (W IV, 211). 42, 1246 (W VIII, 145). 11, 28 (W IL, 13).

Sh 15, 2577 (W V, 176); Mohl: “Si je dois périr dans le Zaboulistan, le ciel me

forcera certainement

d’y aller’. A similar phrase is used of zaman

VI, 393). 8 Cf. “practiced

in deceit’,

Sh 42, 1153

® Sh 20, 1932 ff. (W VI, 189).

(W VIII,

140; ara).

Sh 34, 365 (W

Fatalism in Persian Epics

53

In other cases the observations are somewhat more conventional. Some few examples may suffice: O thou who lookest on a bygone age! Joy sometimes filleth thee and sometimes rage, and wondrous

*tis how many novel smarts

yon turning sky (gunbad) reserveth for our hearts! One’s lot throughout his years is grief and fret, and he must taste of sorrow and regret; another’s portion is all honey, sweet, indulgence, luxury and lofty seat;

another hath to walk a treacherous way, whiles up, whiles down.!

Assuredly the sage himself will not escape the process of the sky (gardis i dsmdan) whereby we are made joyful and appalled, at whiles exalted and at whiles abased.? That famous monarch? vanished from the world.

Such is the usage of the ancient sky (¢arz)! The lot of Ardavan Ardshir too found; him whom it raiseth to the stars on high it giveth likewise to the sorry ground.*

Be not in friendship with the turning sky (Cara), for whiles thou art the kernel, whiles the shell. Why seek from its pomegranate hue and scent, for it will rob thee of them both at sight? Whene’er the turning sky (gardin) exalteth thee, then is thy time for travail, fear, and loss.®

We also learn that we cannot know whether the sky is going to show love or hatred, friendship or wrath.® It brings “rest, war, and love’’’, it gives success and failure®, and when misfortune and adversity come, the poet once makes the observation: “The wanton sky (falak) hath ever 1 Sh 13 g, 82 ff. (W IV, 144). 2 Sh 19, 267f. V (W VI, 49). 3 Ardashir. 4 Sh 21, 420f. (W VI, 228). 5 Sh 41, 856 ff. (W VII, 270). 6 Sh 12d,

1283

(W II, 258),

1257

(II, 257), ef. 804, 43, 660

8 (W VIII; 231).

7 Sh 12 d, 1556 M (W II, 271), cf. 13 e, 30 (W III, 288: “love, spell, war, and stratagem’’),

20, 80 (W VI, 88: “‘strife, peace,

and love’’).

8 Sh 22, 179 (W VI, 267), cf. 138 b, 1836 f. (W III, 177; stpihr, dsman).

54

Helmer Ringgren

something new’; in other words the fate it brings, is always changing, and in time of happiness it might be expected that it should bring something new, that is, misfortune. The image of honey and poison is also associated with the sky: “‘whiles strife and poison and whiles sweets and love’’.? On the other hand heaven is often only benevolent, but this is generally mentioned more briefly and without elaboration. ““May heaven fulfil your wishes’, is a conventional form for wishing happiness and success. To the king is said: Live fortunate till time shall be no more. Be earth the basis of thy crown and throne,

and heaven (falak) the guardian of thy Grace and fortune.

Heaven gives mankind.’? We praise, is also happiness are

victory often used®) a good

in battle®, it loves* and shows its favour towards read of the “greeting” or blessing (durid8; afrin, of heaven. Ardashir’s words concerning his royal instance:

For eight years now

the sky (carx) hath blessed our wishes. Ever since Urmuzd was added to my peace the world hath granted what I would, earth’s seven climes all have been ordered, and my heart hath had

its will of fortune (bazt).1°

Still more frequently the sky is represented as a helper or ally. It is stated as a general rule:

1 Sh 27, 14 (W VI, 315). 2 Shalsicyiogs( Wilh 230) peterpan. Or 3 Sh 41, 219 (W VII, 233), cf. the negative statement

Sh 13, 392 (W III, 38).

4 Sh 13 b, 79 (W III, 114). 5 Sh 6, 36 (W I, 176); 13 ¢, 595 (W III, 223): Mohl “‘covers our army with glory”

reading with M had, Warner

“illumineth

our star” reading with V

Xs\; cf.

13 d, 200 (not in W): “heaven is faithful to your sword’’; 13, 383 (W III, 37): gives

a helping hand in the battle. 6 Sh 12e, 520 (W II, 364), 34, 44 (W VI, 376), 42, 1102 (W VIII, 137). * Sh 12b, 457 (W II, 103), cf. 138 g, 1750 (W IV, 231). 8 Sh 12 d, 679 (W II, 228). ° Sh

7, 644

(W

I, 271):

durid

from me and dfrin from heaven,

sipihr; 13 g,

890(W IV, 186): “in that great conflict heaven blessed our efforts” and gave victory.

1 Sh 22, 295f. (W VI, 273). Notice the kingship ideology!

Fatalism in Persian Epics

55

But he who hath high heaven (sipihr) for his ally (yar) will take no harm from any enemy.?

But this is especially true of the king. It goes without saying that it is the sky that both raises him to the throne? and dethrones him.? But the king’s relation to heaven and fate can be more heavily stressed, as for instance in the following: But hist throne topped the sun because he leagued (paivast) heaven (sipihr) and Iran together, and lavished love upon the noble race, the age (zamdnah)*® renewed

its youth and bathed his face in loyalty.®

Thus, a good king becomes the bond of union between heaven and his subjects and transmits its favour to them, and through him the world is renewed. In certain respects he becomes the master of fate, and consequently the following wish may be expressed to Shah Nishirvan: Be all the world alive in Nishirvan, and circling heaven (¢éarz) aye subject to his will.’

It is also said of him: But by the Grace (farr) of Nashirvan the sky had changed its use (ginah) and favour.’

Cf. also: Great is he, heaven (sipihr) inclineth to his wish.®

And it is said of Kai Khusrau: Whenas

his glorious feet shall reach Iran,

Heaven (¢arx) will accord to him his full desire.1° 1 Sh 21, 286 (W VI, 221). Cf. 41, 4486 (W VIII, 59): “‘heaven (¢arz) thine antidote from harm’’; 35, 1262 (W VII, 74): ‘““May turning heaven (sipihr) be thy companion (yar).”

Cf. p. 65 with n. 2.

2 E.g. Sh 42, 441 (W VIII, 101). 3 Sh 21, 420 quoted above p. 53. 4 Kai Khusrau’s. 5 Mohl:

le monde;

cf. p. 9 n. 1.

6 Sh 13 e, 43 £. (W III, 289 acc. to V; Mohl: ots b (lui=the 7 Sh 41, 1596

king) instead of (W VII,

we

“‘le ciel était ligué de lui” reading

ls (with the country

i.e. “Iran’’).

314).

8 Sh 41, 2390 (W VII, 362). 9 Sh 41, 3932 (W VIII, 25), cf. NUshirvan’s words to his son Hurmuzd: heaven 19 Sh

/ turn but at thy desire’, 12,

515

(W II, 363).

Sh 41, 3986 (W VIII, 28).

‘“‘May high

56

Helmer Ringgren

The idea of the king as master of fate is still more pronounced in the following words, spoken by Miniichihr after having ascended the throne: I sit enthroned upon the circling sphere}, dispensing love and justice, wrath and strife.

Earth (zamin) is my thrall?, heaven (carz) mine ally*, the heads of kings my quarry. Mine are Faith (din) and Grace (farrah), mine to bestow good fortune (baxt) and to harm.‘

The king is here expressly characterized as the master of fate by virtue of his alliance with the sky. We are told of Nishirvan that he was asked about the meaning of this and that he explained the idea in his answer: Once thou saidest: ‘I am fortune (zamdnah), and fortune’s pretext (b¢hdnah)*® both for good and ill. He answered: ‘‘Yea, ’tis well the great king’s head is fortune’s (zamanah) crown. The world is as the body; Kings are its head and crowned accordingly.®

It is true that the sky is not mentioned here, but the idea is the same. There is a similar passage where the king’s first minister — not the king himself — appears with similar claims; this is Nishirvan’s counsellor Mahbid, against whom there is a conspiracy: Thou must perform a deed of sorcery, and give the age its riddance of Mahbid,

because he hath attained to such a state that he will dominate the age (zamanah) itself. He careth not for any. Thou wouldst say,

to put it shortly: ““He is Nishirvan”’.

and further: who hath become so great through royal favour,

that heaven (falak) kisseth evermore his skirt.?

It is possible that zamanah here means “‘the world” and that the poet merely wishes to say that Mahbiid seeks to obtain universal supremacy — 1 bar taxt 1 gardadn sipihr. 2 Cf. Sh 15, 2080 to Isfandiyar: slave’. (W V, 148 has “nobles” Cc) yar, cf. above p. 54 f. >

Sh 75.8 f.1(W 15,2377):

a

See below p. 91 f.

a

Sh 41, 3906 ff. (W VIII, 23).

x

Sh 41, 1643 ff. (W VII, 320).

‘““May heaven in stead

(falak) obey thy command

of “theaven’’,

following

V).

like a

Fatalism in Persian Epics

57

heaven’s kissing his skirt would then be a mere poetical exaggeration. But the sense is obviously that in practice he discharges royal power!, and hence it may equally be the idea of the indulgence of fate towards the ruler that is in the poet’s mind. Contrasting strangely with this are the following words, spoken to the same Nishirvan whom we just have seen as the powerful master of fate: When heaven (sipihr) is intending good or ill what are Shah, archimage, or Bizurjmihr??

It is evident that two ideas cross each other here, on the one hand that of the king as the ally of heaven (i.e. originally of the high god) on the other that of the omnipotence of fate. It must be admitted that the latter idea is generally predominant. We read, for example: Such while the heavens (éarx) endure will be the event, for they are strong and we are impotent.

“Do not think that you are higher than heaven because you are of ‘royal grace and state’ ’’, says Rustam to Isfandiyar.* And similarly it is stressed in another passage that high heaven (carz) turneth not as we desire when evil days are toward.®

This is the fundamental outlook of the epic upon the problem. Fate (heaven) plays inexorably with men: As ’twere a conjurer this drunken sky (¢arz) deludeth us with tricks — threescore and ten — at whiles employing blast or cloud and then the sword or dagger or the agency

of some unworthy wight. At whiles to one 1 For the role of the king, ef. also Sh 5, 67 (W I, 148): Thy throne’s seat is the signet of the age (zamdnah),

thy famous Scheftelowitz that zamdnah

fortune

(baxt) brighteneth

the world.

quotes this passage, op. cit., p. 49, without further comment, only

is here the ‘“‘Gliicksgott”’.

In another

passage,

Sh 20, 1611

(W VI,

171), heaven is said to be Alexander’s consort (jw/t), but nothing is said of fate here.

2 Sh 41, 3741 (W VIII, 13). 3 Sh 28, 24a(W 4 Sh 15, 2991

VI, 320, not in M), cf. 34, 272

(W VI, 388).

(W V, 199), cf. 14, 131: do not try to be heaven’s mate

(juft, cf.

note 1 above) (W IV, 324: ‘“‘banish selfishness’’, reading with V dz instead of éara).

> Sh 13 g, 516 (W IV, 166).

53

Helmer Ringgren plunged in calamity ’twill grant relief at whiles allot crown, treasury, and throne, at whiles chain, dungeon, bitterness, and grief.1

Nobody

can resist the power

If thou wert standing there —

of heaven: an iron wall —

yon heaven would grind thee, thou wouldst not endure.?

“No one, bad or good, can strive with heaven’’.®

Nobody can escape the decree of heaven+, it is idle to try to get away from it.5 Neither courage nor strength®, nor the greatest wisdom’ is of any use, when Fate is at work. It is foolish to try to fight against it.8 None, O Shah! by courage and by knowledge can escape

the revolution of the restless sky (éarx); we cannot strive with it; what is to be will happen all, past doubt.°

Or with Gushtasp’s words: My head may touch the clouds, but heaven’s changes (gardis i dsmdan) I cannot ’scape.}®

The same

Gushtasp writes to Rustam: From the circle (daur) of high heaven (¢arz),

what time calamity is imminent

1 Sh 13, 900 ff. (W III, 65). Cf. 13 b, 1355 (W III, 178): ‘‘When will the sky (€arxz) show love to us again? / What will the next jest of old heaven

(sipihr) be?”’

2 Sh 5, 96 (W I, 149). Cf. 22, 536 (W VI, 285): “The sky (éarz) will melt thee, though

of iron mould’’.

3 Sh 15, 3914 (W V, 251). Cf. 13 b, 755 (W III, 147): heaven alone can withstand Rustam.

4 Sh 13 c, 355 (W III, 210), 15, 2460 (W V, 170), cf. 8, 346 (WI, 355). 5 Sh 13 g, 92 (W IV, 144). 6 Sh 13 c, 27 (W III, 193), cf. 6, 665 (qadd, below p. 101), 16, 47 (W V, 285, zamanah).

7 4026 8 321, ® 10

Sh 13 g, 1661 (W IV, 226), 19, 267 V (W VI, 49), ef. 19, 48 (W VI, 37), 15, (W V, 257). Sh 13 c, 1382 (W III, 262), 35 b, 265 (W VII, 114), cf. 21, 395 (W VI, 227), 13 b, 1273 (W II, 126, 173). Sh 29, 146 (W VI, 335). Sh 15, 1198 (W V, 97).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

59

can any keep it back by cireumspection though much inclined to wisdom? eee

Whe

But who escapeth from the turning sky (gardiin)?} Even though we may tread upon a dragon’s eyes,

we cannot ’scape the process of the heavens (gardi§ i ¢arx).2

Compare also: Although the king become a flying bird, he cannot pass the sky (¢arx) which as it turneth is full at whiles of hate, at whiles of love.?

Here the sky as a concrete physical phenomenon is connected with the sky as the giver of fate: it is no more possible to escape fate than to get out of the celestial sphere.‘ It is probable that this idea lies behind several of the passages quoted above. The sky is inscrutable in its actions, we can know nothing about its secret intentions.° Who hath revealed to him these mysteries — the motions and the purpose of the sky (sipihr)?6

Now whether heaven (cara) acteth knowingly, or not, *tis vain to ask its how and why.?

For the manner of the turning sky (sipihr) is not to show its visage openly.$

It happens only very rarely that we hear of unveiling the secret of fate. This may happen by means of a dream, as in the following passage in which Afrasyab says to Kai Khusrau: 1 Sh 15, 4026 f., 4029 (W V, 257). 2 Sh 13 g, 678 (W IV, 175). 3 Sh 12d, 803 (W IT, 235). 4 Cf. Sh 12d, of the seven

5 510 6 7 §

Cf. (W Sh Sh Sh

1556 (W II, 271). Sh 34, 365 (W VI, 393) has a similar statement

celestial

spheres.

Sh 12d, 1283 (W II, 258), 1603 (W II, 274), 12 e, 1024 (W II, 390), 13 g, IV, 166), 19, 248 V (W VI, 48). 12d, 1801 (W II, 284). 12 ¢, 1828 (W II, 181). 12 d, 600 (W II, 224).

60

Helmer Ringgren “This is the very day whereof I dreamed!! The sky (sipihr) hath long turned o’er me, and it now hath rent the veil that hid its purposes’’.?

It is possible that this passage might equally mean that the secret of heaven had not become clear to Afrasyab before, and that the course of events revealed it to him. Something similar may also lie behind an obscure line, where Gidarz says to Giv, who returns with the royal son Kai Khusrau: “Thou hast brought heaven out of its hiding-place (ke

birin kasidi sipihr az nihuft).2 Warner translates: “Thou hast revealed a very heaven to us.’’ This seems rather to imply that he has brought a great good fortune, and though I do not know of any other instance from the Shahnamah of sipihr used in that way‘, the interpretation would suit the context very well. But if we follow Mohl’s translation: “Tu as dévoilé le secret du sort’? the meaning must be that the happy events have revealed that the sky is benevolent. In a third passage it is the bird Simurgh that reveals to Rustam the ways of fate and its plans concerning Isfandiyar: I will declare in love to thee the secret of the sky (sipihr), whoe’er shall shed that hero’s blood will be himself pursued by fortune (rdézgar).®

But generally the plans of fate are inscrutable, and its actions seem to be aimless and arbitrary: The turning sky (sipihr) is always wonderful. Thou seest one possessed of mastery, with crown exalted to the darksome clouds, who cannot tell his left hand from the right,

or fortune’s (baxsis) gain from loss discriminate. Another man will read the lofty sky (asmdn), and tell the why and the wherefore of the stars,

yet heaven (falak) still will lead him into straits, and evil fortune be his only lot (bazt).§ 1 Mohl:

“J’ai vu

en songe

ce jour de triomphe

pour

toi’’.

2 Sh 13g, 2387 f. (W IV, 267). 3 Sh 12 e, 1154 (W II, 396). 4 Except, perhaps, the phrase ‘“‘the sky shows its face’? =gives good fortune; v. below p. 62.

5 Sh 15, 3685 f. (W V, 238). 6 Sh 41, 2671 ff. (W VII, 377).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

61

The sky acts, it would seem, quite indifferently and without reasoning or feeling: Such deeds the turning sky (sipihr) doth showing neither love nor enmity. Joy not in lofty throne and greatly fear, what time thou feel’st secure, disaster near.

That is why fate strikes even the innocent: (Siyavush says:) The turning sky (sipihr) is bent on my destruction, though guiltless, by the hands of wicked men,

and I can make no bold attack to-day, for none can strive with God.?

But on the other hand we find here, as well as where Time is concerned, numerous instances showing that the decree of Fate is regarded as punishment and reward? or in any case as dependent on the good or evil conduct of the individual in question. Thus the king’s fate depends upon his justice: When any monarch turn from right his head

heaven (€arz) will black out the patent of his reign, the stars acclaim him not as king again.‘

But When any king to justice is allied, in time’s despite his footprints will abide.®

Wrong actions bring punishment: The unjust’s fortune (baxt) drooped, and he was taken because the turning sky (¢carx) was weary of him.® Whene’er the tongue

is wedded to deceit it hath no lustre from heavenly fortune (baxt 7 sipihri).? 1 Sh 42, 914 (W VIII, 127). Cf. 13 e, 1383 (W III, 357): “Fate (lit. the world, jahadn) is not ashamed

2 Sh 12d, 2360f.

of doing ill.”

(W II, 313).

3 This idea seems to be more common two instances,

in the latter half of the epic: in 1-15 only

in the rest of the epic at least 11.

4 Sh 21, 25 f. (W VI, 208). 5 Sh 22, 421 (W VI, 279). ‘““Time”’ has here its proper meaning: the phrase = his name

and renown

will last for ever.

6 Sh 35, 1591 C (W VII, 93). ? Sh 41, 23 (W VII, 222).

62

Helmer Ringgren The hearts that covet are the dark dust’s mate;

;

~

the never-resting! sky (¢arz) ordaineth thus.?

On the other hand we read a couple of times that heaven gives somebody his right. Thus Faridtin says when he is planning to kill Zahhak: If heaven (éarz) over us shall do me right, I will cut off this dragon from the earth.

And Zal says: The maxims of the men of old recur to one whom years have worn, and later on

the course of heaven (¢arx) will justify his conduct.4

It seems evident that heaven is here conceived of as a kind of personal being with reasonable reactions. The same is true in cases where it is said that heaven is wrathful®, wills or decides something®, or knows or does not know certain things.? Some sort of personification seems also to be present when we hear that heaven shows somebody its face’ or “a, loving countenance’, i.e. gives good fortune and success, or “is harsh and wears a frowning face’’!® or suddenly turns away the face that it has just shown." It is probable that we have here merely a poetical figure, which is certainly the case when it is said that the hand of heaven punishes.!2 The following passage offers a special problem: . who can escape the process of the sky (¢arz 1 garddn)? None can avoid by courage above 1 napdydar,

our

or by might the sharp-clawed heads.

Dragon

What is to be will be.. .18

““unbestandig’”’

(Wolf).

2 Sh 38, 129 (W VII, 168). Cf. 9, 26 (W I, 371): we have only ourselves to blame for our misfortunes; 12 e 351: heaven punishes the enemies 3Sh 6, 388 (W I, 163).

(W II, 355 otherwise).

4 Sh 12, 98 £. (W II, 35). 5 Sh 12 d, 804 (W II, 235), 43, 660 8 (W VIII, 6 Sh 12d,

1782

(W II, 283:

“heaven’s

7 Sh 7, 1525 (W I, 314): does not know whether heaven knows or not. 8 Sh 41, 1089 (W VII, 286): ® Sh 41, 3804 (W VIII, 17).

a

2 Sh 13, 921 (W III, 66).

13 Sh 15, 2460

(WV,

170).

your

“circling heaven

10 Sh 12d, 2180 (W II, 304); cf. 20, 681 ra 1 Sh: 6; 563: (cf. W I, 203).

231).

purpose’’),

12d,

equal; / showed

1548

12c, him

(W II, 271).

1328

(W II, 181):

its face’’.

(W VI, 120) “frowned

upon’’.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

63

Is it the sky in its capacity of Destiny that is a dragon with sharp claws? There are other instances of “‘the claws of Time, or of Fate’.1 Or has the poet in mind a constellation which bodes misfortune? We have seen that Chronos is sometimes associated with a dragon and placed at the northern pole of the sky?, and we know that the sky as the agent of Destiny is so closely bound up with the belief in the stars as bearers of fate that the two conceptions are often difficult to separate. We shall revert to the question of astrology later in this chapter. But first it would be well to give some instances of the sky conceived of as Destiny in the epic of Vis and Ramin. Some of the passages in question have already been dealt with by Widengren in his Hochgottglaube.* The general features are the same as in the Shahnamah. The superiority, sovereign power, and inevitability of Heaven are especially stressed. Viri’s intention was in one way,

but the order of heaven (hukm i Gsmdni) was in another way. When

Virii had vanquished the King of Kings,

he experienced from Fortune (bat) the will of the Benevolent One.4 The decree of heaven (gaddy 1 Gsman) came down, preventing him from fulfilling his wish.°®

Du kannst ja nicht des Himmels (¢arx) Fessel® fliehen, dich dem was Gott (Yazddn) beschlossen (tagdir) nicht entziehen. Sieh du dass nicht der Wahn dein Herz beriicke zu widerstreben himmlische Geschicke (qaddy 1 dsmdan). Will geben dir das Gliick (baxt) in meine Hand,

was nititzt dir solcher harte Widerstand? Wie das Geschick (gada) gewollt ist’s aufgeschrieben’: Nicht ist dir als zu fiigen dich (Sabr) geblieben.® t Seep. 194. 4 VR

otherwise’’),

5 VR nicht

2 Above p. 45.

21, 8 f. (W 30: “His cf. Widengren,

25, 8 (G 388: “Und

beschieden

opinion op.

cit., p.

Fe was

one

BAO) sui

thing,

and

God’s

decree

was

308.

offen tat den Ausspruch

sei das Gliick’’), ef. Widengren

das Geschick

/ dass ihnen

p. 308.

Cr. pz 101, 104; 127, 7 For written fate see below p. 70 f. 8 VR

23, 4-7, G 387, cf. Widengren p. 309 (1. 5). W 33: “‘Thou canst not evade

God’s decree, and what thy planet has fated for thee thou canst not undo. Surely thou

thinkest

not to overcome

the decree of God! If God and my fate have given

thee to me, it avails not to enter into a conflict with God’s decree. God’s providence has brought this about, and thus is it written on thy head (cf. below p. 70). Now there is no resource

left to thee but submission’’.

64

Helmer Ringgren

In the last quotation we notice a tendency to accumulate several different words for the power of destiny, which gives at the same time greater impressiveness and variety of style. Furthermore, we observe the strong Arabic element in the terminology, including the word sabr! as an expression for the right reaction to misfortune: to submit patiently and with an even mind to whatever Fate may bring. Heaven brings sorrow and grief through hopeless love: When the decree of heaven (qaddy 1 dsman) drew near, which was to put an end to happiness for Ramin, it kindled a fire of love in his heart,

it burnt his reason and his patience (Sabr) in fire.2

A little later Ramin bewails his situation: I am like a dead branch, excellently grown,

the decree of heaven (qaddy 1 dsmdn) broke it.

Heaven

shows harshness? or hostility:

What does it help me, when my fortune (baat) is like this? It is as if heaven (¢arxz) were hostile.®

Heaven

gives sorrow

and gladness:

He marvelled at the wicked deed of Heaven (Cara), for its wish and blandishment are coupled with trouble as bright day is coupled with dark night. Heaven has not joy without grief,

without death it has no life.¢

But if it takes away it may also give: Heaven (falak) has taken from you an silver apple, but given you a golden orange instead.’

‘ This

term

is dealt with by the present

author

in an article to appear in

Islamic Culture 1952. > VR

32, 11 f. (W 46: “The

judgment

of God, which

was

to exhaust

joy and

gladness and increase grief, was approaching Ramin”’); |. 11 also Widengren p. 308. 3 VR 40, 88 (W 66 otherwise).

4 VR 70, 15 (W 208). ° VR 72, 25 (W 216: “What forestalled by my destiny?’’).

is my resource,

since my heart in such things was

6 VR 21, 13-15 (W 31: “He was astonished at the deed of Fate, which is inconstant; its sorrow

and

joy are a pair, like the light of day and the darkness

of night.’’).

* VR 34, 42 (W 53: “If thou hast lost a drachma, God has given thee a precious jewel instead’’; G 392), cf. Widengren p. 309.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

65

Thus there is also hope for satisfaction after suffering a wrong: This same Heaven (gardiin) that has done you wrong one day will come with excuse and give you your right.

And

a better state of things can hardly be imagined than this: “For-

tune (baxt) is your partner and Heaven (éarx) your helper (ydvar)’’.? For he who has almighty Heaven on his side is sure of good fortune and success: If Fate (gada) favours you, nothing will happen but the decree of Heaven (gaday 1 dsmdani).*

And when it is said that Ramin “‘sued for’ kingship and Heaven (falak) said Amen to this, then his fate was decided: he became king.4 *

Firdausi’s fatalism is strongly marked by astrological ideas. He often relates how astrologers appear and practise their art. A few instances may be given to illustrate this: He (Faridiin) brought a catalogue embracing all

the stars within the circling sphere of heaven (sipihr) whose aspects readers of the stars (axtar-sindsdn) had taken spread it before him and observed the fortunes (aatar) of his illustrious sons... ... but when the Shah observed the horoscope of blest Traj he found the moon in Cancer; thus the stars revealed

a destiny of strife and woe. The Shah was sorely troubled, with a deep cold sigh

perceived that heaven (sipihr) loved not his bright-souled son.® Anon king Ardavan brought to his court some shrewd men of the readers of the stars to learn his fortune, to direct his course,

and find whom fortune would inspire thereafter. 1 VR

59, 13 (W 146: “‘The planet which

oppressed

thee is turned back to ask

pardon of thee’’). 2 VR 63, 65 (W 169: “planet and fortune all aid thee, and this also is from thy luck’’). Cf. yar p. 54 f., 56%, 89. 3 VR 41, 169 (W 80 f.: “If it be God’s decree, thou wilt have the victory; know this, that thou canst not doff what

he has put upon

4 VR 98, 86 (W 383 differs slightly). 5 Sh 6, 281 ff. (W I, 188). 5 — 527028

Helmer

Ringgren

thee.’’).

Helmer Ringgren

66

He sent them to the mansion of Gulnar to make their observations of the stars. They worked for three days at his horoscope .

.

Upon the fourth day these shrewd men set out...

they told the secrets of the lofty sky1, to whom it turned, the time, and the degree.” Then the Khan commanded

every loyal liege to mark

the aspect of the sky (sipihr). The sages scanned the stars to find out, how the Khan should act... ... this matter can but end in good,

and time (zaman) will count thy foemen’s counsels ill. This is the purpose of high heaven herein — the horoscope and prosperous event — that ...° The astrologers declare a gracious purpose concerning thee —

that here shall be thy home

with host and crown. We cannot thwart heaven’s (sipihr) will; thy portion is to spread around thee love.‘

A peculiar scene is found in the narrative of Kai Khusrau and Afrasyab; the two enemies are ready to meet each other in battle: before the two kings the astrologers... sought out the secret purposes of heaven with astrolabes to find the favoured side, but heaven looked with a spectator’s eye, and left the gazers in perplexity.®

Obviously the astrologers were incapable of finding any certain and decisive sign, and the author gives the explanation that heaven itself was curiously watching the battle-field, awaiting the issue; therefore they could not get any guidance from the signs of the sky. There is an instance of a horoscope of a newborn child in the chapter on Gushtasp, where the astrologers announce the destiny of Shaghad — he was Zal’s son with a female slave, consequently Rustam’s half-brother, and he was destined to become the latter’s slayer:

2

3

5

Cf. Sh Sh Sh Sh

Sh 21, 395 (W VI, 227). 21, 224 ff. (W VI, 218 f.). 41, 2245 ff. (W VII, 354). 7, 335 (W I, 254 f.). 13 g, 370 ff. (W IV, 158).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

67

We have explored the secret of the sky: *tis unpropitious to this little child... he will destroy the family of Sam.?

With the aid of astrology Gidarz seeks for guidance concerning the right time for proceeding to action: He watcheth too the aspects of the sky2, and, when the auspicious time shall come, will void

earth’s face of Turkmans.?

Accordingly there are many instances of the stars as agents of destiny. Favourable stars give victory in battle: If our good star prove helpful, it will give us

our will upon our foes.4 Be it yours to go with favouring stars and come back triumphing and glad.® That we may be victorious and the star of our good fortune bring forth fruit for us.®

Likewise

the stars bring success and happiness in general: mayst thou be

safeguarded by the stars from all mishap.’ He hath a lucky star who hath not daughters, but he who hath them hath no star to shine.®

(Kai Kais says:) If the Lord and my good star shall aid me

our country and our throne will we restore.®

This is sometimes expressed in a strange picture: ‘““May fortune’s (axtar, star) head be always on thy lap.’!° We also hear of somebody’s “ascending star’. am ~w oo

rs o

o

x oe

©

1o 1a

Sh 15, 4109 f. (W V, 264). The text speaks of ‘‘good and bad star” and “‘the revolution of the sky (a@smdn). Sh 13 f, 394 (W IV, 29). Sh 13 b, 823 (W III, 150). Sh 12 d, 663 (W II, 227). Sh 41, 3199 (W VII, 411). Sh 6, 82 (W I, 178). Sh 6, 228 (W I, 185). Sh 12, 592 (W II, 59). Sh 48, 3462 (W VIII, 381), cf. 19, 146 (W VI, 42), 43, 3311 (W VIII, 373). Sh 20, 890f. (W VI, 132).

Helmer Ringgren

68

But the stars may also be unfavourable and bring misfortune. This is sometimes expressed like this: ‘“They feared their star would sink’’!,

or: “(his) star of fortune was no longer young (i.e. powerless)’”’.2 A few more examples may suffice. Those sons of mine with hearts intent on war... their stars dispose them to delight in ill.*

Naudar was grieved that fortune (axtar) should besmirch his crown with dust... .4 Gidarz, on hearing, marked how fortune (aaztar) darkened all Piran’s endeavours.®

A passage

which Warner

renders thus:

my share is ever strife and battle

my lot ill-hap and bane for antidote®,

properly speaks of the star of Time (Fate) (aztar 7 rizgar) giving strife and the world (g27)’ giving misfortune and poison instead of medicine. A more peculiar expression is found in the following passage: The stars have smitten

my soul, and shafts my body.®

In other words, he is spiritually and bodily smitten by Fate. Since Destiny is thus linked up with the course of the stars, astrology can, to a certain extent, find out what it has in store, but this after all is useless, since man cannot in any case “‘escape the sky’s decree’’.® Again, the stars that glitter in the sky are what the master can afford to slight for understanding of the Maker’s work. The eye that gazeth cannot reckon them, and heaven above is unattainable as being measureless, so thou mayst scorn Sh 6, 643 ((WI 208). ix) co) ~ on

Sh 6, 789 (WI 2115), cf. p. 84. Sh 6, 421 (WI, 195). Sh 8, 256 (W 1,351). Sh 13 f, 1810 (W IV, 96).

o

Sh 13 b, 933 f. (W III, 156).

x

Cf. above p. 47 f.

io)

Sh 20, 782 (W VI, 126), cf. 19, 245 quoted above p. 51. Sh 43, 3291 (W VIII, 372).

©

Fatalism in Persian Epics

69

such reckonings and processes of Fate (rizgdr)... Then what can be more futile, favoured sir, than to compute heaven’s stars?!

In Vis u Ramin the connection between Destiny and the stars is perhaps not so clearly expressed, but there is evidence of astrological beliefs and astrological fatalism. These ideas appear most distinctly in Chap. 29, a “description of the night’’?, in which the various constellations and their fatal character are shown in great detail. When Vis is about to be married to Vira, astrologers are summoned to find out their “constellation and fate’’? and to decide a good and lucky day for their marriage.4 And once when Vis is ill from love-sorrow, physicians search in vain for the cause of her illness, and astrologers try to find out what constellation has caused her suffering. When Shah Mébad in his wrath asks under what star Zard is born®, there is behind his question a belief in the power of the stars over man’s destiny. Accordingly, we find the stars represented as bringing good’ or bad luck: An jedem Tag, den neu der Himmel (gardin) bringt, wird neu der Kummer,

der mein Herz durchdringt.

Bald klag’ ich Merw an, bald der Sterne Walten,

bald Himmels

(éarz) grausam willkiirvolles Schalten.8

Another time the idea of the fatal power of the stars is bound up with the conception of written destiny: What did Fate (gada) write, so to say, above my head, what will my star do with me?®

The idea of a written destiny is found elsewhere in the epic, too, e.g.: 1 Sh 35 b, 74 ff. (W VII, 103 f.). 2 Much abridged W p. 43. 3 Georgian version,

W p. 14.

4 VR 14, 19-24 (W 14, G 383). 5 VR 78, 64 f£. (W 248, G 424). 6 VR 64, 35 (W 177). 7 VR

10, 44: My

“affair”

8 VR 41, 21 f. (G 394), from the planets upon

me

is bright through

the stars;

13, 28: good star.

W 75: “Every day as a new day comes a new woe comes —

the fault of this Maray,

unjust act of the planet itself.” ® VR 83, 35 (not in W p. 295).

or of the stars, or of the

70

Helmer Ringgren I do not know what is written above my head,

that fortune’s (baxt) action towards me is evil hardness.

Another time man’s sinful nature is spoken of. Adam sinned in Paradise, Ramin says, and I am of the same essence as he: Sin is written above man’s head, his sinfulness is mixed with his nature. Knowledge cannot avert the face of Fate (qada), nor does manhood twist away the hand of calamity. What does it matter that he is unwise or wise, no one desires evil for himself.?

Sin is in the nature of man, one might say it is his fate. Why then should he be punished so severely? Nobody wishes himself any harm, so that he sins deliberately and draws down punishment upon himself. Everything is written above man’s head by the “‘decree’’, gadd. The Georgian version here has: “‘God’s decree has been written on man’s head.” Wardrop refers in a note to another passage, in which the fate predestined once and for all is spoken of as “written on thy head’’.2 Another time we read: “By God is a decree written on the heads of all of us, and in life we cannot take off the decree of God, nor can the writing be changed by us, whether we weep or laugh.’ Wardrop remarks that “‘the Georgians believe all a child’s fate is written on its forehead at birth.’ The Persian text gives no support to this interpretation. The passage first quoted runs in Graf’s translation: Wie das Geschick (qada@) gewollt ist’s aufgeschrieben:

nichts ist dir, als zu fiigen dich geblieben.®

Or, more literally: “The decree proceeded and the pen wrote...’ Here no allusion at all is made to fate being written on the forehead. One might rather think of a heavenly book, since the pen is mentioned. The next passage is 41, 47 f. 1 VR

95, 16 (W 369:

“I know

not what my

fate has in store for me’’).

2 VR 87, 262-265 (cf. W 318). 3 P. 33 of the translation. 4 Wardrop p. 80, cf. p. 99, 173. > P. 33,

al-Qadr proverb:

n.

3. This

belief

is found

in Arabic

sources,

too, see Vlieger,

Kitab

p. 43: the angel writes man’s fate on his robe or on his head (Buhari); ““‘What is written

on the forehead, the eyes will see it[s realization]’’.

In

some sects the two ideas are combined through a kind of macrocosmos-microcosmos speculation, cf. Birge, The Bektashi order p. 206. 6 VR

23, 7 (G 387,

W 33), cf. above p. 63.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

71

From the sky (¢arx) came everything, written, written and mixed up with our soul; that which is written will never be altered,

it is not changed by trouble and effort on our side.?

Here written destiny is clearly connected with the sky; the forehead is not mentioned at all. The two remaining passages have no literal counterpart in the Persian text.2 None of the passages quoted speak of fate written on the forehead. It is probable that the idea of a heavenly book has been influenced by astrological doctrines so that Gurgani — just as we do — could say: it is written in the stars. This impression seems to be confirmed by a comparison with similar sayings in Firdausi. But it must be pointed out that a heavenly book is never mentioned; on the contrary, it is expressly stated that God has written fate in the stars: ' Thus hath the Almighty written in the sky (¢arz) by Whose decree seed sown will bear its fruit.? When heaven is intending good or ill, what are Shah, archimage, or Buzurjmihr?

God hath implanted in the stars the seed, and he* must write the sentence on our heads.®

Thus was [destiny] writ o’er my head; why should I mourn the past.® Thus was it written in the stars above my head

that I was to die by my father’s hand.’ What good and bad the World-lord hath writ o’er our heads will come; no musing can avert it,’

1 VR 41, 147 f. (W 80). 2 The translation p. 99 =44, 35, quoted below p. 105; p. 173 = 63, 173-175, where other expressions are used. 3 Sh 12d, 1791 (W II, 284); Mohl: il ordonne’’. 4 W has ‘“‘we’’, which

“tout ce quw’il séme

is not in accordance

porte du fruit comme

with the text.

5 Sh 41, 3741 f. (W VIII, 13). 6 Sh 43, 2748 (W VIII, 342). 7 Sh 12 c, 1211, my own translation (W II, 175: “The stars / decreed that I should perish by thy hand.’’).

8 Sh 43, 684 (W VIII, 232).

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Helmer Ringgren

says Khosrau Parviz; and a phrase that is often repeated is this: “Thus was it written, and what was to be hath been.””? That the stars are a celestial writing is an idea that is well known from Sumerian and Accadian documents. Thus we read in the annals of Sennacherib: “The durable basement, the eternal foundation, the plan of which was designed long ago, at the same time as the writing

of the firmament (s¢tir burumme).’’2 Assurbanipal declares that he made the sanctuaries shine “like the writing of the firmament (sttir burimz)”’, or “the writing of the heavens (stir samamz)’”’.? In the inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar the phrase recurs in a stereotyped form: “(the sanctuary) I made brilliant like the writing of the heavens’’.4 Tournay®, from whom these instances are taken, adds that the topic is certainly of Sumerian origin, since it occurs in the cylinders of Gudea, which speak about “the tablet of the good writing of the sky”’ and “‘the writing of the sky’’.® The former expression is rendered by Dhorme as “‘the tablet of the good star’’?, and it is indisputable that “‘the writing of the sky” refers to the astrological significance of the stars.’ *

We now turn to the Pahlavi material concerning the sky as the distributor of fate. We have seen that Time and the sky were conceived of as closely associated with each other. It is even said in the Bundahis&n 1 Sh 43, 303 (W VIII, 212), cf. 13 £, 706f. (W IV, 45): My

fortune

may

be written

than I desire, the Judge

otherwise

disposeth

all (zamdnah);

since what must be will be, grieve not nor trouble on mine account. Other passages where a written fate is mentioned

are: Sh 6, 664 (W I, 209), 12 c¢,

767,~769 (IL, 156 f.); 1211 (II, 175), 12d, 2689 (11,330); 1370031 mt, 72), 13; 152 (III, 294), 371 (III, 305), 891 (III, 332), 13 f, 706 (IV, 45), 1437 (IV, 78), 2273 (IV, 120), 14, 907 (IV, 364), 43, 2748 (VIII, 342), 4190 (VIII, 366).W has often free translations. 2 Luckenbill,

The Annals

3 Streck, Assurbanipal 4 Langdon,

Die

of Sennacherib

neubabylonischen

Kénigsinschriften

p. 80, 1 1. 23, p. 86, TE 1. 2yp5041. 5 Notules sur les Psaumes gewidmet, 1950, p. 273,

in:

* Mana 1:2 p. 297.

(VAB

39.) pr, 1945 Qian

Alttestamentliche

6 Gudea Cyl. A IV, 26, Cyl. B IX, 15.

8 Ib. p. 282

p. 103, col. V, 1. 27.

(VAB, VII, 2) p. 230, 1. 14, 236 1. 16, 240, 1. 9, 2441. 14.

Studien,

IV) p. 77, II 1. 2,

7 belee2s Friedrich

Nétscher

Fatalism in Persian Epics

73

that the vault of heaven (gi7t) “is powerful, it is Time (zamdn)’.. It must be admitted that it appears from the context that this conception is considered as heretical, but nevertheless the passage proves that it existed. There are also some passages that speak of the sky as connected with destiny. “The sky is the most powerful’’, says the Méndk i Xrat?, and in another place in the same book we read of “‘the decision of the sky (brihénsn 7% spihr).’’? In the Bundahisn there is a passage that speaks of the sky as the distributor of good things: The Sky is the one that distributes the good, and his rule is absolute dominion. When the peasants cultivate the world, it is he that does the distribution... When the Sky gives more, they call him “‘goodness”’, when he gives less “the evil sky”. This distribution is done through Time ..

.4

The mentioning of the peasants and their work seems to imply that it is the distribution of rain that is thought of. But the context shows that the reference is to distribution of fate in general. The expression the evil sky (vat-spihr) reminds us of the phrase bad dsman, which is used several times in the Shahnamah for ‘“‘misfortune’’.® Now it would seem that the role of the sky as an agent of destiny is already connected with astrological ideas in Pahlavi literature. “There are allusions... to ‘the calculations of the astronomers’ or ‘the computations made by astrologers’ with regard to observing unfavourable conjunctions of the stars... Ardavan is represented as consulting on grave matters with ‘his wise men and constellation-knowers (danakan u axtar-maran)’.’’® How astrological fatalism looks in its orthodox Zoroastrian form appears from the fourth chapter of the Skand gumanik viéar. The author of

the book first states that “all things arise from the sky (spihr) and the stars’; but the consequence is that the creator of the sky has created both good and evil — “‘as the Muslims say’’.? But if Ahriman has created 1 Bundahigsn ed. Anklesaria p. 11, Nyberg , JAs 214 p. 214, cf. 219 p. 60, Widengren, Hochgottglaube

p. 304.

2 28, 2, 10, Widengren, op. cit. p. 305. 3 Ménok i Xrat 2, 28, Widengren, op. cit. p. 305, Schicksalsgottheit

Scheftelowitz,

p. 51.

4 Bundahisn ed. Anklesaria p. 166, Widengren,

5 H.g. 9,26 (W I, 371), 19, 243 (W VI, 47). 6 ERE XII p. 86 b-87 a. 7 Cf. the edition of de Menasce, p. 44 ff.

Die

Zeit ;

op. cit. p. 232 f.

als

TE

Helmer Ringgren

the sky, how could he have produced those stars that bring happiness?

And if Ohrmazd and Ahriman have created it together, then Ohrmazd must be Ahriman’s assistant in the evil. The solution of this difficulty — is expounded in great detail, and we can only reproduce its principal idea. It begins: The Sphere is the place of the Bagdn, who distribute good fortune, and their distribution of good fortune (névakih baxtarih) is always done in a just manner. And the seven stars Karapdén and Parikadn, which gravitate beneath them are despoilers and antagonistic

distributers.

In the religious

language they are called Gadokdan.

The bagdn, ‘“‘gods’’, who distribute good fortune, are constellations, but their work is counteracted by the planets, gaddkdn, which cause evil and misfortune. “It is the action and counteraction of the constellations and the planets that explain the unequal distribution of good and evil.’ From Méndk i Xrat 8, 17 f. we learn how this astrological principle is applied to the belief in Destiny; it says: “All good fortune and adversity that come to men and creatures comes from the seven [planets] and the

twelve

[constellations].”’

The planets take sides with Ahriman,

Zodiac with Ohrmazd, ‘‘they rule the allotment the world’’.2 Chapter 12 gives more details:

and the ‘motion’

the of

In the first creation, the wealth of the earthly world was as justly distributed as that of the heavenly

world.

At that time Ohrmazd, the creator,

conferred upon the sun, the moon and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, which according to religion are twelve this creation.

And

it justly and

equitably.

moon

from

Ohrmazd

the creatures

seven

of Ohrmazd.

twelve signs of the Zodiac away

as

far as

the task of distributing

But then Ahriman, in order to resist the sun, the

and the twelve signs of the Zodiac,

are called Ahriman’s

tear

generals, all the good fortune destined for

they accepted

they

generals,

created the seven planets, which

to take away

Consequently,

this good fortune from

all the good fortune that these

assign to the creatures of Ohrmazd, the planets can,

and give it to the malicious demons,

the

lying spirits and the evil beings.

We have already quoted part of a passage from Zatspram in which it 1s shown how the decisions of Time (zwrvdn) and the planets are connected with each other. This is the account of Time assigning bril1 De Menasce, op. cit. p. 46. 2 Cf. Darmesteter, Ormazd et Ahriman 3 Cf. Nyberg, JAs 214 p. 202 f.

p. 318, Gray,

HRE

Vp.

792 b.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

75

liance (?) and soundness of life to Gaydmart for thirty years. Then it says: And in his horoscope there were the regulations for retribution of the mixture

(i.e. mankind

that is a mixture) of doers of good and of evil, and

for that reason no opportunity was obtained by them (the demons) during the extent of thirty years.

Then it is explained in detail how this happened through the course of the planets in relation to the constellations of the Zodiac.? The decision of Time is thus carried out by the celestial bodies. Therefore, it is in no way remarkable that in Datastan i Dénik 6,9 “‘the stars” appear as the equivalent of “‘fate.’’8 In the Ulama i Islam we are told how Zurvan brought forth Ohrmazd and Ahriman, and how the former from unlimited, endless Time created the world period of 12000 years and then the celestial sphere (sipihr), on which he fastened the Zodiac, giving to each of its signs the dominion

of 1000 years. Then he created the visible sky (@smdn) and the rest of the world. The planets are evil creatures, which have been bound in the sky after having rebelled. Then we read: When these works were completed the celestial sphere (sipihr) turned round, sun, moon and stars rose and set, the hours of day and night, the year and the months

became

visible, and the Giving Ones appeared.

It is not said who the “Giving Ones” are, but probably the signs of the Zodiac are meant. We see how the course of time is closely bound up with the revolution of the sky and the celestial bodies. If we keep in mind that the celestial bodies are good or evil powers, we also understand the connection with Destiny. A question of special interest is that of the number of the planets. We have seen that the Skand gumanik viéar gives the number of the gadékdn as seven, but when the author proceeds to an enumeration of them, he only mentions five; to these are added the two mighty drwj, the adversaries of the sun and the moon, which are good creations. Now it is apparent, as de Menasce points out®, that the number of seven 1 Zatspram

4, 6, cf. p. 28.

2 For

text

this

see

Schaeder

in Reitzenstein-Schaeder,

Studien

zum

antiken

Synkretismus, p. 222 ff., where also a parallel text from Bund. 68, 13—70, 6 is quoted. 3 HERE XII p. 87 b. 4 Cf. RHR

37/1898 p. 44.

5 Op. cit. p. 46 ff.

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Helmer Ringgren

must be due to Babylonian influence; in Babylon the astral deities are morally indifferent, and consequently there was no difficulty in placing the sun and the moon together with the planets. This system is found in Iran only in late writings, such as in a Rivayat text quoted by de Menasce, where it is said that the stars that are ruled by Ohrmazd, Zamanah and Ahriman are the sun, the moon, Tir, MoStari and Nahéd, and that the fate (qismat) of Ohrmazd and Zamanah is in these stars. In the so-called Ulama i Islam, which clearly shows Zurvanite influence, the sun and the moon are mentioned among the seven demons that are fixed in the sky.? In the equally Zurvanite Ménok i Xrat we repeatedly (8, 27; 24, 8; 38, 5) read of “the group of the seven Ahrimanian planets, which are opposed to the twelve signs of the Zodiac as well as to the sun

and the moon (12, 7-10)’. But we do not learn, which two planets are added to the five known ones in order to make seven — for the sun and the moon are here mentioned as good powers together with the signs of the Zodiac. In the Ulama i Islam the planets are seven, but only three of them are wholly evil: Saturn, Mars and Mercury, while Jupiter, Venus, sun, and moon are good.* de Menasce points out that a similar uncertainty is found in Manicheism.® From these facts we can hardly draw any conclusion but this: the number seven is due to the fact that the astrological system was borrowed from the Babylonians, but since the sun and the moon were good powers in Iran, there was a certain difficulty in ranging them along with the five planets which passed for Ahriman’s work. The author of the Shahnamah expressly adopts the view of the Méndk i Xrat, for in the prologue of his work he says: The turning vault of heaven (gunbad) showed its face, exhibiting new

wonders

day by day,

the Seven [Planets] then began their sway in yon Twelve [Houses]; each one took its place, foreboding good and ill (baxsis u dad), and giving fit return to every one that hath the wit

to read; the heavens, fettered sphere to sphere (falakhda), moved as their making to completion came. 1 Bartholome, 2 Trad.

Catal. monac.

Blochet

1:7 p. 115, de Menasce, op. cit. p. 46.

p. 22, de Menasce,

op. cit. p. 46.

3 De Menasce, op. cit. p. 47.

* Cf. Spiegel, Hranische Altertwmskunde II p. 180 f. 5 Op. cit. p. 47. § Sh Introd.

44-47

(W I, 103). Cf. Coyajee,

Studies

in Shahndmeh

p. 16.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

iil

Coyajee finds another reflection of old ideas in the description of the sky in the same prologue: Then to yon swiftly turning dome thy gaze direct, that cause of anguish and relief,

a dome not fretted by the lapse of days and unaffected by our joy or grief; it stayeth not to rest but turneth still, not perishing like us, but undecayed. There both the term and process are displayed, there are revealed to thee both good and ill.

He thinks that this should be compared with a passage from the Ménodk i Xrat, which says of Zurvan: Unlimited

Time

is undecaying

thirstless and undisturbed;

and

immortal,

painless and

hungerless,

and for ever and everlasting no one is able to

seize upon it, or make it non-predominant as regards its own affairs.?

“Firdausi borrows... a description of Zervan and applies it to the Sky.” Coyajee then makes the following remark: ‘‘Obviously the notions of Time and the Sky are closely connected, since it is the revolutions of the Sky that measure time.’’? It need hardly be pointed out that this is in full agreement with our own observations. In the Dénkart there is a section which especially deals with the relation of Zurvan to the planets: According

Aras to men one

and

to the utterance

of Zarathustra,

on

the

call of the demon

(saying): Ohrmazd and Ahriman have been two brothers in

the same

womb,

and the Amahraspand

has chosen the worse

the two, preaching to his partisans the cult of the demons

of

and this: ‘‘Sac-

rifice animals to the demons of the planets.’’4

It is obvious that the passage concerns the rejection of the Zurvanite heresy, which considered Ohrmazd and Ahriman as twin sons of ZurvanTime. Its adherents are accused of making sacrifices to the planets. Does this mean that Zurvanism has especially cherished the idea of the planets as determiners of destiny and made offerings to them in their capacity of deities of fate? 1 Sh Introd. 73-76 (W I, 104 f.). 2 Ménok

i Xrat

8, 9.

3 Coyajee, op. cit. p. 18.

4 Dénkart VIII, 43, 36, cf. MO 25/1931 p. 31, 26—-27/1932-33 p. 209, Schaeder, Iranische Beitrage I p. 289.

78

Helmer Ringgren

The question now arises: how old are these astrological ideas in Iran? We have seen that the astrological doctrines, as they appear in Pahlavi literature, give the impression of being of Babylonian origin or at least of having been influenced by Babylonian ideas, although Chinese influence has also been maintained. In the Avesta the stars play no important role. Apart from the star Tistrya (Sirius), to which the 8th Yast is dedicated and which 1s especially connected with rain and water, the only important constellation mentioned is the Great Bear, Haptdiringa, “the stars that are seven”, which are invoked “‘to oppose the ydtus (sorcerers) and pairikas (‘‘fairies’’, shooting stars)’’.2 It is possible that the 8th Yast mentions “‘deceitful astrologers’? but we do not know anything of their activity. There is one place in the Avesta, where the stars have to do with distribution; this is Yast 8, 1, where the moon and the stars are said to distribute xcvarenah to men. Now the word xvarenah originally means the divine and royal glory or splendour (Machtglanz, Gliicksglanz)*, and this is at least present in the background here. But in later literature the Pahlavi xvarrah and the Modern Persian farr have often acquired a more general meaning: splendour, glory, good fortune. It is to be remembered that Eznik gave the meaning of the word Zurvan as baat or p‘ark‘, the latter word being borrowed into Armenian from the Iranian xvarenah. Bailey also points out that the Syrians translated zvarenah by gadda, which is equivalent to the Greek tOy7.* Behind this we may suspect deeper connections. Xvarenah is especially closely attached to Verethraghna’, and he in his turn appears in several incarnations, the first of which is the wind, Vata or Vayu. And Vayu appears in Yast 15 “as a god beyond good and evil, as a god of destiny, as the allotter of good and ill, as a war god, as a bearer of the xvarenah’’’, and he is also conceived of as the god of death. It is no mere coincidence that we have already had occasion to mention him in connection with fate. Perhaps it is also justifiable to point out that Vayu and Zurvan both JAs 202/1923 p. 235 ff. Cf. HRE XII p. 86 a, YaSt 8, 12. Henning, See below

BSOS

9 p. 91 f., cf. Wikander,

Vayu p. 205.

p. 94 f.

Above p. 29. Zoroastrian Problems p. 39. Cf. Henning, JRAS farrah 1 dén by “the Tyche of the Good Religion’’. &© on Mw

? Nyberg, Religionen p. 71 f. F Moy jen Wie

1942

p. 240,

who

renders

Fatalism in Persian Epics

79

have the epithet “‘the long-continuing ruler’, and that Vayu is closely related to ThwaSa, the atmosphere, “‘which has its nearest counterpart in the Zurvan of the West, with whom he is generally coordinated in the liturgies.’’4 It has been pointed out that the astronomical system set forth in the second chapter of the Bundahi§sn bears clear marks of Greek, or properly speaking Hellenistic, influence.? This is certainly also true of the astrological teachings of Pahlavi literature and of the epics. Iranian astronomy and astrology is of a rather composite character, combining old ideas with later Babylonian and Hellenistic elements. A detailed analysis of these questions would carry us too far afield, but would certainly give interesting results. The fatalistic ideas set forth in this chapter represent the result of the meeting of these astrological doctrines — chiefly of Babylonian origin — with the ancient Iranian belief in a sky-god distributing fortune to men, thus being, in a way, the god of Destiny. But in the epics these elements are so interwoven with each other that it is no longer possible to distinguish them. 2 ib spy 1b.

2 Henning, JRAS 1942 p. 229 ff., cf. de Menasce, JAs 234 p. 336, who thinks of Syria as the possible intermediary for Greek influence.

CHAPTER

Fortune

as Man’s

III

Allotted

Portion

We now come to our third group of words for destiny, which strictly speaking comprises only one word, baxt. The word is very common in the Shahnamah as well as in Vis u Ramin. Originally it means something that is assigned or allotted, hence “share, lot, fate’, but very often it denotes a “‘good fate’’, thus ‘‘fortune, luck’’, or the like. Related to it are two words which occur much more rarely, wiz. bax’ and baxsis, both meaning “portion, share”, the latter also “‘present, gift’’. A good instance of bazt in the sense of “‘share’’ is found in the words of the Roman emperor’s daughter to Luhrasp: Rage not! against the process of the sky (gardis i dsmdan). If I am satisfied with thee and fortune (bazt), why seekest thou crown, throne, and diadem??

Bazt is obviously the lot that is assigned to man through the revolution of the sky. A similar idea is present in the poet’s mind when he writes: For seven years there was a rainless sky,

the favour (baxt) changed®, conditions were reversed.

But perhaps we can also find here a trace of the personification of fortune that is of special interest to us. The sense of allotted share or apportionment is still more apparent in the word baxsis. We hear of baxses 1 rdzgar, the allotment (or gift?) of Time®, or baxsis « siprhr i buland, “the allotment of high Heaven’’s, 1 Text: masau tirah, do not be dark; Mohl:

‘‘ne t’afflige pas’’.

2 Sh 14, 274 f. (W IV, 331). 3 digar gunah bid, became otherwise.

4 Sh 12, 506 (W IL, 363). 5 Sh 12, 294 (W II, 44: “I did not choose

my

course;

’tis destiny’),

cf. 12d,

1445: bad in baxsis u gardis i rizgar (W II, 266: ‘in our dependent and precarious state’’

is too

free).

6 Sh 12 e, 534 (W II, 364: “Thus heaven

} hath ordained thee’’), cf. 13 b, 1337:

Cigtnah bid baxsis i Gsman, how was the allotment of heaven? transl.)

(W III, 177, free

Fatalism in Persian Epics

81

but also of God’s allotment which nobody can escape. The words of the dying Dara to Alexander contain a similar idea: He that bestowed so much on me, and fortune (rizgdr) that so illumed me, have apportioned this?,

Here the word ‘‘apportioned”’ of the translation renders the baxsis of the original. Misfortune is thus said to be an “apportionment”’ from God and Time.? If we now look at the statements concerning bazt as the power of Destiny, we first find a series of passages which agree in the main with those that we have quoted in the first two groups. We have Destiny as a power bringing adversity and misfortune, as for example in Kai Kaiis’ message to Zal, from which we have already quoted: What hap (baat) is mine!4 My crown and throne have tumbled to the dust, and heaven hath given to the divs my treasures.

Other instances are the following: (he will) slay full many a horse and man, but in the end his fortune (bazt) will be abased, and his crowned head be bare.é men in good sooth

will shed thy blood, for thy perverted fortune (bazt) requireth this.7

. now that fortune (baat) is my foe.. .8

The poet also speaks of bad 7 baat, “‘the ill of fate’’®; we hear that fortune (bazt) directs the fatal arrow into Isfandiyar’s eye?®, or deprives a prince 1 Sh 20, 1160 (VI, 147: “His decree’’), cf. 41, 3242 (W VII, 413: “‘God’s will’). 2 Sh 19, 365 (W VI, 54).

3 Other instances of bawsis: Sh 7, 65 (“‘so has thy fate willed”; 2375

(“I have tried to alter my

not in W), 19, 271

(The allotment

bad lot’;

W IV, 266), 15, 3620

of the sun and moon;

W I, 240), 13 g, (fortune of war;

W VI, 49), 20, 1161

(W VI,

147), 21, 396 (parallel with ill; VI, 227), 41, 1181 (W VII, 291, quoted below p. 100), 41, 2673 >

(W VII, 377:

‘‘fortune’s gain’’).

Lit: What has come upon me from fortune.

on

Sh 12, 240 f. (W II, 42).

a

Sh 15, 358 f. (W V, 50).

_

Sh 438, 419 (W VIII, 218).

2

Sh 43, 630

©

Sh 5, 521

1 =)

Sh

(W VIII,

15, 3710

6 — 527028

236); lit. when

(W I, 169).

Helmer

(W V, 240); cf. p. 64. Ringgren

fortune

is doing evil.

82

Helmer Ringgren

of his throne. Another time we learn that the change of fortune (gardis « riz % baxt)? causes someone to “grieve and rage’? — thus another instance of misfortune. As in the other groups we meet with inescapable and irresistible Fate: ... fate (baxt) malignantly revolved o’erhead, and when dark fate (baxt) is wroth flint rocks become like wax.

But the lucky aspect is incomparably stronger where bazt is concerned, and in the majority of cases the word is best rendered as “‘good fortune’, “luck” or the like. Rather often bazt is personified. Fortune makes an end of misfortune: I am in hope

that fortune (bazt) will undo this grievous coil.®

It gives ‘for travail rest and ease’’®, and turns “irksome toil in happiness and joy’’.” It is “a breastplate ’gainst all ill’’.§ We now come to the clear instances of the personification of fortune. As a rule only good fortune is personified (the only exception I know is the passage just quoted: “now that fortune is my foe’). “May... good fortune (baxt) be thy mate’’’, is a wish for good luck and success, and when a man has attained this, it is said of him: Such were his reputation and his star

that fortune (baxt) was the comrade of his throne.1°

And: When conquering fortune (baat i piriz) is assisting thee *tis well though little other aid there be. 1 Sh 15, 640 (W V, 65). 2 For the expression riz i baxt cf. 26, 14 (W VI, 315: “‘when fortune’s day no longer shone’’). 3 Sh 13 c, 73 (W III, 196: “Much grieved the Khan and raged at that mishap’).

4 Sh 12c, 1146 (W II, 172). 5 Sh 13 e, 1081 (W ITI, 341). 6 Sh 12 e, 695 (W II, 373). 7 Sh 12 e, 687 (W II, 373), cf. 35 b, 20 (VII, 100: “given me victory and turned /

my fortune’s night to day’’). 8 Sh C p. 1417, 4 (not in M; W VI, 278). ° Sh 41, 4460 (W VIII, 58). 10 Sh 41, 2329 (W VII, 359). 11 Sh 42, 497

(W VIII,

104); the expression

baat i piriiz is rather

common,

e.g.

42, 375 (W VIII, 98), 43, 339 (VIII, 214); cf. 48, 1929 (W VIII, 297: “fortune is a greater friend / than Khusrau Parviz’).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

83

Success and good luck are often described as resulting from the fact that bazt turns its face to man!, or smiles upon him2, while adversity and misfortune mean that fortune turns its back to man (“Thy glorious

fortune, baxt, hath displayed its back’’s) or frowns on him (‘“‘But fortune frowned, and those famed chiefs fared ill’’4). A peculiar conception, which I have only found in the latter half of the Shahnamah is that of fortune as being either sleeping or wakeful: awake, it is like a guardian spirit which protects man and gives him all good things, but when it is asleep it neglects this, and man falls into misfortune. When Dara has sent out his men to kill Alexander and the latter has escaped, the poet says: They went to find that wary one departed, so sleepy was the fortune (baat) of the Shah.®

When the rebellious Niishzad writes a letter to Caesar, he contends that his father Nishirvan is already dead: My father hath been sick and now is dead,

his wakeful fortune (baxt) hath been overthrown.®

We hear Bizurjmihr speak of “his sleepless fortune and the love of heaven’’’, and Nishirvan gives Barziy the following advice for his journey to India: Seek for a comrade in the enterprise

as well as wakeful fortune’s (baxt) comradeship.§

We also hear of the Shah, “whose fortune never slumbered’’, and of

Bahram Chibinah who has success because “‘unsleeping fortune / is with 1 Cf. Sh 13 e, 1080 (W III, 341), 41, 3648 (W VIII, 8: “Fortune never hath shown us / its face’), 43, 3080 (W VIII, 360: “thou wilt make thy fortune’s visage wan’’). 2 Sh 43, 653 (W VIII, 230: “smiling fortune side with thee’’), cf. 29, 353 (W VI, 346: “‘“May fortune smile on her’’, lit. “be happy, or prosperous’’, farwundah). 3 Sh 35, 1451 (W VII, 85), cf. 12, 565 (W II, 58: “fortune hath abandoned us’’, lit. turned

away

from

us).

4 Sh 15, 2244 (W V, 156), cf. 13 b, 247 (W III, 123: “‘thy fortune | is like the face of Ahriman, and mourning / is ever in thy house’’),

5 Sh 19, 134 V (W VI, 41). 6 Sh 41, 787 (W VII, 266). 7 Sh 41, 28 79 (W VII, 394).

8 Sh 41, 3450 (W VII, 424). ® Sh 41, 2730 (W VII, 385), text: bawt i bidar — “Ceesar]

whose

fortune

was

awake’’).

©

cf. 43, 2113 (W VIII, 307:

84

Helmer Ringgren

[him]’’.1 And the same Bahram encourages his soldiers before the fight with King Savah thus: All put your whole heart in it, shield your heads and ply your swords. If sleepless fortune (baat) help us it will repay our toils with thrones and crowns.

Let none despair of God .

.?

It seems obvious that fortune is here conceived of as some kind of personal being. And for Bahram Chibinah’s part this is expressly stated in another context. We are told that once when he was out hunting, he found a palace with a crowned woman in it, who announced to him victory and success. When King Hurmuzd heard about this, he asked the méobad Kharrad for advice, and the latter declared that it all was a work of the diwv’s powerful sorcery. But the people were of another opinion: As for that crown’d lady, all the troops call her, O king! Bahram Chiibinah’s Luck (bazt), which will be very great and glorious.

There are probably similar ideas behind passages which describe fortune as growing old. When a messenger announces to Hurmuzd the victory over King Savah, he says: The battle went as thou didst wish. Mayst thou live ever happily and joyously,

for thy foe’s fortune (baxt) hath grown old.®

And the troops revolting against Khusrau Parviz say on one occasion: “The fortune of the king / hath aged’’*, that is, he has no more power to resist, his hour has come. When fortune grows old, it grows weak and powerless, and can no longer maintain the interests of its protégé. There is another passage of the opposite import, which is probably based upon the same conception. This consists of a wish for prosperity directed to King Nishirvan: “May thy fortune (daulat) be ever young, O Shah!’’? It is true that the word bazt is not used here, but the idea is

mw@ ao wm a a

Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh

42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 43, 41,

922 (W VIII, 127). 876 f. (W VIII, 125). 1426 ff. (W VIII, 156 ff.). 1526 f. (W VIII, 162). 1011 (W VIII, 132). 4032 (W VIII, 413). 1029 (W VIL, 284).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

85

obviously the same: fortune when young is powerful and effective and capable of giving its protégé all good things. It is possible that the following somewhat obscure passage belongs to the same category of ideas: Now while my comrades are engaged in war,

and while my friends are sitting at the feast, these seeking pleasure, those in quest of fame,

my lot (bazt) is throwing walnuts on a dome.t

“To throw walnuts on a dome”’ is an expression for trying something difficult or impossible. But since the meaning is obviously that it is the speaker himself (Giv) who has engaged in such an enterprise, the text can hardly be understood otherwise than by taking bazt as his guardian spirit or, in a way, his double. One is immediately reminded of the ancient Iranian conceptions of the daéna, the heavenly ego which assumes its shape according to man’s deeds and meets him after death in the shape of a young and beautiful girl or an ugly hag.? It may be a continuation of this or a similar idea that has here taken the shape of “fortune” as man’s companion, helper and guardian spirit. An image of quite a different kind is found in the following passage: We are in turn exalted and abased, such is the process of the circling sky (sipihr), which whiles afflicteth, whiles affecteth, us!

Now fortune (baat) is a vicious steed’, and scath will wreck thee in prosperity .. .4

But it seems probable that we have here only an occasional, poetic image without deeper roots in mythology.® Finally we should mention some passages that are particularly concerned with the king’s bazt: Next, praises be to noble Faridin — the lord of crown and mace, possessed of justice, 1 Sh 12 e, 639f.

39S SLES)

(W II, 370). Mohl:

WS

psn

“‘le sort me

prive de toute

vie (?)’, text:

|p.

2 Cf. e.g. Nyberg, Die Religionen des alten Iran p. 119, Widengren, The Great Vohu Manah

p.

68f.

Corbin,

similar idea. 3 &% aspi samis,

like

Hranos-Jahrbuch a restive,

4 Sh 22, 553: ff. (W VI, 286). 5 Cf. below p. 102.

20/1951

or refractory,

p. 162, horse.

169, 171 develops a

86

Helmer Ringgren the Faith (din) and Grace (farrah), crown and imperial throne. His fortune (baxt) is the source of righteousness, his throne of beauty (farr) and of excellence. + Thy throne’s seat is the signet of the age (zamdnah), thy famous fortune (bazt) brighteneth the world.?

Since the king holds a position different from other mortal beings, his baxt too is of an unusual kind. But there are also other prominent persons who are in a special relation to Fortune. Thus it is said of Rustam: Thou fosterest the crown and throne,

world-ruling fortune (baat) hath its light from thee, the heart of heaven (carx) is on thy sabre’s point, and under thee are sky (sipihr) and time (zaman) and earth (zamin).?

The implication of this is obviously that Rustam’s successes have inspired the whole universe with respect for him, so that he can command practically all the world and even the obscure forces of Destiny. In the verses on Faridiin just quoted we saw that the king’s fortune was associated with his farrah or farr, that is his royal Glory, his xvarenah. There are numerous other instances of this combination: Be earth the basis of thy crown and throne,

and heaven (falak) the guardian of thy Grace (farr) and fortune (bazt).4 by the Grace (farr) of Him Who giveth good my wisdom and my fortune (baxt) have not slept.® May the greatness

and Grace (farr) of heroes ever be thine own, thy fortune (bat) triumph in each enterprise.® His Grace (farr) will fend thee from all ill, for why his fortunes (baat) nurse all virtue. When a king hath God’s Grace (farr) on his face the world’s heart laugheth for Joy ...?

We see from these examples that the royal Glory is a divine gift, which manifests itself in the brilliance of the king’s face, in his might and power

1 2 ® 4 5 6 7

Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh

6, 914 ff. (WI, 221). 5, 67 (W I, 148), cf. 6, 693 (W I, 210). 13 b, 664 f. (W IIL, 143). 13 b, 79 (W III, 114). 12 d, 1760 (W II, 282). 13, 301 (W II, 32). 41, 1563 £. (W VII, 313).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

87

and victories, and is closely associated with his fortune (baat). By means of his farr the king protects his subjects from every ill and fills the

world with joy. In Vis u Ramin baat occurs so frequently that it might almost be said to predominate amongst the words for fate, especially in the latter half of the epic. But there are no peculiar or especially characteristic ideas linked up with the word; on the whole we find here the same notions that we have already met with in the Shahnamah. The following rather

conventional instances will illustrate this. Bazt is the share assigned to man by Fate (Heaven). This is the case for example when a person is exhorted to be contented with his baxt — an exhortation which recurs in several variations and with different shades of meaning according to the context or situation. Du darfst nur wollen, so kehrt Freude ein,

mit deinem Gliick (baat) kannst du zufrieden sein.! Be not so displeased with fortune (bazt), for displeasure brings affliction... Do not so, O moon, be satisfied with your share (bazt). Be contented with that which God has given you.?

Cf. also: Sometimes his eyes weep tears, sometimes blood,

sometimes he laments over fortune (baat), sometimes over Heaven (gardin).®

In the last instance we notice that “fortune” and ‘“Heaven” are parallel expressions, nearly if not altogether synonymous. The sense of “‘lot’’ is also the most suitable when it is said that the baxt of the lover is salt, so that his eye becomes blind#, or when a miserable fate is designed as ‘“‘black’’s: 1 VR

against

41, 11 (G 394;

literally means:”

yourself 2 VR Trust

W 74: “If thou wilt hearken to me, sit up cheerfully; fight

thyself and Fate” looks like a mistranslation of the Persian text, which you

If you

choose

bear

command,

will sit cheerful,

with

the fortune

47, 120, 124 (W 112, no equivalent to 120, to 124: “Do not so, in thy fate and what

God

3 VR 40, 184 (W 70: “Sometimes her cheeks, 4 VR

you

of

contentment’).

sometimes

O moon!

has given thee.’’). she pours tears from her eyes and blood from

she cries out against

her constellation

and

fate’’).

59, 86 (W 149: ““The lovers fate is always blind, so that he sees nothing

with his eyes’’), 87, 492 (W 334 otherwise). 5 VR

79, 502 (“my fortune is black’’), 87, 90 (“nobody’s fortune is so dark as

mine’’). But 77, 93: “fortune makes the day black’’.

88

Helmer Ringgren My sad lot (bazt) is like a black night, to the night of my lot (baxt) Ramin is like the moon. The darkness is dispelled from my night at the time

when the moon of my fortune (bawt) shows his face.t

Notice here how bazt in the last line assumes the sense of good fortune or happiness. Similarly in the following verse, baat is used in two different senses, happiness and share: Fortune (baxt) seeks no association with me; may no child be born with my lot (bazt).?

Bazt in the meaning ‘fortune’ or ‘happiness’ is well attested. The fortune of Mdbad, it is said, is like the sinking sun’; you are friends with my good fortune, you are the light of my eye*, says the nurse in her lament for Vis; noble Ramin is ‘“‘of happy fortune” (farrux-baat)®; when fortune is there, a difficult affair is easy®; “my mother bore me without fortune and heart’, says Vis’, etc. From instances such as those mentioned it is an easy step to a personification of fortune so that it appears as an independent being ruling over man’s destiny. This is the case when the poet says that fortune turns away from somebody; cf. also the following verse: Even if fortune (baat) has broken faith with me, may a happy fortune (baat) be wakeful over her.®

Here we meet again the conception of baxt as some kind of guardian spirit connected with the same image of wakeful fortune as in the Shahnamah. The same motif recurs in some other places: 1 VR

86, 43 f. (W 306: “My melancholy

fate, black as night, is like an Ethiop

king seated on an elephant, and Ramin is the enlightener of my fate. The blackness of my 2 VR

night will be dispersed when 82, 66 (W 290:

“The

the moon

happiness

of my

of my

luck shows

good fortune

his face.’’).

has abandoned

me,

and my wretched fate suffers me no repose. May God not create another man with my

fate, and upon

my

planet may

child not be born

to woman.’’).

5’ VE 20, 92 f. (W 30). 4 VR 34, 31 (W 53). 5 VR 41, 75 (G 396: “reich an Gliick und Macht’’). 56 VR 98, 41 (W 381: “However difficult and trying an affair may be, when God and Fate help a man

everything

7 VR

67, 116 (W

8 VR

36, 36 (W 56: “forsaken

becomes

196: “without

easy.’’).

a heart and luckless’’). me’’).

® VR 40, 36 (W 65: “Though my fortune has forsaken me, may the good fortune of happiness

never

abandon

her’’).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

89

My condition has remained so distressed,

always the eye of my fortune (baat) has been sleeping. Your fortune (baat) was asleep and my love was a snake.? The desire for the world has departed from my heart,

my heart is as if my fortune (bazt) had fallen asleep.*

These verses call for no further comment; their meaning is perfectly clear. Of particular interest, however, is the following verse. Fate (gada@) was asleep and fortune (baat) awake, the malevolent was little and hope was great.

Here gadd seems to have assumed the sense of evil fortune, while bazt denotes the good and lucky aspect of destiny; both are personified. In this context we should also note the phrase: “‘the eye of my fortune is blind’’> — this does not mean that fortune apportions lots blindly, but rather that the guardian spirit is inattentive and allows the accident to happen. But baxt personified may represent both the good and the evil aspect of fortune. It may be a man’s helper or ally (ydr)®, it reveals happy news in a dream’; but it may also appear with such epithets as “hostile’’s, “tyrannic’’®, etc.; it allows misfortune to happen?, it afflicts man", it deprives the friend of his friend!2, etc. But while both good and ill come from fortune?, it would seem that the issue is due to man’s conduct: he who does evil deeds is struck by misfortune!, an evil deed gives Fortune a pretext (bihanah).1* 1 VR it seems

72, 31 (W 216f.: as if my

““My state has been invariably one of turmoil. Hitherto

luck had been asleep.’’).

2 VR 79, 518 (not in W). ® VR

83, 108 (W 298: “And I am become strange to all seemly and good habits,

as if fortune 4 VR may

and

79, 416

knowledge (W

the hope of my

5 VR

65, 51 (W

had

276 differs:

both

forsaken

me.’’).

‘““May the good fortune

of my

joy awake,

foes be diminished.’’).

187:

“The

eye of my

happiness

has been blinded’).

6 VR 47, 146; 63, 65; 78, 45. Cf. p. 54 f., 65. 7 VR

98, 29 (W 380 does not mention fortune).

8 VR

73, 100; 87, 552 (ba-kin ast, is wroth).

"EVILS LO: 2 VR 61,32 f.

10 VR 87, 93. 80:

“everything

11 VR 61, 48.

13 VR

41, 151

(W

14 VR

41, 152

(W 80: “evil will befall him

16 VR

41, 157, quoted

below

p. 92.

comes

to man who

by Fate’’). does evil’’).

and

90

Helmer Ringgren

What Fortune wills must happen!, it is of no avail to fight against it.? Finally it should be added that we have here too the concept of Fortune young and beautiful’, and of victorious and successful Fate‘; in both cases the meaning of the expressions is the same as in the Shahnamah. *

The Modern Persian word bazt is etymologically identical with Avestan bazta, “that which is allotted or assigned’’®, and with Pahlavi baxt with the same meaning. Sometimes we also find the compound bayd-bazta, “allotted by God’, and the corresponding Pahlavi baydbazt. The Avestan passages have been dwelt upon by Widengren®, so we need only mention them very briefly. In Yast 8, 23 baxta is used along with words meaning woe and misfortune; apparently it stands for “bad fortune’. In Vendidad 5, 8f. we learn that water and fire do not kill a man, it is Astoviddtus, the death demon, who binds him and Vayu who carries him away; then it 1s added: There then the allotting (bazta) is fulfilled, then it is completed.

“The allotting’ is evidently man’s predestined death. In other cases the allotting is something good, as when a god is praised for that which he has given as an allotment (Vend. 21, 1), or when a wish is uttered for

happiness from “the Allotter and Assigner”’ (baataca nivaxtaca) (Vistasp Yast 38). It is evident that this ‘allotting’? presupposes a god as the allotter. This is also emphasized in the compound bayé-baxta, which means properly ‘‘allotted by the Allotter, i.e. God’’. So we hear that the star Tistrya follows the way assigned to it by God (‘‘the God-assigned way’’) (Yast 8, 35), and that Bravery, which in Vispered 7, 3 is worshipped as a god, comes to man “when it is allotted by God’’. The Pahlavi writings further develop these ideas. Perhaps there is a certain tendency towards making bat an independent factor, separated in some manner from divine power, but on the other hand, we still TV

a oO;

VRS Oo. 3 VR 100, 18. 4 VR 49, 19; 87, 493; 92, 15. ° For a Vedic parallel, see Giintert, 8 Hochgottglaube p. 377 ff.

Der arische

Weltkénig

und Heiland p. 184.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

91

sometimes find the compound baydbazt. It is thus not forgotten that fortune is given by God. There are also discussions of the relation between baxt and man’s deeds. In the Sayast né Sayast we find a general statement that “what is to happen, happens’’; it uses the word baydbazt to express divine predestination: Anxiety is not to be suffered for this reason, because that which is ordained will happen ... it is possible for everything to change but divine providence

(bayobaxt).+

-

More extensive reflexions on fortune are found in the Méndk i Xrat. “*Fortune is the master of everyone and everything’’, it is said, “‘and the

evil Vai (i.e. the death god) cannot be escaped.’’? That an evil man has success and a good man fails is due to Fortune. When Fortune is a man’s helper, things turn out well for him, when it is his opponent, things turn out badly.? We notice the terms “‘‘helper’? — ‘‘opponent’’ which we have also met with in the epics.

“Can a man contend with Fortune (baxs)?” it is asked. The answer is: ““However strong and powerful are man’s wisdom and knowledge he cannot contend with Fortune (bavs). For as soon as predestination (baxsénisn) is fixed for good or ill, the wise man is led astray in his work, the ignorant becomes intelligent, the faint-hearted becomes brave, the brave faint-hearted, the diligent becomes lazy and the lazy diligent. In (the case of) that which is predestined (baxsénit), an efficient cause (Bchanak) intervenes, making everything else inefficient.’’4 We get a vivid impression of man’s impotence with regard to Fortune. Special attention should be paid to the term fihdnak, “efficient cause’. This is, as it were, the apparent instrument of predestination, the things and events, through which it is carried out. In Vis u Ramin we have met with the same term several times in its Modern Persian form, bihadnah®, and it might be found convenient to repeat here the passages in question and to give some further instances. 1 Sayast né Sdyast 20, 12, 17 (tr. West). 2 Ménok

i Xrat

47, 3, 6, cf. Widengren,

op. cit. p. 199.

3 Ménok i Xrat 51, 5f. 4 Ménok i Xrat 23, cf. Nyberg, JAs 214, p. 204 f.; for the translation of the last sentence,

see

de Menasce,

5 Cf. Widengren,

JAs

234

op. cit. p. 381.

6 Cf. above p. 21, 89.

p. 338.

Helmer Ringgren Dann siehst du... ob dieser Anlass (bihanah) kommt ob nicht vom Gliick (bazt).+ He feared the damage of Time

that death one day should find a pretext (bihanah) against him.? Who knew... what Time (zamdanah) wanted to do with them, how the ‘“‘pretext” (bihanah) would act in this affair.* Why should I choose ill for myself, through that ill give fortune (baat) a pretext (bihdnah).*

In the Shahnamah the word is less often used in connection with fate — mostly it has the general meaning of ‘‘pretext, excuse’. However, we have met with one instance showing that Firdausi too knows the fatal sense of the word: Once thou saidest: “‘I am fortune (zamdanah) and fortune’s pretext (bihdnah) both for good and ill.®

The implication seems to be that Nishirvan is the instrument that carries out the plans of Destiny. Likewise, when Rustam has slain Isfandiyar, he says: “I have been the pretext for that ill’’®, and Isfandiyar

consoles him: “‘A pretext (Mohl: “instrument’”’) you have been, [my] father [was my] bad fortune (zamdn).’’? Another good instance is the following: Know, that which hath befall’n thee is from God; Reflect on thy foul deeds. As for myself,

I am but as the instrument (bihdnah) in all this wrong,

am

but the heading of the tale.

By God, ’twas not my fault, no aim of mine to wreck the Shah’s throne!

We return to our Pahlavi sources. The last quoted passage from the Ménodk i Xrat gives no direct information as to who is the determiner a

VR

nm

VR 56, 46.

oo

VR

=

VR 41, 157.

a

Sh 41, 3906 (W VIII, 23), above p. 56.

a

Sh 15, 3842 M (W V, 247 otherwise).

_

Sh 15, 3858 M

o)

Sh 44, 45 ff. (W IX, 10).

41, 178, above

p. 21.

12, 6 £.

(W V, 248 otherwise).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

93

of man’s fate, whether it is a god or an impersonal power. But in the preceding section of the book it seems to appear that it is Time. For there it is taught that man cannot acquire by effort anything that is

not assigned (baxsenit) to him. But the good fortune that is predestined, happens to man as soon as he makes the slightest effort. An effort that is not favoured by Time, is fruitless in this world, but is rewarded in the heavenly world.t The last statement is remarkable. It shows that Time rules only in this existence, or perhaps, to put it more exactly, that our existence in this world happens in and through Time but after death it does not belong to Time. In the next chapter we learn that there are two kinds of fortune, bazt and bayédbazt: bazxt is that which is allotted to man in the beginning, baydbaxt is that which the gods can assign to him in addition to this. But it is added that this happens rarely, for ““Ahriman, the enemy,

avails himself of this ‘actualization of the cause’ (Sihdnak) and making use of the force of the seven planets he extorts wealth from the good and worthy and gives it to the bad and unworthy’’.? It is presupposed that the gods bestow this additional favour according to the merit of the individual.® There is another discussion of the question as to whether everything is predestined or not in the Datastan i dénik, where we read: There

are

action...

some

things

through

destiny,

and

there

life, wife, and child, authority and wealth

are

some

through

are through destiny,

and the righteousness and wickedness of priesthood, warfare, and husbandry

are through action. And... that which is not destined for a man does not happen, and that which is destined, be it owing to exertion, will come forward, be it through sinfulness or slothfulness, he is injured by it. That which

will come

meeting

forward

of happiness,

owing

to exertion

is such as his who

goes to a

or the sickness of a mortal who, owing to sickness,

dies early; and he who through sinfulness and slothfulness is thereby injured is such as he who

would

wed no wife, and is certain that no child of his

is born, or such as he who gives his body into slaughter, and life is injured by his living.

Obviously the author makes an attempt to leave a limited freedom to man: all is not predestined, to a certain degree man can influence 1 Ménok i Xrat 22, Nyberg, JAs 214 p. 204, 219 p. 59f. 2 Ménok

i Xrat

24, Nyberg,

JAs

214 p. 206.

3 Cf. HRE V p. 792 a, with reference to Dénkart III, 77: “‘under design of the Creator, “that

man

is born,

his destiny

and has the power

is connected

4 Ddatastan 1 dénik

with

to direct himself”,

himself

71, 3-5 tr. West.

who

practises

Dénkart

industry.”

IX,

54, 9:

94

Helmer Ringgren

his own destiny. The Pahlavi little more plainly:

commentary

to the Vendidad putsit a

Worldly (gétik) things are by fortune (baat), invisible (méndk) things are by acts.

Some

say wives,

children,

fortune, the rest by acts.

A man,

property,

when

authority,

and

life are

by

good is not predetermined to him

and (therefore) does not arrive, this passage indicates why. That which is predetermined this arrives.

arrives

And

through

he who

an activity,

is predestined

even

if it is evil-doing,

when

to do evil can thrust it away by

labour directed to good, but his evil-doing is again and again predestined

to him.!

These texts are obviously intended to reconcile two opposite trends of thought: the one contending that all man’s fate is determined beforehand by a supernatural power, the other that his destiny is dependent on his good or evil deeds. The solution of the difficulty is sought in a division of man’s fortune into worldly and invisible things; the former are attributed to predestination, the latter are dependent on man’s

actions. The distinction between baxt and baydbaztis another consequence of this compromise: bazt is that part of man’s fate that was predestined once and for all, baydbazt is dependent on man’s actions and given to him by the gods in addition, but it is counteracted by Ahriman and the planets, so that a just retribution cannot be expected in this world but belongs rather to the invisible world. We will conclude this chapter with some remarks on the word xvarenah. It has been noted above that the corresponding Modern Persian word farr (or farrah) was used in the Shahnamah almost exclusively of the kings and was very often connected with their bazt, or fortune.2 We have also mentioned in another context that xvarenah was sometimes

considered to be synonymous with Greek tuyy and Syriac gaddd, which would seem to indicate that it meant something like “fortune” or perhaps “good fortune’’.2 Now the generally accepted opinion is that xvarenah properly means “glory” or “splendour” and that “fortune” must be considered a derivative and secondary meaning. Bailey, however, contends in his Zoroastrian Problems that the original and primary meaning of the word has been “ ‘a thing obtained or desired’, thence ‘ a good thing, a desirable thing, possessions, good things’”’. He thinks it may be * Comm. translation,

2: AB 86 te B12 OS.

to Vend. de

5, 9, cf. Bailey,

Menasce,

JAs

234

p.

Zoroastrian 338.

Problems

p. 34{., and for the

Fatalism in Persian Epics

95

equally well rendered ‘“‘by ‘welfare, well-being’, or ‘fortune’, equally as well as by the concrete ‘good things’ ’’.4 This is not the place for entering into a discussion of Bailey’s thesis. He is probably right in so far as the primary meaning and the etymology are concerned, but it seems likely that the idea of ‘‘splendour”’ or “‘glory”’ was attached to the word at a very early period. Duchesne-Guillemin thinks that this may be true even of the earliest occurrence, in the Gathas.? Here we shall merely point out a few facts that may be of some importance for our subject. It should be stressed that we are not concerned with the primary meaning of the word, but only with its actual use. Xvarenah is the property of all the gods, but particularly of Mithra. and Verethraghna®, and it is distributed by them to men.‘ Bailey shows that it is believed to provide prosperity and all good things, riches, cattle, health, ete. This accords well with the fact that kings are thought to possess it as a royal privilege®, since it is the special duty of the king to provide for the prosperity and well-being of the community. There are several passages showing that the xvarenah is connected with some kind of splendour or brightness. ““The Dénkart in describing how Zoroaster took on himself ‘a garment of form’ (i.e. assumed a bodily shape) associates rosnih, ‘light’,with the zvarrah’’? (the Pahlavi form of zvarenah — on another occasion it is stated that his zvarrah was created in the invisible world and given to the visible world’). Widengren points

out that Plutarch once renders zvarenah by ¢6)c¢.° And in the Shahnamah we often meet with the verb taftan, “to shine’, in connection farr, as in the following statement concerning Jamshid:

with

The royal Grace (farr 1 kaydn) shone brightly from the Shah.’

But later on day darkened to Jamshid, he lost the Grace (farr) that lighteneth the world." Op. cit. p. 2 £. Duchesne-Guillemin,

Zoroastre

Nyberg, Religionen p. 79. Widengren, Hochgottglaube

p. 280.

p. 170, 372, cf. 100,

104,

110,

112.

Op. cit. p. 4 ff. Widengren, op. cit. p. 152, 154.

Dénkart ed. Madan p. 432, 12 ff., Bailey, op. cit. p. 33. Ib. 690, 12 ff., Bailey p. 30. wow ke an eo sy P| oeVita

Alex. ch. 30, Widengren, op. cit. p. 157.

1°

Sh 4, 60 (W I, 134), cf. 3, 26 (W I, 127 free).

1a

Sh 4, 83 (W I, 135).

This

verse

reproduces

the Avestan

tradition

avarenah was seen to fly away from Yima in the shape of a bird.

that the

96

Helmer Ringgren

That farr is associated with light appears also from other passages, for example: When the glory (farr) of golden Sol appeared . . . or

turn not / the torch of former Grace (farr) to loom.’

In agreement with this is the statement that the sun, the moon and

the stars possess or distribute xvarenah (xvarrah).2 Similarly axvarrah is sometimes associated with fire, especially with the three fires assigned to the priests, warriors and peasants, which are once said to fall into the sea like three xvarrah.4 The king’s possession of xvarenah enables him to fulfill his royal duties. Yast 19 tells us that the xvarenah of the kavi’s accompanied Haosyahya

(Hdsang) and Taxma Urupi (Tahméruf) so that they reigned over the world and conquered all demons and hostile men.® Similarly, the divine Glory, or the royal Glory (xvarrah) accompanies Ardasir i Papakan in the shape of a ram protecting him from his enemies, and it helps him to ‘“‘attain to fortune and ease’. The Bundahisn informs us that the

royal zvarrah is attached to the family of the Kays (i.e. kaw’s), and that its members, the kings, are therefore the source of fortune and prosperity in their country.” The Datastan 1 dénik combines zvarrah with the wisdom and power of the creator’, and in the Dénkart it is associated with the king’s “‘benificent maintenance, protection, much wondrous power (var¢) . and the mystery of the Religion’’.» Some of these collocations are found again in the Shahnamah, as, for example, Glory and Religion (W: “Grace and Faith’), “Glory and wisdom’, or “Glory and power

1 Sh 43, 2436 (W VIII, 325), cf. 7, 1818 (W I, 327): “of sun-like Grace”’. 2 Sh 48, 2521 (W VIII, 329). 3 Datastan

7 dénik

36, 21, Bailey, op. cit. p. 41; YaSt

8, 1, Widengren,

op. cit.

p. 171, 186, cf. p. 263; YaSt 6, 1, Bailey p. 19. 4 Bundahisn

ed. Anklesaria,

5 Christense,

Le premier homme

p. 124, 10, Bailey,

op. cit. p. 45.

I p. 134.

6 See Bailey,

op. cit. p. 48.

7 See Bailey,

op. cit. p. 46 (Bund.

162, 7ff.).

8 Dat. i den. 36, 3, 17, 106, 108, Bailey p. 47. ® Dénkart 598, 16 fc. BSOS 10 p. 614. erat ut hunar ut xvarrah, Bailey p. 37.

Similarly

Dénkart

p. 584,

16 hém

19 Sh 6, 915 (W I, 221), 35, 1474 (W VII, 86). 11 Sh 13, 93 (W III, 21), 35 b, 44 (W VII, 102), 41, 4026 (W VIII, 30).

wt

Fatalism in Persian Epics

97

(burz)”.+ Perhaps the best instance of the fortunate effect of the zvarrah is the following in the Dénkart: His Majesty (ArdaSir) whose is the establishment of the good fortune (s7t) of the world through xvarrah.?

We quoted above some passages from the Shahnamah to show the

association of the king’s farr (or farrah) with his baat. We will add here some instances of a more general character, showing nevertheless the importance of the king’s farr for the fulfilment of his royal duties. Through my Glory (farr) the world was freed from the Dragon.® Through thy Grace (farr) it was more than well; thou turnest every trouble to delight.4

I came to Balkh with joy and triumph through the grace (farr) of him who hath the crown and throne — the world-lord.® as agliel succeed, thy Grace (farr) will give the victory.® A man that is not dowered with Grace (farr) from God would lose both hand and feet in fighting Shidah.? We prosper and we triumph in Thy name, all Grace (farr) and knowledge are at Thy disposal.®

Although we have the Grace (farr) upon our side we lack for friends, so flee we.®

One instance from Vis

u Ramin

may be added:

The world (zamin) flourished through his justice,

Time (zaman) became glad through his Glory (farr).1

=

Sh 15, 152 (W V, 39), 20, 936 (W VI, 134).

is)

Ed. Madan

oe)

Sh 5, 504 (W I, 168 otherwise).

ro

Sh 7, 1387 (W I, 306). Sh 12 d, 705 (W II, 229). Sh 12 e, 876 (W II, 382).

on o

p. 440, 2 ff., Bailey, op. cit. p. 44.

x

Sh 13 g, 559 (W IV, 168).

oo

Sh 14, 406 (W IV, 338).

C-)

Sh 43, 615 (W VIII, 228).

10 VR 7 — 527028

102, 76 (W 392 only: Helmer Ringagren

““Happy

and

blest was

it for their land’’).

98

Helmer Ringgren

On the other hand the xvarenah may leave a king, who by evil deeds proves unworthy of kingship. Thus the xzvarenah departed from Yima as soon he had uttered a falsehood!, and Naudar who was a bad king, lost the royal glory and the world fell into desolation: He hath made earth a desert... his fortune (baxt) that was wakeful is asleep, he walketh not in wisdom’s way, the Grace (farrah) of God hath left him.?

The king who has not the xvarenah rules badly and fails in his enterprises, and conversely, if he does not exercise justice he loses the xvarenah: there is a kind of reciprocity. The Turanian king Afrasyab is another instance of this principle. As Coyajee puts it, “the career of Afrasyab in the Shahnamah is a study in the degradation of heroic youth. By the time he kills his brother (Ighriras), both his Glory and his good fortune have departed and his mind was occupied by wicked thoughts... The Zamyad Yasht and the Shahnamah agree that the “Glory” and the Divine grace departed from Afrasyab, when he murdered his brother’’.® There are some hints as to an identification of the avarr with the soul. In the Pahlavi Rivayat we read: The fire, most precious to Ohrmazd, of men’s body, that fire of the body, the Jan (breath-soul), was

created from his own

bréh (brilliance or fortune?) and xvarrah

will and thought

(intellectual force) were

and its

created

from the light of the endless light.

In another text we find the following instruction: Which

was created first, the xvarrah or the body? Ohrmazd said: The

zvarrah of him who was created was created in the body, that is his activity

of taking (=apprehending) explanation body.

The

was created. It was given to the activity. Its

is this: the intelligent intelligent

soul

controls

soul was the

first created,

activity

within

afterwards the

body.

the Both

turned from plant-form to human form and that xvarrah as an invisible being (méndkiha) entered into them; that is the intelligent soul.®

Widengren concludes that the zvarenah must be viewed as “‘eine Seelenkraft’’, in a way the soul of the royal family’, originally the Kayan and 1 Cf. Coyajee, op. cit. p. 284. 2 Sh 8, 34 f. (W I, 340), Coyajee, op. cit. p. 291.

3 Op. cit. p. 301 f. 4 See Bailey, op. cit. p. 45.

5 Bundahigsn ed. Anklesaria p. 101, 1 ff., Zatspram 10, 4; Bailey, op. cit. p. 36 f., cf. Widengren, op. cit. p. 373. ® Hochgottglaube p. 372 f.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

99

after them the other dynasties of Iran. The wvarenah of the Aryans and that of the Kaydn (kavi’s) is essentially the same?, and Bailey is certainly right in saying that the xvarenah of Zarathustra is only “a religious version’ of the other hypostases of the axvarenah.2 Coyajee equates xvarenah with the Melanesian mana*, and if we hold that mana is no impersonal force, but essentially the power of the soul to have success in life, we may admit that the comparison is in a way justifiable. But if the well-being and prosperity, that is, the ‘fortune’, of the country is dependent upon the xvarenah of the king, and if the xvarenah is something created before the body and given to man from his birth to determine his character, and thereby his destiny, then we understand the close association of bazt, fortune, and farr in the epic. And we are not astonished to find that in the Pahlavi commentary to the Vendidad, zvarrah seems to have assumed the same significance as baat: A man if it is in his fortune (avarrah), must die. Except it is in his fortune he cannot die.4

Here, zvarrah, seems to be an inherent quality in man, predetermining the hour of his death. Whatever be the original meaning of the word zvarenah its association with the belief in Destiny is clear, and its close association with the baxt is no mere coincidence. 1 Th. p. 154. 2 Zoroastrian Problems p. 22.

3 Op. cit. p. AT t. 4 See Bailey, op. cit, p. 35.

CHAPTER

Arabic Loan-words.

IV

Several Terms

Combined

The fate terminology of the Shahnamah is almost entirely Iranian. There are, however, a few instances of two Arabic expressions: gadar, “decree, fatum’’, and gadd, “‘decision, decree, fate’’.1 The former word occurs only in three places, the latter in ten?; moreover, every occurrence of the former is combined with the latter. We first quote these instances of the combination of the two words, two of them being found in that section of the epic in which Shah Nishirvan answers the questions of his guests: One of the wisest then questioned him concerning fate (qada@) and fortune (gadar):

“What is their character and who ordained them?” He answered:

“One aspireth, being young,

he toileth night and day, and yet his path is dark and narrow and his conduit low,

while some mere dolt will sleep on fortune’s (baxt) throne, and rose-trees scatter roses over him.

Such is the character of fate (qada@) and fortune (qadar), no toil avoideth their apportionment

(baxsis);

the World-lord, the All-wise, our Fosterer, hath fashioned thus the star of destiny (axtar i rizgar).°

As to facts, we learn nothing new in this passage; but it is a good compendium of all that we have found to be typical of Firdausi’s fatalism. Moreover, it is a good example of how the different terms for fate can be used interchangeably, almost without any difference in meaning. The third instance of gadar and gada together is found in the narrative of Rustam’s struggle with Ashkabiis. There we read: 1 For dahr see above, ch. I. 2 Or eleven, if we reckon its occurrence 3 Sh 41, 1180 ff. (W VII, 291).

twice

in the same

verse,

12 ¢, 1457.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

101

he... struck the breast of Ashkabiis; the sky (sipihr) kissed Rustam’s hand; then destiny (gadd@) cried: ‘“Take!”’ and fate (qadar) cried: ‘‘Give!”’ the heavens (falak) cried: ‘Excellent!’ the angels: ‘““Good!”’ He of Kashan expired... .?

Here too we meet with the well known conceptions of fate, and here too we have a combination of several words for the idea. To pass to those instances in which gadd@ occurs alone. Twice we meet the phrase: “such is the fate (gada@) that God has inflicted upon me’’’; in both cases a question of misfortune is involved. A third passage

is similar: “But the fate (qadd@) that carries us away is the fate (qadd) assigned by our Lord’’4; here the reference is to death which is sent by God. On another occasion it is said of a woman who becomes pregnant:

“And fate (gada@) decreed that she should bear him fruit.’® The three remaining instances are interesting in so far as they give us two images that we have not met with before. It is said: Thus was it written down for us by fate (bavis),

and by decree of fate (rasm 71 bavis) the sequel came; e’en world-consuming lions and fierce dragons

escape not from the net of destiny (gada).®

Destiny is here conceived of as a hunter, who sets his net to catch man. The same image is found in the following verse: ““To-day is an evil day, time (zamdnah) has come, and the net of fate (qada).”"? As we have seen, a similar image, that of a snare, is known from Indian literature, where it is associated with Kala. Finally, there is another image, a somewhat obscure one, found in some lines which are lacking in the edition af Vullers, and consequently 1 So W

following V: Mohl

follows

P: “‘la lune’’.

2 Sh 13 b, 1419 ff. (W IIT, 181). 3 dunin ranad “So hath 4 Sh Master

God

Yazdan

willed’’),

12 c, 1457

(or: Izad) qada& bar saram, 12 c, 1035.(W

(W II, 187:

“Our

II, 168:

summons

Sh

13 e, 1042

‘“‘my God-sent to depart

(W III, 339:

fate’’).

/ is from

the God

and

of us all’).

5 Sh 6, 596 (W I, 205). Mohl: “‘il se trouva qu’elle était enceinte de lui’, taking qada@-ra@ in its adverbial

sense:

“by chance’.

6 Sh 6, 664 f. (W I, 209). 7 Sh

16, 94 (not in W, since V puts this verse in a footnote). For parallels, see

Scheftelowitz,

Das

Schlingenmotiv,

Cumont,

Symbolique

funéraire

p. 21.

8 Cf. above p. 38, 40 (“cords”), 63. For this motif, see Eliade, RHR 134/1948 p. 5-36.

102

Helmer Ringgren

in Warner’s translation; we quote from the translation made by Browne in his Lnterary History of Persia: Death’s breath doth resemble such pitiless fire, consuming alike both the son and the sire.

E’en the young in the joy (tarab) of their living must pause, for, apart from old age, Death has many a cause (sabab).

Should Death bid thee fare to thy long home with speed, and constrain thee to mount on pale Destiny’s (qada) steed. In Destiny’s (ajal) sight Youth and Age are as one.!

What is meant by ‘“‘Destiny’s steed’’ cannot be decided. We have already

met with Fortune (baat) as a “‘vicious steed’, but this seems to be an image created ad hoc and gives us no clue to the understanding of the present passage. It is doubtful, too, whether there is any connection between the present image and another obscure line in Firdausi, in which the Turanians, having accepted the subjection of the Iranians, say: Now we have saddled the revolving sky (éarz)! Who ever took Iran without a fight, as we have by our counsel, wit, and patience?

The implication seems to be, that they have had good fortune. Although I do not want to exclude the possibility that the chariot of Time with its horses may have been in the author’s mind here, there is no certainty that ‘““Destiny’s steed’’ has anything to do with this or with the concept of Kala as a horse. A fact that should not be overlooked in this connection is the great number of other Arabic words in this section — quoted in brackets in the translation — and since the whole passage is absent from some manuscripts, the whole section may be spurious and not representative of Firdausi’s ideas. In Vis u Ramin the loan-word gada@ is more frequent than in the Shahnamah, while gadar as far as I know occurs only in one place.® There is also a single example of the infinitive taqd?r, the decision, in a passage which we have already quoted in another context.® 1 Sh 12 c, 12 ff. (not in W II, 120); Browne, Lt. Hist. IL p. 145 — fixed term”’. 2 Above p. 85.

3 Sh 35, 1509 (W VII, 88). 4 Cf. above

5 VR

p. 35, 45.

36, 44, quoted below p. 108.

8 Above p. 63.

qal is “the

Fatalism in Persian Epics

103

We have already seen several instances of gadé in connection with Heaven. But it also occurs alone, and there is a general expression gada-ra, by chance, incidentally.1 Only a few instances of the word, as a rule having reference to misfortune, need be quoted here. “Fate (gada@) was cruel to the life of the brave’’, says the poet commemorating a fierce battle?; and speaking of a violent, devastating rain he says: Bad Fate (qada) displayed its strife; see, how it sprinkled poison on sugar.?

On another occasion we read: Do not blame a man for the calamities,

ask from God that he finds peace! Every action of the world! is a secret to the creatures, Fate (qada) has a long hand over men. Do not strike my head (=reproach me) because my deed is bad,

for fate (gada) is written above me like this.® Fate (gada) rains rain on everybody, but on my heart it has rained a deluge.

Never one day passes over me, which does not cause me a tormenting scar.

If one day it fulfils a wish for me, under the wish it holds out a net (snare). If the world (jahan) throws roses on my head, it fixes a thorn from each rose in my heart. I do not drink a cup according to my wish,

without also drinking after it its cup of poison.® 1 E.g. VR

40, 1; 47, 13, cf. Sh 6, 596 above p. 101.

2 VR

20, 49 (not in W).

3 VR

38, 49 (W

60: ““Now

behold

what

God’s

providence

did, how

it sprinkled

poison on sugar’’). 4 World =destiny, see p. 47 f. 5 VR 74, 109-111 (W 229: “*...never reproach the lover who is overtaken by mischance. When thou seest (such) a man, ask pardon for him from God. Now I curse my former mind

and self. But every act of God is hidden from man.

doings of God’s providence so shameful, 6 VR

my

upon us are long. Reproach

fate brought

70, 19-23

me

not. If my

The

deed was

it on me.’’).

(W 209: “God’s providence

rains for all; but I alone am

taken

away by the shower. There comes not one day to me when my liver is not wounded (“‘tormenting”

in the

translation

above

means

literally

‘‘liver-burning’’).

If for

one moment my desire be fulfilled, in the same (moment) the net is spread to ensnare me.

When

Fate

casts roses on my

head, each leaf pierces my

eye with a thorn.

I never drink a glass of wine by my will but afterwards I drink the same measure

of gall.’’).

104

Helmer Ringgren

In addition to the general pessimism because of the fickleness and cruelty of fate, we notice two images, which are already known to us from the Shahnamah, viz. the net or snare of fate! and the drink it gives to man.? It may be mentioned that the latter image is also current in Arabic poetry. Very frequently in Vis u Ramin ‘‘the decree” is concerned with fated love. “An evil decree (fate, gada@) has thrown me into love’’, it is said.® When Ramin is preparing to depart and mounts his horse, the poet says, “the ravisher of hearts removed the veil of patience, and Fate (gada) made of Vis’ stature a bow with which it shot as with an arrow’. And Vis complains: ‘‘An evil fate (gadd@) has driven you on the way; into what does the passion of my heart throw me?’’> So Fate treats men and their feelings with roughness, and it takes them themselves as instruments for its action. It arouses passionate love, and then it separates the lovers without mercy. The Georgian version aptly expresses this in the following words: “But the decree of God has just torn the curtain of shame as it were from our love, now He has brought upon us this unintelligible separation.’’6 Fate is inscrutable: However much we examine the world (jahdn), it is hidden how to open the bonds of its secret. There is nothing more hidden than its bonds, nothing sharper than its decree (qad@).?

Here “‘the world’? — as in many other cases — is used to denote that which happens in the world and consequently serves as a synonym of “Fate’’; it is combined with gadd, which has here its original sense of “decree, decision’’. Ci plow. 27 Cisprelss Us: 3 VR 59, 228 (W 154). 4 VR

73, 125 f. (W 223:

“When

Ramin

mounted

his horse, the decree of God

took off from Vis the veil of patience. Vis’s body became flew from her like an arrow’’, 5 VR

like a bow, and Ramin

G 420).

73, 129 (W 224: “By the decree of God thou art gone travelling, and I am

cast into a pit of desire’). 6 VR 62, 11 (W 164); the Persian text: “Fate has cut our conjunction asunder, torn away the veil of secret from me’’). 7 VR

101, 1f. (W 386:

thus can anyone heart, nor

‘““However

much

one has experience

of the world,

not

learn its hidden secret. There is nothing more secret than its

sharper than its wit’’). Cf. 11, 1f., and p. 63 (the bands).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

105

The decision of Fate is irrevocable: Es ist gescheh’n, so wollt’ es das Geschick (gada), durch all das Reden geht es nicht zuriick.? Fate (gada@) has passed over your work and rested, what use is there now in useless talk?2

Finally we give two instances of a more positive character. Once it is

said that “the hand of Fate (gada@) poured water on the fire of his wrath’’’, on another occasion: The sky (falak) kisses the world (zamin) before my reins, Fate (qada@) girds its loins before my spear.*

The meaning is: everything is subject to me; even the powers of destiny, represented by the sky and the decree of Fate, seem to obey me. There is no need here for a detailed investigation of the ideas connected with the words gadar and gadé in Arabic literature, since the words play such an insignificant role in the Persian epics and since the Arabian ideas do not seem to have influenced Firdausi and Gurgani to any considerable degree. Orthodox Islamic theology contends that gadd is the decree existing in God’s mind from all eternity, and gadar the execution and declaration of the decree at the appointed time.® But this distinction seems rather artificial and probably had no real existence outside the minds of the systematising scholars of Islamic theology. Arabic poetry uses the two words indifferently, making no clear distinction between them. According to Islamic thought the correct expression would be of course gad@ Allah, God’s decree, and as a matter of fact, we very often encounter this phrase in Arabic poetry. But there are also numerous instances of both gadar and gadd@ used absolutely without any mention of God. In all probability the expression goes back to pre-Islamic times, 1 VR 47, 88 (G 404; W 111: ““what was to be was’’), ef. Shahnamah (above p. 16),

and VR 83, 14 (W 293). 2 VR 44, 35 (W 99: “‘God’s decree has been set upon thy head. What avails it to use

so many

useless 115:

words?’’).

3 VR

48, 34 (W

4 VR

83, 61 (W 296: ““The suns praises the edge of my spear, the earth kisses

“‘the decree

of God...’’).

my rein, I have brought to nought even the planets as my foes’’, which seems to represent

a better form

of the text).

5 Cf. EI s.v. Qadar and Qada@’.

3 Cf. e.g. Caskel, Das Schicksal in der altarabischen Poesie.

106

Helmer Ringgren

although this does not imply that it was then independent of Allah — for, as is well known, Allah is not an invention of Muhammad’s; he existed in the belief of the Arabs even before the Prophet’s time and probably as the high god and god of destiny. A detailed study of this problem must be postponed for the moment; the present writer hopes to revert to it in another work. The Arabic terms were evidently borrowed by the Persian authors because they expressed notions corresponding to those of their own. It should be remarked that Firdausi uses the Arabic terms either absolutely or in connection with God, while Gurgani seems to prefer the expression “Heaven’s decree’ (qaday 1 adsman). The genuine Persian word would perhaps be farman, command, decree, and as a matter of fact, it is sometimes used in connection with fate, e.g.: Both worlds were made by His creative word: thou canst not call in question His decree (farmdan). The sky (sipihr) which thou beholdest thus revolving will, while it lasteth never ’scape His ken. Whate’er He willeth is at His command (farmdn); we are all slaves and He is sovereign.

(Some more instances will be given below in another context.?) *

We have already, on several occasions, remarked that the different words for destiny are often used together and that it is generally difficult to find any distinction in their meaning. We shall give here a few typical examples of this phenomenon and then briefly discuss its implication. First some passages from the Shahnamah: Then earth (zamin) and time (zaman) were bondslaves in my presence, and thus it was while fortune (baxt) proved my friend. The world (jahadn) hath got me in the net of ruin. Such is the custom of this turning sky, alike with monarch and with paladin.? yet in thy victory joy not; though thou art young the world (jahdn) is old.

1 Sh 19, 423 ff. (W VI, 58). 2 Pp, 121, 8 Sh 19, 355 ff. (W VI, 54).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

107

The secret of the turning sky (sipihr) is known to none; it never showeth us its face.

But heaven (cara) above is practised in deceit, so couple not thy heart with arrogance. Fear sharp fate’s (dahr) vengeance yet; it may infuse some of its bane in this thine antidote.1 Bahram, when fortune’s day (riz i baxt) no longer shone, surrendered to Narsi the crown and throne. This is the way; there is no end thereto,

the wanton sky (falak) hath ever something new.? If any of God’s servants could escape from His decree (baxsis), I had escaped withal by observation of the turning sky (asmdan);

but neither man of lore nor warrior evadeth that decree, strive how he may...

*Tis not in man to limit heaven’s (Yazdan) powers or shun the process of the passing hours (zamdnah).?

In Vis u Ramin the tendency to combine several words for fate is still more conspicuous. A few instances will suffice. Wer wusste, ja wer ahnte nur hienieden,

was Beiden durch des Himmels (dsman) Rat (hukm) beschieden, wie das Geschick (zamdnah) zu fiihren sie gedachte, in jener Weise auf den Weg sie brachte?4 Bevor die Mutter beide noch gebar, als beider Same noch gesat nicht war,

war schon der Ratschluss (gadda) iiber sie gefallt, ibr Tun im Buche einzeln festgestellt®; des Himmels

Spruch (qaday 1 Gsman) vermag nichts abzuwehren,

nicht List und nicht Gewalt ihn umzukehren.®

1 Sh 42, 1150 ff. (W VIII, 140). 2b

Sh 27, 1 f. (C) (W VI, 315 not in M).

3

Sh 20, 1161 ff. (W VI, Now and

147). Another

fate (zamdnah)

fortune’s

(baxt) fate is utterly

the circling heaven his portion

good

dethroneth

instance

averse;

(¢arxv) is his foe and

(bahr) to be hidden

maketh

in the earth. Sh 45, 25f.

on

is this:

him

(W IX,

45).

Lit. “chow it found a pretext for this deed”’; Widengren, op. cit. p. 307 otherwise Lit. only “‘was written”, the book is not mentioned. VR

12, 6-10

(D 382, cf. Widengren

p. 307; W

9 otherwise).

108

Helmer Ringgren

It is significant that a little farther down God (Yazddan), too, is mentioned as the determiner of destiny: ‘““The way of God’s decision (hukm)

cannot be bound (i.e. controlled).”! We get a vivid impression of the feeling of dependence on the power of destiny: everything is predestined and written before the birth of man, and neither wisdom nor might can change anything of it. A peculiar accumulation of terms is found in the following passage: The world (jahan) is wroth with me, fortune (baat) contends [with me], the sky (falak) is violent to me, Time (dahr) very sharp, Fate (gada) rained over me a flood of injustice, Destiny (gadar) unsheathed above me its iron sword.?

That the world appears as the sum and substance of destiny is nothing remarkable — we have seen already several instances of this.2 We notice the great number of Arabic loan-words in this passage: the word falak is otherwise rare in Vis u Ramin, as are also the words dahr and qgadar. It is perhaps significant that this section is absent from the Georgian

version. What do you want of me, O Fate (gaddé) what do you want, since you bring nothing but ruin upon my work? You wish to contend with my fortune (bazt), with the sword of separation you shed my blood. Sometimes you give my soul hardness, sometimes you increase bitterness for my life.

Like a bowman is the revolution of Time (zamdnah), separation is its arrow and my soul its mark.

The interesting point here is that Fate — gada — is placed in opposition to fortune — baxt —, which implies that bazt is here used for good fortune only. But Fate and Time are obviously felt to be identical, for both are said to have caused the separation. On the other hand, Time and baxt seem to be identical in the following passage: TVR 12 12, 2 VR 36, 43 f. (not in W). 3 Cf. p. 47f, and VR 79, 417; 98, 78. * VR

64, 83-86

(W

179:

“What

shall I do, O heart, what

shall I do?

Whatever

of mine is not lasting, it is thou that hast done it all to me. Strive not with my fate. Sometimes

thou causest my blood to flow with the sword; sometimes thou takest

away my soul, and sometimes thou embitterest my being! — Fate is like an archer;

separation is always its arrow and my soul its butt.’’).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

109

Much have I tested my fortune (baat), I have only grown wounded and sorrowful from it. I increase the ruin of my time (rizgdr), when I try tried fortune (baat).

Time and fortune here probably denote the lot assigned, “‘my time” and ‘‘my fortune” being the same thing. Now, what conclusion can be drawn from these observations? If the various words for fate or destiny are used without clear distinction, this must mean that they are considered as synonymous expressions for one and the same concept. They may differ as to their origin, but they actually do not denote different powers of destiny, but a single power that has different aspects but is nevertheless essentially a unity. A similar tendency to merge the various aspects of fate into each other is extant already in Pahlavi sources. There is a passage in the Bundahign which is particularly interesting from this point of view. It runs: When véh

Vai i vattar

(the good Vayu)

(the evil Vayu) takes the soul from the body, Vai i receives

it and

gives resignation

to the time

fixed

(zaman And: Now this displeased the Maker of the world; High Heaven Sh 12d,

1548

(¢arx) frowned upon Kahtan.® (W II, 271, rather free translation).

Sh 7, 1730 (W I, 323). Sh 43, 653 (W VIII, 230). Sh

13, 1496

(W III, 96 slightly different).

Sh 13 g, 92 (W IV, 144 free tr.).

Sh 20, 670 (W VI, 120).

YD © fF on

8 — 527028

Helmer Ringgren

114

Helmer Ringgren The Maker be thy stay and comforter, and fortune’s (aztar) head be laid upon thy lap.

‘“‘“Heaven’’ — or “Time,” ‘Fortune’? — may thus often be considered as a more general and less dogmatic term for God, or rather for God’s government of the world. In such general expressions both Muslims and Zoroastrians could join. Such circumlocutions for God or a divine name are nothing entirely unique. The Jews came to consider the name of their God, Yahweh, so holy that it should not be pronounced, and instead spoke of “the Name’’,

“the Dwelling” (§*kinah) and even of “the sky (Heaven)’. The earliest instance of ‘‘Heaven”’ as a circumlocution for Yahweh is found in Dan. 4:23 (Engl. version 4:26): “Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule.” Similarly, in 1 Mace. 3:18 f. Judas the Maccabee says: “It makes no difference for Heaven to help by many or by few, for the victory in battle does not depend on the number of the host, but the strength comes from Heaven.” Thus God’s dwelling is put instead of God himself in order to avoid mentioning his name. In modern times such authors as Moliére and Corneille speak of “‘le ciel’ instead of God, probably because their conception of God was not in conformity with that of the Church: they wished to give a more general deistic tinge to utterances about God — or it may be that the characters in their plays are using pious phrases without serious advertance to their basic meaning. A few instances might suffice. Gardez, pour vous punir de cet orgueil étrange, que le ciel & la fin ne souffre qu’on vous venge.? Tu vois comme

le ciel autrement en dispose.?

Et la bonté du Ciel m’y semble avoir conduit pour confondre |’orgueil d’un traitre qui me nuit. Et je vois que le Ciel, pour ma punition, me veut mortifier en cette occasion.§ 1 Sh 43, 3311 (W VIII, 378). 2 Corneille, Le Cid act 5, scene 4, 1. 1685 f. 3 Tb. act 5, scene 7, 1. 1769. 4 Moliére,

Tartuffe

act 3, scene

5 Ib. act 3, scene 6, 1. 1079 f.

5, 1. 1023 f.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

115

But we return to Firdausi. Warner is certainly right when he stresses the composite character of his fatalism: “Destiny, as represented to us by the poet, is made up of two distinct elements which he does not attempt to reconcile — the Muhammadan and the Zoroastrian.’’! According to the former everything has its source in God: good and evil, good fortune and misfortune come from Him. According to the latter the course of the world is an interaction of the good and the evil god: ““Urmuzd created man and fashioned the twelve houses of the heavens that they might pour down their kindly influence upon him; Ahriman broke into the creation of Urmuzd and created the planets to run counter to the stars and cross their purposes. Destiny therefore, from this point of view, being the resultant of two opposite forces, is an extremely logical deduction well borne out by the events of history and the incidents of life ... but corresponds rather to what we should call fortune than to absolute fate.’’? The last sentence is evidently correct. But we ought to consider more carefully the question of Muhammadan and Zoroastrian elements. The lack of consistency, seen by Warner in Firdausi’s fatalism, is apparent also in his conception of God. Noldeke had already pointed out that Firdausi was “a rigorous deist and monotheist’’ and that, for instance, in his words about God in the introduction there is nothing that is specifically Muslim: The Lord of whatever is named or assigned a place, the Sustainer of all and the Guide, The Lord of Saturn and the turning sky, who causeth Venus, Sun, and Moon to shine, who is above conception, name, or sign,

the Artist of the heaven’s jewelry! Him thou canst see not though thy sight thou strain, for thought itself will struggle to attain to One above all name and place in vain..

.4

In the last words we might be tempted to find an allusion to the Mu‘tazilite doctrine that God cannot be seen (‘Sight perceives Him not’, Kor. 6,103), but Coyajee remarks that here, as in other places, Firdausi teaches that God cannot be perceived even by wisdom, which contradicts 1 Warner, Shdhnameh I p. 52. =H MMop yoy aayaie 3 Noldeke,

Das tranische Nationalepos

4 Sh Intr. 2 ff. (W I, 100).

p. 36.

116

Helmer Ringgren

the Mu‘tazilite opinion that man can reach knowledge of ‘God by means of reason. And as a matter of fact, it is not impossible to find equivalent statements in the Pahlavi writings.! It has also been remarked that Firdausi tries to find the middle way between Muslim and Zoroastrian even in the names given by him to God. “He seldom uses the word Urmuzd, but in its place such terms as Maker of the world, World-lord, the Almighty, the righteous Judge, or simply God, but hardly ever the Muhammadan Allah.’’? This is certainly a deliberate practice. But Firdausi does not give — or perhaps has not even tried to give — a synthesis of Muhammadan and Zoroastrian elements: he leaves the doctrines side by side without trying to reconcile them. In the record of the creation of the world he gives the Zoroastrian astrological conception of the fixed stars as the creation of God and the planets as an evil creation?; even if he does not mention Ahriman as their creator, every Zoroastrian must think of him when he read those lines. But in other places we meet with phrases that must have sound very familiar to a Muslim ear, as in Khusrau Parviz’ answer to Cesar’s invitation to adopt Christianity: We do not allow that God hath any partner, son, and consort.

The next lines are again more general: He is and ever will be manifest, not comprehended by our thoughts, but still to me the warrant

of His own

existence.

Concerning the question of God’s relation to destiny we notice two different trends of thought in Firdausi. He can sometimes say that both good and evil come from God: the World-lord who is all-providing

the Author of the good and ill of fortune (rizgar).® Coyajee, op. cit. p. 4 f. Warner, op. cit. I p. 50. Quoted above p. 76.

&© non oa MO ef

Sh 43, 3441 (W VIII, 380), cf. 35 b, 418 (W VII, 128). Sh 48, 3441 f. (W VIII, 380). Sh 41, 4078 (W VIII, 33).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

117

no ill

e’er will befall thee, and if hardship cometh *twill be from God. Know that good / and ill are both of God...

.2

But on the other hand, there are passages in which the poet makes his

heroes complain to God of what Destiny (Heaven) has brought them: It is of fortune (baat) that I complain; I leave it all to God. I will complain of circling heaven (sipihr) to God for having docked me thus of all its love.

Similarly the poet himself complains: High-springing arch of heaven (carx)! O, why dost thou, when eld is on me keep me thus forlorn? I will arraign

this tyranny of thine before the Just, of thee before the All Holy One complain .

Such distinct Master invoked

.é

words would not be possible, if God were not in some way from Fate, a power not quite so merciless, and in any case the of destiny. The same is true of the passages in which God is as the refuge from all evils of fortune: from every ill

take shelter with the Ruler of the world

for ill and good are in His power.® God is our refuge from all ill,

for He created circling heaven (asmdn) above, created strength and weakness.’

Another time God is said to make the sky propitious:

oo oO FP CD He a _

Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh Sh

43, 19, 42, 42, 20, 22, 29,

1152 (W VIII, 256). 350 (W VI, 54). Cf. also 33, 12 (W VI, 369). 1243 (W VIII, 145). 1406 (W VIII, 155). 1932 ff. (W VI, 189 f.). 442 (W VI, 280). 150 (W VI, 336).

118

Helmer Ringgren Holy God exalteth from the dust His worshipper, doth favourably dispose the sky (falak) toward him.

Still clearer is the distinction between God and Fate when He is said to be a protection against it: They that fear God will see not evil fortune (bad riizgar).?

When good and ill are alike ascribed to God we have before us a manifestation of strict monotheism of the same kind as in Islam, similarly when God is conceived of as the Master of destiny, of heaven and the stars, but when He is invoked against Destiny, the influence of the dualistic conception of Zoroastrianism is quite apparent. The misfortunes that happen to man are caused by evil powers which are opposed to the good God and strive to counteract His good intentions towards mankind. But it is remarkable that Ahriman appears only on a few occasions as the author of misfortune. An instance is when Kai Kais sends the following message to Zal: My crown and throne have tumbled to the dust, and heaven hath given to the divs my treasures... my crown and throne are both o’erturned, and I lie stricken in the hand of Ahriman,

~

who rendeth me asunder, soul from body.?

Possibly the following words of Hurmuzd where he seeks to incite Ayin Gashasp to take measures against the rebellious Bahram Chibinah, belong to the same category: This is not my work, but miscreant Ahriman’s. I will dispatch a host; be thou its leader and prevail.

... Fortune (baxt) if he seeketh power, crown, and throne, will turn from him at last.4

The idea would appear to be that it is not the task of the Shah to bring misfortune upon the rebel as punishment, but that this should be done by Ahriman. But there may be other possible interpretations. As a rule, however, Ahriman appears as the seducer, and if he brings misfortune upon somebody he does so by inducing him to commit an 1 Sh 41, 4066 f. (W VIII, 32). ? Sh 42, 39 (W VIII, 79). 3 Sh 12, 243 ff. (W IT, 42). 4 Sh 42, 1814 ff. (W VIII, 177).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

evil deed which brings misfortune as its punishment. the background of the counsel:

119

This is certainly

Make not the Div (i.e. Ahriman) the comrade of thy soul, if thou wilt keep thy fortune vigorous.!

Generally Ahriman’s activity is connected with moral evil rather than with misfortune and hardship. When the ideal conditions under a good king are described by stating that “the hand of Ahriman was stayed from evil’, the implication is that right and order and justice prevailed in the country and not primarily that there was good fortune and prosperity. In this connection we should take note of two interesting passages. In the first Isfandiyar says: In this world have I toiled exceedingly in public and in private to establish

the way of God and wisdom as the guide thereto, but when through me the enterprise had grown illustrious, and when the hands of Ahriman were barred from wickedness,

fate (zamdnah) stretched its lion’s claws and brought me down.?

Here Ahriman and Fate are evidently two different powers. On another occasion the Div certainly seems to be the originator of evil fortune, but it happens according to God’s command: But no one, as all wise men know, can ’scape from God’s decree. This was assigned to him, and all through the perverse Div’s sorcery.

It is sufficiently clear from these examples that Firdausi’s fatalism is not systematically thought out, nor altogether consistent. His idea of God is deistic, but not Muhammadan or Zoroastrian. His sources have evidently been coloured by Zoroastrian dualism, and his own thoughts are often influenced by such ideas, His fatalism is never fully reconciled with his belief in a God who is the master of the universe and governs all that happens. It would even seem that he himself has not been aware of any need for reconciliation, since he can mention

1 Sh 13 g, 2971 (W IV, 301). 2 Sh 13, 28 (W III, 17), 15, 3826 (W V, 246), 29, 2 (C) (W VI, 318) 41, 2342 (W VII, 359). 3 Sh 15, 3829 ff. (W V, 246). 4 Sh 43, 2826 (W VIII, 346).

120

Helmer Ringgren

God and Heaven, or God and Fortune, in the same verse without making any distinction between them. Now we must bear in mind that Firdausi is not a theologian but a poet, and we should not demand too much consistency in such a huge work as the Shahnamah, all the more so as it is largely dependent on older sources and draws its material from Zoroastrian works. Moreover, Firdausi’s personal situation can explain some features in his work. He was living in a Muslim country, governed by a Muslim ruler, and since the poet was dependent on his favour he could not appear to be a heretic. Even if his attitude towards Zoroastrianism was one of sympathy, he must profess the Islamic doctrine or expose himself to serious danger, even to the death penalty. But, all things considered, the inconsistencies of Firdausi’s belief in destiny are not greater than those that might be thought possible, or even usual, for ordinary men without training in systematised theology. If we compare the fatalism of Firdausi with that professed in the Pahlavi writings, we get the impression that the role of God is more important in the former. God’s ability to check the powers of destiny

is never questioned, as in the discussions of bazt and baydbazt in the Menok i Xrat. It may be that Islamic monotheism has reinforced the divine element that is undoubtedly present also in Zoroastrian fatalism as shown in the Pahlavi documents. *

Vis u Ramin does not differ much from the Shahnamah in the matter of the relation between God and Fate. We often have the impression that God and Heaven, for instance, are identical: God’s decree (hukm) is not affrighted by your lamentation. the revolving heavens (gardin) do not turn back again.? 1 We (Der

may

Islam

erster

Linie

quote 29/1950

here

bei der Oberschicht,

Heldentiberlieferungen zugeben p. 68: dem

lag kein “Daneben

Spuler,

2 VR

Der

Verlauf

Grund mag

also bei jenen Kreisen,

vor,

auch

da

ja das

Islamisierung Persiens

die . . . die alt-persischen

manche

soziale Milieu...

Parallele zwischen haben.

in Allah und Iblis wiedergefunden

34, 62 (W 54: “Neither

will the future

der

die Islamisierung Persiens in

mit ihrer ritterlichen Weltanschauung pflegten.

Islam den Ubergang leicht gemacht

Bésen konnte nor

from

p. 63 ff.) p. 67 f.: “So begann

be removed

dem

Die Macht

unverandert

thee”,

blieb’’;

Zoroastrismus

und

des Guten und

des

werden.”

by thy crying out will Providence from

Sie auf-

G 392).

be affrighted,

Fatalism in Persian Epics

121

God’s hukm and the revolution of the sky stand in complete parallelism as exponents of the decree of fate. The same holds true of the following verse: How could you escape God’s command (farmdn), how contend with revolving heaven (gardiin)?}

But in the following passage God alone acts: If God (dadar) has made the apportionment (baxsis) so, we see helplessly that which he has made. You they put in bonds and prison, me they left sick at Gurgan.

When God placed our lot (baxsis) together with you, he placed me together with you in Heaven (dsmdan). Who knows how to do this except the Creator,

who has no helper in any work.?

Similarly, when somebody wishes fortune (baat) from God?, or complains to God of his fate.4 The following lines, too, show God as the sovereign ruler: God has not given you any son, who could one day be master of the world... Man’s life is not eternal, his life one day comes to an end;

when the Lord’s decree (farman) comes to your soul, your house and your property will fall into the enemy’s hand.®

Here it is God who gives children and sends death, he is the almighty ruler of the world. This is also the case in the following lines, which are Vis’ words to Shah Mdbad: O lord, you know yourself that the sky (gardin) does every hour a different deed. 1 VR

44, 17 (W 98: ‘“‘Thou canst never evade God’s decree, nor struggle against

the planets and Fate’’). 2 VR 63, 173-176 (W 173: ““How do we know what God has decreed upon our heads —

for thus thou wast fettered by Moabad in this castle, and he left me sick

in Gurgan, not knowing that our meeting had been decreed by God in the heavens. Who

save

God

the Creator

could have

done

this?’’).

5 VR 40, 126. SVR 5 VR to come. upon

ST ALTOS. 51, 21, 23 f. (W 124: “God has given thee no son to rule thy land in days When

God’s

thee, thy house

decree —

the end of life to every

and throne

will fall to thy foes’’).

human

being —

comes

122

Helmer Ringgren The deeds that we constantly experience from it happen through God’s (ddddar) order (hukm) and decree (farman). The Lord has measured it out by measure,

less and more is in the measure. From the beginning of the world till the day of the end, it walks along with even steps.

So it turns as God (dddar) has commanded it, as He has willed it, he has shown it the way.!

The decree of God is mediated to men by the revolution of the sky, which is determined by God and cannot be changed in any way. But there are also some instances showing a certain difference between God and destiny: If God (daddar) gives him (Ramin) support, he will see no ill from heaven (asmdan).?

Here God and heaven are obviously not identical, since God can be said to protect man from the actions of heaven. From a verse that has already been quoted above we learn that fortune (bazt) is that which God has given.? And in one of her letters

to Ramin Vis writes that she “hopes from God and fortune (bazt) that they will let her see the sun again’’.4 We have intentionally left out of account here the praise of God that occurs in the poet’s own introduction to his work, since it might possibly be more influenced by Islamic ideas than the rest of the poem, which is drawn from a Pahlavi original. There we learn, amongst other things, that God is the creator of time®, and that the course of time (or: hours, augat) is regulated by the sky®, which is created by God, ideas that are in full agreement with the words of Vis to Shah Mébad just quoted. We could quote several other instances of similar import. But we have already had sufficient evidence that destiny is very often described as identical with God’s decree or as proceeding from His will. 1 VR

72,

9-13

from moment

(W

216:

to moment

be born. We men

“You,

too,

know that his planet turns upon

a man

with another tooth (?), and even with (his) birth it will

cannot flee from the foreordained decree of God and the planet,

nowhere can we be hidden save by the will of God Himself. All is of a truth ordained by Him, 2 VR

whatever 41,

161,

befalls anybody cf. Widengren,

8 P, 87. 4 VR 79, 140 (W 259). 5 VR 1, 15f. SOVIET

OO.

till the day of death’’).

op. cit. p. 308.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

123

In the expression gaddy i dsmdn, the decree of Heaven, which is extremely common, one might even ask whether “Heaven” should not be looked upon as a circumlocution for ““God’’. It is possible that this is partly due to the fact that Ahura Mazdah was once identical with the sky, but it is also conceivable that the general notion of God as living in heaven has given rise to the expression. In the latter case we should not forget that the Islamic God also dwells in the sky. Like Firdausi the author of Vis u Ramin prefers to use general expressions for God, and the word Allah is very rare. On the whole one gets the impression that the religious ideas are not clearly defined, since they are matters of secondary importance in the context. This vagueness may of course be intentional: by using such general expressions the author takes an intermediate position between the Iranian conceptions of his source and those of Islam. It is remarkable that, where destiny is concerned, the Georgian version speaks much more of God and “‘God’s decree’ than the Persian. Here the process of assimilation of the Iranian ideas has proceeded farther, probably under Christian influence.

CHAPTER

VI

The Attitude towards

Destiny

Hitherto we have dealt with what might be called the objective aspect of Destiny, and some attention might now be paid to the subjective aspect, that is, man’s attitude towards Destiny. This attitude is partly clear from what has already been said. It is obvious that it is marked by the same duality as the belief in Destiny itself. Man cannot be expected to take the same attitude when he considers the righteous God to be the Determiner of Destiny and thinks that he is guided by moral principles in distributing fate, as when he believes in Destiny as an impersonal and mechanical power. On the whole man’s only reasonable attitude to an omnipotent government of the world must be humble submission and resignation. But the character of this submission is determined by the nature ascribed to the governing power. It is no use contending with God and Fate!: Canst thou see one whom heaven (éarx) hunteth not? Fret as we will our woes remain; we cannot

contend against the All-just Judge.? This is beyond thy power, and thus to mock at fortune (zamdnah) cannot prosper.’

Here too, we meet with the warning against exaggerated joy in the days of prosperity and success that is well known from Arabic poetry: yet in thy victory joy not; though thou art young the world is old. The secret of the turning sky (sipihr) is known to none; it never showeth us its face.

a

Cf. Massé, Firdousi

te

Sh 7, 931 f. (WI, 284). Sh 42, 833 (W VIII, 122). Sh 42, 1150 (W VIII, 140).

wo

rs

et l’épopée nationale

p. 122.

Fatalism in Persian Epics

125

Man must be on his guard and be careful. Insolence is avenged. The classical example is the narrative of Kai Kaiis, who in his presumption tried to ascend to heaven!, allured by Iblis— who is probably none other than Ahriman, the instigator of all evil.2 Eagles lured by pieces of flesh carried him away seated on his throne; when they finally tired, they fell in the middle of a forest in Mazandaran, where the warriors found their king and reproached him for his pride. On a few occasions we hear of somebody cursing his fate. Sam does so when he receives the news of Zal’s birth: He spake in wrath with frowns and railed at fortune (bazt)4

And Puladvand when he sees that he cannot vanquish Rustam: That fierce one raged at fate (rizgar) because his sword availed not on his foeman.®

Similarly Rustam when he cannot find his horse: he is “wroth and raging at his luck’’.6 This is the impulsive reaction of the moment to the blows of fate. But he who uses his reason and reflects, draws instruction from his misfortune and vicissitudes. “Observe time’s changes (gardis 1 rdizgar) and no other teacher’’’, says Afrasyab in his message to Kai Khusrau: he should learn from the events and not seek battle unless it were necessary. Or, with Sidah’s words to the same shah: Thou hast Grace, wisdom, lofty mien, high birth, and fortune, heart, and manhood, thou dost need

no monitor, yet heed this turn of fate (gardis < rizgar)! Men like Piran, Haman, and Farshidvard, Kulbad and Nastihan have had their armour destroyed, and their hearts shattered, in the fight.8

And so it can be said with reason: But if misfortune’s (riézgar) ills thou hast to feel there is instruction also for thy weal.®

Sh 12 b, 450 ff. (W II, 102 ff.). Cf. Warner, op. cit. I p. 50 f. Cf. Massé, op. cit. p. 110. i) w > -

oa

mn Of 3o

Sh 7, 81 (W I, 241), lit.

‘he made conversation with his fortune’’.

Sh 13 ¢, 1356 (W TIL, 261); text: 1Sj9) b eas}> Cael p.

Sh Sh Sh Sh

13d, 13 g, 13 c, 12 d,

125 1202 1176 2643

(W III, 278); text: S39) b ww (W IV, 202). ff. (W III, 252). (W II, 328).

rn.

126

Helmer Ringgren )

But there is need for attention and readiness to learn in the right way, for there are also examples of the instructions of destiny having had unhappy consequences. It is told about Gushtasp that when he was informed by the astrologers of the fate that awaited his son Isfandiyar, he pondered on the processes of time (gardis 1 zaman) which in their turn instructed him in crime.!

But it can be learnt that Fate is not to be trusted, so that man must always be prepared for an unhappy turn of fortune. How canst thou trust then in this ancient sky (cara), since it will end thee irremediably?2

It is possible, of course, to try to forget the seriousness of Fate: No doubt both grief and longing pass away, and fate (zamdnah) is counting up our’every breath, but still *tis good to add up cups of wine, and not to stare at yon unloving sky (éarz).®

But the best thing to do is to submit to the decrees of fate and be contented with what it brings: Seek not to pass by greed or pains the lot

assigned to thee by God.. .4

We have already quoted the words of the Roman emperor’s daughter to Luhrasp, exhorting him to be satisfied with his lot and not rage against heaven.> And when Sam is informed that Zal has been born with white hair, it is added: So heaven (baxsis) willed, O seeker after glory! Content thee and be not morose and thankless!

And therefore every man of wisdom will let his circumstances rule his action.’ Thou canst not ’scape the turning of the sky.® ray

Sh 15, 2465 (W V, 170).

i)

Sh 40, 379 (W VII, 211) ace. to C; M otherwise.

wo

Sh 13 ce, 779£.(W III, 233).

rs

Sh 22, 480 (W VI, 282).

5 Above p. 80. a

Sh 7, 64 (W I, 240). Mohl renders bawsisat literally: “‘ta fortune’’.

_

ba rizgar besdzad,

@

Sh 12 d, 1555 f£. (W II, 271).

‘“‘se conforme

a son sort’? (Mohl).

Fatalism in Persian Epics

127

Consequently the best reaction is that of Siyavush, of whom we read: He put his trust in God, while thus he spake, but his hard fortune (rizgdr) made his heart still ache.1

When fate is conceived of as a manifestation of God’s will, resignation need not be hopeless, but fate’s blows can be borne with patience and content and confidence in God.

Vis u Ramin yields nothing substantially new for this special line of investigation. The attitude towards Destiny is practically the same as in the Shanamah. Destiny cannot be understood, nor escaped: Was das Geschick (zamdnah) von Knoten weiss zu schlingen, kann dem Verstand zu lésen nicht gelingen.?

The point seems to be that man cannot understand the secrets of Destiny — the image would then be of another import here than in passages that speak of Destiny’s net or snare. But the idea of the impossibility of altering Fate’s decree by human wisdom is not very remote. What Destiny has sent cannot be changed: Es ist gescheh’n, so wollt’ es das Geschick (qada), durch all das Reden geht es nicht zuriick.®

Therefore it is no use trying to contend with Destiny‘, and the right attitude is content and patient submission: Do not cry out so much over a ‘strange’ world (zamin), do not curse fortune and throne!® Why do you utter mean complaints of God? Be not so displeased with fortune (bazt), for displeasure brings affliction.®

1 Sh 12 d, 2271 (W II, 308). 2 VR

11, 2 (G 382;

W 8: “Fate

wisdom

of a thousand

cannot

3 VR 47, 88 (G 404; was’. Now 4 VR

undo

ties knots them’’);

in such cf. above

a way

that

the

wit

and

p. 63, 104.

W 111: “‘God’s decree was fulfilled on me. What was to be,

talk and regret avail us not.’’).

83, 44; 97, 26; other instances

above

p. 63, 120 f., 124.

5 VR 42, 58 (W 84: “Do not ery out continually in a strange land; curse not Fate and greatness’’). 6 VR

47, 117£., cf. above p. 87.

128

Helmer Ringgren

Now it might be said that it is quite natural that exhortations to patience and resignation are numerous in Vis u Ramin. The love between Vis and Ramin is caused by Destiny, but it does not allow them to be together. They complain of the separation that Fate has inflicted upon them, and they are exhorted to patience by their friends. This is true, but it does not change anything in the fact that the general tenor of Persian fatalism is just like this. We will finish this chapter by quoting an extract from a dialogue between Vis and her nurse, which well illustrates both fatalism in general and the attitude towards fate as it is professed in the two Persian epics we have studied. The nurse:

... good conditions (kar) come from a happy fortune (baat). From heaven (car) does the decree (qad@) come, not from man’s wish; thence comes man’s name of slave (bandah). From heaven (éarx) came all things, written; written (fate) is mingled with our soul. Written (fate) is never changed, it is not averted from us by trouble and endeavour. When our fortune (baxt) took you away from Viri

it cut you off from the city and the sight of Shahri. Now again that has happened which fortune (baxt) wishes for you, the wish of fortune (bazt) is neither increased nor diminished. Moon-figured Vis answered her: “Fortune

(baxt) brings forth both good and ill,

but everyone who does evil, sees evil,

many a man did one evil (deed) and saw a hundred (ills)... Why should I be disagreeable to myself, and give fortune a pretext for this ill? I am growing destitute through an adverse fortune (bazt),

when I become its helper through an evil deed.” If God (dddar) gives him (Ramin) support he will see no harshness from heaven (asmdn). God is able to perform any deed, the world has he created by his command... If fate (yada) favours you,

there is nothing except the decree of heaven (gaddy 1 dsman).1 1 VR

41, 143f.,

147-152,

157f.,

161,

miserable by his constellation. Whatever

169

(W 79f.:

“Every

man

is happy

or

comes upon man’s head comes by the

Fatalism in Persian Epics

129

This dialogue shows us how fate (baat or gadd) comes from heaven or from God — one can hardly help identifying them — but also that God’s support protects man from the plans of heaven. It is evident that: there is no logical sequence in this chain of thought. We also see that the misfortunes are given an ethical meaning as being some kind of punishment for man’s sins. The conception of man as “‘slave”’ or ‘‘serv-

ant” (bandah) reminds us of Islamic ideas (cf. Ar. ‘abd used of man as God’s ‘‘slave’’).

Is Firdausi’s and Gurgani’s belief in Destiny real fatalism? Is it really a belief in blind, inexorable Fate, which mechanically, without sense and reason, carries out its decree? In a way this question must be answered in the negative. We have seen that Destiny is often considered as a manifestation of righteous retribution; sometimes it may even be said that Time or the Sky carry out God’s will. But even in those cases there is no real finality in Destiny’s action, it is not the work of a personal God who has a definite intention with that which he does with man. There is no real meaning in it in addition to plain retribution. And not even this idea is consistently carried through. What is written in the stars cannot be altered, man’s efforts cannot change the decree of Fate, however good or bad his works may be. This is real fatalism. There is another fact that should be kept in mind in judging the fatalism of the epics. The passages that speak of Destiny are generally concerned with evil fortune, and consist of complaints or reflections on man’s hard lot in life. It is natural that the idea of decree of God; therefore is man’s name called slave. ... By God is a decree written on

the

can

heads

the

of

writing

all

of us,

be

changed

and

in life

we

cannot

by us, whether

we

take off the decree

weep

of God, nor

or laugh. Now, that also

will happen to thee which God has foreordained, it, will neither be increased nor diminished

to thee. —

Thus

evil will befall him who a hundred Fate?

worse

I may

spake Vis: Everything

does evil. There

(in consequence):

be despicable

are many

... Why

through

comes who

to man

by Fate, but

do one evil deed and see

should I also do evil and then blame

unhappy

an evil deed? — Again the nurse spoke thus...

Fate, why

should

I be partner

in

If God and Fate help him, nothing

evil will befall him, from the planets or from the world. Can it be that thou hast not heard

from

Word

the world

the sayings of the wise that to God all His desires are possible, by His

victory; know 9 — 527028

and fate were

this, that thou

Helmer Ringgren

created...

If it be God’s decree,

canst not doff what

thou wilt have

he has put upon

thee.’’).

130

:

Helmer Ringgren

Fate should be stressed in such connexions. The same is true of the passages in which the poets express their thoughts of the instability and perishability of the world, which are often caused by great misfortunes. Joint to those are reflections on the inscrutability of man’s destiny. Thus fatalism is only rarely extended to a general principle, valid for all situations without exception. It is a consequence of this that the attitude towards Destiny does not develop into indifference and complete resignation. Man should learn from the vicissitudes of Fate and “let the circumstances rule his action’, but there are few instances of people who expose themselves to danger or risk their lives in the conviction that nothing can change their predestined day of death. When that fatal day is spoken of, it is more often in connection with the mere fact that every man has to die. Even the fact that man complains of his fate shows that the fatalism of the epics is modified and mitigated by the belief in a God who acts righteously. But the latter belief, in its turn, has not been left without traces of fatalistic ideas. There is a tension between fatalism in the real sense of the word and belief in a personal God as the Master of man’s destiny, and this tension is never entirely removed.

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I—III.

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573—586,

606—631.)

Contents

IPRETICE

koma eet

AD DME VIGIIOMSDS introduction.

END Fo cd,

OD 2

A

ae

sa han Senate

«6 2 ox basi bal Seo 6 SS ot rte oad 2aisHeseee tick GS)

Bes

Ch ic lime as the Powet-Or West

ee

BEALE

eee

ee eee ee

oe

3 4 5

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Riesenfeld, H., The Resurrection in Ezekiel XXXVII tings.

1921.

75 Ore.

Fatalism in Persian Epics. 1952. ro kr.

1948.

7; 25.

Sa

Rénnow, K., Trita Aptya, eine vedische Gottheit. 1. “1927. 6: 50. Wessén, E., Studier till Sveriges hedna mytologi och fornhistoria, 1924.

Widengren, G., Psalm 110 och det sakrala kungadémet i Israel.

1941.

6:50.

Zz &r.

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Hochgottglanbe im alten Iran. Eine religionsphanomenologische Untersuchung

——,

The Great Vohu Manah and the Apostle of God. Seudies in Iranian and Manichaean

——,

Religion. 1945. 3:60. Mesopotamian Elements in Manichaeism. Syrian-Gnostic Religion.. 1946. 7.50.

——, ——,

Literary and Psychological Aspects of the Hebrew Prophets. 1948. 6 &r. The Ascension of the Apostle and the Heavenly Book. 1950. & £r.

——,

The

1938.

£9 &r.

King and the Tree

Studies

of Life in Ancient

Near

in Manichaean,

Eastern

Mandaean, :

Religion.

1951.

and

¢ #7.

Ysander, T., Studien zum b’eStschen Hasidismus in seiner religiduagescicndiehis Sonderart.

1933.

24 kf.

Uppsala 1952.

Almaqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri AB»

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