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An illustrated Videvdad Sadah

Yazd, Iran; 1647 Copied by Mihrbān son of Anūshīrvān son of Bahrām Shāh Source: The British Library

"Burjorji Ashburner was a successful Bombay merchant, a Freemason, and a member of the Bombay Asiatic Society. He was also a member of the Committee of Management for one of the most important Zoroastrian libraries in Bombay, the Mulla Firuz Library and made a special point of having copies made of some of the rarer items. In April 1864 Burjurji wrote offering some 70 to 80 volumes as a gift to the Royal Society, London, promising to add additional ones:

In the course of antiquarian researches...with special reference to the Parsee religion, I have had the good fortune to obtain some valuable ancient manuscripts in Zend, Pehlui, and Persian. I do not wish to keep to myself what may be useful in the literary world. [1]

His collection consisted of standard Arabic and Persian works in addition to nineteen specifically Zoroastrian manuscripts in Persian, Avestan and Pahlavi. A number of Bujorji’s manuscripts came originally from Iran. The oldest is an illustrated copy of the Videvdad sādah which was copied in Yazd, Iran, in 1647. Whereas Zoroastrian manuscripts are generally unillustrated except for small devices such as verse dividers and occasional diagrams, this one, exceptionally, contains seven coloured drawings of trees, used as chapter headings not unlike Islamic manuscripts of the same period.

The beginning of chapter 19 of the Videvdad sadah in which Zoroaster repels an attempt on his life by the demon Buiti, sent by the evil spirit Angra Mainyu. Note the elongated calligraphic script which is typical of the older manuscripts from Iran."

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Happy jashn e sadeh to my Iranian and Zartoshti friends! (It was yesterday but whatever)

❤️❤️

The celebration concerns the discovery of fire and the defeat of winter/cold by the protective heat of what we call ‘the divine flame’. Known to us both materially (as a… fire. Hearth, etc) and spiritually (ethereal, burning light). Asha (God’s order, truth) is synonymous with the fire itself and a symbol of it; it is the light that Ohrmazd/god fashioned creation from and the fire of that emerged from his own Mind :) 🙏

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“I will bring his soul over the Bridge of Chinvat, I who am Ahura Mazda, to Heaven (the most good life), and to Righteousness, the Best, and to the lights of Heaven.”

[Y 19.6]

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Parvin E’tesami (March 16, 1907 – April 5, 1941) with the Shah of Iran.

Parvin E’tesami was a famous 20th Century Iranian Poetess. 

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Young Iranian soldiers in the front lines during the war with Iraq 

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Anvar-Molok Hedayat, wife of Haj Ali Razmara, 58th Prime minister of Iran after hearing the news of her husband assassination by the extremist group Fadayan-e Islam (7 March 1951) 

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Tehran, Iran

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Milad Tower, Tehran

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A feudal lord of a city lifts the veil from the face of a bride in a village wedding ceremony. Her groom sits beside her with lit candles symbolizing life. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images). Circa 1952, Northern Iran

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Summer of 1980, Iranian women take off their scarf in front of Tehran courthouse, in protest to compulsory hijab laws passed after the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Before the victory of the revolution, revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini had promised his new government won’t infringe on the personal rights of the citizens. He didn’t honor this promise or any other one he made, such as the right of opposition parties to continue to exist.  

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Bakery in Babolsar, Iran (1960’s)

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Elizabeth Taylor in Iran (1976), photographed by Firooz Zahedi

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Iranian ministry of war building, Tehran (late 1800′s) 

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The Shah of Iran welcomes Pope Paul VI in Tehran, Iran (circa 1960s)

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Empress Farah Pahlavi of Iran with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy of the United States

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“Excavation of Persepolis (Iran): Gate of All Lands: View before Excavation, Looking North”

1923-1934

glass negative from the Ernst Herzfeld Papers

Freer and Sackler Archives

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Famed photographer Antoin Sevruguin took these photographs around 1900—eight years before archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld confirmed the structure pictured was the tomb of Cyrus the Great. Experience the revelation in Heart of an Empire: Herzfeld’s Discovery of Pasargadae, opening February 13.