Project leader: Dr. Shervin Farridnejad
Zoroastrische religiöse Literatur in Neupersisch und Gujarati: Edition, Übersetzung und kritische Studie des Sad Dar („Hundert Kapitel“) (zugleich Habilitationsprojekt an der Freien Universität Berlin).
The current project focuses on a critical study, translation and annotated edition of the treatise Ṣad Dar (صد در) “Hundred Chapters” or “Hundred Gateways”, a miscellaneous popular collection of Zoroastrian religious lore and customs, which range from theological discussions on the treatment of good and evil animals, the avoidance of different forms of pollution, various sins and penalties to the somographical, eschatological, ritual and juridical matters, resembling the Pahlavi (Middle Persian) Rivāyāts. Ṣad Dar seems to have had a higher and explicit authority among Zoroastrians for a long time, as it has been cited extensively in almost all later Rivāyat Literature. It was also one of the earliest Zoroastrian texts known to Western scholars and discussed by them. There are four known treatise titled Ṣad Dar. Besides the prose Ṣad Dar-e Nasr (صد در نثر) and Ṣad Dar-eBundehesh (صد در بندهش), there are also two other versions of the treatise, one in poetry, the so-called Ṣad dar-e naẓm (صد در نظم) “the metrical Ṣad dar” and Ṣad dar-e baḥr-e ṭavīl (صد در بحر طویل) “the long-meter Ṣad dar”. The outcome of this project will be a new translation and critical study of the genesis, formation and continuity of the text and its content together with a detailed analysis of their literary and religious characteristics.