Manuscript Study of Ancient Iranian Documents Written in the 16th and 17th Centuries

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K02054
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Religious studies
• Research Institution: Shizuoka University of Art and Culture (2017-2022); The University of Tokyo (2015-2016)
• Principal Investigator: AOKI Takeshi 静岡文化芸術大学, 文化・芸術研究センター, 教授 (50745362)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: ゾロアスター教 / イスラーム / 中世インド / パールスィー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

There are still many unexplained parts of the history of thought in medieval Iran and India. In this research, I intended to elucidate the ideological exchanges between the Safavid dynasty and the Mughal empire and their achievements by drawing the auxiliary line of Zoroastrianism, not Hinduism or Islam, in this field. Specifically, I focused on a group of thinkers called the Azar Kayvan school, and restored the origin, content, and influence of their intellectual activities from New Persian manuscripts. As a result, I found the Azar Kayvan's mausoleum in Patna, India, and found out that their Persian vocabulary was derived from the Indo-Persian dictionarie of the Delhi-Sultanat Dynasty.

Free Research Field

人文学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

中世イラン・インドの思想的交流は、従来はヒンドゥー教のヨーガとイスラームのスーフィズムの類似性に依拠して考察されることが多かった。しかし、ここにゾロアスター教や古代イラン文化といった補助線を引くことで、中世インド文化の強い古代イラン志向、古代イラン語語彙やゾロアスター教に対する憧憬を解明することが出来た。中世イラン・インド思想研究にとって新たな視点を提供すると共に、ゾロアスター教研究にとっても未解明の時代の全体像を描く手掛かりが得られたのではないかと考えている。