Countless Images of Human Beings in Classical Persian Literature

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370411
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Literature in general
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
• Principal Investigator: SASAKI AYANO 東京外国語大学, 大学院総合国際学研究院, 准教授 (60272613)
• Research Collaborator: PURNAMDARIYAN Taqi 文学・人文学研究所, 文学部門, 教授 ; MIRBAGHERIFARD Seyyed Ali イスファハン大学, 文学部, 教授 ; RE'ISI Ehsan イスファハン大学, 文学部, 講師 ; TAHERI TANHA Zahra オーストラリア国立大学, 教授 ; KARAKHALILOVIC Namir サライェヴォ大学, 教授 ; TORIMITSU Mariko 東京外国語大学, 学部生
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: ペルシア神秘主義文学 / アッタール / 神の書 / 鳥の言葉 / 女性像 / 狂人

Outline of Final Research Achievements

I have worked on analyzing various characters in Attar's mathnavis such as Mantiq al-Tayr (The Conference of the Birds) and Ilahi-namah (Book of the Divine), and investigated the correlation between these characters and mystical concepts and meanings. These two mathnavis contain numerous colorful narratives and anecdotes which can be considered as the manifestation of Perso-Islamic mysticism. Since these stories were strongly influenced by popular transmitted oral narrations in 12th century, I have examined the symbolic characters of these sufi tales, and finally defined notions of Islamic mysticism which the poet aimed to show. I believe that Japanese people would be provided with a broader picture of mystical literature, and their idee fixes of Islam would be shaken, therefore I am sure that this project could be expected to play the role of epoch-making affair through the research on classical Persian literature in Japan.
I also completed the translation of Ilahi-namah into Japanese.

Free Research Field

ペルシア古典文学