ᴡĀŌݰ, traditional reading of the name of a legendary warlord in southern Persia, mentioned in the -峾 ī Ardašīr ī Pābagān (The exploits of Ardašīr son of Pābag) and as Ჹڳٱ in the &Dz;-峾. In the -峾, in a demoniacal romance derived from national traditions, he is involved in an ancient motive, the combat of a dragon with a national hero, in this case, Ardašīr I, son of Pābag, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty (Christensen, p. 38). The exploits of Ardašīr, a young Persian of noble birth, is recounted after the pattern of such heroic legends as those attributed to Cyrus the Great or Marduk, the Babylonian god who overpowered monsters.
As the name Haftānō is given in our manuscripts variously, it is primarily essential to assess its proper orthography. Joseph Markwart was the first to recognize that the form of the name Haftānō, as it has been handed down in the -峾, is erroneous (Markwart, Ē&Dz;, p. 44, A1). The traditional reading of the name ʾԲḥt = Haftānō is evidently based on an interpretation as “redeemed by the seven (planets),” from ڳ, the plural form of haft (seven), and ō (redeemed). According to the &Dz;-峾, Ჹڳٱ was so called because he had seven sons, and the seven sons of Haftānō are also mentioned in the -峾 (Haf-tānō haft pus dāšt; -峾 6.14). As was recognized by Walter Bruno Henning (p. 140), this implies a reading ʾɲʾ = Haftō, interpreted by folk etymology as haft (seven) and ō “generation” (cf. ʾɲʾ, Pahl. Psalter 95.10, translating Syriac “generation”; from OPers. ܱ, according to Shaki, p. 95). This form of the name provides the direct source of Persian ڳٱ, and may also be supported by the forms attested by Ṭabari (Cairo, p. 819) and Balʿami (p. 817), though both the story and the spelling of the name are confused in these sources. Another folk etymological interpretation is found in a story added to the Kalila wa Demna tradition. This refers to a certain king Hawṭabād (Syr. ṭbʾ, etc., Schulthess, II, p. 241, n. 628), whose name is evidently understood as “a seventh of the wind,” from haftaw “seventh” (OPers. *haftauva-) and “wind” (Henning, p. 145). In fact, the first part of the interpretation is probably etymologically correct, since Henn-ing showed that the name *Haftō ultimately de-rives from an Achaemenid title *ڳٲ()ܷɲ-ٲ “the guardian of the seventh part (of a province),” attested in an Aramaic document from Elephantine as ḥ.ʾ (Henning, pp. 143-44). The Aramaic title, though not its relevance to the names Haftānō and Ჹڳٱ, was independently identified by Mikhail Bogolyubov. According to Mansour Shaki (p. 96), this title survives in the form of ڷʾ on a seal found near Kerman (Pirniā, III, p. 2629).
Bibliography:
Friedrich Carl Andreas and Kaj Bar, “Bruchstück einer Pehlevi-Übersetzung der Psalmen,” SPAW, 95/10, 1933, pp. 91-152.
Mikhail Nikolaevich Bogoliubov, “Titre honorifique d’un chef militaire,” in Commémoration Cyrus . . . à l’occasion du 2500e anniversaire de la fondation de l’Empire perse, Acta Iranica 1, Leiden, 1974, pp. 109-14.
Arthur Christensen, Essai sur la démonologie iranienne, Copenhagen, 1941, p. 158.
Walter B. Henning, “Ein persischer Titel im Altaramäischen,” in Matthew Black and Georg Fohrer, eds., In Memoriam of Paul Kahle, Berlin, 1968, pp. 138-45; repr. in idem, Selected Papers II, Acta Iranica 15, Leiden, 1977, p. 559-66.
Jean Pierre de Menasce, “Zoroastrian Pahlavī Writings,” in Cambr. Hist. Ir. III, p. 1188.
Mojmal,ed. Bahār, p. 60.
Ḥosayn Pirniā, Tārīḵ-e Irān-e bāstān, 3 vols., 3rd ed., Teh-ran, 1341 Š./1962, p. 2679.
Dastoor Peshotan San-jana, ed. and tr., -峾 ī Ardašīr ī Pābagān as The Kâr-nâmê î Artakhshîr î Pâpakân, Bombay, 1896.
Friedrich Schulthess, ed. and tr., Kalila und Dimna (Syriac), 2 vols., Berlin, 1911.
Mansour Shaki, “Pahlavica,” in Werner Sundermann, Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, and Faridun Vahman, eds., A Green Leaf: Papers in Honour of Professor Jes P. Asmussen, Acta Iranica 28, Leiden, 1988, p. 95.
&Dz;-峾 (Moscow) VII, pp. 139-54.
(Mansour Shaki)
Originally Published: December 15, 2002
Last Updated: March 1, 2012
This article is available in print.
Vol. XI, Fasc. 5, pp. 530-531
