A literary history of Persia

MAZDAK 169the fourth Excursus (Ueber Mazdaf^ und die Mazdafyen^ pp.455-467) appended to his admirable History of the Sasdnians,which we have alreadyhad occasion to cite so frecommuniatquently. It must naturally be borne in mind thatthis rests entirely on the statements of persons(whether Zoroastrian or Christian) who were bitterly opposedto his teaching, and that if the case for the defence had beenpreserved we mightfind favourable features, or at least extenu-(i)In the Pahlawi translation of the Vendidad, Fargard iv, v. 49, thewords of the"Avesta text, it is this man who can strive against the ungodlySources of Ashemaogha" (i.e.,"fiend" or "heretic") "who does notinformation: eat," are illustrated by the gloss "like Mazdak, son ofi. Pahlawi.Bamd dh . while other references to the " accursedMazdak " occur in the Bahman Yasht, which, however, is one of the latestproducts of Pahlawi literature, and is, in its extant form, referred by Westto about the twelfth century of our era. There also existed a Pahlawitfazdak-ndmqk, or " Boofc oj JtffV^V which was one of the numerousPahlawi workTTranslaled into Arabic by Ibnu'l-Muqaffa', but this, unfortunately,jgjost, though its contents are to some extent preserved by otherArabic wriiersTIn Greek references to Mazdak occur in the works of(ii)'Procopius, Theophanes, and John Malalas.In(iii) Syriac, in the Chronicle of Joshua the Stylite (Wright's ed. andtransl., xx), who speaks of King Kawad's "evil conduct"in re-establishing " the abominable sect of the Magi whichis called that of the Zaradushtakan, which teaches that women should bein common. . . ."(iv) In Arabic, accounts of Mazdak are given by al-Ya'qubi (c. A.H. 260 ,ed. Houtsma, vol. i, p. 186), who mentions that he and his master ZaratushtKhurragan were put to death by Anushirwan ;Ibn Qittayba(t A.H. 270-276; Kitdbu'l-Ma'drif, ed. Wustenfeld, 1850,p. 328) ; Dinawari (f A.H. 282-290 ;ed. Guirgass, p. 69) ;Tabari (fA.H. 310 ;ed. de Goeje, Series I, vol. ii, pp. 885-886 = Noldeke's transl., pp.140-144 ; pp. 893-894 = Noldeke, pp. 154-155) ; Hamza of Isfahan (earlyfourth century of Hijra) ; Eutychius (f A.H. 328) ;Mas'udi (f A.H. 346 ;Muruju' dh-Dhahab, ed. B. de Meynard, vol. ii, pp. 195-196) ;al-Biruni(t A.H. 440 ;Sachau's translation, p. 192) ;Shahristdni (f A.H. 548 ;Kitdbu'lmilal,ed. Cureton, pp. 192-194 = Haarbrucker's transl., pp. 291-293) ;Ibnu-'l-Athir (f A.H. 630) ;Abu'l-Fidd (f A.H. 732 ; ed. Fleischer, pp. 88-91),and other historians.(v)vol. iii,In Persian, the narratives in the Shdhndma of Firdawsi (ed. Macan,pp. 1611-1616), and the Siydsal-ndma of the Nidhdmu'l-Mulk (ed,Schefer, pp. 166-181) deserve especial mention.