ANDARZGAR, Mid. Pers. term, “counselor, teacher,” cited as a proper name of the “bishop” of the Mazdakites by the 6th-century Byzantine historian Malalas (in the form “Indarazar”) and by the 8th-9th-century writer Theophanes Confessor (“Indazaros”). The word is rather a title than a name. Comparison of these historians’ accounts with the Arabic and Persian sources which depend on the lost Xwadāy-nāmag indicates that the “Andarzgar” was probably Mazdak himself. The word may have been modeled on the more familiar Sasanian term andarzbad. But such a title may already have existed in Middle Persian before the Mazdakite sect; cf. adargāzar (< *handarza-kara) in the Aramaic portion of the Book of Daniel (3:2f.), which occurs in a context containing other Iranian names of high officials and was misunderstood in the Septuagint.