Table of Contents

• CASPIAN SEA

  Multiple Authors

  actually a lake, the largest in the world (estimated surface area in 1986: 378,400 km², volume 78,600 km³; approx. between lat 37° and 47° N, long 46° and 54° E); it is bounded on the south by Persia.

• CASPIAN SEA i. GEOGRAPHY

  Xavier de Planhol

  The Caspian “sea” consists of three distinct basins, each characterized by different features. hese differences are reflected in the levels of salinity. 

• CASPIAN SEA ii. DIPLOMATIC HISTORY IN MODERN TIMES

  Guive Mirfendereski

  A new area of sub-systemic studies in international relations, which encompasses the Caspian basin and its immediate surroundings, emerged in the post-Soviet Union era.

• CASPIAN SEAL

  Eskandar Firouz

  (Phoca caspica), the only mammal in the Caspian Sea. It is a relict species, endemic to the Caspian Sea and the deltas of rivers that discharge into it—the region where its ancestors lived when the sea was still connected to the oceans.

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• CASPIANS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  name of an ancient people dwelling along the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea, whether north or south of the river Kura is not clear.

• CASSANDANE

  Muhammad Dandamayev

  wife of Cyrus II, an Achaemenian, sister of Otanes and daughter of Pharnaspes.

• CASSIA

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  a genus of shrubs and trees of the family Leguminosae (or Caesalpiniaceae in some classifications).

• CASSIODORUS, Magnus Aurelius

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  (b. ca. 485, d. after A.D. 580), Latin author of three historical works containing material on Iran.

• CASTLES

  Wolfram Kleiss

  primarily fortified country manors but also permanently inhabited defensive installations, maintained by the authorities along important land routes, and urban citadels, which functioned as administrative centers and places of refuge for inhabitants under siege, particularly in prehistoric and early historic times.

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• CASTOLUS

  Michael Weiskopf

  a plain east of Sardis, site of the mustering of troops from the satrapy of Sparda (Lydia) during Achaemenid times.

• CASTOREUM

  cross-reference

  See BEAVER.

• CASTRATION

  Lutz Richter-Bernburg

  (of men; ḵaṣī kardan, ḵāya kešīdan, ḵᵛāja kardan), discussion of castration in Islamic medical literature, on its legal status, and on its historical attestation in Islamic Persia.

• CAT I. In Mythology and Folklore

  Mahmud Omidsalar

  Cats are not mentioned in literary Persian sources until late Sasanian times. In Zoroastrian mythology the cat (gurbag) is said to have been created by the Evil Spirit, and in the Pahlavi texts it is classed in the much despised “wolf species.” 

• CAT II. Persian Cat

  Jean-Pierre Digard

  In western Europe and in North America, what are called “Persian cats” are a breed of longhaired domestic cats with a massive body, measuring 40 to 50 cm in length, and up to 30 cm in the height of their withers. According to the standards, these cats must present a strong bone structure, important muscular masses, and short, straight paws.

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• CATALOGUES

  Cross-reference

  See BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES.

• CATECHISMS

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  treatises for instruction in the fundamental tenets of a religious faith, cast in the form of questions and answers.

• CATHARS, ALBIGENSIANS, and BOGOMILS

  J. L M. van Schaik

  Manichaeism is said to have been passed via the Paulicians and the Bogomils to re-emerge in the European Cathars but this supposed historical transmission is difficult to demonstrate.

• ČATR

  Eleanor Sims

  parasol or umbrella, an attribute of royalty in Iran.

• CATTLE

  Jean-Pierre Digard, Mary Boyce

  the word “cattle” has no precise equivalent in Iranian languages, in which bovines are commonly designated by the words for “cow,” “bull,” and “calf."

• CAUCASUS AND IRAN

  Multiple Authors

  CAUCASUS AND IRAN. The Iranian world is bordered in the northwest by the high mountain barrier of the Caucasus, which separates it from the vast Russian plains beyond. In relief, structure, and ecology the Caucasus constitutes a clear frontier between eastern Europe and western Asia, though it is more closely related to the latter.

• CAUCASUS i. Physical Geography, Population, and Economy.

  Pierre Thorez

  The northern side of the range consists of a series of monoclinal folds, in the form of cuestas, with escarpments facing toward the main chain and the more gradual back slopes fanning out into plateaus of varying sizes, all inclining toward the north.

   

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• CAUCASUS ii. Language contact

  Fridrik Thordarson

  Languages of the Caucasus. Including Caucasian (or Ibero-Caucasian), Turkic, Indo-European, Iranian languages, Kurdish, Tati, Ṭāleši, Ossetic, and others.
  

• CAUCASUS, iii. ACHAEMENID RULE IN

  Bruno Jacobs

  Achaemenid rule in the Caucasus region was established, at the latest, in the course of the Scythian campaign of Darius I in 513-12 BCE.

• CAUTES AND CAUTOPATES

  William W. Malandra

  the two dadophoroi or torch bearers who often flank Mithras in the bull-slaying scene and who are sometimes shown in the birth scenes of Mithras.

• ČĀV

  Peter Jackson

  paper currency issued in Mongol Iran in 693/1294.

• CAVALRY

  Cross-Reference

  See ASB; ASB-SAVĀRĪ.

• CAVES OF THE THOUSAND BUDDHAS

  Xin-jiang Rong

  Ch’ien Fo Tung (Qianfodong), a large group of grottoes and cave temples carved out of Ming-sha hill in the southeastern Tun-huang (Dunhuang) district of Kansu (Gansu) province, China.

• CAVIAR

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  ḵāvīar in Persian, the processed non-fertilized roe of sturgeons and some other large fishes, highly valued as a gourmet delicacy.  In Iran the roe for caviar is obtained mainly from three species of sturgeon (family Acipenseridae) caught in the southern littoral or fluvial waters of the Caspian Sea.

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• ČĀVOŠ

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  or ČĀVŪŠ, used in classical Persian texts with the meanings of 1. army commander; 2. master of ceremony or person in charge of the servants; 3. caravan leader; or, more specifically, 4. a guide on the road to Mecca or holy shrines.

• ČAXRĀ

  Cross-Reference

  town mentioned in the Avesta. See ČARḴ.

• ČĀY

  Daniel Balland and Marcel Bazin

  shrub of the genus Camellia and beverage made from its leaves, probably the most popular drink throughout the Iranian world. It is not known when Persians first became acquainted with the beverage. Bīrūnī,  in his Ketāb al-ṣaydana, written in the first half of the 11th century, gave some details about the plant čāy and its use as a beverage in China and Tibet.

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• ČĒČAST

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  a mythical lake in eastern Iran, later identified in the Pahlavi and Persian sources with Lake Urmia in Azerbaijan.

• CEDRENUS, GEORGIUS

  James R. Russell

  twelfth-century Byzantine historian who edited the Synopsis Historiōn of John Skylitzēs.

• ČEGEL

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  (Jekel), name of a Turkish people in Central Asia known in Persian poetry for the extraordinary beauty of their youths.

• ČEGĪNĪ

  Pierre Oberling

  or Čeganī, a tribe that originated in northwestern Persia but is now scattered in Luristan, the Qazvīn region, and Fārs.

• ČEHEL SOTŪN, ISFAHAN

  Ingeborg Luschey-Schmeisser

  Safavid royal palace used for coronations and the reception of foreign embassies. It stands in the center of a large garden between the Meydān-e Šāh and the Čahārbāḡ. The layout of these gardens, with three walks shaded by plane trees, dates from the period of Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 1588-1629).

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• ČEHEL SOTŪN, KABUL

  Nancy H. Dupree

  palace on a small, terraced hill rising at the southern end of a 30-acre walled garden about six miles south of the city center. According to a commemorative marble plaque at the base of the hill the cornerstone of the palace was laid in 1888, and the palace was completed as a seat for Prince Ḥabīb-Allāh three years later.

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• ČEHEL SOTŪN, QAZVIN

  Wolfram Kleiss

  a Safavid pavilion that stands amid gardens in the central meydān (square) of the old city and in which the Qazvīn museum is installed.

• ČEHEL TANĀN

  Kerāmat-Allāh Afsar

  (“the forty dervishes,” popularly called Čeltan), a minor takīya (monastery) situated in the northeastern section of Shiraz, a short distance north of the tomb of Ḥāfeẓ and south of Haft Tanān (“the seven dervishes”).

• ČEHEL ṬŪṬĪ

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  (forty parrot [stories]), the designation of collections of entertaining stories about the wife of a merchant and a pair of parrots, several versions of which are current in Persia and which are derived from older collections called ṭūṭī-nāmas (book of the parrots).

• ČEHR

  Bruce Lincoln

  two homographic neuter substantives čiθra- in Avestan, one meaning “face, appearance,” which is translated in Pahlavi as paydāg, and another rendered in Pahlavi as tōhmag and denoting “origin, lineage,” as well as “seed,” although the latter sense is attested only in compounds.

• ČEHRANEMĀ

  Nassereddin Parvin

  (lit. “mirror”), the name of an illustrated Persian newspaper and periodical published in Egypt (1322-1338 Š./1904-59, with interruptions).

• ČELEBĪ, ʿĀREF

  Tahsin Yazici

  (670-719/1272-1320), the son of Bahāʾ-al-Dīn Solṭān Walad and the grand­son of Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Dīn Moḥammad Rūmī.

• ČELEBĪ, FATḤ-ALLĀH ʿĀREF

  Tahsin Yazici

  10th/16th-century poet and author of a Šāh-nāma (Solaymān-nāma) extolling the Ottoman rulers.

• ČELLA

  Mahmoud Omidsalar, Hamid Algar

  term referring to any forty-day period. i. In Persian folklore. ii. In Sufism.

• ČELOW

  Cross-Reference

  See  BERENJ “rice” i. In Iran, sec. “Rice in the Iranian diet. ”

• ČELOW-KABĀB

  Ṣoḡrā Bāzargān

  a popular Persian dish which consists of cooked rice (čelow; see berenj) and a variety of broiled (kabāb, see below) mutton or veal (though less popular) and is served with butter, egg yolk, powdered sumac, raw onions, broiled tomatoes, and fresh sweet basil.

• CEMETERIES

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  (qabrestān, gūrestān) in Persian folklore; cemeteries are found both inside and outside cities and villages, usually close to a holy shrine, or emāmzāda, in order to partake of its blessing.

• ČEMĪKENT

  Cross-Reference

  See ASFĪJĀB.

• ČENĀR

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  “Oriental plane (tree),” indigenous from southeastern Europe to the Iranian plateau. In Persia proper, spontaneous planes have been observed by botanists. Cultivated planes are popular as ornamental or shade trees.

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