Table of Contents

  • CHINKARA

    Khushal Habibi

    or CHIKARA (Gazella bennetti, Indian gazelle), a small antelope of slender build; its tawny coat has poorly marked facial and body stripes.

  • CHIONITES

    Wolfgang Felix

    a tribe of probable Iranian origin that was prominent in Bactria and Transoxania in late antiquity.

  • CHITON

    Cross-Reference

    See CLOTHING i. Median and Achaemenid periods, iii. Sasanian period.

  • CHITRAL

    Nigel J. R. Allan, Georg Buddruss

    (Čitrāl), river valley in the upper Indus system.

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  • CHLORITE

    Philip Kohl

    a mineral consist­ing of a group of closely related hydrous magnesium aluminum silicates of exceedingly varied chemical com­positions owing to isomorphous substitutions.

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  • CHOAMANI

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    name of an eastern Iranian tribe (perhaps located in western Bactria), mentioned only by Pomponius Mela in an enumeration of the inhabitants of the interior lands.

  • CHOANA

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    the name of two Iranian towns mentioned by Ptolemy.

  • CHOARA

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    or CHOARENE; a town or village in Parthia mentioned by Ptolemy (6.5.3) and called “the most attractive place of Parthia” by Pliny.

  • CHOASPES

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (or Coaspēs), ancient name of three rivers.

  • CHOBANIDS

    Charles Melville and ʿAbbās Zaryāb

    a fam­ily of Mongol origin descended from the amir Čobān Noyan.

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  • CHODŹKO, ALEKSANDER BOREJKO

    Jean Calmard

    (b. 30 August 1804, in Krzywicze, Poland [now in the Lithuanian S.S.R.], d. Noisy-le-Sec, near Paris, 19 December 1891), Polish poet and diplomat, the first European scholar to work on Persian folklore.

  • CHOLERA

    Xavier De Planhol, Daniel Balland

    (Cholera asiatica, Cholera indica), epidemic intestinal disease of Indian origin caused by infectious bacteria.

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  • CHORASMIA

    Multiple Authors

    region on the lower reaches of the Oxus (Amu Darya) in western Central Asia.

  • CHORASMIA i. Archeology and pre-Islamic history

    Yuri Aleksandrovich Rapoport

    At the turn of the 3rd millennium b.c.e. the Neolithic Kel’teminar culture flourished in the Chorasmian oasis (Vinogradov, 1968; idem, 1981). Remains of the Bronze Age Suyargan.

  • CHORASMIA ii. In Islamic times

    C. E. Bosworth

    The Islamic history of Ḵᵛārazm begins with the two invasions of Arab troops under the governor of Khorasan Qotayba b. Moslem Bāhelī in 93/712, who intervened in the region on the pretext of internecine strife among members of the native Afrighid dynasty of ḵᵛārazmšāhs

  • CHORASMIA iii. The Chorasmian Language

    D. N. MacKenzie

    Old Chorasmian was written in an indigenous script descended from the Aramaic, brought to the region by the administration of the Achaemenid empire and characterized by heter­ography, that is, the occasional writing of Aramaic words to represent the corresponding Chorasmian.

  • CHORASMIAN COINAGE

    B. I. Vainberg

    issued by the rulers of Chorasmia between the 2nd century BCE and the 8th century CE, Chorasmian coins are important primary evidence for the Old Chorasmian language and the region’s post-Achaemenid history because of the paucity of preserved sources for this period.

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  • CHORIENES

    Marie Louise Chaumont

    Sogdian nobleman and opponent of Alexander.

  • CHRISTENSEN, ARTHUR EMANUEL

    Jes P. Asmussen

    (b. Copenhagen 9 January 1875, d. Copenhagen 31 March 1945), Danish orientalist and scholar of Iranian philology and folklore.

  • CHRISTIANITY

    Multiple Authors

    This article treats Christianity in pre-Islamic Persia as seen through literary sources and material remains, in Central Asia, in Christian literature in Middle Iranian languages, in Manicheism, and in Persian literature. It also covers Christina influences in Persian poetry and Christian missions in Persia.