Table of Contents

• DRAINAGE

  Eckart Ehlers

  the carrying away of excess surface water through runoff in permanent or intermittent streams. Persia can be divided into four main drainage regions: the Caspian region, the Lake Urmia region, the Persian Gulf region, and the interior. Most of it is characterized by endorheic basins, that is, by interior drainage.

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• DRAMA

  M. R. Ghanoonparvar

  in formal Western terms a relatively new art form in Persia, though various types of dramatic performance, including religious plays and humorous satirical skits, have long been a part of Persian religious and folk tradition.

• DRANGIANA

  R. Schmitt

  or Zarangiana; territory around Lake Hāmūn and the Helmand river in modern Sīstān.

• DRÁPSAKA

  Frantz Grenet

  Greek name of a Bactrian city in northern Afghanistan, the first town captured by Alexander the Great after crossing the Hindu Kush.

• DRAWING

  M. L. Swietochowski

  an art form primarily dependent on expressive line. The high quality of Persian drawings maintained from the late 13th to the early 20th century provides a clear indication that this art form was appreciated by the Persian cultural elite.

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• DRAXT Ī ĀSŪRĪG

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  lit. "The Babylonian tree"; a versified contest over precedence between a goat and a palm tree, composed in the Parthian language, written in Book Pahlavi script, and consisting of about 120 verses. 

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• DREAMS AND DREAM INTERPRETATION

  Hossein Ziai

  i. In pre-Islamic Persia. ii. In the Persian tradition.

• DRESDEN, MARK JAN

  Hiroshi Kumamoto

  (b. Amsterdam, 26 April 1911; d. Philadelphia, 16 August 1986), professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught Persian, then various Old and Middle Iranian languages from 1949 until his retirement in 1977.  He worked especially on Khotanese literary texts.

• DREYFUS-BARNEY

  Shapour Rassekh

  joint surname adopted by two leading Bahai figures of the 20th century.

• DRIWAY

  Jean Kellens

  (or Driβi-), Younger Avestan noun from the Vidēvdād; the word probably referred either to a skin disease or to drooling.