BAGAWAN (Baguan or Aṭʿši Bagawan), a district of the land of Kaspianē (Arm. Kaspʿkʿ, later Pʿaytakaran) lying along the right bank of the Araxes river and corresponding to the northeastern part of Iranian Azerbaijan. Here was located the town of Bagaran or Aṭʿši Bagawan (Ar. and Pers. Bāgarvān or Bājarvān) now Badcharvan (Bājarvān), a village in Prishib raion in Soviet Azerbaijan of the district center of the same name. Nearby flows the Bagarwan river, now Bazarchaĭ (Bazaṛčāy) but still called the Bagarū by the Armenians and the local Iranian-speaking Ṭāleš. In the seventeenth century the district was still called Bejirwan, while the name Aṭʿši (presumably from Mid. Pers. ātaš “fire”) suggests that the town may once have been a center of Zoroastrian worship (Eremyan, p. 42).
Bibliography:
See also the anonymous seventh-century Armenian geography Ašxarhacʿoycʿ, in A. Abrahamyan, Anania Širakacʿu matenagruṭʿyunə, Erevan, 1944.
Łewond Erecʿ, Patmuṭʿiwn Hayocʿ, St. Petersburg, 1887, p. 101.
H. Hübschmann, Die altarmenischen Ortsnamen, Strasburg, 1904, repr. Amsterdam, 1969, p. 351.
S. T. Eremyan, Hayastanə əst “Ašxarhacʿoycʿ”-i, Erevan, 1963.
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بگون | bagawan |
(H. R. Hewsen)
Originally Published: December 15, 1988
Last Updated: August 22, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. III. Fasc. 4, p. 407