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ČAHĀRGĀH, the name of one of the twelve dastgāhs (modes) of traditional Persian music in the 14th/20th century, evidently derived from its position among musical scales or the fret locating its fundamental tone or tonic (Mallāḥ, p. 200). The term was already known in the 9th/15th century, when it evidently…

ČAHĀRMEŻRĀB, a genre of traditional rhythmic instrumental music. Its name suggests four (čahār) consecutive strokes of the plectrum (meżrāb) on a string. The use of the plectrum in Persian stringed instruments is based on the opposition between right (rāst, marked A in modern transcription) and left (čap, marked V), or…

Čahārmezrāb-e Homāyun title Čahārmezrāb-e Homāyun genre/topic Dastgāh-e Homāyun language   performer Faramarz Pāyvar, santur; Mohammad Esmā‘eli, tonbak instrument santur, tonbak composer   author/poet   first line of poem   recorded by   place of recording   date of recording   duration 5:21 source Dastgāh-e Homāyun. Mahoor Institute of Culture and…

Čahāršamba-suri title Čahāršamba-suri genre/topic   language Persian performer Hasanzāde Širāzi instrument Voice with violin and tonbak composer   author/poet   first line of poem   recorded by   place of recording   date of recording   duration 3:13 source Naghme-hā-ye Shekarin: Vāsunaks from Shiraz and Songs from Various Regions of…

ČAHĀRŠANBA-SŪRĪ (usually pronounced Čāršamba-sūrī), the last Wednesday of the Persian solar year, the eve of which is marked by special customs and rituals, most notably jumping over fire. Variant local names include Gūl Čāršamba (Ardabīl) and Gūla-gūla Čāršamba (Gīlān), Kola Čowāršamba (Kurdistan), Čowāršama-kolī (Qorva, near Sanandaj), and Čāršamba-sorḵī (Isfahan; Honarī,…

ČAHĀRṬĀQ i. In pre-Islamic Iran. ii. In the Islamic period.   i. In Pre-Islamic Iran Čahārṭāq, literally “four arches,” is a modern term for an equilateral architectural unit consisting of four arches or short barrel vaults between four corner piers, with a dome on squinches over the central square; this…

ČAHĀRTĀR (lit. four-strings), a musical instrument belonging to the family of long-necked lutes. It is a variant of the modern Persian setār, which spread to Tajikistan sometimes in the past. Like the Persian, four-stringed setār it has two strings plus a doubled bass string in the upper octave. The term…

ČAHRĪQ, a dehestān, village, and fortress in Salmās (Šāhpūr in the Pahlavi period) šahrestān in Azerbaijan between Ḵᵛoy and Urmia. The fortress served as the place of imprisonment of the Bāb. i. History. ii. Place of imprisonment of the Bāb.   i. History Čahrīq dehestān is bounded in the north…

CAITYAPRADAKṢIṆĀGĀTHĀ, lit. “the song (Skt. gāthā) about circumambulating (Skt. pradakṣiṇā) a holy place (Skt. caitya),” the title of a Buddhist text, a Khotanese version of which is extant. In this text Śāriputra, one of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, asks him about the religious merit accruing from walking round…

ČAK, (< Middle Pers. čak “document”; Mādayān,pt. 1, 73.14, 74.3), legal document, testament, money draft, check. The Middle Persian word gty, gtky, apparently meaning “testament,” is a loanword from Semitic, cf. Babylonian giṭṭu, Syriac geṭṭa, also borrowed in Armenian as ktak, ktakaran (Back, p. 215; Gignoux, p. 22; Henning, p....

ČAḴĀNSŪR, principal town of the large Ḵāšrūd delta oasis in northeastern Sīstān. Immediately downstream from the oasis the complex of Sīstānī playas begins with a large floodplain covered by a dense halophytic steppe, which provide seasonal pasturage after the spring floods: the aškān (ašken) of Čaḵānsūr (Maitland, p. 80). Despite…

ČĀKAR, personal soldier-retainer of the nobility in pre-Islamic Central Asia. The earliest attestations of the word are in Chinese and Arabic transcriptions from Sogdian, although the word itself does not appear in the extant corpus of Sogdian texts. The current Persian usage of the word ‘čākar’ as ‘servant’ or ‘apprentice’…

ČAKAR, a Middle Persian legal term denoting a widow who at the death of her “authorized” (pādixšāyīhā, q.v.) husband without issue was obliged (see ayōkēn; būdag) to enter into a levirate marriage (čakarīh) in order to provide him with male offspring (frazand). (The pādixšāyīhā marriage, as against stūrīh/čakarīh, is cum manu…