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DEMOGRAPHY, the statistical study of characteristics of human populations. i. In Persia since 1319 Š./1940. ii. In Afghanistan. iii. In Tajikistan.   i. IN PERSIA SINCE 1319 Š./1940 Since World War II Persia, formerly a rural and tribal country dominated by elderly notables and with low population growth, has come…

DEMOTIC CHRONICLE, Egyptian papyrus document of the early 2nd century B.C.E. (Biblio-thèque Nationale, Paris, Pap. dem. no. 215 v), in which anti-Persian themes, especially focused on Cambyses (q.v.), Xerxes, and Artaxerxes III (q.v.), were elaborated in Ptolemaic Egyptian sacerdotal and intellectual surroundings (Bresciani, 1985, pp. 506, 525-26). The Persian conquerors…

“DEMOTTE” ŠĀH-NĀMA, illustrated manuscript, now dispersed, of Ferdowsī’s epic poem, often identified by the name of a former owner, the Paris dealer Georges Demotte (active ca. 1900-23). A more accurate designation is “the great Mongol Šāh-nāma,” for it is generally believed to have been produced for a patron associated with…

DĒN (Av. daēnā, trisyllabic in Old Av., disyllabic in Young Av.; Mid. Pers. dēn; NPers. dīn), theological and metaphysical term with a variety of meanings: “the sum of man’s spiritual attributes and individuality, vision, inner self, conscience, religion.” In the Gathas daēnā (which is only “ahuric”) denotes “vision, conscience, individuality.”…

DĒN YAŠT (Yašt 16 of the Avesta), a relatively short text, consisting for the most part of repetitive or formulaic sentences (Lommel, pp. 154-56; Avesta, tr. Darmesteter, II, pp. 593-97). Although the title implies a hymn to Daēnā, the text is devoted exclusively to the invocation of a female divinity…

DĒNAG (< Mid. Pers. dēn, q.v.), name of several Sasanian queens; it was not feminine by derivation but was clearly reserved for feminine prosopography (Schmitt, p. 269). In the Middle Persian inscription ŠKZ (l. 25; Back, p. 339) the name designated the mother of King Bābak (Mid. Pers. Pābag) and...

Denaseri title Denaseri genre/topic Dastgāh-e Homāyun language   performer Nur ‘Ali Borumand instrument Tār composer  Mirzā ‘Abdollāh, Radif author/poet   first line of poem   recorded by   place of recording   date of recording   duration 0:47 source The Radif of Mirzā Abdollāh for the Tār and Setār. Mahoor…

DENIKE, BORIS PETROVICH (b. Kazan, 15 January 1885, d. Moscow, 13 October 1941), the first Russian historian of the medieval art of the Near and Far East. He first studied Russian art at Kazan University, from which he was graduated in 1911. In 1913 in Berlin he became acquainted with…

DENḴA (DINKHA) TEPE, a Bronze and Iron Age site situated in the Ošnū valley of Azerbaijan (q.v.), southwest of Lake Urmia, and 15 miles west of the major Iron Age site of Hasanlu (Ḥasanlū) in the Soldūz valley. The mound is 20 m high and 400 m in diameter, but…

DĒNKARD (lit., “Acts of the religion”), written in Pahlavi, is a summary of 10th-century knowledge of the Mazdean religion; the editor, Ādurbād Ēmēdān, entitled the final version “The Dēnkard of one thousand chapters.” This version, described by Jean de Menasce on the title page of his translation (1958) as a…

DENMARK: relations with Persia. i. Political, economic, and cultural relations. ii. Danish-Iranian Society.   i. POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, AND CULTURAL RELATIONS Danish-Persian relations have been concentrated in three main areas: politics and diplomacy; trade and other economic relations; and Iranian studies in Denmark, including collections of Persian art in Danish museums….

DENŠAPUH, short form of Vehdenšapuh (Mid. Pers. *Wehdēnšābuhr), Sasanian hambārakapet (quartermaster; Faustus, tr. Garsoian, p. 530) involved in the campaign of Yazdagerd II (438-57) to force Christian Armenians to abjure their faith and return to Zoroastrianism (Łazar Pʿarpecʿi, pp. 293, 309-10, 314, 317, 319; Ełišē, ed. Tēr-Minasean, pp. 19-139; cf….

DENTISTRY (dandān-pezeškī) in Persia. No specific information about dentistry in pre-Islamic Persia has survived, but a reference in the Avesta (Vd. 2.29) indicates that oral and dental diseases were not uncommon among Iranians. Significant advances in medicine were achieved, particularly at the college hospital at Gondēšāpūr (in the Islamic period…

DEOBAND,country town northeast of Delhi in what is now the Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India, where an influential Dār al-ʿolūm was founded by a group of religious scholars in 1867 as an expression of a major religious reform movement partly inspired by British educational models. The goal was to train…