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DUALISM, feature peculiar to Iranian religion in ancient and medieval times. There is general agreement on this point, though some scholars have minimized the importance of dualistic elements in Zoroastrian doctrine and even denied their existence, in order to emphasize monotheistic or crypto-monotheistic aspects (e.g., Shroff; Moulton, pp. 125-26; Gray,…

DUBAI (Dobayy), second largest of the seven emirates constituting the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf. It rivals Abu Dhabi (Abū Ẓabī) for preeminence within a federal structure that provides for considerable autonomy among its constituents (Dubai, p. 29). The twin cities of Dubai…

DUCHESNE-GUILLEMIN, JACQUES (b. Jupille, a suburb of Liège, 21 April 1910; d. Liège, 8 February 2012), distinguished scholar of classical philology, especially concerning ancient Indo-Iranian studies (PLATE I). Duchesne-Guillemin was attracted by the study of languages when he was still very young.  At high school, he learned the usual modern…

DUCK (moṟḡābī < moṟḡ-e ābī “aquatic fowl” or ordak < Turk. ördäk), technically any species of the family Anatidae but in Persian popular usage including similar waterfowl from other families, particularly some geese and grebes. François Hüe and R. D. Etchécopar recorded (pp. 106-33) eight genera comprising twenty-three species of...

DŪḠ, beverage made of yogurt and plain or carbonated water and often served chilled as a refreshing summer drink or with meals, especially with kebabs or čelow-kabāb. The term occurred in Persian as early as the 11th century, when it apparently meant skim milk to which yogurt was sometimes added…

DŪḠ-E WAḤDAT “beverage of unity,” concoction made from adding hashish extract (jowhar-e ḥaīš) to diluted yogurt (Šahrī, VI, pp. 412, 423). The resulting tonic is drunk by certain mystics as a hallucinogen during their rites. ʿAlī-Akbar Dehḵodā, in his compendium of Persian proverbs and dicta (1339 Š./1960, I, p. 255),…

DUGDŌW, the name of Zoroaster’s mother, which appears in several different spellings in the Pahlavi texts, mostly more or less corrupted from an original attempt at representing the Avestan form. The Dēnkard has consistently the best spelling, dwktʾwbˈ, to be pronounced Dugdōw or Duγdōw. In different manuscripts of selections from…

DUMAQU (or Domoko), administrative center of the eastern region of the Khotan oasis in Chinese Turkestan. About 20 km to the north are the ruins of Old Domoko, a settlement abandoned in 1840. Manuscript fragments to which the name Dumaqu or Domoko has become attached were actually excavated by native…

DUMÉZIL, Georges Edmond Raoul (b. 4 March 1898, Paris; d. 11 October 1986, Paris), comparatist philologist and religious studies scholar. Dumézil was one of two sons born to General Jean Anatole Dumézil (1857-1929), a career officer who rose to become inspector-general of the French artillery corps at the end of…

DUNG, human and animal excrement (pehen, pehīn “cow, horse dung,” sargīn “cow dung” [for etymology, see Emmerick], peškel “sheep, goat dung,” čalḡūz “bird dung,” madfūʿ, borāz “human dung,” kūd “natural fertilizer”), widely used in Persia and Afghanistan for fuel and fertilizer. Fuel. In most parts of Persia wood is scarce…

DUNHUANG, an oasis town situated in the northwest of the Chinese province of Gansu, famous for the nearby Mogao Caves (Mogaoku) or Caves of One Thousand Buddhas (Qianfodong).   i. The cave sites; Manichean texts. ii. Buddhist and other texts in Iranian languages.

DUNHUANG  i. The cave sites; Manichean texts The Mogao Caves (Mogaoku) or Caves of One Thousand Buddhas (Qianfodong) are located some 25 km from Dunhuang at the edge of the Dunes of the Singing Sands (Mingshashan) of the Gobi desert, these cave-shrines, more than 730 in total (of which almost 500…

DUNHUANG ii. Buddhist and Other Texts in Iranian Languages  The library cave in Dunhuang has yielded a number of texts of the 8th to 10th centuries in two Middle Iranian languages, Khotanese and Sogdian. Cave 17 of the Caves of the One Thousand Buddhas (Qianfodong) in Dunhuang (Cansu Province) has…

DŪNQEŠLĀQ (Dong Qešlaq), group of pre-Islamic and Islamic archeological sites on the Emām Ṣāḥeb plain in the Qondūz province of Afghanistan, about 10 km south of the Oxus, 37° 10’ N, 68° 59’ E. The pre-Islamic sites date mainly from the Hephthalite-Turkish period (5th-9th centuries), and there are also traces…