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VAḤŠI BĀFQI, Kamāl-al-Din (or Šams-al-Din Moḥammad), Persian poet of the Safavid period (b. Bāfq, ca. 1532; d. Yazd, 1583). Vaḥši was born in the agricultural town of Bāfq, southeast of Yazd, where he received his earliest training in poetry from his elder brother Morādi and the local literary luminary Šaraf-al-Din ʿAli…

VANDEN BERGHE, Louis (b. Oostnieuwkerke, West Flanders, 24 December 1923; d. Ghent, 17 September 1993), Belgian archeologist (with Flemish as his mother-tongue) who devoted almost all his research to Iran’s history (FIGURE 1). After his classical studies at Roeselare College in West Flanders, he went on to study history of…

VARQĀ, WALI-ALLĀH  (b. Tabriz, 1884; d. Tubingen, 12 November 1955, FIGURE 1), one of the leading figures of the 20th-century Iranian Bahāʾis.  He was appointed in 1939 as the Trustee of Ḥoquq-Allāh (the Right of God), and on 24 December 1951 as a Hand of the Cause of God (Ayādi-e…

VARQĀ, ʿALI-MOḤAMMAD (b. Yazd, 1855; d. Tehran, 2 May, 1896, FIGURE 1), a well-known poet, student of traditional Iranian medicine, and an early follower of Bahāʾ-Allāh, the founder of the Bahai Faith.  He was the youngest son of Ḥāji Mollā Mehdi (ʿAṭri) of Yazd. Varqā became a courageous teacher of…

Vāsunak title Vāsunak genre/topic Vāsunak language Persian performer Šekar Širāzi instrument Voice with violin and tonbak composer   author/poet   second line of poem  ḵoš be hale šāzdeh dāmād hamsaraš bā nāz miād recorded by   place of recording   date of recording   duration 2:37 source Naghme-hā-ye Shekarin: Vāsunaks…

VATATZES, Vasilios (b. Therapeia, near Constantinople, 1694), Greek scholar, merchant, traveler, pioneer explorer, and diplomat. Life. Vatatzes was the sixth child in his family and his father, a Greek Christian Orthodox priest, served as steward of the Aya Sofia church in Constantinople. When he was 14, he migrated from Constantinople…

VĀYU “Wind, Atmosphere, Space,” name of a deity. Indo-Iranian religion recognized two wind gods: Av. vayu, Ved. vāyú, and Av. vāta-, Ved. vā́ta-. In Iranian the latter is both a deity and the natural phenomenon (cf. MPers., Parth. wād, Kušān coins OAΔO, SogdB wʾt, Khot. bāta-; see further, Bailey, p….

VAZIRI, ʿAli-Naqi (b. Tehran, 1887; d., Tehran, 9 September 1979), composer, virtuoso tār player, musical theorist, and educator. Life. Vaziri was the son of Musā Khan Mirpanj, a high ranking army officer, and Bibi Ḵānom, a well-educated woman active in the cause of women’s liberation. From childhood, Vaziri was inured to…

VAZIRITABĀR, Ḥosayn-ʿAli (b. Tehran, 1285 Š./1906; d. Tehran, 1337 Š./1958) musician and prominent performer of the qaranei (clarinet). Because of the technical structure of the clarinet, which is a Western musical instrument, it is very difficult to use it to play Persian melodies. Vaziritabār was the first person to do…

VENDĪDĀD the common name given to the Avestan text widaēwa-dāta-, Pahl. jud-dēw-dād “The Law repudiating the Demons.” i. Survey of the history and contents of the text. ii. Transmission of the Vīdēvdād in India.

VENDĪDĀD i. Survey of the History and Contents of the Text Of the three major divisions of the 21 Nasks of the Sasanian Avesta, the Vendīdād—Avestan  widaēwa-dāta-, Pahl. jud-dēw-dād “The Law repudiating the Demons” (Benveniste, 1970)—was the last of those called dādīg “dealing with law,” and 19th overall. The summary of its contents…

VENDĪDĀD ii. Transmission of the Vīdēvdād in India The number of Pahlavi Vīdēvdād (PV) manuscripts that have been copied is quite high, but their distribution in time is irregular. Among these manuscripts, we have noticed that only a few are dated for certain before the 18th century: the copy of…