Document Type : Original Article
Highlights
It is clear from historical evidence that the Iranians in their earliest literary and religious works, in the text of Gāθās, possessed philosophical concepts and categories, such as sravah- "speech, word", mąnθra- "mantra, word", mąntar- "thinker", humata- "good thought", vahumanah- "good thought", spǝnta mainyu- "the Holy Spirit" and aŋgra mainyu- "Evil Spirit". Therefore, the Greeks adopted the idea of dualism from the Iranians; Perhaps during the Achaemenid period, in cultural exchange with the Greeks, they were aware of their theological, logical and philosophical works and were influenced by them, whether they wanted to or not.
Then, during the Parthian period, they became more closely associated with Hellenistic (Greek) culture and teachings and were familiar with philosophical and theological ideas and concepts. It seems that some Greek writings on philosophy were translated into Pahlavi language during the time of Shapur I of Sassanid. Also, in the course of history, most philosophical books were translated from Syriac into Pahlavi language during the time of Anushirvan of Sassanid.
On the other hand, in the Islamic period, it is known from the works of thinkers such as Bayazid Bastami (died: 234 or 261? AH) and Sheikh Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi (549-587 AH), the founder of the Ishraq school, and others that the source of their thought and knowledge was derived from the "Wisdom of Khosrovani" or "Wisdom of Pahlavi".
In this article, the author has tried to answer two fundamental questions: were Iranians familiar with philosophical issues and concepts and the knowledge of philosophy in the Sassanid era, that is, the era before Islam? And which Pahlavi text (Middle Persian) has philosophical content?
This article deals with some philosophical categories and concepts in two parts with lexical and linguistic data from Pahlavi texts. In the first part, six groups of lexical data are dedicated to fundamental concepts, and in the second part, ten groups of words are expressed in the form of a diagram (text diagram) to some basic categories, such as: existence, material world, universe, element, method, path, conduct, essence, nature, intellect, self-knowledge.
