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50-453: The Persian word marz is derived from Avestan marəza "frontier, border"; pān/pāvan is cognate with Avestan and Old Persian pat "protector". The word was borrowed from New Persian into Arabic as مرزبان marzubān (plural مرازبة marāziba ). " Al-Marzubani " ( المرزباني ) has been used as a nisba (family title) for some Iranian families whose ancestor was a marzbān. The prominent Islamic scholar Abu Hanifa , whose formal name

100-579: A likely archaeological reflection of the early " Eastern Iranian " culture that is described in the Zoroastrian Avesta . It is not known what the original speakers of Avestan called the language. The modern term "Avestan" comes from the Avesta , a collection of Zoroastrian religious literature composed in the language, the name of which comes from Persian اوستا , avestâ and is of obscure origin, though it might come from or be cognate with

150-831: A number of reasons for this shift, based on both the Old Avestan and the Young Avestan material. As regards Old Avestan, the Gathas show strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the Rigveda , which in turn is assumed to represent the second half of the second millennium BC. As regards Young Avestan, texts like the Yashts and the Vendidad are situated in the eastern parts of Greater Iran and lack any discernible Persian or Median influence from Western Iran. This

200-462: Is attested in roughly two forms, known as "Old Avestan" (or "Gathic Avestan") and "Younger Avestan". Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan; the two differ not only in time, but they are also different dialects. Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, underwent several transformations. Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in

250-566: Is classified as Eastern Old Iranian. But the east–west distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the linguistic developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical (South-)Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, and so in this sense, "eastern" only means "non-western". Old Avestan is closely related to Old Persian and largely agrees morphologically with Vedic Sanskrit . The Avestan language

300-542: Is given in Islamic sources as Nu'man ibn Thabit ibn Zuta ibn Marzubān ( نعمان بن ثابت بن زوطا بن مرزبان ), was descended from the marzbāns of Kabul , where his father came from. The Bavand (651–1349 AD) and Sallarid (919–1062 AD) dynasty rulers also used marzubān in their name. The word marzban was borrowed into Armenian as marzpan (մարզպան) and into Georgian as marzapani (მარზაპანი). The ranks tradition (primarily of vāspuhrān and āzādān ) can be traced to

350-489: Is interpreted such that the bulk of this material, which has been produced several centuries after Zarathustra, must still predate the sixth century BC. As a result, more recent scholarship often assumes that the major parts of the Young Avestan texts mainly reflect the first half of the first millennia BC, whereas the Old Avestan texts of Zarathustra may have been composed around 1000 BC or even as early as 1500 BC. The script used for writing Avestan developed during

400-630: The c.  12th century texts of Neryosang Dhaval and other Parsi Sanskritist theologians of that era, which are roughly contemporary with the oldest surviving manuscripts in Avestan script. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in the Gujarati script ( Gujarati being the traditional language of the Indian Zoroastrians). Some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example,

450-524: The /z/ in zaraθuštra is written with j with a dot below. Avestan has retained voiced sibilants, and has fricative rather than aspirate series. There are various conventions for transliteration of the Avestan alphabet , the one adopted for this article being: Vowels: Consonants: The glides y and w are often transcribed as < ii > and < uu >. The letter transcribed < t̰ > indicates an allophone of /t/ with no audible release at

500-746: The Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), but due to lack of sources even in the Parthian Empire (247 BC – 224 AD) the existence of a proper classification of ranks is unknown, in comparison to the Sasanian royal inscriptions from the 3rd century AD when the aristocracy was divided into four or five ranks; šahrdārān (kings, landholders), vāspuhrān (princes; the seven great noble families ), wuzurgān (magnates; "great ones"), lower nobility āzādān (feudal nobles; freemen), and kadag-xwadāy (householders). The Sasanian military organization

550-677: The Eastern Roman Empire . The former established control in Eastern Armenia after the fall of the Arshakuni Armenian Kingdom in 428. In 428, Armenian nobles, nakharar , dissatisfied with the rule of Artaxias IV petitioned emperor Bahram V to depose him. Bahram V abolished the Kingdom of Armenia and appointed Veh Mihr Shapur as marzban (governor of a frontier province, " margrave ") of

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600-675: The Greater Khorasan . Some regions enjoyed considerable autonomy while other were militarily more important, for example the Adurbadagan facing the Caucasus was special military frontier. Marzbāns were granted the administration of the border provinces and were responsible for maintaining the security of the trade routes , fighting the encroaching nomadic tribes such as Bedouin Arabs , White Huns and Oghuz Turks , and holding

650-634: The Huns and the Armenian nobles, citing solidarity between Christians. After carefully weighing the decision, the Mamikonian prince Vahan Mamikonian agreed to revolt against the Sasanians. He defeated and killed Adhur Gushnasp, and thereafter declared Sahak II Bagratuni as the new marzban . He also kept repelling several Sasanian counter-attacks. In 482, Shapur Mihran began to become a big threat to

700-508: The Sasanian period ". The Avestan language is only known from the Avesta and otherwise unattested. As a result, there is no external evidence on which to base the time frame during which the Avestan language was spoken and all attempts have to rely on internal evidence. Such attempts were often based on the life of Zarathustra as the most distinct event in the Avestan period . Zarathustra

750-421: The marzbān was a provincional function practiced for a single or multiple provinces, but there is no evidence for a "quarter of the empire", as al-Masudi entitled Šahrwarāz (629 AD). The rank of marzbān , like most imperial administration, was mostly patrimonial, and was passed down through a single family for generations. The marzbāns of greatest seniority were permitted a silver throne, while marzbāns of

800-525: The nakharar . Vahan was also recognized as sparapet and the property of the Mamikonian family and its allies were returned. Between 515-516, several Hunnic tribes kept making incursions into Armenia—the Armenian nobleman Mjej I Gnuni then decided to organize a counter-attack, where he successfully managed to repel them. As a reward, Kavadh I appointed him as the marzban of Armenia in 518. During this governorship, Mjej maintained religious peace. In 527, he repelled several other Hunnic invasions. In 548, he

850-414: The 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for many centuries, and remained in use only as a liturgical language of the Avesta canon. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood and recited by rote. The script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh "religion writing". It has 53 distinct characters and is written right-to-left. Among

900-508: The 53 characters are about 30 letters that are – through the addition of various loops and flourishes – variations of the 13 graphemes of the cursive Pahlavi script (i.e. "Book" Pahlavi) that is known from the post-Sassanian texts of Zoroastrian tradition. These symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably

950-636: The Armenian rebels seized Dvin, and had Chihor-Vishnasp killed. Sasanian king Yazdegerd II began to view Christianity in the Northern lands as a political threat to the cohesiveness of the Iranian empire. The dispute appears to be based on Iranian military considerations of the time given that according to Acts 2:9 in the Acts of the Apostles there were Persians, Parthians and Medes (all Iranian tribes) among

1000-592: The Armenians, and managed to capture several of them, including noblemen from the Kamsarakan family. Zarmihr shortly delivered the Armenian captives to Shapur Mihran, who delivered them to Izad Gushnasp , promising the Armenian captives to make Peroz spare them. However, an unexpected event changed the course of events: the death of the Sasanian king Peroz I in 484 in war against the Hephthalites , causing

1050-493: The Avestan term 𐬎𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬁𐬬𐬀𐬐𐬀 , upastāvaka , 'praise'. The language was sometimes called Zend in older works, stemming from a misunderstanding of the Zend (commentaries and interpretations of Zoroastrian scripture) as synonymous with the Avesta itself, due to both often being bundled together as "Zend-Avesta". Avestan and Old Persian are the two attested languages comprising Old Iranian , and while Avestan

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1100-672: The Christian Armenians who were suspected of secretly siding with the Byzantines, and he also did the same with the rest of the Christian Armenian population. Claiming to exploit on the command of the king, he persecuted the Christian Armenians and even built a fire-temple in Dvin. These actions soon resulted in a massive uprising in late 571 or early 572, which was led by Vardan III Mamikonian . On 23 February 572,

1150-462: The Kingdom of Armenia and appointed Veh Mihr Shapur as marzban (governor of a frontier province, " margrave ") of the country, which marked the start of a new era known as the Marzpanate period ( Armenian : Մարզպանական Հայաստան – Marzpanakan Hayastan ), a period when marzbans , nominated by the Sasanian emperor, governed eastern Armenia, as opposed to the western Byzantine Armenia which

1200-510: The Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon . Vahan quickly used the opportunity to regain control of Armenia. In the spring of 484, however, Shapur Mihran returned as the head of a new army and forced Vahan to flee to refuge near the Byzantine frontier, at Tao and Taron . During the same period, the Sasanian noble Zarmihr Karen from the Karenid family, was successful in another campaign against

1250-509: The age-long privileges of the Armenian nakharars . The country as a whole enjoyed considerable autonomy. The office of Hazarapet , corresponding to that of Minister of the Interior, public works and finance, was mostly entrusted to an Armenian, while the post of Sparapet (commander-in-chief) was entrusted only to an Armenian. Each nakharar had his own army, according to the extent of his domain. The "National Cavalry", or "Royal Force",

1300-574: The country. In 465, Adhur Gushnasp was appointed by the Sasanian emperor Peroz I (r. 459–484) as the marzban of Armenia, replacing Adhur Hormizd. In 475, the Mamikonian princess Shushanik , was murdered by her husband Prince Varsken , a recent convert to Zoroastrianism , because she refused to convert and wanted to stay Christian . Varsken was then executed by Vakhtang I , king of Iberia . Peroz I, eager to avenge Varsken, sent his general Shapur Mihran to Iberia. Vakhtang then appealed to

1350-486: The earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language ; as such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit , the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language . The Avestan text corpus was composed in the ancient Iranian satrapies of Arachosia , Aria , Bactria , and Margiana , corresponding to the entirety of present-day Afghanistan as well as parts of Tajikistan , Turkmenistan , and Uzbekistan . The Yaz culture of Bactria–Margiana has been regarded as

1400-526: The end of a word and before certain obstruents . According to Beekes, [ð] and [ɣ] are allophones of /θ/ and /x/ respectively (in Old Avestan). The following phrases were phonetically transcribed from Avestan: Persian Armenia Sasanian Armenia , also known as Persian Armenia and Persarmenia ( Armenian : Պարսկահայաստան – Parskahayastan ), may either refer to the periods in which Armenia ( Middle Persian : 𐭠𐭫𐭬𐭭𐭩 – Armin )

1450-481: The exact relationship between titles marzbān , spāhbed , kanārang , pāygōsbān (Parthian ptykwspn , Sasanian paygospān or padhospān ) and ostāndār . The historical sources blur the distinction between the marzbān and spāhbed (army general or military governor), implying marzbān was a military title strictly limited to the frontier marches and provinces. The least clear is the distinction with kanārang , apparently an East-Iranian derivation of marzbān in

1500-457: The extant texts. In roughly chronological order: Many phonetic features cannot be ascribed with certainty to a particular stage since there may be more than one possibility. Every phonetic form that can be ascribed to the Sasanian archetype on the basis of critical assessment of the manuscript evidence must have gone through the stages mentioned above so that "Old Avestan" and "Young Avestan" really mean no more than "Old Avestan and Young Avestan of

1550-411: The first line of defense against settled enemies such as Romans and Kushans . During the reign of Khosrow I (531–579 AD) were held military reforms by which were created four frontier regions ( Khwarasan , Khwarwaran , Nemroz, Adurbadagan) with spāhbed in charge, sometimes still called as marzbān , but now generally considered for more central provinces. Also, the previous gentry rank dihqānān

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1600-692: The first new Christian converts at Pentecost and Christianity has had a long history in Iran as a minority religion, dating back to the very early years of the faith. Nevertheless, the conversion to Christianity by Armenians in the North was of particular concern to Yazdegerd II. After a successful invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire, Yazdegerd began summoning Armenian nobles to Ctesiphon and reconverted them to Zoroastrianism (a faith many Armenians shared with Iranians prior to Christianity). This upset

1650-532: The invention of the Armenian alphabet and the founding of schools, which they thought would encourage the spiritual separation of Armenia from the Byzantines, but on the contrary, the new cultural movement among the Armenians proved to be conducive to closer relations with Byzantium. Christianity became the state religion of Armenia in 301. In 387, Armenia was divided between the Sasanian Empire and

1700-547: The king. The title marzbān can be dated to the Parthian Empire, where in the frontier areas such as Nisa (1st century BC) are found titles mrzwpn (marzban), probably an officier in charge of the frontier troops, and dyzpty , an officier in charge of a fort. Some scholars consider that marzbāns existed during the reign of Darius I (550–486 BC) of the Achaemenid Empire. There is some uncertainty for

1750-702: The mid-2nd to 1st millennium BC) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BC). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scriptural language of Zoroastrianism . Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family . Its immediate ancestor was the Proto-Iranian language , a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language , with both having developed from

1800-594: The most strategic border provinces, such as the province of Armenia, were allowed a golden throne. In military campaigns the regional marzbāns could be regarded as field marshals, while lesser spāhbeds could command a field army. The function of marzbān changed over the years, with smaller territorial units being part of the civil administration. In the early years the main marzbān regions were Armenia , Beth Aramaye , Pars , Kirman , Spahan , Adurbadagan , Tabaristan , Nishapur , Tus , Sakastan , Mazun , Harev , Marv and Sarakhs , several mentioned belonging to

1850-462: The province Abarshahr in Central Asia . The pāygōsbān , meaning "guardian of the district", is an uncertain title, seemingly provincial military commanders or governors, while the marzbān meant "guardian of the borders, provinces". Perhaps the pāygōsbān lacked civilian duties. The ostāndār was the governor of an ostān (province or district within a province). The primary sources imply

1900-478: The security of Iberia, which made Vakhtang request Armenian aid. Vahan and Sahak shortly arrived to Iberia at the head of a big army, but were defeated in Akesga, where Sahak was killed. Vahan fled with the remnants of the Armenian army into the mountains, where he led guerrilla actions against the Sasanians, while Shapur Mihran managed to regain control of Armenia. However, Shapur Mihran was shortly ordered to return to

1950-432: The vowels, which are mostly derived from Greek minuscules. A few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language; the character for /l/ (a sound that Avestan does not have) was added to write Pazend texts. The Avestan script is alphabetic , and the large number of letters suggests that its design

2000-661: The withdrawal of the Sasanians in Armenia and recovery of Dvin and Vagharshapat . Struggling to suppress the revolt of his brother Zarir , Peroz's successor, Balash (r. 484-488), needed the help of the Armenians: in exchange for military support, he agreed to sign the Nvarsak Treaty , which granted religious freedom to the Christians and the prohibition of Zoroastrianism in Armenia, including much greater autonomy for

2050-462: Was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was (and still is) considered necessary for the prayers to be effective. The Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi -based scripts. This is a relatively recent development first seen in

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2100-641: Was inherited by the Medieval Islamic civilization, however, the marzbāns steadily disappeared depending on the region, as such in Iraq diminished and were replaced by Muslim frontier warriors muqātila , while in Khorasan still had special privileges. In generally were replaced by the title dihqānān . Avestan Avestan ( / ə ˈ v ɛ s t ən / ə- VESS -tən ) is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages , Old Avestan (spoken in

2150-401: Was localized in the northeastern parts of Greater Iran according to Paul Maximilian Tedesco  [ de ] (1921), other scholars have favored regarding Avestan as originating in eastern parts. Scholars traditionally classify Iranian languages as "old", "middle" and "new" according to their age, and as "eastern" or "western" according to geography, and within this framework Avestan

2200-594: Was more sophisticated than the inherited Parthian system. The caste system wasn't rigid as in India, but the ruling officiers were mostly from wuzurgān caste. There's a possibility that the Late Sasanian marzbānān also originated from the āzādān , who mostly were lords of villages ( dihqānān ), supplied the cavalry with young riders ( asbārān ), or were bodyguards and security forces with titles bandagān , ayyārān or jānbāzān , all signifying association with

2250-508: Was moulded into influential "nobility of service" which became the backbone of the Sasanian state. However, this measures of centralization caused the transfer of the power to the military (the dihqānān gradually became more independent from the government, while the four large spāhbed territories quasi-independent fiefs), and led to the eventual disintegration of the Empire. The Sasanian social, administrative and military structure and system

2300-542: Was ruled by several princes, and later governors, under Byzantine suzerainty. The Marzpanate period ended with the Arab conquest of Armenia in the 7th century, when the Principality of Armenia was established. An estimated 3,000,000 Armenians were under the influence of the Sasanian marzpans during this period. The marzban was invested with supreme power, even imposing death sentences; but he could not interfere with

2350-525: Was succeeded by Gushnasp Bahram . Chihor-Vishnasp , a member of the Suren family and a relative of Khosrow I himself, was in 564 appointed as marzban . During this period, the Armenian aristocracy was split between two parties, the national one which was headed by a member of the Mamikonian family, and a pro-Sasanian one, which was headed by a member of the Siunia family. Chihor Vishnasp harshly treated

2400-556: Was traditionally based in the 6th century BC meaning that Old Avestan would have been spoken during the early Achaemenid period . Given that a substantial time must have passed between Old Avestan and Young Avestan, the latter would have been spoken somewhere during the Hellenistic or the Parthian period of Iranian history. However, more recent scholarship has increasingly shifted to an earlier dating. The literature presents

2450-447: Was under the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire or specifically to the parts of Armenia under its control such as after the partition of 387 when parts of western Armenia were incorporated into the Eastern Roman Empire while the rest of Armenia came under Sasanian suzerainty but maintained its existing kingdom until 428. In 428, Armenian nobles petitioned Bahram V to depose Artaxias IV (r. 422); Bahram V (r. 420–438) abolished

2500-539: Was under the commander-in-chief. The tax collectors were all Armenians. The courts of justice and the schools were directed by the Armenian clergy. Several times, an Armenian nakharar became marzpan , as did Vahan Mamikonian in 485 after a period of rebellion against the Iranians. Three times during the Marzpanic period, Iranian kings launched persecutions against Christianity in Armenia. The Iranians had tolerated

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