Third: On Determining the Origin of History

The Zoroastrian theoretical apparatus, which recognised bounded time for the first time and insisted on its distinction from boundless time, was essentially a philosophical apparatus that later crystallised in the form of a religious system, and its reflections were formulated as mythological narratives. It was in this philosophical apparatus that it became clear that the time that people use at the social level is not eternal and perpetual and has a specific beginning and end, and for this reason, it is based on the format of personal biographies. This bounded time, which has a collective rhythm and is used to coordinate people's actions in institutions, is a substitute and derivative of that pure foundational boundless time, which is still praised and valued in Iranian culture in the form of the now, the present, and the moment.

But that bounded time inevitably needs points for marking and a starting point for counting history. In the pre-Zoroastrian world, those temporary cycles of the coming and going of kings or memorable recurring events such as a certain flood or a certain war were what were used for historical reference. But these were local and transient events and had application in the absence of the concept of the history of existence. When the matter of the history of existence is raised, macro and great starting points are also needed to seat events of global importance in the seat of reference. In this framework, year counts are no longer limited to a few decades and may be counted hundreds and thousands of years based on a historical origin.

Thus from the Achaemenid era onwards, we have efforts to determine the origin of history. The Achaemenid state was the first literate state that had chosen the Zoroastrian theoretical apparatus for formulating its politics. Centuries before that, the Balkh state had probably been the initial origin of politics in the Zoroastrian system. But it appears that this political territory was non-literate and its geographical scope of expansion was also limited. The Achaemenids, however, were both literate and had inherited the deep-rooted tradition of Elamite and Akkadian scribal arts, which at that time was the most enduring and stable tradition of historiography in the world, and its language and writing had more than two thousand years of antiquity. Beyond this, the Achaemenids had the entire known urbanised world of their time under their command. That is, in the precise meaning of the word, the newly emerging state of united Iran – which at that time was called Pars – was considered the representative of world history. This state encompassed all the ancient civilisations of the Iranian realm and Egypt and had digested the historiographical tradition of both and its territory was also global.

For this reason, this hypothesis seems plausible that the idea of determining the origin of world history took shape in the Achaemenid era. The first document we have in this field that insists on determining a history-making event is the Bisotun inscription. It is apparent that Darius the Great considered the year 522 BCE, in which the greatest war of the ancient world took place, the origin of history and regarded his victory in it as an ontologically significant event. So much so that he counted himself and his six accompanying champions as identical with the Amesha Spentas and the Ahuraean who triumphs over Ahriman.

However, we also have other data that show that apparently an older historical origin also existed in the Achaemenid era, and that is the time of Cyrus's entry into Babylon, which coincides with the conquest of the only remaining part of the Iranian territory and the political unification of the entire Iranian civilisational sphere.

In books that I have written in the 'Iranian Civilisation History' series, based on evidence and documents, I have shown that for centuries after the era of Cyrus, Iranian historians considered the time of the founding of the united country of Iran, namely the day of Cyrus's entry into Babylon, the origin of history. In this regard, we have powerful evidence that has been recorded in several renowned historical works. Abu Rayhan Biruni in Athar al-Baqiya writes that Zoroastrians in his time said that Zoroaster was inspired 258 years before Alexander the Accursed's attack on Iran,[^1] and according to Zoroastrian sources, the age of the Iranian prophet at this time was forty years. Mas'udi, who lived about a century before Biruni, also recorded such a report with this same number of 258 years.

[^1]: Biruni, 1923: 14.

Another narrative that is compatible with Biruni and Mas'udi's report is read in the Bundahishn, which says that King Gushtasp, after accepting the Zoroastrian religion, ruled for ninety years. After him, Bahman son of Esfandiar sat on the throne, who ruled for 112 years. His successor was Homai daughter of Bahman, who had the crown and throne at her disposal for thirty years. After her, Dara son of Homai with twelve years, and after him, Dara son of Dara (Darius III Achaemenid) ruled for fourteen years.[^2] Interestingly, the sum of these years amounts to that same 258 years.

[^2]: Bundahishn, chapter 36, paragraph 8.

We read a figure close to this in other historical reports as well. For instance, the Arda Viraf Nameh[^3] also considers the time between Alexander and Zoroaster to be three hundred years, and Mas'udi has also quoted a similar number.[^4] This latter number was probably obtained from adding again the age of Zoroaster at the time of his inspiration (forty years) to an older number that had such a remainder from the beginning.

[^3]: Arda Viraf Nameh, first chapter; paragraphs 1-4.
[^4]: Mas'udi, 3526.

From these numbers, it emerges that a thousand years ago in Biruni's time, Zoroastrians believed in a historical origin that went back to the era of Cyrus the Great (sixth century BCE) and equated it with the time of Zoroaster's birth. We know from other sources – especially based on the very ancient language of the Gathas – that Zoroaster's time of life was not this time and he probably lived around the year 1200 BCE, certainly in eastern Iran. That is, this report that Zoroaster relates to the time and place of the Achaemenids is certainly incorrect. But this report has been repeated so much that we must seek to decode its meaning.

If we look at these dates, we see that we have the time of Zoroaster's inspiration (258 years before Alexander), to which the number 40 years (the prophet's age at the time of his mission) has been added once or twice, and numbers like three hundred years have been derived from it. In the meantime, we have two specific interesting data points. First, that Cyrus the Great (with whose era this period coincides) according to the narrative of Justinus and Cicero and some folk narratives about Dhul-Qarnayn was crowned at the age of forty. That is, in the year 560 or 559 BCE, he became the king of Anshan in place of his father Cambyses. Cyrus conquered the entire territory of the Iranian realm about twenty years after this date, and on the seventh of Aban month (October 29) of the year 539 BCE, he entered the city of Babylon with his army without war and bloodshed, and this was the first time that a conqueror entered Babylon in this manner and established a stable dynasty there, and incidentally, this was the date when the entire territory of the Iranian realm became politically unified. That is, the date of the founding of the country of Iran should be considered this very day.

Now, if we look at the number 258 years that has been repeated many times in these reports, we encounter three possibilities. First, we know that Alexander the Accursed entered the city of Babylon as a conqueror on 29 or 30 Mehr (October 20-21) of the year 331 BCE, and insisted that exactly the same ceremonies be performed for his entry into Babylon that we read about in historical narratives about Cyrus's entry into Babylon. The Persian satrap of Babylon at that time, after the defeat of Darius III in the Battle of Gaugamela, saw resistance as futile and opened the gates of Babylon to Alexander, and the Macedonian conqueror entered this city precisely by imitating Cyrus's behaviour, at a time that more or less coincided with the anniversary of this event, and its week-long gap is negligible considering the primitive Macedonian chronometry at that time.

Interestingly, Alexander's entry into Babylon took place exactly 208 years after Cyrus's entry into Babylon. In Greek narratives, there is confusion about the timing of Cyrus's life, and they have often written Cyrus's age at the time of his entry into Babylon as forty or fifty years. Which is, of course, incorrect. Cyrus was probably close to sixty years old at this time. Nevertheless, the important point is that in the ancient world, they considered about a small century (fifty years) as the time gap between Cyrus's birth and his great victories. That is, one possibility is that the number 258 arose from adding the 208 years between Cyrus and Alexander's entry into Babylon, which has been added together with the fifty years of Cyrus's hypothetical age at this time. This hypothesis seems plausible because in later periods, a similar number was once again added to 258 years, and some have written this same gap between Zoroaster and Alexander as three hundred and something years.

The second possibility is that the number 258 years relates to the gap between Cyrus's entry into Babylon until the time of this city's destruction by Antiochus the Seleucid. Antiochus I, whose mother Apama was the daughter of Spitamenes, the rebel satrap of Sogdia and from the Achaemenid family, and whose father Seleucus I was considered among Alexander's close associates, achieved the Seleucid crown and throne in the year 281 BCE following his father's death, but immediately faced the rebellion of the people of Babylon. He managed to suppress the stubborn rebellion of the people of Babylon by the following year and completely destroyed that place.

Until before this date, the Macedonians who ruled in Babylon (Alexander and Seleucus I) considered themselves 'Persianised' and treated the people of the city kindly and endeavoured to observe the tradition of Iranian politics. Antiochus, however, transferred the centre of gravity of his activity to Assyria and adopted the plundering behaviour of other Macedonian commanders. In this way, if we look at the world from the view of historians based in Babylon, 258 years is the precise time gap that Iranian politics in its first period of establishment in this city endured. This period delivers the gap between Cyrus's conciliatory entry into Babylon and the founding of Iranian politics and the destruction of this city by the Macedonians and the first fall of this politics.

But another hypothesis, which also has more probability, is that this time relates to the period of Achaemenid monarchs' rule over Babylon. Considering that Zoroaster was inspired at the age of forty, and that the traditional date of 258 years before the appearance of Alexander has often been mentioned for Zoroaster's birth, we reach the conclusion that between Alexander and Zoroaster's hypothetical inspiration there were 218 years. Interestingly, this period exactly equals the gap between the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus until the coronation of Seleucus in Babylon (311 BCE), which was the starting point of Seleucid chronometry. Therefore, it appears that traditional history considered the time of Zoroaster's birth simultaneous with Cyrus's entry into Babylon and the founding of the country of Iran. An interpretation that probably has roots in the chronometry of Babylonian scribes and has recorded the time gap between two important events in the history of the Iranian realm and has gradually generalised it to other important events.

From Alexander's behaviour upon entering Babylon, which Seleucus and Ptolemy also later repeated when entering this city, it becomes clear that two centuries after Cyrus, the memory of his entry into Babylon and the unification of the Iranian realm was still prominent in minds and this event was considered important and history-making. From Mas'udi and Biruni's report, it also becomes clear that even two thousand years later, these events and time gaps still mattered and were a point of reference. Although at this time, apparently some Zoroastrian writers had assumed Cyrus and Zoroaster to be one.

So in the Achaemenid era, we have two probable historical origins. One is the time of Cyrus's entry into Babylon, and the other is the internal wars of the year 522 BCE. From the latter, we also have the Bisotun inscription at hand, which is manifestly a historically minded and history-making text. In the books 'Political History of the Parthian Empire' and 'History of Buddhist Wisdom' that I have written, I have shown that the inscription of Ashoka, king of the Maurya dynasty (282-232 BCE), which was written in the middle of the third century BCE and three centuries after this event, manifestly refers to Bisotun, and Darius's discourse is manifestly repeated in it. The Maurya dynasty formed after the collapse of Achaemenid power in the south-eastern provinces of the Iranian realm and played an important role in expelling the Macedonians and resisting them, and it was also the first Buddhist state in the world. This political territory, contrary to popular belief, was not Indian and was considered the direct continuation of Iranian politics and represented a part of the remaining territory of Greater Persia, and its centre of power was also located in today's Pakistan and Afghanistan, not within the Indian subcontinent.

In the Achaemenid era, beyond these two historical origins (Cyrus's entry into Babylon and Darius's victory), which are political and state-related, we probably also had a religious historical origin, and that was the time of Zoroaster's birth or inspiration. This point of reference also remained for millennia but gradually lost its precision. It appears that the time of Zoroaster's inspiration at the age of forty and King Gushtasp's conversion to him had more importance for Zoroastrians and was assumed as the origin of history. Because in the histories of the Islamic period, we see numerous references to this event, of which Biruni, Mas'udi, and Arda Viraf Nameh texts have recorded versions.

But interestingly, these sources, when referring to the time of Zoroaster's inspiration, do not point to its real time – the twelfth century BCE, which is also very distant – and instead refer to the era of Cyrus. One of the reasons for this matter was probably that Cyrus considered himself identical with the Zoroastrian saviour (Saoshyant). In the book 'Cyrus the Liberator', I have described this theory with abundant evidence and documents that (a) Cyrus's politics had a manifest and fundamental break with the politics common in his time, and (b) enjoyed a completely distinct philosophical apparatus and discursive system, which (c) had a Zoroastrian framework and portrayed Cyrus as the promised saviour in the Zoroastrian religion. The use of political propaganda for Cyrus among the peoples of lands that came under his dominion and their strange support for him, who was busy conquering their territory, arises from this. Cyrus's ascetic ethics and successful emphasis on win-win and popular methods were also the outcome of this theoretical framework and were a promise that was being fulfilled.

In this way, the fact that later historians combined Cyrus and Zoroaster is not so far-fetched. Because Cyrus claimed to be a Saoshyant, and the Saoshyant was regarded as a form of Zoroaster's revived self. However, we have this point that the gap between Cyrus and Zoroaster is about seven hundred years, and in the history-centric Zoroastrian worldview, the appearance of the Saoshyant was considered to be a thousand years after Zoroaster. Therefore, Cyrus probably made some manipulation in the history of Zoroaster's life, and in that era, when the eastern half of the Iranian realm was still non-literate, probably the difference between seven hundred years and a thousand years was not very tangible, and both were perceived as a very long time. Especially since we see a similar manipulation later in the Sasanian era as well.

Mas'udi in his history has referred to this astonishing point that when Ardashir Babakan came to power, he gathered historians and Magi and asked them to distort the history of the Parthians, which had endured for more than five centuries, and consider it 266 years. They did so and kept this action of theirs as a secret not to be told among themselves, until seven centuries passed and one of them spoke of this secret with a friend, and he revealed this to Mas'udi.

About the intense enmity of the Sasanian and Parthian families, abundant legends have been written in recent books. But if we look at historical documents, we find that these assumptions have been baseless. Ardashir Babakan was essentially the son-in-law of the Parthian family and had a wife from this lineage, and his eldest son and crown prince, Shapur I, was also Parthian through his mother. The Parthian family also remained satraps of the Armenian and Georgian region for two centuries during the Sasanian era, and were both subject to the Sasanian shahs and received help from the Sasanians at the time of Roman attacks. Therefore, this crude notion that Ardashir ordered the reduction of years from their kingship to diminish the prestige and glory of the Parthians is incorrect.

But in this situation, why did such a strange action occur? And why were such specific and precise numbers increased and decreased? In my view, by reviewing Ardashir Babakan's political claim, one can understand that here too we are dealing with another claim of saviourhood. Ardashir Babakan, exactly like Cyrus and Arsaces, who was the founder of the Parthian dynasty, claimed to be the Saoshyant and had risen to purify religion and repel Ahrimanic forces. However, he too, like others, was grappling with this problem that the history-centric and mathematical Zoroastrian worldview supposed thousand-year periods between the appearance of every two Saoshyants, and Ardashir was not located at such a point in history. The gap between Ardashir and Cyrus the Great was seven and a half centuries. Nevertheless, interestingly, he did not try to resolve his problem by straightening this time gap and supposing a seven-century gap. He might have been able to claim that the main gap between the appearances of Saoshyants was seven or eight hundred years. As the gap between Cyrus and Zoroaster had been, and this equalled the gap between himself and Cyrus. But he did not do so. Rather, he reduced a specific number from the history of the Parthians. His bold manipulation of history presumably took place in conditions where a specific time for the history of Zoroaster's inspiration existed in people's minds and the thousand-year gap also seemed untouchable. Ardashir was firmly established on the throne of sovereignty around the year 224 CE and at that same time ordered the rewriting of the calendar. Consequently, the Magi at his command considered the period of the Parthians' rule to be 266 years, which was 206 years less than reality. From this, it emerges that the desirable time for being positioned at the 'turn of the millennium' was around the time of Christ's birth. That is, apparently, people thought the time of Christ's birth was one (or according to Greek assumptions, several) millennia distant from the era of Cyrus. Interestingly, around the time of Christ's birth, we have strange commotion in the world of religion and politics, and a large number of statesmen and religious figures claim saviourhood. The most famous and at the same time the most unsuccessful of them is, of course, Jesus of Nazareth himself, who was immediately killed by the Romans after this claim. But he inscribed his name and mark on this historical juncture.

Precisely in this same era, we face an astonishing list of those who claim saviourhood and sanctity. In this same era, we also see numerous religious figures such as Apollonius of Tyana, one of the Pythagorean philosophers of Cappadocia, Simon Magus, and Bar-Jesus the Magus, whose epithet was Elymas (Elamite) and who competed with Paul the Apostle – all of them are people who lived contemporaneously with Christ and claimed saviourhood and had biographies similar to Christ, and interestingly, all of them were born in the geographical territory of the Iranian realm and had connections with the Magi.

But this list is not limited to these people. The most successful figure among them is Octavius Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, who transformed this state into a centralised global power. Augustus manifestly had a religious claim, claimed divinity, established temples with specific priests for this cult of emperor worship, and established an organisation that became the basis for consolidating the later Christian Church. He was doing this around the time of Christ's life, and this is compatible with the turn of the millennium we have in mind.

But the strangest figure in this regard is Nero, the Roman emperor, who came to power about fifty years after Augustus, and he too is known for his bold programmes for social reform, his boastful and exaggerated religious claims, and abundant followers who worshipped him like a god; so much so that after his death, at least four people claimed to be his reincarnation and claimed the crown and throne of Rome. Nero, as expected, was intensely hated by Christ's followers and made abundant efforts in slaughtering and tormenting these rivals. The reference to the number 666 and its attribution to the Antichrist goes back to him. Because Nero's name in the old Abjad calculation equals 666, and as we understand from the Revelation of John, this number belongs to the Antichrist who claims to be the Messiah but lies. In this way, precisely at the time we expect, in a large geographical expanse, we see the claim of the end of the millennium and its far-reaching political consequences.

In this way, there was a general memory that placed the history of Zoroaster's inspiration about a thousand years before Christ's birth, and essentially, the point-marking of time based on the 'birth of Christ' arose from this. Ardashir Babakan, too, despite having entered this field two hundred years late, insisted on being positioned at this same turn of the millennium, and for this reason, made such a bold manipulation in the history of the Parthians. The dynasty he founded endured for more than 450 years and became one of the longest dynastic royal families in all of Earth's history. For this reason, his manipulation of history was also seated, and many later historians benefited from his model for calculating the history of the beginning of the millennium. A famous and unexpected example of it is that about a thousand years after Ardashir, al-Mahdi al-Abbasi, when he wanted to consider himself an end-time saviour and thus provide legitimacy for the Abbasids, enjoyed the support of Iranian astronomers and scholars, and it was the Magi and scholars from the Nawbakhti family who determined the time of his coronation and the suitable time for founding the city of Baghdad.

From reviewing these data, it emerges that we had a religious historical origin older and more powerful than Cyrus's entry into Babylon and Darius's victory in the internal wars, in which texture Cyrus and Darius themselves defined themselves. Earlier in other writings, I have shown that the confusion about the dating of Zoroaster's lifetime is baseless and groundless, and the available data clearly show that Zoroaster lived in a time around the year 1200 BCE somewhere in western Iran.[^5]

[^5]: Vakili, 1393 (a): 281-284.

Ardashir's manipulation of history becomes meaningful when we suppose that in his time, the Magi considered the time of Zoroaster's life around 1018 BCE, and for this reason, by reducing 206 years from the age of the Parthians' rule, he endeavoured to place the time of his coronation in Nowruz 224 CE exactly a thousand years after Zoroaster's inspiration. Earlier in other writings, I have shown that probably this date, namely 1018 BCE, which in the historical memory of the Magi was considered the starting point of Zoroastrian history, related to the time of Sina's positioning in the city of Ray and the compilation of the Avesta. The documents related to this transfer of the centre of gravity of the Zoroastrian religion from the nomadic tribes of eastern Iran and Balkh to the cultural centre of Ray have been well described by Dr Parviz Azkaei in the book 'The Sage of Ray'. Based on this, it appears that Sina, who was three or four generations (that is, slightly more than a century) distant from Zoroaster, transferred this religion to Ray, which was an important commercial centre, in the early eleventh century BCE, and the first compilation of Avestan texts and the emergence of the text of the Seven Chapters (Haft Hat) and the gradual emergence of the Yasnas should be considered in this same time frame and after it, whereby Zoroaster the historical figure is placed in that same twelfth century BCE that is also compatible with our other data.

From this, it becomes clear that the hypothetical time of Christ's birth was eighteen years distant from the turn of the millennium. In practice too, from about thirty years before Christ until fifty years after him, we see claimants of saviourhood abundantly in the Roman territory, and this shows that the legend of the Saoshyant did not have remarkable temporal precision in this territory and was placed in a time range of 30 BCE - 50 CE. But the main tradition of this dating presumably was Iran, and Ardashir Babakan manifestly had remarkable control over this matter.

Therefore, one can suppose with a good coefficient of confidence that in the time of Ardashir Babakan, the Zoroastrian Magi believed that Zoroaster was inspired in the year 1206 BCE, and this is also compatible with dates arising from the Avestan text and historical linguistic evidence. But the important point latent in it is that the emergence of the first philosophical apparatus about humans and history in Zoroaster's time incidentally also led to the birth of the first origin of world history, and this origin mattered so much that until a thousand and two hundred years later, great Iranian and Roman kings were organising their political claims based on it.

In later periods as well, other great dynasties that ruled over the Iranian realm defined different other starting points for history. When Seleucus entered Babylon with eight hundred foot soldiers and two hundred cavalry in the year 312 BCE and conquered that place,[^6] he imitated a copy of Cyrus's entry into Babylon and considered that day the origin of Seleucid history. We know that the Macedonians at this date had neither an independent history nor indigenous literacy. That is, essentially, the history of the Macedonian region begins in the fifth century BCE and in the capacity of a province in the Achaemenid Empire. For this reason, it is clear that this 'determining the origin of history' was not a matter arising from Greece and Macedonia but was an indigenous tradition in the Iranian realm that took shape based on imitating Cyrus's entry into Babylon. The Seleucids maintained this historical origin until the end of their short period of rule.

[^6]: Grainger, 1990: 56-72.

Simultaneous with the formation of the Seleucid state in the south-eastern corner of the Achaemenid territory, the Maurya state was founded, which also had its historical origin based on the coronation of its first king in the same manner. The local states of this region used this same historical origin for two or three centuries afterwards. For instance, from the local state of Kalinga, whose founder was a warrior named Kharavela (खारवेल) (170 BCE), several inscriptions remain, the most famous of which are the Hathigumpha inscriptions near Bhubaneswar. In this inscription, it is stated that the text was written in the thirteenth year of Kharavela's reign and in the year 165 based on Mauryan history.[^7] The Mauryan historical origin was the time of Chandragupta's coronation. He, who was probably the Achaemenid satrap of the Indian province and the defender of this territory against the Macedonian attacks, was crowned in the year 321 BCE after repelling Alexander's attack, and therefore this origin remained valid in that region for a century and a half afterwards.

[^7]: Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XX.

Another historical origin that we see in the Alexandrian tumult era belongs to the dynasty of Scythian-Tokharian kings based in eastern Iran. The first emir from this lineage who completed the Scythian-Tokharian dominion over northern India was named Azes. He sat on the throne in 48 or 46 BCE and ruled until 25 BCE, and on his coins, in the manner of the Achaemenids, he called himself 'Great King Azes' (in Greek: Basileus Basileon Megalo Azo: BASILEOS BASILEON MEGALOU AZOU). Azes purged northern India of the remains of Macedonian emirs and founded the historical origin known as Azes, which was the basis of the dating of later Scythian kings for several centuries. Falk has recently discovered an inscription that was dated to both Azes and Greek dates and shows that this historical origin was established by Azes himself, and the first Azes year equals the Greek (Seleucid) year 128, and thus the time of Azes's coronation was 45 BCE.[^8]

[^8]: Cribb, 2005; Falk and Bennett, 2009: 197-216.

Another important figure who defined a historical origin around this time was the greatest Kushan king, namely Kanishka, who came to power in 127 CE after his father Vima Kadphises and ruled until 151 CE.[^9] His capital was also Purushapura (Peshawar). He considered the date of his coronation the origin of history, and later Kushan kings also followed this rule. After the destruction of the Kushans, the Gupta dynasty, which came to power in Mathura, still maintained this same dating. In this way, Kanishka's historical origin endured for three centuries after him.

[^9]: Falk, 2001: 121-136.

We have other evidence at hand that shows that the leaders of the Dahae-Parni and Scythian-Tokharian groups, who revived Iranian authority and expelled the Macedonians, were generous in determining a beginning for dating and simply took the year of the coronation of their important kings as the starting point of their calendar. We know of at least one Balkh history that begins in 155 BCE, alongside dating based on the coronation of Azes and Kanishka, and we also know that the Scythian satraps of the Ujjain region observed another chronometry whose starting point was the year 78 CE.[^10]

[^10]: Bivar, 1383: 296.

But the most enduring historical origin in the post-Achaemenid era was established by the Parthians, although we have scant data about it. One sample of Parthian coins that are dated belongs to Balash IV, on which the letters ΔΞΥ are inscribed, and this can be translated as 464. The conventional interpretation of this number is that here reference is made to the Seleucid historical origin, and therefore they point to the year 152-153 CE. But as I have discussed in the book 'Political History of the Parthian Empire',[^11] the Seleucids were not an important dynasty in the power equations of the Alexandrian tumult era and only held the south-western fringe of the Iranian realm. Therefore, it is somewhat strange that the Parthian shahs, after four hundred years, based their calendar on the chronology of the Seleucids, who on one hand had been their old enemy and on the other hand were not considered important or renowned in the history of the Iranian realm.

[^11]: Vakili, 1393 (b).

If from the era of Balash IV (140-191 CE), during which these coins were minted, we go back 464 years, we return to the middle years of the fourth century BCE. We happen to be positioned in a very important historical period that has global-level importance and is much, much more important and standard than the conquest of Babylon by Seleucus I (the origin of Seleucid history). That is the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander and his death, which occurred in 323 BCE. In this case, the Parthians had taken the basis of their history from the last year of the last Achaemenid king (and not the first Seleucid king).

In this way, on one hand, it becomes clear that the Parthians on their coins also repeated their claim of inheriting from the Achaemenids, and on the other hand, the dating of their coins in its current form is incorrect. In recent years, tablets have been discovered in Mesopotamia that confirm this understanding and show that the Parthians not only paid no attention to Seleucid history but considered their historical origin (the first of Nisan) Nowruz of the year 247 BCE, and this was probably the same date that Arsaces I sat on the throne in Damghan and Gorgan.[^12]

[^12]: Wolski, 1383: 71.

It should not go unmentioned that the Parthians' claim that they are the direct continuation of the Achaemenids has been well documented by Iranian historical sources. Tha'alibi, who called the founder of this dynasty Ashkan, has considered him the son or heir of Dara the Elder or the son of Kayarash son of Kay Qobad.[^13] Interestingly, Tabari[^14] and Tha'alibi[^15] have also considered Ashk I the son of Dara the Great, and Habib al-Siyar and Mojmal al-Tawarikh also consider Arsaces I (Ashkan) the successor of Darius III (Dara the Younger or Dara son of Darab).[^16] This means that the historians of the Islamic period, on one hand, praised Darius III with the title Great, and on the other hand, considered the tumult of the post-Alexandrian era only one generation and considered Arsaces I only one generation after the extinction of the Achaemenids.

[^13]: Pirnia, 1311, vol. 3: 2557.
[^14]: Tabari, 1362: 496.
[^15]: Tha'alibi, 1385: 214.
[^16]: See: Khwandamir, 1333, vol. 1: 219 and Mojmal al-Tawarikh wa al-Qisas, 1346: 32.

From these data, it becomes clear that after the collapse of the Achaemenid state and in the era of Alexandrian tumult, various dynasties and kings emerged in different corners of the Iranian realm, all of whom followed a similar tradition for determining the origin of history. Whether they were natives of northern India, Macedonians in Anatolia and Assyria, or newly arrived Scythians, they considered the founding of their dynasty and the establishment of their state the origin of history, not the ephemeral cycles of the successive coming and going of kings.

It is apparent that all of these were indebted to an ancient Iranian tradition for determining the origin of history. In the Achaemenid era, the custom of determining the origin of history based on the time of a dynasty coming to power or a history-making event at this rank had been in vogue, and the older custom of counting years based on the reign of the established king had become obsolete. This method was undoubtedly the invention of the Achaemenids, and as we said, probably its main origin was Cyrus's entry into Babylon. In China and Rome, for centuries afterwards, the same custom of counting the years of the sovereign king's reign was still in vogue, and this long-term method of keeping time and marking history remained in the exclusive domain of the Iranian civilisational sphere for a long time. It was in this texture that chronometry based on the time of the established king's reign was limited only to a limited sphere and the realm of bureaucratic documents.

Religious datings have also always been in vogue in the meantime. In that same Sasanian era, we also have the emergence of the Manichaean historical origin, which was measured by the time of his martyrdom, and at least in the Hijaz, we know of a kind of local dating tradition that related to the entry of the idol Hubal into Mecca. Hubal, whom the people of Hijaz knew by the title Allah, is the same ancient moon god (Sin) of Semitic peoples, whose name appears in the inscriptions of northern Arabia alongside other gods such as Dhu al-Shara.[^17] This idol was probably initially a Canaanite god that one of the leaders of the Banu Khuzaah tribe named Amr ibn Luhay al-Khuzai brought from Canaan to Mecca.[^18] This person was one of the tribal leaders of Mecca who is known as the founder of the idol worship religion of Hubal and appeared so important in the eyes of the people of Mecca that they took his entry into Mecca as the origin of history for a long time. We have had similar other local datings in the Islamic era as well, such as the famous example we see in the announcement of the Resurrection by order of Hasan II Ismaili in Quhistan, which was the historical origin of the Ismailis of Iran for a long time.

[^17]: Jaussen and Savignac, 1907: 169.
[^18]: Hamdani, 1373: 52-54.

Nevertheless, after the collapse of the Sasanian state, two parallel political and religious histories became institutionalised in the Iranian realm that had their own specific divergences and convergences. After Yazdegerd III's death, many Iranians continued the Yazdgerdi history and extracted the chronometry based on the established king's coronation from its bureaucratic texture and considered it an enduring historical origin, and this was an action that Shu'ubis manifestly supported and was done in opposition to Islamic datings.

Nevertheless, the history that was seated after the collapse of the Sasanians was the Hijri historical origin, which was based on one of the important events of Islamic history, namely the transition from the religious and doctrinal stage to the political and governmental stage. The Hijri history, however, was interpreted with two different solar and lunar narratives, and gradually the solar year merged with the Yazdgerdi year, and the Hijri chronology became limited to the lunar texture. This chronometry system endured for more than a thousand years and is still used in many Islamic countries. Although alongside it, the solar year or the naming of months in the Iranian manner has also always had currency in the Iranian realm.

Based on the evidence we have brought, what I defend in this essay – namely, the use of a real historical origin that coincides with the real starting point of history – has had a long precedent in the Iranian realm and has been the general model of understanding bounded time in our civilisation. Reference to a four-thousand-year period for history at the beginning of the Islamic era had remarkable currency in historians' texts, and this manifestly referred to the starting point of history. One example of it we see in 'Kitab al-Manaqib al-Mazidiya fi Akhbar al-Muluk al-Asadiya', which Abu al-Baqa al-Hilli Ibn Numa (died 19 Farvardin 627 H / 4 Dhu al-Hijjah 645 Q), the teacher of Allameh Hilli, wrote,[^19] and in it he says:[^20] 'Until the last of them, Yazdegerd son of Shahriyar, God distance him, was killed in the year thirty-one of the Hijra, whilst persisting in his infidelity. And it is narrated that the duration of their kingship was from the era of Jayumarth son of Yafith son of Noah, peace be upon him, until this Yazdegerd was killed, four thousand years, which was not interrupted except by the time of the muluk al-tawa'if (regional kings), and the duration of their kingship, as previously mentioned, was five hundred and eleven years. If this narration is correct, then they ruled for three thousand and five hundred years or so, and God the Glorious knows best. Among what is narrated about the extent of their kingship is that to Anushirvan, in one single day, more than twenty kings from among the minor kings came to him obediently, and messengers of the great kings came to him: Qaysar, king of the Romans; Farsab, king of India; the Great Khaqan, king of the Turks; the ruler of Sarandib; and the ruler of the ships of India, also in obedience, and with them burdens and gifts, and the great king of India made peace with him over a ninth of what his divers extracted of pearls...'

[^19]: This source was found and shown to me by my dear friend Mr Ali Khorshidi in confirmation of this essay.
[^20]: Hilli, 2000, vol. 1: 49.

Abu al-Baqa al-Hilli here correctly says that from the beginning of history (the era of Keyumars/Jayumarth) until the end of the Sasanian era (the killing of Yazdegerd III), there was a gap of about four thousand years, and in the meantime, he has also correctly considered the length of the Parthian period (muluk al-tawa'if) to be 511 years. About the extent of Iran's territory (which in the book's title is identified with the lion label), he has also mentioned that for Anushirvan the Just, twenty-one kings brought tribute and tax, and among them he has also mentioned the king of India and Qaysar of Rome. It is noteworthy that Hilli is a renowned jurist who lives in the Atabat and writes in Arabic, and this means that national consciousness was not a specific and ephemeral matter, and there was a general consensus about the temporal and spatial vessel of history and the position of Iranian civilisation in its midst, which based on historical documents is also correct, and is incompatible with the modern fabricated narrative about Hellocentrism and Eurocentrism of historical course and its shrinkage to the limit of the history of Christianity.

Collaboration  Services →

←