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Perso-Aryan Studies
  • Āstānag
_Calendars, Dates and Chronologies
sālnāmag, māhrōz, ud sālmar


The Avesta periods of the year

The annual rites of the Avesta were organized with six solar dates which were originally determined by the annual risings and settings of some “chief” stars and formed the solar model of the year. These dates were called yāiryaēibyō aṣahe ratubyō ‘the periods of the year, (the periods) of Order’. It seems that the Pārsīg term gāhāmbār (from Av. gāθā- & *bāra- ‘occasion’) had been chosen to distinguish the “period” (ratu: gāhāmbār) of the year from the “period” (ratu: gāh) of the day. The calendar of gāhāmbārs had been given in the Avesta nask Pahag.  Some Avesta fragments concerning the calendar have survived in a few manuscripts of the Zand of the Āfrīnagān ī Gāhāmbār. In these fragments, we find the days of the months corresponding to each dies solemnies, and time-spans between each two consecutive annual feasts. These periods of the year are also related to the six periods of creation. The last redactors of the Zand have failed to furnish the correct meaning and the original time of the Gāhāmbārs. And the new interpreters of the Zoroastrian calendar have based their arguments on these late and partially incorrect redactions.

The year of the Maga

Varāhamihira, a Maga Brāhmaṇa, in his Pañcasiddhāntikā, has described the Persian year of 365 days, with 12 months each of 30 days, and 5 additional days. Apart from the testimony of the new period of the Persians, Varāhamihira has given the Sanskrit names of the thirty days of the month.
Yima Epoch

The Persian date of the conjunction of all planets
_The structure of the Sogdian calendar
according to the later Sogdian and Uyγur sources

In Sogdiana the 365-day calendar was in continuous use, side by side with a lunisolar calendar. The Sogdian calendar lists indicated the Sogdian month and day, the weekday, the hour and the fifth part of the hour of the day or night in which appears the new light during each “solar” month.
_

Armenian Calendar

armenian_calendar.pdf
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                                      تير و تيرگان 
تيرگان و اکيتو، ميدياريم و ميديوشم ، نيمخب و اجغار، تير و پاييز ، تير و نبو، تير و دبيری، تير و دبيرستان کردن  
The month Tir and the feast of ceremonial ablution (Tiragan)

This article(in Persian) shows that the beginning of the month TIr was the autumn equinox.
Persian Dates. Examples

از مرگنامهء يزدين
From the story of Yazdīn
زمان ِ مرگ ِ گيورگيس
The date of the death of Giwargis

The date of the death of Anāhid
زمان ِ مرگ ِ اناهيد

Picture
Ardavan gives the ring to Xvasag, satrap of Susa
_ A Parthian inscription of Susa
The stele of Xvasag

A date close to the end of the Aškānian period is found in the stele of Xvasag. Ašk. 462 – 247 = A.D. 215/216. In fact the monument belongs to the third year of the last Aškānian king, Ardavān. According to the Šābūragān Mani was born in the year 527 of the era of the Babylonian astronomers, in the 4th year of the king Ardabān. This establishes Ardavān’s accession in SB 524, that is, A.D. 213/214. The Ardavān’s first year began June 1, 213, Tuesday (day Ohrmazd, month Fravardīn). 
_ The chronology of the first two kings of the Sasanian dynasty

If we reckon according to the Pārsīg “leap” year, the first year of Ardašēr corresponds to A.D. 227 May 29, on Tuesday (the first day of Fravardīn). The summer solstice fell on June 23, A.D. 227. As we notice, Fravardīn had moved from his place as the first month of summer. And it is possible that the first day of the Fravardīn of the year 58 was the New Year (nōgrōz) after intercalation; in 266; Šābuhr ordered to intercalate an extra month.
See:
A bilingual inscription at Šābuhr (ŠVŠ)
(The Vēšābuhr stella’s chronology)

The Fire Altar of Vispšād-farrdōš
Picture
Moni guangfo jiaofayi lüe
_The dates of Mani’s life

About the dates of Mani’s life a number of different theories has been placed or record within the last century. On the strength of passages in Parthian, Persian (Pārsīg) and Chinese documents I propose two dates, one as the date of Mani’s birth, and the other as the date of his death:

The date of the birth of Mani
In the Šābūragān and the Chinese Manichaean treatise we find synchronisms between Mani’s birth and important stages in Aškanian and Jian’an history. Both texts give the year 527 (from April 6, A.D. 216 to March 25, 217).

The date of the death of Mani
The date of Mani's death is the 4th of Šahrever, corresponding to the 16th of November in the (Julian) year A.D. 274, a Monday. This confirms the usage of the Persian royal calendar with a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months with a leap month.

The chronology of the Aryan Land (Persia)

Royal
              The genealogy of the Kavi-dynasty
              The chronology of kings

Religious
              The Finite Time
chr._f_the_aryan_land.pdf
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The Millennium of Yima
the_millennium_of_yima.pdf
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The millennium of Zaraθuštra

The term of centuries
The symbolism of metals 
The four periods
the_millennium_of_zarautra.pdf
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The religious and royal traditions and the end of  the Achaemenian Kingship

Vohumanah: Artaxšaçā
Humāyā
Dārayavahu
the_religious_and_royal_traditions.pdf
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Picture
Battle between the armies of Alexander and those of Darius (Works of Mir-Ali-Shir Nawâi, Herat, 1526, Bib. Nat., Paris)
The Old Persian Era
Anno religionis
the_old_persian_era.pdf
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The Hvāfrita dynasty : the Sasanians 

Avarəθrabah
Tōsar
Ādurbād
the_hvfrita_dynasty.pdf
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_ Mani
and the Persian world-years
Mani followed the Aryan tradition of an aeon of 12 millennia, and fitted it into his own picture of the world. Each millennium has a period of 100 years, but not as the final period of the world-year in the Persian model, but as an additional period; this extra period is called peyvann/ Sogd. pacβand ‘connection’. Mani himself lived in the last millennium, that of Pisces.
A Sogdian fragment, M 767 ii
Text and translation

The date on the stone pillar inscription
erected by the king Budhagupta at Eran

inscr._at_eran.docx
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A Persian « Lunar » Calendar

according to the Annals of Ḥamza

a_persian_lunar_calendar.pdf
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The dates in the Pahlavīg and Pārsīg
inscriptions of Durā (Europos)
the_dates_in_the_pahlavg_and_prsg.pdf
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