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Updated: May 21, 2025
We will only observe that in connection with the Persian literary age of the Sasanians we have to indicate a series of works of the character of epic tales arisen from the ancient historical period of the western boundary of Persia and representing "stories of the Babylonian kingdom" which have been enumerated among the books of this class and also among Persian books, a circumstance which proves that these tales originated in Sasanian literature.
These special treatises were of no abstract scientific contents but referred to the practical demands of life. A different kind of importance attaches to histories devoted to government and national life of the Sasanian period and to the epic and literary tradition of Persia. Their value as history has been acknowledged and appreciated by the progressive circles of the Musalman community.
A third offshoot originating from a collateral branch of the second enjoyed princely power from 1237-1349. The Arabs had their governors in Tabaristan who in the first period minted coins with Sasanian impress and with Pahlavi legends; they were, however, from time to time expelled by the people.
At the basis of this collection lies the ancient Persian pseudepigraphical book Javidan khired, or "Eternal wisdom." But in the body of it there is a series of literary monuments of Sasanian literature and its descendants. The author is known, besides, by his philosophical works, as a historian and as such he is particularly important for the history of the Buides.
Opinion on the importance of the influence of ethical and didactical works of the Sasanian times on the literature of this class of early Moslem epoch, generally speaking has been expressed in scientific works and has found admittance into a few general surveys of Persian literature.
It bears particularly on didactic literature though it has been as yet very ill studied from the comparative standpoint. The Sasanian influence is perfectly obvious. Some portions of Al Yatima of Ibn Muqaffa may be parallelled to corresponding remnants from Pahlavi literature in the Kabus Nameh and the Siasat Nameh.
Ibn al Muqaffa stands in the first place belonging to him by right. He was a genuine encyclopaedic translator familiar with the Arab society with all its influence of spiritual Sasanian life of Persia finding expression in its literature. He translated scientific, epico-historical, and ethico-didactic books.
A similar class of citations is preserved in the "speeches from the throne" and the counsels of the Sasanian kings which we come across in various Arab historical and anthological works bearing on Sasanian Persia, as also in the Shah Nameh. The putative dicta of the other Sasanian kings Gutschmid considered as fabricated being designed to be brief characterisations of each of them.
Like the scientific literature these writings were subjected to a final redaction towards the close of the Sasanian dynasty and it is this recension that has mainly come down to posterity. Alongside of official writings of a general character, there existed various books of epic-historical contents, for instance, the Yadkari-Zariran.
Not long before the appearance of Islam, Sasanian influence was extended to the Arabs and the South as well as Yemen passed into the sovereignty of the Persians. Khusro and his Court appeared to the Arab an unattainable ideal of grandeur and luxury. The rapid conquest of Persia by the Arab warriors proved a complete catastrophe to the Sasanian empire.
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