Editing and Reporting Some Words, Expressions, and Phrasesfrom Nozhat-Name-ye Alaie

Nozhat-Nameh Alaie is one of the most important ancient encyclopedias in the history of Persian literature that, due to its specific nature, is considered a multi-competent text and exposes the reader to a diverse number of genera. This text is composed of the knowledge of zoology, mineralogy, agriculture, astrology, history, geography, mythology and epic, talisman, insight, and so forth, which have been mixed with different popular customs and beliefs giving it a close resemblance to the Persian fantasy literature. Contrary to its significance, this text has been edited by Farhang Jahanpour and has been published without any endnote section. Despite using original and reliable manuscripts, this edition suffers from a lot of shortcomings. The present study takes a descriptive-analytical approach to edit and report a number of words, idioms, and phrases of Nozhat-Nameh Alaie. The main objective of the study is to edit a number of positions from the book on the basis of the original editor’s referred manuscripts, in order to further explain and analyze them with reference to other similar and corresponding texts. The results of the study show that although the original editor had access to dependable copies of manuscripts, lacking a definite methodology and criteria in editing the text, on one hand, and paying scares attention to the various knowledge of the text and its cultural backbone on the other hand, have led to many errors and shortcomings in Nozhat-Nameh Alaie. However, by reflecting on the manuscripts and referring to parallel and proper similar resources, these failures are rectifiable.