Correction of Several Distortions in Marzbannameh

In the midst of the Mongol invasion of Iran and the subjugation of the cities, two authors with a time difference of a few years, translated Marzbanname of Marzban bin Rostam bin Shahryar bin Shervin bin Rostam bin Qaran, from the simple prose of the first centuries of Persian prose style, into the artificial prose style; these works were produced in the sixth and seventh centuries. (Mojtabaei, 1390: 185). First, in 598 AH (about 15 years before Varavini), Muhammad bin Ghazi Malatiwi wrote his version of Marzbannameh called Roza-tol-Oqul in artificial and mutakalf prose style. This work is closer to the Marzbannameh of Marzban bin Rostam from two perspectives: firstly, (unlike Varavini's Marzbannameh), the anecdotes and chapters are not summarized, and secondly, the translation or rendering of phrases, from the semantic point of view, is much more trustworthy than the Varavini Marzbannameh. (Varavini, 1376: nineteen). A few years after that, Saad al-Din Varavini wrote another version of Marzbannameh; this work is a rewriting and a summarizing of Marzbannameh of Marzban bin Rostam through its removing, introducing, and delaying chapters and anecdotes.
A comparison of the number of articles, treatises, and books written about Varavini's Marzbannameh and Roza-tol-Oqul Malativi reveals that of these two texts, Marzbanamah written by Saad al-Din Varavini has been popular with readers and researchers from the past centuries until now, and that Roza-tol-Oqul has been less the subject of criticism and research. Perhaps the efforts of researchers and the title of the book chosen as “Marzbannameh” can be considered as one of the main reasons for the popularity of Varavini’s work.


In this study, based on the version of the National Library of Iran, some errors in Marzbannameh have been corrected, and in some cases, suggestions have been made for the comparative correction of some other distortions. Based on evidence from Marzbannameh and other old texts, numerous examples are given to confirm the acceptable recording.
 


Conducting research on ancient texts of Persian literature without having a neat and original text is subject to all kinds of errors. Marzbannameh is one of the forerunners of Persian prose texts, which has been discussed in various studies from stylistics, rhetoric, historical, grammatical, and many lexical perspectives. However, despite several corrections, and writing of numerous commentaries on this book, misreadings and omissions have made their way into it, and these errors need to be corrected.
As mentioned earlier, in this study, suggestions have been made for correcting several spellings in different chapters of Marzbannameh, some of which are supported by the version of the National Library of Iran ‒ which has not been used by any of the correctors of Marzbannameh. Accompanied by evidence from Persian literary texts, comparative corrections are suggested, and based on evidence from Marzbannameh and other old texts, numerous examples are given to confirm the acceptable recording.
 


In the last century, three corrections of Varavini's Marzbannameh have been printed; however, there is still room for correction and an original and worthy report of this important and valuable text. Being in a rush and not knowing about the existing versions, or the unavailability of all the old versions of Marzbannameh made the task difficult for the correctors of this technical and complicated text, and caused various changes and spellings to remain hidden from their eyes. In this study, relying on the version of the National Library of Iran and some other versions, as well as citing evidence from ancient Persian literary texts, some deviations in Marzbannameh were reported and corrected.
Also, in other cases, suggestions were made for comparative correction of several other spellings in Marzbannameh, and efforts were made to emphasize the correctness of these suggestions based on intratextual and extratextual evidence.