An Unstudied Witness of the Popular Bahrām-Gūr Narrative Tradition: Codicology and Linguistic-Stylistic Analysis of Dāstān-i Bahrām Gūr va Ḥusn-i Bānū Parī-zād (Library of Congress, Persian MS 106)

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Postdoc researcher of Persian language and literature, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Persian Language and Literature, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran.

10.22108/rpll.2026.149847.2590

Abstract

This article presents the first independent codicological and linguistic-stylistic study of the manuscript *The Tale of Bahrām Gūr and Ḥasan Bānū-ye Parīzād*, a prose popular romance recounting the adventures of Bahrām Gūr that circulated in the Persian narrative tradition chiefly as an appendix to selected versions of the *Shāhnāmeh*. The manuscript is preserved in the Asian and Middle Eastern Division of the Library of Congress, and its colophon identifies the scribe as Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa. Employing a descriptive-analytical approach based on examination of the manuscript, comparison with the Library of Congress catalogue, and analysis of internal textual evidence, the study offers three new codicological findings. First, the correct date of copying is Jumādā I 1290 AH, rather than 1225 AH as previously assumed. Second, the manuscript was copied in India within the Persian manuscript tradition of the Indian subcontinent. Third, a reconstruction of the manuscript's foliation (fols. 1v–30r) is presented for the first time, making precise textual reference possible. The article further examines the lexical, phonological-morphological, syntactic, and rhetorical features of the text through the framework of historical Persian linguistics and comparison with related prose narratives. The findings demonstrate that the manuscript is valuable not only as a codicological witness but also as a source for the study of late colloquial Persian, the development of the Persian language, and the transmission of Persian manuscripts across the Indo-Iranian cultural sphere during the thirteenth century AH. The manuscript therefore provides a foundation for research in Persian codicology, historical linguistics, and popular Persian literature.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Textual Criticism of Persian Literature

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 04 October 2026

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