Persian Sindbadnama
Most scholars now assume that the Seven Sages of Rome/Book of Sindbad story-matter was first written down in Persian long before the extant versions. Several early Arabic and Persian historians evidence the existence of a Persian book about Sindbad, now lost, which Krönung 2016 dates to the sixth to seventh centuries but which may also have been written earlier or later. The Persian historian Hamza of Isfahan, for example, states in his Annals of Persian history (961CE) that a book with this title was written after the death of Alexander the Great and before the arrival of the Sasanians, under the Arsacid kings of Armenia (Perry 1960). Michael Andreopoulos in his Greek Syntipas (c. 1090–1100CE) mentions a previous story of Sindbad by someone called “Mousos the Persian”. Most academics agree that Mousos/Musa was an Arabic writer who translated an existing story in Pahlavi (Middle Persian) into Arabic (Nöldeke 1879, Krönung 2016, Belcher 1987). Ẓahīrī in his Sindbādnāma says that the text was translated from Pahlavi (Middle Persian) into Dari (Persian) in 950–951CE. The current scholarly consensus, following Perry 1960, is that a Pahlavi (Middle Persian) text was translated into Arabic and from there into Syriac and then Greek (Krönung 2016), as well as continuing to be transmitted in Persian.
Some Arabic historians writing in the ninth and tenth centuries also mention that the story may have had Indian precursors. While much older scholarship presumed that there was an Indian version predating the Persian text, most academics since Perry (1960) think that this is unlikely, as no written traces of such an Indian version have been found, though its existence is still considered a possibility by Krönung 2016.
Entered by Bettina Bildhauer
Tradition & Lineage
Recorded Secondary Versions
Connected Manuscripts
Language & Composition
Modern Scholarship & Editions
Notes & Commentary
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