Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale

Immortal Fragrances. Reality and Imaginary of the Garden in Manichaean Iranian Texts

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Abstract

The present contribution deals with an inquiry about Iranian Manichaean texts (Middle Persian and Parthian) concerning the description of the garden and its symbolic values (of peace, rest, evergreen flowery, fragrance, immortality). The aim of the essay is to provide a sketch of Iranian Manichaean passages to improve the already mentioned hypothesis of a pre-Islamic influence on the Persian literature at the foundation of its imagery, which displays the motif of the garden as a characteristic mark of poetic inspiration to feature beauty, love, mystical feeling and desire for paradisiac condition.


Open access | Peer reviewed

Submitted: March 4, 2024 | Accepted: May 23, 2024 | Published July 25, 2024 | Language: it

Keywords Olfactory aesthetic • Garden metaphors • Religious experience • Iranian Manichaean texts • Persian literature • Literary imageries

Copyright © 2024 Andrea Piras. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2024/01/004