Nowruz 2019
March 20, 2019 12:00 am Leave your thoughts
Reckoning EPOCH Wednesday 20 March 2019 (1398 AH, 2628 ZO) at 5:58:27 pm in New York time zone
Nowruz is prominently praised in the mythological story of King Jamshid, credited as the first Nowruz celebrant of the Kiyanian Dynasty , & is cited in (Paradiso) Ferdowsi‘s Shahnameh.
Nowruz (جشن نوروز) aka Norooz, Navroz, NowRooz, etc. (variation in dialectic and vernacular pronunciations in Persian lingua franca) literally translates as the first day [of the New Year]. It is the most prominent seasonal celebration of the solar calendar that has persisted since the prehistoric era.
It was conceived by the agricultural peoples north of the Tropic of Cancer who revered the sun (Sol Invictus). Nowruz is preceded by Purim, the Jewish celebration of bounties, when Queen Esther married the Persian King Ahasuerus. This contrasts with lunar calendars followed by the southern and western neighbors of Iran, who used the lunar skies and traversed through the arid hot deserts at night. In addition to Iran, Nowruz as a national holiday transcending class, color, creed, ethnicity, race, religion, or national origin, is currently commemorated by well over a dozen countries consisting of nearly five hundred million inhabitants across central, south and west Asia, northwestern China, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus.
In fact, the commoners and serfs in Europe, and later the pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock in the US in today’s Massachusetts, also observed a New Year starting at the beginning of spring until the mid-18th century. This jubilee holiday was acknowledged in the Gregorian calendar as well – the month of March coincides with the first month of the Julian calendar when Europe was still under the influence of Persian Mithraism from the 1st through the 5th centuries CE. Nowruz, according to the Zoroastrian Mazdayasni, calendar is at 3758. Nowruz commences with the prelude festival of Chaharshanbe Suri on the last Tuesday night of the exiting year. At this Zoroastrian fire ritual, everyone jumps over fire, singing a Middle Persian poem that translates as
” O’ sacred Fire , take away my yellow sickness and give me in return your healthy red color! ”
The Haft-Seen spread at the annual Nowruz gathering in Mahwah, New Jersey hosted by Mehrangiz and Isfandiar Sayadi.
The most symbolic manifestation showcased at Nowruz is the sofreh seen above. Adorned on a table covered with an antique hand-woven termeh silk cloth are laid the seven plant-derived items whose Persian names begin with the letter “S”: sabzeh- wheat and lentil germ inations symbolizing rebirth; senjed– the dried oleaster fruit and a close family member to olives symbolizing love; seer-garlic symbolizing medicine; seeb – apples symbolizing beauty and earth; somaqh-sumac berries symbolizing sunrise; samanu– cooked germinated wheat for affluence, and serkeh-vinegar symbolizing ripeness, longevity, and perseverance. A round, ticking classical clock, signifying the passage of time, a fishbowl with two gold fish (added later, due to influences from China) signifying companionship and life, decorated eggs for fertility which found their way into Easter, and a saucer of coins from the five continents to reflect prosperity are also on display. The above table is completed with daffodils, tulips and hyacinths, a triple flag of Iran’s colors green, white, and red, flickering candelabra, and an ancient book of poems, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh the Persian epic book of the Kings, Rumi‘s Mathnawi, Divan Hafez, or the Omar Khayyam‘s Quatrains from which the poem The Persian Nightingale Bemoans is well known in the west.
In the US, presidents release an annual Nowruz best wishes message and in recent years an all-day extravagant Nowruz celebration that concludes with Persian music and dance, and exquisite Persian food, has been hosted at the White House (Obama, Bush and Clinton era). The UN has for some time declared the International Day of Nowruz, and celebrated it at its headquarters with a large festival and Persian foods and pastries. Spring vernal equinox 2018 was also rightly declared as the International Forest Day which we trust will continue!
The celebration of Nowruz that was instituted by the 25,000 Iranians residing abroad back in 1979 is now commemorated by to 8 million Iranians in diaspora, whereby in every major city as in New York, there are hundreds of Nowruz congregations, each with up to over 1000 guests, to choose from. Among the several congregations we have attended each year for decades, the grand one with 600 guests and organized and hosted by Mehrangiz and Isfandiar Sayadi in northern New Jersey with its most exquisitely expansive sofreh and highly inclusive dance and music has remained our most favorite! It is serendipitously fortuitous that their noble Persian names mean the one who pushes the last old month of the year behind, while she heralds the reverence of the loving sun forward! The nostalgic music and dance from every corner of Iran and south/west Asia including Armenian, Jewish, Tajiki, Afghani and of course American will abate any preference for the best Persian foods and pastries for the night at every Nowruz event!
Legend has it that once upon a time, ZaHawk a mythological, tyrannical, unjust, and cruel despot, ruled over Persia.
He crowned himself on the Persian peacock throne as if he were immortal and reigned with iron fist, suffocating people with oppression and heavy taxation across the vast Persian Empire to the detriment of most of its inhabitants whom he treated as his serfs and slaves. His vast territory stretched from the Indus and the Oxus Rivers of the Orient, to the Nile, Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers of the Occident. Nonetheless, ZaHawk feared the masses he oppressed and was afraid that the disgruntled populace would at any moment turn against him. In the meantime, ZaHawk lived in a pitch black, damp and pungently musty cave on Mt. Damavand, a volcanically semi extinct roaring peak, and survived so long as his lackeys fed the flesh of a young newly married couple each day to two ugly serpent beasts rising out of his shoulders. ZaHawk knew that the two serpents would devour him immediately if they were not fed two newly weds before each sunset.
It was whispered knowledge amongst the masses, serfs and slaves, that while they took refuge with the righteous Spenta Mainyu, the good spirit Faravahar emanating from Ahura Mazda who was the Lord of light and wisdom and his sol invictus Mithra, that ZaHawk was directed by the impure fire and filth spitting dragon Ezhdeha, drawn from Angra Mainyu aka Ahriman, who lived deep down the volcanic shaft in earth mantle. It was Ezhdeha who had grafted the two cannibalistic serpents onto ZaHawk’s shoulders so he could outpour misery, famine, disease, pain and suffering to people and mother earth.
However, injustice does not remain in place forever. Kaveh the Ironsmith, gravely irate about the well-being of his compatriots, hung his toughened leather apron, the Derafsh Kaviani, over a javelin and marshalled forward the disgruntled populace after the silhouette dawn of Yalda, on the rebirth of the sun. His bravest diehards followed him shoulder to shoulder as a Si-Morgh (metaphorically speaking 30 birds forming one unified body at a time) up the treacherous m ountain. There, Kaveh beheaded the three culprits on one body with one mighty sword strike, thus eradicating injustice and reinstating equality and happiness across Persia.
Kaveh had in reality reincarnated what his ancestors Cyrus and Mandana, Xerxes and Arianna, and Darius and Anahita of the Achaemenes, delivered when they had also eradicated injustice and inequality, and reinstated love, equality, inclusivity, harmony, tranquility, and peace on earth. And so, the Phoenix (Si-Morgh) once again rose out of historical ashes of oblivion, the much anticipated and ever brightened and warmer sun reemerged out of the dark chilling clouds and proudly shone as a beacon of hope and happiness on the hillside of Mt. Damavand. And as the eternal fire became strong again, along with it the soil was purified as pristine water from the glaciers poured down into the valley with fresh air all around.
Ecstatically exhilarated by joy, most people had not realized that Ezhdeha, the multi-headed dragon and father of all miseries and the creator of the now obliterated ZaHawk, was still alive deep down the vertical volcanic shaft of Mt. Damavand.
The nocturnal dragon would unexpectedly appear in his targeted communities to instigate catastrophe by kissing the two shoulders of a replacement for ZaHawk so that two new serpents were mounted again. Houshang, who was to be the newly crowned king of the Pishdadian dynasty, had to follow Ezhdeha back into the cave whereby he threw a large flintstone and killed the dragon. The flintstone bounced off the dragon’s corpse and struck another rock. The resulting spark kindled a sacred soothing, felt by all down the valley, and still burns eternally in Yazd today. Hooshang, slayed in the crossfire though, was replaced by King Jamshid Kiani crowned at Nowruz, the spring vernal equinox and the birth of Zarathustra. And so, the people from all walks of lived happily thereafter. However, if the people became complacent, the Ezhdeha reincarnated reappeared again in the same or another region of Persia to bring about chaos from within or from without Persia. The Nowruz celebration was the most effective juncture year after year for the people to ward off all evil spirits, including the ZaHawks and Ezhdehas, when communities sprinkled esfand va kondor, rue and frankincense over the glazed holy fire yielding a strongly aromatic scent.
As narrated by Ferdowsi, the “Homer of Iran,” this tale from his Shahanameh wends its wisdom and relevance through tens of thousands of years of Iran’s history, bringing hope of salvation from evil through altruistic acts of courage. Shahnameh the Book of Persian Kings – an epic poem composing 30,000 verses and written over the course of 30 years more than a thousand years ago – still remains alive in every Iranian’s soul. The patron King Mahmoud who had promised the poet a golden coin for each verse broke his promise. The improvised Ferdowsi, having instead resided tranquilly in the luscious rich paradise of his own imagination, never saw the coins which arrived by the repentant King only after he died.
Anchored on the trilogy of good thoughts, good words and good deeds, everyone reaffirms their commitment to one or more of the following virtues, namely volunteerism, altruism, philanthropy, benevolence and above all, to advancing dignified humanism as the pinnacle of life. The belief in the golden rule of “treating others as you would expect to be treated” anchored on the tripartite pedestal of good thoughts, good words and good deeds, conjures up a poem by the acclaimed 13th century Persian poet Sa’adi:
All humans are members of one frame,
Since all at first, from the same essence, came.
When by hard fortune one limb is oppressed,
The other members lose their desired rest.
If thou feel’st not for others’ misery,
A human is no name for thee!
A Nowruz holiday cycle is concluded at the Sizdah Bedar Picnic (at Bear Mountain State Park in New York), which falls on the 13thday, aka April fool’s Day. Each family spends the full day outdoors in parks, crop fields, or orchards, where they play, sing, dance, eat and drink. Unmarried celebrants tie knots with grass blades to wish for a soulmate; the elders nostalgically compare this Nowruz with those past while remembering the deceased, and the children restlessly look forward to many more Nowruz celebrations.
About the author: Davood N. Rahni, was raised in Shemiran (Evin) north of Tehran, and graduated in chemistry from the National University of Iran. Following his Ph.D./post-doctoral stint in New Mexico & New Orleans, he served as professor of (bio-electro-analytical) chemistry at Pace University in New York. He had also served as an adj. professor in environmental law and dermatology. Davood, a history buff, has written prolifically on history and archaeology, arts and sciences, poetry and prose, and the culture of Iran and southwest Asia. As a Fulbright senior research scholar in Denmark and with visiting professorships at the Universities of Oxford, Florence and Rome, Rahni’s has extensively published on advances in biosensors, nanoengineering, environment and forensics, asymmetric synthesis, neuro-psycho-pharmacology and biological psychiatry as typified by his book Bioimaging in Neurodegeneration.
Photos Farhang Found . An earlier abridged excerpt of this essay was published in National Geog. Magazine, under D. Rahni Copyright © 2019
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This post was written by David Rahni