Written Middle Persian Literature under the Sasanids

Book excerpt: Although there was oral literature among speakers of ancient Iranic languages, the author argues that there is no valid reason to assume that Middle Persian speakers, alone among sedentary peoples of their time, never or seldom wrote literary works in their language. Not only are there many Middle Persian literary works surviving in translation, and sufficient testimonies to the existence of Middle Persian literary works now lost and to Sasanian Middle Persian literacy, there are also strong explanations for their general nonsurvival that eliminate the assumption of a theory of predominant literary orality and disinclination to write literature, an argumentum ex silentio. We may reasonably assume that it is wrong to propose that what happens to survive in the original language on stone and metal surfaces and in desert environments represents the true range of Sasanian Middle Persianthe odds are far against it. Especially when propped up by a concept of ancient Iranians and without any definition of literature or the literary, it has no sound basis and is contradicted by a variety of extant sources.