Date and Authorship
The individual chapters vary in age, style and authorship. Authorship of the first three books is attributed in the colophones to one Ādurfarnbag (son) of Farrokhzādān, as identified in the last chapter of book 3, and who de Menasce believes lived in the early 9th century. Of these three books, only a larger portion of the third has survived, which de Menasce proposes is the result of a transmission through other persons. The first three books were subsequently edited by a certain Ādurbād (son) of Ēmēdān of Baghdad, who is also the author of the remaining six books and whose work is dated 1020. The manuscript 'B' (ms. 'B 55', B for Bombay) that is the basis for most surviving copies and translations is dated 1659 and which its editor reconstructed from a partially destroyed work. Of other copies only fragments survive.
The Denkard is roughly contemporary with the main texts of the Bundahishn, and like much of the other Pahlavi literature of the period, reflects a movement initiated by the Samanids to revive Greater Iranian culture.
Read more about this topic: Denkard
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