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Persian Studies

  • Jan Just Witkam's Islamic Manuscripts website is an invaluable trove material to scholars who work with manuscripts in Arabic script.
  • The Loghatnāme of Ali Akbar Dehkhoda, originally compiled in the 1930s, continues to be the most comprehensive Persian dictionary ever published. While Dehkhoda in print occupies the better part of a large bookshelf, the recent iOS and Android applications make the dictionary more accessible than ever.
  • Francis Steingass' (1825-1902) Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary remains the most thorough Persian-English dictionary for pre- and early Modern Persian literature, despite its several flaws.
  • Noormags (Pāygāh-e Majallāt-e Takhaṣṣoṣī-ye Nūr) archives hundreds of difficult-to-access scholarly journals from Iran, allowing free of charge full-text access.
  • The Perso-Indica project seeks to provide a survey of Persianate engagement with Indic thought from the 13th to the 19th centuries.
  • The Cambridge Shahnama Project provides a comprehensive collection of Shahnama manuscript illustrations from around the world.
  • Afsaneh Najmabadi's wonderful Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran Digital Archive provides a wonderfully rich material archive which brings to life aspects of everyday life in Qajar Iran. 
  • Bibliographia Iranica is Professor Houchang Chehabi's very useful annotated bibliography of scholarly works related to Iranian Studies.
  • The Packard Humanities Institute hosts a very useful collection of searchable public domain English translations of Persian texts.
  • The International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS).
  • The Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS).

Zoroastrian & Pre-Islamic Iranian Studies

  • Iranian Studies at Harvard University consists of useful primers for studying Iranian religions and languages designed by Prods Oktor Skjærvø and Wheeler M. Thackston.
  • The Avesta Digital Archive is a repository of digiitalized Avestan manuscripts collated by the team at the University of Salamanca.
  • The TITUS archive stores a tremendous amount of transcribed texts in Indo-European languages, including much of the Avestan and Pahlavi corpus, as well as texts in other Iranian and non-Iranian languages.
  • Avesta.org is a useful compendium of out-of-copyright translations from Zoroastrian texts (mostly drawn from the Sacred Books of the East translations of E. W. West, James Darmesteter, and Lawrence Mills).
  • The UNESCO Parsi Zoroastrian Project (Parzor) has done amazing service to the field of Parsi and Zoroastrian studies through its numerous initiatives.
  • The Societas Iranologica Europaea (SIE).
  • Achemenet is a virtual museum of all things related the Achaemenid Empire maintained by Professor Pierre Briant.
  • Sasanika is a website devoted to all things related to the Sasanian Empire maintained by Professor Touraj Daryaee.
  • Abstracta Iranica is a bibliographical review of various publications in Iranian Studies.
  • The Digitales Turfan-archiv is a repository of digitalized manuscripts recovered during the archaeological excavations at Turfan.
  • International Dunhuang Project is an international collaborative project to bring online materials related to Dunhuang and the Eastern Silk Road.

Libraries & Catalogues


Zoroastrian and Parsi News

(please note that some of these websites undergo intermittent downtime)
  • Amordad News (امرداد تارننمای خبری زرتشتیان) is Iran's foremost news site for the Zoroastrian community and a wonderful resource for all researchers of modern Zoroastrianism. Hamazoor is another important source of Iranian Zoroastrian news.
  • The Tehran Zoroastrian Anjuman website also carries frequently updated news items, as does the website of Mobeds' Anjuman of Tehran.
  • Parsi Khabar is an amalgamator of news items relating to Parsis and Zoroastrians from various sources, updated frequently.
  • The Bombay Parsi Panchayat (BPP) publishes a monthly review.
  • Parsiana is a stalwart biweekly publication of the Parsi community under the edtiorship of Jehangir Patel. The site also maintains a very useful bookstore. 
  • Hamazor, the quarterly publication of the World Zoroastrian Organization, whose back issues can be found here.
  • The Fedearation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America publishes a bimonthly journal. 
  • The Bombay Samachar is the oldest continuously run vernacular newspaper of India.
  • The Jam-e Jamshed is another of the oldest newspapers of the Parsi community.
  • The reformist Zoroastrian organization Association for Revival of Zoroastrianism (ARZ) maintains its page here.
  • The Association of Inter-Married Zoroastrians (AIMZ) page can be found here.
  • The Zoroastrian Youth for the Next Generation (ZYNG) page is here.
  • To keep up with the orthodox, conservative Parsi opinion, see the World Alliance of Parsi Irani Zarthoshtis (WAPIZ) page.
  • Ervad Marzban J. Hathiram maintains a blog about Ilm-e Khshnoom, often including rare photos and details about rituals here. The site also maintains a digital library of khshnoomist books.
  • Parsee Voice, a very conservative khshnoomist journal, is hosted on the equally conservative Traditional Zoroastrianism site.

Other Academic Blogs and Websites

Miscellany

  • Bombay Railway History Group, documenting the history of the world's busiest transportation network.
  • The Memory Palace provides compelling historical podcasts re-illuminating forgotten stories.
  • Arts and Letters Daily, a service of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
  • Memsaab Story, covering all things related to Bollywood nostalgia.
  • Old Photos Bombay has some truly amazing and beautiful images of the city and its people.
  • Parsicuisine.com has some excellent recipes for Parsi cooking when you don't have your copy of Time and Talents or Vividhvāṇī handy.
  • Urvish Kothari's Gujarati World blog is an intelligently written resource to help keep abreast of literary and cultural life in Gujarat.
  • Vahchef: the man who brought us Thanksgiving Turkey Biryani, and many other amazing creations.