The Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists: The Greek tradition and its many heirs

(Ron) #1

W


Wuzurgmihr (ca 531 – 579 CE)


Persian astrologer, active during the kingdom of Xusraw I (531–579), generally identified
with the famous vizir, son of Bo ̄xtag, of the same Sasanian sˇa ̄h, an association debated by
scholars (cf. B). According to Arabic sources, Wuzurgmihr (also Buzurj ̆mihr and
other spellings) translated V V’ Anthologies into Pahlavi, augmenting the Greek
with Indian and Iranian sources concerning katarkhic and interrogative astrology, “con-
tinuous” horoscopy and genethlialogy. The Pahlavi title of this important astrological
treatise must have been *W ̄ız ̄ıdag “Selections” (al-Biz ̄ıdaj in Arabic). The Pahlavi original
was used by Ma ̄sˇa ̄’alla ̄h in his Kita ̄b al-mawa ̄l ̄ıd “The book of the nativities” (partly incorpor-
ated into Hugo of Santalla’s Liber Aristotilis), and referred to in other works by Ma ̄sˇa ̄’alla ̄h.
The Cod. Vat.Gr. 1056, ff.81V–82 directly attests “Porzozómchar” (i.e., Wuzurgmihr). See
also P, T I.


Nallino (1922) 351–357 = (1948) 291–296; D.E. Pingree, “The Indian and Pseudo-Indian Passages in
Greek and Latin Astronomical Texts,” Viator 7 (1976) 170, 187; Idem (1989); EI 4 (1990) 427–429,
D.K. Motlagh (s.v. Bozorgmehr); Ch. Burnett and D.E. Pingree, The Liber Aristotilis of Hugo of
Santalla (1997); Antonio Panaino, La novella degli scacchi (1999) 107–123.
Antonio Panaino

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