A perspective of the religious philosophy and historic visage of Jamasp Bidakhsh and Works attributed to him

Farid Shoulizadeh: Regarding what is said to be written by Jamasp Bidakhsh, I should say that they are all about predictions, astronomy and astronomical commandments, except one which is about alchemy.  The most important of his works is Jamaspnameh, which is a blend of astronomical commandments and the predictions of Jamasp the Sage, from which two scripts in Arabic and Pazand are available.  From the Pazand scripts, which have different writings, there are many handwritten parts existing.  Dastoor Dr Jivanji Modi believes that some of them have been translated from Arabic.  One of the Farsi scripts of these Jamaspnameh’s was printed in Bombay, in 1933 by Dr Modi.  There is also a Jamaspnameh in verse, which is said to belong to Khajeh Nasireddin Toosi.  Shah Nematollah Vali (died 1450 AD) has also written a book in Farsi by the name of “The Predictions from the Astronomical Table of Jamasp”.
There are also some copies of the Arabic text of Jamaspnameh, which, like Farsi, have some scripts with a lot of difference between each of them.  The name of the translator of one of the Arabic scripts, who lived about 6 centuries ago, was Badreddin Mohammad Bin Abu Bakr Farsi.  He has written that he has translated the predictions of Jamasp from Pahlavi to Arabic.  From this writing two copies have been found upto date.  A book said to have been written by Jamasp the Sage, on the subject of alchemy, is also available in Farsi and Arabic.  The Farsi version is copied under different names, i.e., Jamaspnameh, the Epistle of Solutions and Epistle about Alchemy, which is presently the subject of this article.  In this book discoveries and predictions of events, especially events regarding the world coming to an end, quoted from Jamasp the Sage, are written.  This writing is based on question and answer between King Goshtasb and Jamasp the Sage.  In the
format of predications in Jamaspnameh, Jamasp unveils the secrets of various periods of time.  By combining the contents of Jamaspnameh with the predictions in a similar book called Jamaspian Remembrances, we can find an almost complete story of the predictions said to have been made by Jamasp the Sage, known as Jamasp Bidakhsh.
Some quotations from Jamaspnameh:
Jamasp the Sage says:  This faith will last for 1000 years.  After that the people will start breaking their vows, will lie to each other and form grudge and jealousy, and as a result, will give up their land to the Arabs, and the Arabs will gain more power day by day and will capture city after city.
The people will go towards lying and humiliation and whatever they will say or do will be only for their personal benefits.  Good deeds will die in them. Injustice will come into Iranshahr and the people will start storing gold and silver and other treasures.
A day will come when the treasures and wealth of this land will fall into the hands of the enemy and many will die at young age and the whole of Iranshahr will fall into the hands of the enemy, and foreigners will mix with Iranians to an extent that an Iranian will not be differentiated from a non-Iranian.
In such bad times the rich will get more respect than the humble people and dervish (humble) will not be respected, and the noble and liberal people will have a poor life and they will embrace death like a father and mother will embrace their child.  Girls who are born will be sold for prostitution and boys will beat their parents and will take away their right of eldership.  The younger brother will have no respect for the elder brother and will grab his property and in order to gain more he will tell lies and bring force.  A wife will sell her husband to death (condemn to death), and unmanly people (cowards) will appear everywhere and rule, and  untrue witnessing and lying will increase.
People will eat at one table at night and make friendship and the next day they will plot against each other.  In such days those who do not have children will be respected more than those who have children.  Many people will become homeless and will suffer in hardship and will be displaced from their homes.  Day by day plants will reduce on earth and earthquakes will increase and cause immense destruction.  Untimely rain will fall which will have no benefit, to the extent that the people will become helpless.
Writers will hate to write and everyone will stop speaking and writing to each other and committing vows, and whoever is a little well off will show off his position, and the learned and the dervish will get no respect.  Servants will act like the liberals, though not knowing what is liberty.  The wise will get of age soon and those who do wrong will be proud of the wrong they do.  Those who enjoy doing wrong will respect the money collectors and the dictators and will make the learned and the religious look like evil people.  People who are born in such times will be harder than iron, and though made of flesh and blood, will be harder than stone.  The fire of joy and happiness will fade in Iranshahr and the wealth of the country will fall into the hands of foreigners and wrong doers.  Everyone will become faithless but will pretend to be religious.  In such bad times love and shame will have no respect and the smaller will not be differentiated from the
elder and the wiser.!?
We can say that the contents of Jamaspnameh have not reached us easily, but with immense ups and downs.  Many faithful and religious patriots have lost their lives for preserving this book.  The sword of the tyrants have shed the blood of many innocent people till this treasure has reached us from our ancestors.  As I see the contents of the letter of Shahriyar Sandal (dated May 170 AD), recorded in the book of stories written by Dastoor Darab Hormozdyar, Shah Abbas Safavid killed many Zoroastrians to get hold of Jamaspnameh and finally killed two of the high Dastoors and destroyed many religious scripts…