Book of Arda Viraf

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Book of Arda Viraf is a Zoroastrian religious text of Sassanid era in Middle Persian language,contains about 8,800 words. It describes the dream-journey of a devout Zoroastrian (the 'Viraf' of the story) through the next world. Due to the ambiguity inherent to Pahlavi script, 'Viraf' (the name of the protagonist) may also be transliterated as 'Wiraf', 'Wiraz' or 'Viraz'. The 'Arda' of the name (cf. Asha; cognate with Gk. orthós, "straight, upright, correct", Skt. urdhvah, "high, lofty, steep,", and more recognizably Latin arduus, "high, steep") is an epithet of Viraf and is approximately translatable as "truthful" or "righteous." "Viraz" is probably akin to Proto-Indo-European wer-, "man".