Arya (Iran) in the context of "Middle Persian language"

The Sasanian Empire (/səˈsɑːniən/), officially Eranshahr (Middle Persian: 𐭠𐭩𐭥𐭠𐭭𐭱𐭲𐭥𐭩 Ērānšahr, "Empire of the Iranians"), was an Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651 AD. Lasting for over four centuries, the length of the Sasanian dynasty's reign over ancient Iran was second only to that of the Arsacid dynasty of Parthia which immediately preceded it.

Founded by Ardashir I, whose rise coincided with the decline of Arsacid influence in the face of both internal and external strife, the House of Sasan was highly determined to restore the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire by expanding and consolidating the dominions of the Iranian nation. Most notably, after defeating Artabanus IV of Parthia at the Battle of Hormozdgan in 224, it began competing far more zealously with the neighbouring Roman Empire than the Arsacids had, thus sparking a new phase of the Roman–Iranian Wars. These efforts by Sasanian rulers ultimately led to the re-establishment of Iran as a major power of late antiquity.

Avestan (/əˈvɛstən/ ə-VESS-tən) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family and was originally spoken during the Avestan period (c. 1500 – 400 BCE) by the Iranians living in eastern Greater Iran as evidenced from names in Avestan geography.

After Avestan became extinct, its religious texts were transmitted orally, then collected and put into writing during the Sasanian period (c. 400 – 500 CE). The extant material falls into two groups: Old Avestan (c. 1500 – 900 BCE) and Younger Avestan (c. 900 – 400 BCE). The immediate ancestor of Old Avestan was the Proto-Iranian language, a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language. As such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language.

Aryan (/ˈɛəriən/), or Arya (borrowed from Sanskrit ārya), is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood in contrast to nearby outsiders, whom they designated as non-Aryan (*an-āryā). In ancient India, the term was used by the Indo-Aryan peoples of the Vedic period, both as an endonym and in reference to a region called Aryavarta (lit. 'Land of the Aryans'), where their culture emerged. Similarly, according to the Avesta, the Iranian peoples used the term to designate themselves as an ethnic group and to refer to a region called Airyanem Vaejah (lit. 'Expanse of the Arya'), which was their mythical homeland. The word stem also forms the etymological source of place names like Alania (*Aryāna) and Iran (*Aryānām).

Although the stem *arya may originate from the Proto-Indo-European language, it seems to have been used exclusively by the Indo-Iranian peoples, as there is no evidence of it having served as an ethnonym for the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The view of many modern scholars is that the ethos of the ancient Aryan identity, as it is described in the Avesta and the Rigveda, was religious, cultural, and linguistic, and was not tied to the concept of race.

The Avestan period (c. 1500 – c. 400 BCE) is the period of Iranian history when the collection of canonical texts of Zoroastrianism called the Avesta was produced. The period saw important developments to religious thought and to Persian mythology and the tradition of epic poetry exemplified by the Shahnameh.

Scholars can reliably distinguish between two different linguistic strata in the Avesta labeled "Old Avestan" and "Young Avestan". These two strata represent two different stages in the development of the Avestan language and the society of its speakers. The Old Avestan society is the one to which Zoroaster and his immediate followers belonged. The Young Avestan society is less clearly delineated and reflects a longer time span.

Ardashir I (Middle Persian: 𐭠𐭥𐭲𐭧𐭱𐭲𐭥, romanized: Arda(x)šēr), also known as Ardashir the Unifier (180–242 AD), was the founder of the Sasanian Empire, the last empire of ancient Iran. After defeating the last Parthian shahanshah Artabanus IV on the Hormozdgan plain in 224, he overthrew the Arsacid dynasty and established the Sasanian dynasty. Afterwards, Ardashir called himself shahanshah and began conquering the land that he called Eranshahr, the realm of the Iranians.

There are various historical reports about Ardashir's lineage and ancestry. According to al-Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings, Ardashir was son of Papak, son of Sasan. Another narrative recorded in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan and Ferdowsi's Shahnameh states that Ardashir was born from the marriage of Sasan, a descendant of Darius III, with the daughter of Papak, a local governor in Pars.

In Modern Persian, the word Īrān (ایران) derives immediately from 3rd-century Middle Persian Ērān (𐭠𐭩𐭫𐭠𐭭), initially meaning "of the Aryans" before acquiring a geographical connotation as a reference to the lands inhabited by the Aryans. In both the geographic and demonymic senses, Ērān is distinguished from the antonymic Anērān, literally meaning "non-Iran" (i.e., non-Aryan).

In the geographic sense, Ērān was also distinguished from Ērānšahr, which was the preferred endonym of the Sasanian Empire, notwithstanding the fact that it included lands that were not primarily inhabited by the various Iranic peoples.