Simurgh as a Medical Symbol for Iran

Dear Editor Symbols are powerful images which, in one pictogram, contain a host of associated ideas or cultural myths. Today as a medical symbol, the rod of Asclepius with its entwined single serpent has been universally adopted, although this was originally a symbol representing Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, from around the 6th century B.C.E. The Caduceus of the Roman god Mercury (the Karykeion of the Greek god Hermes) with double entwined serpents capped with wings is also used today as a medical symbol since its adoption by the U.S. Army Medical Corps (USAMC) in the early twentieth century, although originally, it had no medical association in early Greek or Roman mythology or tradition.1 In Iranian mythology, however, there is no recorded evidence that the image of the serpent was ever associated with the practice of medicine or pharmacy. However the mythical Iranian bird, Simurgh, has been famously associated with the practice of surgery and medicinal herbs. For this reason I wish to suggest that the Simurgh might be a more appropriate symbol for Iranian medicine as opposed to the Greek serpent. Simurgh in Zoroastrian Mythology Simurgh is an Iranian mythical bird which is mentioned twice in the Zoroastrian holy book, the Avesta; as Saêna (Méréghô Saêna) in Bahman Yasht, verse 41 and again in Rashnu Yasht, verse 17.2 These Yashts were probably written during the Achamenid era (521-331 BCE), but the myths contained within them probably go back to 1500-1200 BCE, contemporaneous with the Indian Rigvedas.3 In Bahman Yasht the great bird Saêna brings life-refreshing rain and also wraps Xvarnah (fortune) around the house of worshipers of Ahuramazda. In Rashnu Yasht it is mentioned that the bird Saêna “roosts on the tree that stands in the middle of the ‘Vourakasha’ sea, the tree that has good and potent medicines, the tree that is called ‘allhealing’, and the seeds of all plants are contained within it’”. Again, in ‘Minooye Kherad’, a Zoroastrian book of wisdom and advice which was probably written in the late Sassanid era during the 6th century CE in the Pahlavi language; it is mentioned that the Sênmurw (Pahlavi language for the Avestan Méréghô Saêna) roosted on top of the mythical ‘Vispô-bish’ (many seed) tree that grew in the middle of the ‘Farakhkart’ Academy of Medical Sciences of I.R. of Iran, Tehran, Iran 1. T Nayernouri1*