Professor Ehsan Yarshater

“The encylopedia of erotica” caught my ear recently as I half listened to an NPR program. “What a good idea,” I thought and then idly imagined a kind of Varieties of Sexual Experience in several volumes by an unbuttoned William James. Reality soon intervened, however, when it became clear that the encyclopedia was devoted not to erotica but to Iranica. (http://www.npr.org/2011/09/26/140807176/37-years-and-halfway-through-encyclopaedia-iranica) It aims to present, in English, a definitive and comprehensive view of Iranian history, language, and culture over several thousand years in the Middle East, Central Asia, and India.

More interesting to me than the encyclopedia was its founder and editor, Professor Ehsan Yarshater, the director of Columbia University’s Center for Iranian Studies. He began work on the encyclopedia 38 years ago. Now, with about 6,500 entries by almost 1,500 contributors, it’s only half completed. One of the reasons for the work’s slow progress is its painstaking checking of each entry and Professor Yarshater’s insistence on securing “the best person in the entire world” to write about a given topic. Also, many of the articles require original research. They are not simply summaries of existing knowledge. Professor Yarshater wants to complete this great work but he realizes that he won’t be able to do so within his own lifetime. He has chosen his successors. He is 91.

No stranger to large works, he edited a 40-volume translation of the tenth-century Persian historian al Jibari’s Annals; he’s the founding editor of a series on Persian history and language. And he edited a 20-volume collection of Persian literature. “That was when I realized I was suffering from a kind of disease,” he told the Times in a recent interview. “If something is to be done, I have a feeling that I should start doing it.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/books/ehsan-yarshaters-encyclopedia-of-iranian-history.html) Even now, he regularly works 12-hour days. He no longer takes a nap after lunch because there is so much work to be done.

Perhaps my hearing erotica for Iranica wasn’t so far off the mark, inasmuch as Professor Yarshater’s devotion to Iranian language, literature, and history has been and continues to be a passionate labor of love. He’s fortunate in being able to maintain his passion, in continuing to be profoundly engaged in his work, so deep into old age. Few of us are similarly blessed. When passion of that sort flags, there’s no help to be found from Viagra.