Tirgan, mid summer Iranian festival, celebrated annually on Tir 13
Tirgan also known as Jashn-e Tirgan (The feast of Tiregan) is an ancient Iranian festival coinciding with the mid summer festivals. The Tirgan festivity refers to the archangel, ‘Tir’ (meaning arrow) or ‘Tishtar’ (lightening), referring to thunder storms that bring much needed rain that boost harvest and avert drought
Legend says that Arash the Archer was a man chosen to settle a land dispute between the leaders of the lands Iran and Turan. Arash was to loose his arrow, on the 13th day of Tir, and where the arrow landed, would lie the border between the two kingdoms. Turan had suffered from the lack of rain, and Iran rejoiced at the settlement of the borders, then rain poured onto the two countries and there was peace between them.
It is stated in Biruni’s chronology that “by the order of God, the wind bore the arrow away from the mountains of Ruyan and brought the utmost frontier of Khorasan between Fergana and Tapuria.
When the kings of the two lands – Manouchehr and Afrasiyab – decided to settle their dispute and to set a permanent boundary between Persia and Turan, they arrived at a mutual understanding that Arash should climb to the tall Mount Damavand’s peak, and from there shoot an arrow toward the east. Wherever his arrow landed, they agreed, would determine the boundary between the two kingdoms.
Arash shot his arrow (Tir) on the 13th day of the Persian month of Tir, which fell on the banks of the Jeyhun (the Oxus) River. Thus, the borders of the two countries were marked.
Tirgan is celebrated every year in Mazandaran Province and Sari in northern Iran, the capital Tehran, Karaj, and the central and southern cities of Yazd, Meybod, Ardakan, Kerman, Bam, Shiraz, Isfahan, Ahvaz, and Farahan. Iranians of the Zoroastrian faith also celebrate this outside Iran, in Europe and the US.
Mazandaran Province
jugs tales and decorated
