Description : Gundeshapur (Middle Persian: 𐭥𐭧𐭩𐭠𐭭𐭣𐭩𐭥𐭪𐭱𐭧𐭯𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭩, Weh-Andiōk-Šābuhr; New Persian: گندیشاپور, Gondēshāpūr) was the intellectual centre of the Sassanid Empire and the home of the Academy of Gundishapur, founded by Sassanid king Shapur I. Gundeshapur was home to a teaching hospital and had a library and a centre of higher learning. It has been identified with extensive ruins south of Shahabad, a village 14 km south-east of Dezful, to the road for Shushtar, in the present-day province of Khuzestan, southwest Iran. Gundeshapur was one of the major cities in Khuzestan province of the Persian empire. Gundeshapur's administrative district included the neighboring towns of Susa and Mihrijanqadaq, the latter which was actually in a different province. Most scholars believe Shāpur I, son of Ardeshir (Artaxexes), to have founded the city after defeating a Roman army led by Emperor Valerian. Gundeshapur was a garrison town and housed many Roman prisoners of war. Shāpur I made Gundeshapur his capital. Shāpur's wife, the daughter of Aurelian, lived in the capital with him. She brought with her two Greek physicians who settled in the city and taught Hippocratic medicine. In 489, the Nestorian theological and scientific center in Edessa was ordered closed by the Byzantine emperor Zeno, and transferred itself to become the School of Nisibis or Nisibīn, then under Persian rule with its secular faculties at Gundeshapur, Khuzestan. Here, scholars, together with Pagan philosophers banished from Athens by Justinian in 529, carried out important research in medicine, astronomy, and mathematics". It was under the rule of the Sassanid monarch Khusraw I (531-579 CE), called Anushiravan "The Immortal" and known to the Greeks and Romans as Chosroes, that Gundeshapur became known for medicine and erudition. Khusraw I gave refuge to various Greek philosophers, Nestorian Assyrians fleeing religious persecution by the Byzantine empire. The king commissioned the refugees to translate Greek and Syriac texts into Pahlavi. They translated various works on medicine, astronomy, astrology, philosophy, and useful crafts. Anushiravan also turned towards the east, and sent the famous physician Borzouye to invite Indian and Chinese scholars to Gundeshapur. These visitors translated Indian texts on astronomy, astrology, mathematics and medicine and Chinese texts on herbal medicine and religion. Borzouye is said to have himself translated the still popular Indian Pañcatantra from Sanskrit into Persian as Kelile væ Demne. Many Assyrians settled in Gundeshapur during the Fifth century. The Assyrians were most of all medical doctors from Urfa, which was during that time, home to the leading medical center. Teaching in the Academy was done in Syriac until the city fell to Muslim Arab armies, which destroyed the city and places of learning.
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