History of Vardan and the Armenian War

It becomes more defined. Erroneous readings are disappearing from Yeghishe's original text, such as the confused reading of "Gdatsn" or "Gtatsn" in the first chapter, or in the sixth chapter (13220) "a letter from the land of Georgia and a letter from the land of the Aghuans," instead of which the correct version is placed: "a letter from the land of Georgia and a letter from the land of the Aghuans," and so on. Finally, with this, for the first time, Yeghishe is presented to the scientific world with all his important readings, so that the interested philologist will no longer have need to turn to the manuscripts, finding all the manuscript data summarized herein.

A few words about the chapters yeghanak chapter/section of Yeghishe’s "History of Vardanank." Although it is stated in the dedication that the number of chapters should be seven, in current editions, we also have an "eighth chapter outside the seven." All manuscripts provide this title as well, except for B and Ch¹. B (written in 1207, one of our oldest manuscripts) gives "The seventh [chapter] outside the six chapters, again regarding the same war and the sufferings of the holy priests of the Ghevondyan family," while Ch¹ (written in 1456) simply has "Seventh chapter, again regarding the same war and the sufferings of the holy priests and their completion in martyrdom in the Lord." This confusion has arisen from the fact that of the 16 complete manuscripts of Yeghishe's "History of Vardanank" located in the State Matenadaran, 14, as well as the Venice manuscript and two Jerusalem manuscripts, do not have the fifth chapter division with its title at all, even though they possess the full content. Only manuscript D (No. 1886, presumably from the 14th century), although it has the full text, also does not have the VI chapter division with its title; that is, what others place under the sixth chapter, this one places under the fifth. The Ch¹ and Ch² homiliaries also act this way, apart from manuscripts B and I. The two manuscripts described by B. Kulieseryan have the same state. Among them, the manuscript of the Amrtol Monastery of Baghesh (written in 1130) joins the fifth and sixth chapters under the fifth, and the Armash (Dprevank) manuscript (written in 1671 in the town of Shorot in Yernjak) joins the same two chapters under the sixth, without providing the fifth with its title. It is also noteworthy that in our manuscript No. 1862 E (written in 1641), the following is written in the bottom margin regarding the fifth chapter:

"And in this place, let the reader not be confused regarding the fifth chapter, because the exemplar was missing, and we also experienced not a little confusion."

Thus, regarding the numbering and titles of the chapters, some hand in very ancient times, at any rate before the 12th century, performed an action that is now incomprehensible to us. Whether only the chapter titles are mixed up, or if the dedication itself is corrupted along with the order and titles of its chapters, unfortunately, we cannot say. If manuscript B (written in 1207) ...