Editing Caste (section)

==== Iran ====
Pre-Islamic [[Sassanid]] society was immensely complex, with separate systems of social organisation governing numerous different groups within the empire.<ref name="Nicolle, p. 11">Nicolle, p. 11</ref> Historians believe society comprised four<ref>
These four are the three common "Indo-Euoropean" [[Trifunctional hypothesis|social tripartition]] common among ancient Iranian, Indian and Romans with one extra Iranian element (from Yashna xix/17). cf. Frye, p. 54.</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution |date=1986 |first=Amir |last=Taheri |publisher=Encounter books}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Why the Middle East Lagged Behind: The Case of Iran |page=72 |first=Kāẓim |last=ʻAlamdārī |publisher=University Press of America}}</ref> [[social class]]es, which linguistic analysis indicates may have been referred to collectively as "pistras".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chaudhuri |first=K. N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cYY6AAAAIAAJ&dq=pistra+iran&pg=PA55 |title=Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 |date=1990 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press|CUP Archive]] |isbn=978-0-521-31681-1 |language=en}}</ref> The classes, from highest to lowest status, were priests ({{transliteration|fa|Asravan}}), warriors ({{transliteration|fa|Arteshtaran}}), secretaries ({{transliteration|fa|Dabiran}}), and commoners ({{transliteration|fa|Vastryoshan}}).