This experience of immersing himself in the treasure trove of clay tablets in the library of Anshan drew little Kourosh into the depths of ancient knowledge and history. Through these tablets, he became familiar with the intricacies of past civilizations, including Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria. He learned about their battles, laws, customs, and scientific advancements, from the construction of massive ziggurats to the codification of Hammurabi's laws and astronomical discoveries. This knowledge, which had emerged from the earth and time, gave him a broader and deeper perspective on the ancient world and prepared him for the greater role he would play in the future. Each tablet was a window to a world that had existed thousands of years before him.
But alongside this wonder and admiration for the ancient civilizations, a great challenge also deeply troubled Kourosh's mind. He felt with his entire being the complexity and inefficiency of these writing systems. Hundreds of symbols for writing, each of which could have multiple meanings or sounds, required years of specialized and arduous training for scribes. The difficulty of storing and transmitting information on heavy and fragile clay tablets all led him to the conclusion that these systems would never be suitable for the widespread dissemination of literacy and knowledge among the masses and were a major obstacle to the progress of civilization.
This deep understanding of the limitations sparked an idea in Kourosh's creative and forward-thinking mind. He thought about how he could remove this great obstacle and open the doors of knowledge to everyone. He thought of the simpler and more efficient writing systems of the modern world; of alphabets that, with a limited number of letters, made it possible to write any word and were easy for the general public to learn. This thought planted the seed of the first educational and cultural revolution in little Kourosh's mind; a revolution that was to begin in this small library and change the ancient world forever.
Kourosh, amidst the clay tablets of the library, with a tireless and analytical mind, was engaged in exploring and analyzing the writing systems around him. With every tablet he read and every cuneiform script he deciphered, he became more aware of the complexity and inefficiency of the Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform scripts. Hundreds of symbols, each of which could have a different meaning, and sometimes several signs were used for a single word, had turned writing into a specialized and exclusive art. For a scribe to master these scripts, years of continuous training and practice were needed; a long and arduous process that was only possible for a specific class of society and kept knowledge in the monopoly of a small group of priests and courtiers.
This complexity and exclusivity greatly troubled Kourosh's mind. He thought to himself how this great obstacle had become a barrier to the spread of knowledge and literacy among the common people. In the world he came from, literacy was a public and universal right, but here, only a minority could read and write. This slowness in the transmission of information and the limitation in access to knowledge imposed a heavy price on the progress of civilization and held it back from flourishing. To build a thousand-year and stable empire, he needed a system that would liberate knowledge and make it available to everyone, not keep it in the monopoly of a small group.
In the depths of his eidetic memory, ideas from modern linguistics and the simplicity of phonetic alphabets shone like a spark, illuminating the path for him. He remembered how every language is composed of a limited number of sounds, and if a simple and learnable symbol could be created for each sound, reading and writing would no longer be a secret and would be easily accessible to everyone. This understanding was a turning point in his thoughts; he saw how the doors of knowledge could be opened to everyone and a great revolution in literacy and awareness could be initiated.
Then, a clear image appeared in his mind: the story of the great king of Korea, Sejong the Great. Kourosh remembered how this wise and prudent king, in the fifteenth century AD, had invented the Hangul script for his people; a script that was surprisingly simple and logical, and anyone could learn it in a matter of hours. This act initiated a major cultural revolution in Korea and brought literacy to all classes of society, from peasants to nobles. This inspiration was like a light in the darkness for Kourosh; he realized that such a task was not only possible but also necessary and vital for realizing his dream of a thousand-year empire.
With complete determination, he decided to invent a completely new language and script for his people: New Persian. This script had to be so simple and efficient that any child or old man could learn it easily, and writing would not require years of arduous study and practice. He wanted this new script to be based on the sounds of the Persian language and to reflect the beauty and simplicity of this language. This was an ambitious and revolutionary goal, but Kourosh knew that to achieve it, he had to start now and build its foundations firmly so that in the future, it would grow into a mighty tree of knowledge.
His goal was not just to invent a script; he also wanted to gradually standardize and promote the New Persian language. He thought about how, through the mass education of this new language and script, a deeper cultural and linguistic solidarity could be created among the Persian tribes, and it could even be used as a common communication tool in the future of his empire. This would greatly contribute to the unity and cohesion of the nation and lay the foundations for an informed and united civilization; a civilization in which no one would be deprived of the blessing of knowledge.