The plan was a noble one, and its scope so huge that probably no individual scholar could have won a hearing for it other than Ehsan Yarshater, who already had so many massive achievements to his credit, and who was known not only for initiating but also for carrying through large undertakings. He was also a persuasive advocate; and not only did the National Endowment for the Humanities provide some funding but generous support was offered by the Iranian Plan Organization. Accordingly the great undertaking got under way, and the first contracts were signed with contributors in 1979.
            Two years earlier Ehsan Yarshater and his wife had decided to use their private means to endow a foundation that would ensure that work on the Encyclopaedia and other major projects which he had initiated could continue after him. By 1979 the legal work had been completed, trustees were appointed, and the foundation was about to be registered with the Ministry of Justice when revolution broke out in Iran. The work of the Bongah-e Tarjoma, which was affiliated with the Pahlavi Foundation, was brought to an immediate halt.
            Subsequently the new government took over the Bongah, and tacitly acknowledged the admirable work which it had been doing over the previous quarter of a century by continuing to operate it under its own name. Some works were published which were already in the press (including two more fascicles of the "Encyclopaedia of Iran and Islam"). A fairly large number of the Bongah's publications were moreover reprinted in the course of time, a further tribute to the excellence of its work. Its library was also expanded by the addition of that of the Anjoman-e Ketab, which, with its journal Rahnema-ye Ketab, was closed down . But in 1981 the Bongah itself was merged, with some other organizations, in a new "Center for Scientific and Cultural Organizations," renamed in 1986 the "Scientific and Cultural Publication Company" (Markaz-e Entesharat-e 'Elmi va Farhangi).
            In the very year of the revolution Ehsan Yarshater had convened a meeting in England of the panel of consulting editors of the Encyclopaedia Irancia; and he found himself facing this meeting with funding for the project suddenly and drastically reduced, while he felt himself still with obligations to staff, printers and publishers, as well as to the large number of scholars who had been drawn into the undertaking, some of whom had already written contributions for it.
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