The Epic, ferdowsis shahname

The Epic
The Shahnameh, Book of Kings, is an epic composed by the Iranian poet Hakim Abul-Qasim Mansur (later known as Ferdowsi Tusi), and completed around 1010 CE.

[Ferdowsi means 'from paradise', and is derived from the name Ferdous (cf. Avestan pairi-daeza, later para-diz then par-des or par-dos, arabized to fer-dos). Tusi means 'from Tus'. In the poet's case, the name Ferdowsi Tusi became a name and a title: The Tusi Poet from Paradise.]

The epic chronicles the legends and histories of Iranian (Aryan) kings from primordial times to the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century CE, in three successive stages: the mythical, the heroic or legendary, and the historic.

Ferdowsi began the composition of the Shahnameh's approximately 100,000 lines as 50,000* couplets /distiches (bayts) each consisting of two hemistichs (misra), 62 stories and 990 chapters, a work several times the length of Homer's Iliad, in 977 CE, when eastern Iran was under Samanid rule. The Samanids had Tajik-Aryan affiliation and were sympathetic to preserving Aryan heritage.

[*Note: the number of couplets composed by Ferdowsi for the Shahnameh is stated as 60,000 in a number of sources. This is incorrect as some manuscripts have added verses.]

It took Ferdowsi thirty three years to complete his epic, by which time the rule of eastern Iran had passed to the Turkoman Ghaznavids (who based themselves in the north-eastern province of Khorasan with Ghazni as their capital).

The Shahnameh was written in classical Persian when the language was emerging from its Middle Persian Pahlavi roots, and at a time when Arabic was the favoured language of literature. As such, Ferdowsi is seen as a national Iranian hero who re-ignited pride in Iranian culture and literature, and who established the Persian language as a language of beauty and sophistication. Ferdowsi wrote: "the Persian language is revived by this work."
The Poet Ferdowsi (c. 935 to 941 - 1020 to 1026 CE)
The earliest and perhaps most reliable account of Ferdowsi's life comes from Nezami-ye Aruzi, a 12th-century poet who visited Tus in 1116 or 1117 to collect information about Ferdowsi's life. According to Nezami-ye Aruzi, Ferdowsi Tusi was born into a family of landowners near the village of Tus in the Khorasan province of north-eastern Iran. Ferdowsi and his family were called Dehqan, also spelt Dehgan or Dehgān. Dehqan /Dehgan is now thought to mean landed, village settlers, urban and even farmer. However, Dehgan is also a name for the Parsiban, a group of Khorasani with Tajik roots (for further information see the section of Parsiban / Farsiwan in our page on Haroyu, Aria and Herat).

Ferdowsi married at the age of 28 and eight years after his marriage - in order to provide a dowry for his daughter - Ferdowsi started writing the Shahnameh, a project on which he spent some thirty three years of his life.

While Ferdowsi was composing the Shahnameh, Khorasan came under the rule of Sultan Mahmoud, a Turkoman Sunni Muslim and consolidator of the Ghaznavid dynasty. Ferdowsi sought the patronage of the sultan and wrote verses in his praise. The sultan, on the advice from his ministers, gave Ferdowsi an amount far smaller than Ferdowsi had requested and one that Ferdowsi considered insulting. He had a falling out with the sultan and fled to Mazandaran seeking the protection and patronage of the court of the Sepahbad Shahreyar, who, it is said, had lineage from rulers during the Zoroastrian-Sassanian era. In Mazandaran, Ferdowsi wrote a hundred satirical verses about Sultan Mahmoud, verses purchased by his new patron and then expunged from the Shahnameh's manuscript (to keep the peace perhaps). Nevertheless, the verses survived. An example:
Long years this Shahnameh I toiled to complete,
That the King might award me some recompense meet,
But naught save a heart wrung with grief and despair
Did I get from those promises empty as air!

Had the sire of the King been some Prince of renown,
My forehead would surely have been graced by a crown!
Were his mother a lady of high pedigree,
In silver and gold I'd have stood to the knee!

But, being by birth not a prince but a boor,
The praise of the noble he could not endure!

Ferdowsi returned to Tus to spend the closing years of his life forlorn. Notwithstanding the lack of royal patronage, he died proud and confident his work would make him immortal.

Language
Ferdowsi wrote the Shahnameh in Persian at a time when modern Persian was emerging from middle Persian Pahlavi admixed with a number of Arabic words. In his writing, Ferdowsi used authentic Persian while minimizing the use of Arabic words. In doing so, he established classical Persian as the language of great beauty and sophistication, a language that would supplant Arabic as the language of court literature in all Islamic regimes in the Indo-Iranian region.

If the Shahnameh transliterations this author possesses are correct, Ferdowsi even used the term Parsi and not Farsi to name the Persian language, Farsi being the Arabic version of Parsi.

Writing & Books
A thousand years ago during Ferdowsi’s lifetime, books were written and reproduced by hand, making book production labour-intensive and expensive. Adding illustrations increased the expense. A simple basic manuscript copy could cost as much as a horse – often an entire stable and sometimes the farm. Books therefore were not written for public consumption. Ferdowsi sought the patronage of the then rulers of Iran. The famed amount that Ferdowsi expected to receive for his Shahnameh – as both author and scribe – was a gold piece for every verse.

Oral Tradition
The public for their part got to hear verses and legends in chaikhanas or teahouses and at other gatherings frequented by travelling bards and storytellers – the famed naqqal. A few erudite individuals would also recite the verses in private gatherings eliciting the approving bah-bah. The Shahnameh was and is also read aloud in the gymnasiums of the Mithraeum-like zurkhanes – where pahlavans , the strong-men of Iran, train with their maces and clubs. During their meditative exercises that have spiritual overtones, a musician plays a drum while reciting Shahnameh verses that recount the heroic deeds of Rustam and other champions of Iran. The epic itself sits in a place of special reverence within the zurkhane.

[*Note: The name pahlavan is linked to Pahlavi, the Middle Persian writing system used in many Zoroastrian texts and said be native to Parthava (Parthia), the region that once included Ferdowsi’s birthplace of Khorasan. Pahlavi came to be known as Parsik, the language of Pars (later Parsi, then Farsi – Persian written with an Arabic script).]

Ferdowsi's Sources
Khvatay-Namak / Khodai-Nama
In the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi credits a paladin (see page 1 of the translations), who 'ransacked the earth' to keep alive the information gleaned from Zoroastrian priests (arch-magi or mobeds) and the 'epic cycle (they) spread broadcast' by memorizing and telling 'their legendary store'.

Ferdowsi's biographer Nezami-ye Aruzi tells us that Ferdowsi based his work on the Middle Persian Pahlavi work, the Khvatay-Namak (also written Xwadāy Nāmag or Khodai-Nama), a history of the kings of Persia complied under orders of Sassanian king Khosrow (Khusrau) I (531-579 CE). Work on the Khvatay-Namak is said to have continued into the reign of the last Zoroastrian-Sassanian monarch of Iran, Yazdegird III (633-649 CE), when former editions were added to by the Dihkan Daneshvar assisted by several learned mobeds.
The Khvatay-namak was based on information gathered from Zoroastrian priests and the legendary accounts in the Avesta memorized by the priests. The Khvatay-namak could be the work to which Ferdowsi refers when he talks about the paladin who gathered the epic cycles memorized by Zoroastrian priests (archmages, mobeds). While the Khvatay-namak was started during the reign of Khosrow (Khusrau) I, it is reputed to have been updated to include the stories of kings up to the fall of the Sassanian dynasty. There are no known copies of the Khvatay-namak in existence. In his prologue, Ferdowsi stated he needed to move quickly so that he could implement his mission to keep past legends and histories alive - before their imminent destruction.

A possible predecessor to the Khvatay-Namak could be the Chihrdad, one of the destroyed books of the Avesta (known to us because of its listing and description in the Middle Persian Zoroastrian text, the Dinkard 8.13). The text was said to have been a history of humankind from the beginning down to the revelation of Zarathushtra
Chapter 1
The Beginning of History - The Pishdadian Dynasty
Gaiumart

The Greaness of Gaiumart and the Envy of Ahriman
What saith the rustic bard? Who first designed
To gain the crown of power among mankind?
Who placed the diadem upon his brow?
The record of those days hath perished now
Unless one, having borne in memory
Tales told by sire to son, declare to thee
Who was the first to use the royal style
And stood the head of all the mighty file.
He who compiled the ancient legendary,
And tales of paladins, saith Gaiumart
Invented crown and throne, and was a Shah.
This order, Grace, and lustre came to earth
When Sol was dominant in Aries
And shone so brightly that the world grew young.
Its lord was Gaiumart, who dwelt at first
Upon a mountain; thence his throne and fortune
Rose. He and all his troop wore leopard-skins,
And under him the arts of life began,
For food and dress were in their infancy.
He reigned o'er all the earth for thirty years,
In goodness like a sun upon the throne,
And as a full moon o'er a lofty cypress
So shone he from the seat of king of kings.
The cattle and the divers beasts of prey
Grew tame before him; men stood not erect
Before his throne but bent, as though in prayer,
Awed by the splendour of his high estate,
And thence received their Faith.
He had a son
Named Siyamak, ambitious like his sire,
A youth well favoured, skilled, and fortunate,
His father's Life, whose joy was gazing on him,
That fruitful offshoot of the ancient stem.
That Life the father cherished tenderly,
And wept for love, consumed by dread of parting.
Thus time passed onward and the kingdom prospered,
For Gaiumart had not an enemy
Except, in secret, wicked Ahriman,
Who led by envy sought the upper hand.
He had a son too, like a savage wolf
Grown fearless, and a host of warriors.
The son assembled these and sought his sire,
Resolved to win the great Shah's throne and crown,
Whose fortune joined with that of Siyamak
Made the world black to him. He told his purpose
To every one and filled the world with clamour;
But who told Gaiumart about the foe?
The blest Surush appeared in fairy-form,
Bedight with leopard-skin, and told the king
The projects that his foes were harbouring.

How Siyamak was Slain by the Hand of the Div
News of that foul div's acts reached Siyamak,
Who listened eagerly; his heart seethed up
With rage. He gathered troops, arrayed himself
In leopard-skin, for mail was yet unworn,
And went to fight. When host met host he came
In front unarmed to grapple with the son
Of Ahriman. That horrible Black Div
Clutched at, bent down that prince of lofty stature
And rent him open. Thus died Siyamak
By that foul hand and left the army chiefless.
When Gaiumart heard this the world turned black
To him, he left his throne, he wailed aloud
And tore his face and body with his nails;
His cheeks were smirched with blood, his heart was broken,
And life grew sombre. All the soldiers wept,
Consumed upon the flames of woe, and wailed
As clad in turquoise-coloured garb they stood
Before the portal of the Shah. All cheeks
Were wine-red, for all eyes shed tears of blood.
Birds, timid beasts and fierce, flocked to the mountain
With doleful cries in anguish, and dust rose
Before the court-gate of the mighty Shah.
When one year had passed thus the blest Surush
Was sent by God; he greeted Gaiumart
And said: "Lament no more, control thyself,
Do as I bid, collect thy troops and turn
Thy foemen into dust, relieve earth's surface
Of that vile div and thine own heart of vengeance."
The famous Shah looked up and cursed his foes,
Then, calling by the highest of all names
Upon his God, he wiped his tears away
And prosecuted vengeance night and day.

How Hushang and Gaiumart went to Fight the Black Div
The blessed Siyamak had left a son,
His grandsire's minister, a prince by name
Hushang - a name implying sense and wisdom.
It was the lost restored and fondly cherished,
And therefore being set on war the Shah
Sent for the prince and frankly told him all :-
"I mean to gather troops and raise the war-cry,
But thou being young shalt lead for I am spent."
He raised a host of fairies, lions, pards,
And raveners, as wolves and fearless tigers,
But took the rear, his grandson led the host.
The Black Div though in terror raised the dust
To heaven, but his claws were hanging slack
Frayed by the roaring beasts. Hushang saw this
And putting forth his hands like lion's paws
Made earth too narrow for the lusty div,
Then flayed him, lopping off his monstrous head,
And trampled him in scorn thus flayed and shent.
The days of Gaiumart had reached their close
When he achieved this vengeance on his foes;
He passed away, the world was for his heir,
But see who hath had glory to compare
With his! He owned this tricky world and made
The path of gain his path, and yet he stayed
Not to enjoy, for like a story done
Is this world: good and ill abide with none.