Concerning the Parthian period we must notice, besides its very scanty and unsympathetic treatment, the curious fact that Parthian period. whereas five centuries and a half actually elapsed between the death of Alexander and the establishment of the Sásánian dynasty, this period is habitually reduced by the Persian and Arab historians to 266 years. The falsity, as well as the reason, of this arbitrary and misleading chronology is understood and explained by the learned Mas'údí in his Kitábu'-t-tanbíh wa'l-ishráf* as follows. When Ardashír Bábakán established the Sásánian dynasty in A.D. 226—that is, about 550 years after Alexander—a prophecy was generally current in Persia that a thousand years after Zoroaster the faith founded by him and the Persian Empire would fall together. Now Zoroaster is placed 280 or 300 years before Alexander: hence, of the thousand years about 850 has already elapsed. Ardashír, fearing, apparently, that the prophecy might work its own fulfilment (for obviously he cannot have had any great belief in it if he hoped to cheat it of its effect by such means), and wishing to give his dynasty a longer respite, deliberately excised some three centuries from this period, thus making it appear that only 566 years out of the thousand had elapsed, and that his house might therefore hope to continue some 434 years; which, in fact, it did, for Yazdigird III, the last Sásánian king, was murdered in A.D. 651-2. This extraordinary falsification of history is described by Mas'údí as an “ecclesiastical and political secret” of the Persians, and the fact that it was possible shows how entirely the archives and the art of reading and writing were in the hands of the ministers of Church and State.
With the Sásánian period, as already remarked, the National Legend, though still freely adorned with romantic and fictitious incidents, enters on the domain of real history, and becomes steadily more historical as it proceeds. As the Sásánian period will be discussed in the next chapter, it is unnecessary to enlarge further upon it in this place, and we shall accordingly pass at once to the history and antiquity of the Epic.
The references in the Avesta to Sháhnáma heroes are
sufficient to show that even at the time when the former work
History and antiquity of the
National Legend
was composed the National Legend already existed
in its essential outlines. This, however, is by no
means the only proof of its antiquity, for Nöldeke
has shown the occurrence of epic features in the accounts
of the ancient Persian kings given by Greek writers, notably
Ctesias, who was court-physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon,
and professedly compiled his work from Persian written
sources. These epic features are, moreover, recurrent, and
are transferred from one king and even dynasty to another;
so that, for example, a strong resemblance exists between the
circumstances surrounding the youth and early adventures
of Cyrus the first Achæmenian in his struggle against the
Medes, and Ardashír the first Sásánian in his war with the
Parthians; while the appearance of the Eagle, Símurgh or
Humá (in each case a mighty and royal bird) as the protector
of Achæmenes, Zál and Ardashír; the similar rôle played
by two members of the noble Qáren family in the rescue
of Núdhar the Kayánian and Pírúz the Sásánian from
Túránian foes; and the parallels offered by the Darius-
The story of Zariadres, brother of Hystaspes, and the Princess Odatis is preserved to us by Athenaeus from the The Yátkár-iZarírán. history of Alexander composed by his chamberlain Charas of Mitylene, and the same episode forms the subject of the oldest Pahlawí romance, the Yátkár-i-Zarírán (see p. 108 supra), written about A.D. 500. This important little book, the oldest truly epic fragment in Persian speech, though treating only of one episode of the National Legend, assumes throughout a certain acquaintance with the whole epic cycle.
“We have here,” says Nöldeke, “unless we are wholly deceived, the phenomenon which shows itself in connection with the epic history of divers other peoples: the substance is generally known; individual portions therefrom are artistically elaborated; and out of such materials, by adaptations, omissions, and remodellings, a more or less coherent and comprehensive epic may arise. The essential features of the Legend of Zarír reappear in the short Arabic version of Ṭabarí, which entirely agrees, in part almost word for word, with the corresponding portion of the Sháhnáma; whence it must have been taken from the ancient general tradition which forms the basis of the great Epic.”
The “remodellings” to which Nöldeke alludes consist chiefly, as he points out, of modifications designed to facilitate the artistic combination and fusion of the different episodes in one epic, and the suppression, in the case of Firdawsí's and other later versions, of such features or phrases as might be offensive to Muhammadan readers.
Of the Sásánian portion of the Epic we still possess one Pahlawí element in the Kárnámak-i-Artakhshatr-i-Pápakán, now accessible, both in the original and in a German translation (see p. 108 supra). A comparison of this with the corresponding portion of the Sháhnáma (such as will be made for a portion of this episode in the next chapter) cannot fail to raise greatly our opinion of Firdawsí's fidelity to the sources on which he drew, for the correspondence is continuous and remarkable. This Kárnámak was probably composed about A.D. 600, and the reference of Agathias (A.D. 580) to written Persian chronicles of the Kings (<text in Greek script omitted>) in his account of Sásán, Pápak, and Ardashír affords another proof that individual episodes at least existed in the Pahlawí literature of this period.
According to the introduction prefixed to Firdawsí's Sháhnáma (A.D. 1425-6) by order of Baysunghur, the grand- Final Pahlawí recension of the Book of Kings. son of Tímúr (Tamerlane), a complete and corrected Pahlawí text of the whole Epic from Gayúmarth to Khusraw Parwíz (i.e., to A.D. 627) was compiled by the dihqán Dánishwar in the reign of the last Sásánian king Yazdigird III; and Nöldeke remarks on this that, whatever may be the worth of this account in itself, the agreement of the versions given by the Arab historians with the Sháhnáma down to the death of Khusraw Parwíz, and their wide divergence after that event, afford evidence of its truth in this particular point; while the strongly patriotic and legitimist tone which pervades it sufficiently prove that it was compiled under royal supervision and patronage.
This Pahlawí Khudháy-náma(k), constantly alluded to by
Arab writers such as Ḥamza, the author of the Fihrist, &c.,
Arabic and Persian versions of
the Pahlawí
Book of Kings.
was translated into Arabic by Ibnu'l-Muqaffa'
in the middle of the eighth century of our era,
and so became generally known in the world of
Arabic literature. This version, most unfortunately,
is lost, as is also the Persian prose version made in
A.D. 957-8 by order of Abú Manṣúr al-Ma'marí for Abú
Manṣúr b. 'Abdu'r-Razzáq, at that time governor of Ṭús, by
four Zoroastrians of Herát, Sístán, Shápúr, and Ṭús.*
The
metrical Persian Sháhnáma, which was constructed chiefly
from this, was begun for the Sámánid Prince Nuḥ b. Manṣúr
(A.D. 976-997) by Daqíqí, who, however, had only completed
some thousand couplets, dealing with the reign of Gushtásp
and the advent of Zoroaster, when he was assassinated by a
Turkish slave. It was reserved for Firdawsí to complete, a few
years later, the task he had begun, and to display in some sixty
thousand couplets (which include Daqíqí's work) the National
Legend in its final and perfect form. To Daqíqí and Fir-