Table Of ContentACTA ORIENTALIS UPSALIENSIS
Studia Iranica Upsaliensia
26
International Shāhnāme Conference
The Second Millennium
Conference Volume
Department of Linguistics and Philology
Uppsala University, Sweden
October 15–16, 2011
Edited by
Forogh Hashabeiky
International Shāhnāme Conference: The Second Millennium (Conference Volume)
ABSTRACT
Hashabeiky, F. 2014. International Shāhnāme Conference: The Second Millennium
(Conference Volume), Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Iranica Upsaliensia 26. 276 pp.
Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-554-9133-8
Shāhnāme by Abu al-Qāsem Ferdowsi is the most prominent Persian heroic epos written in the
early 11th century. The year 2010, the millennial anniversary of the completion of the Shāhnāme,
was celebrated with several academic conferences and events around the world. To
commemorate the beginning of the second millennium of this great literary work of humanity,
the “International Shāhnāme Conference: The Second Millennium” was held 15–16 October
2011 at Uppsala University. The present volume collects fourteen papers in Persian and English
presented at this conference.
Conference Homepage
http://www.lingfil.uu.se/kalend/konf/ISC2011/
Keywords: Persian, Epic Literature, Shāhnāme, Ferdowsi.
Forogh Hashabeiky, Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University, Box 635,
SE-751 26 Uppsala, Sweden.
© Forogh Hashabeiky 2014
ISSN 1100-326X
ISBN 978-91-554-9133-8
Printed in Sweden by Danagård LiTHO, 2015
Distributor: Uppsala University Library, Box 510, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
To the Memory of
Shahrokh Meskoob and Mohammad Mokhtari
Contents
A Word from the Editor .................................................................................. 9
Thematic Features in Iranian National History Writings: The Case of the
Dāstān-e Goshtāsp (Tale of Goshtāsp)
Ashk Dahlén ................................................................................................... 13
Rejected Narratives and Transitional Crises within the Shāhnāme
Dick Davis ...................................................................................................... 57
Rostam: A Complex Puzzle: A New Approach to the Identification of the
Character of Rostam in the Iranian National Epos Shāhnāme
Mahmoud Hassanabadi .................................................................................... 67
Knocking on Bowls
Ali Hassouri .................................................................................................... 87
The Story of Sohrāb in an English Translation
Syed Akhtar Husain ......................................................................................... 93
Fate, Wisdom and the King in Book Three of the Denkard and the
Shāhnāme by Ferdowsi
Judith Josephson .............................................................................................. 99
‘Ali Yazdi and the Shāhnāme
Charles Melville ............................................................................................ 117
Two 17th-Century Prose Renditions of the Barzunāme: The Story of
Barzu, Son of Sohrāb, in the Ehyā’ al-Moluk and in the Tārikh-e
Shamshirkhāni
Gabrielle van den Berg ................................................................................... 135
List of papers (Persian)
Rudābe tajalli-ye hamāsi-ye Anāhitā (Rudabe a Manifestation of Anahita)
Behrooz Barjasteh Delforooz……………………………………………………….. 5
Shenākht-e khāstgāh-hā va poshtvāne-hā-ye Shāhnāme-ye Ferdowsi va
tumār-hā-ye naqqālān: Negāreshi sanjeshi (The Sources and Origins of
Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāme and Story-tellers Scrolls: A Comparative Study)
Jalil Doostkhah…………………………………………………………………….. 33
Shāhnāme dar farhang-e mardom-e tājik (The Position of the Shāhnāme in
Tadjik Folklore)
Ravshan Rahmoni…………………………………………………………………. 53
Āzmunhā-ye dānāyi va tavānāyi dar Shāhnāme (Tests of Wisdom and
Physical Ability in the Shāhnāme)
Mansour Rastegar Fasayi………………………………………………………….. 73
Rāzgoshāyi-ye dāstān-e Bizhan va Manizhe dar Shāhnāme bā bahregiri az
fizik-e setāreshenāsi (Decoding the Secrets in the Story of Bizhan and
Manizhe in the Shāhnāme by Using the Methods of Astronomy)
Farhad Vedad……………………………………………………………………… 95
Jeyhun dar Shāhnāme (Oxus in the Shāhnāme)
Mohammad Jafar Yahaghi……………………………………………………….. 115
A Word from the Editor
The Shāhnāme begins with the reign of Kayumarth and ends with
that of Yazdegerd III; in other words, it begins with the kingship of
the first man on Earth according to Iranian mythology, and ends with
the murder of the last pre-Islamic Iranian king by an ignorant miller
tempted by an evil shepherd-born man. The space between the reigns
of these two kings in the Shāhnāme is filled with many other stories
of different types.
The stories of the Shāhnāme can be divided into the three
categories, mythical, heroic, and historical, based on both their
chronological order and their sources. They can be further classified
as heroic, romantic, didactic, moralistic, socio-political, and religious
epics in relation to their motifs, or as realistic, symbolic, or
allegorical in relation to the internal logic of their narrative
elements.1
However, the Shāhnāme as a whole is a heroic epos. As a
mirror of the real world, the heroic epos belongs to the classical
period, a time when man was part of an ideal whole for which he
fought. Above all, a heroic epos is about the war between good and
evil, during which the heroes of the army of good fight the army of
evil in order to bring justice to the world.2
Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāme, as the most prominent Persian heroic epos,
also depicts the battle between good and evil, the courageous acts of the
righteous heroes, the holiness of duty, and the sublime belief in the ideal
whole in the stories of heroes like Kay Khosrow, Rostam, and Siāvash.3 It is
the story of a nation – of how she has seen herself and the surrounding
world.4
The Shāhnāme has been interpreted in many different and sometimes
contradictory ways: as a record of the glorious history of a nation; as a mani-
festation of the heroic spirit of that nation; as the story of the kings; as the
story of the heroes; as the protector of the social castes; and as the promoter
1 See Sarrāmi, Qadam Ali, Az rang-e gol tā ranj-e khār: Sheklshenāsi-ye qesse-hā-ye
Shāhnāme, Tehran, 1373/1994, pp. 61–62.
2 See Meskoob, Tan-e pahlevān va ravān-e kheradmand, Tehran, 1374/1995, p. 14.
3 See Sheyda, Behrooz. Az talkhi-ye ferāq tā taqaddos-e taklif: negāhi be jāpā-ye ‛anāsor-e
farhang-e irāni dar chahārdah romān-e pas az enqelāb, Stockholm, 2001, p. 69.
4 See Mokhtāri, M. Hamāse dar ramz o rāz-e melli, Tehran, 1368/1989, p. 11.
10 International Shāhnāme Conference…
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of wisdom.5 It has already been the subject of numerous studies and aca-
demic conferences, but it seems that there is still a lot more to say about it,
and many more studies and conferences to look forward to.
The year 2010, the millennial anniversary of the completion of the
Shāhnāme, was celebrated with several academic conferences and events
around the world. To commemorate the beginning of the second millennium
of this great literary work of humanity, the “International Shāhnāme Con-
ference: The Second Millennium” was held 15–16 October 2011 at Uppsala
University. The present volume collects fourteen papers in Persian and Eng-
lish presented at this conference.
The papers in Persian were presented by Behrooz Barjasteh Delforooz
(Uppsala University – University of Sistan and Baluchistan), Jalil Doostkhah
(Townsville, Australia), Ravshan Rahmoni (Tadjikistan National Univer-
sity), Mansour Rastegar Fasayi (Arizona), Farhad Vedad (Gothenburg), and
Mohammad Jafar Yahaqi (Ferdowsi University of Mashhad – The Academy
of Persian Language and Literature). The papers in English were presented
by Ashk Dahlén (Uppsala University), Dick Davis (Ohio University),
Mahmoud Hassanabadi (University of Sistan and Baluchestan), Ali Hassouri
(Stockholm), Syed Akhtar Hussain (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Judith
Josephson (Gothenburg), Charles Melville (University of Cambridge), and
Gabrielle van den Berg (University of Leiden). These papers can further be
divided into those that primarily focus on the Shāhnāme itself and those that
focus on other texts related to or inspired by the Shāhnāme. Here follows a
very brief outline of the papers within each group.
Behrooz Barjasteh Delforooz explores the possibility that Rudābe,
Rostam’s mother, is a manifestation of the river divinity Anāhitā or Nāhid.
To support this, he presents evidence from the Shāhnāme and the Avestā.
Ashk Dahlén examines the image of Zoroaster in the Shāhnāme by
studying the thematic features of the Dāstān-e Goshtāsp (Tale of Goshtāsp)
in the light of the Iranian historical and epic traditions to find out whether
Daqiqi’s account has a primarily religious orientation or a more secular
orientation. He also tries to determine whether there are any important ideo-
logical differences between Daqiqi and Ferdowsi in this respect.
Dick Davis explores Ferdowsi’s choices of particular versions of
narratives over others found among his sources. Examining several key mo-
ments in the Shāhnāme, he tries to ascertain the common criteria applied by
Ferdowsi when including one rather than another version of a narrative in
the Shāhnāme.
Mahmoud Hassanabadi focuses on the character of Rostam in the
Shāhnāme. He suggests that the complexity of Rostam’s character is related
to the fact that his character is the sum of individual elements taken from
5 See Sheyda, Behrooz. Terāzhedi-hā-ye nātamām dar qāb-e qodrat: xvānesh-hā va
pazhuhesh-hā, Stockholm, 2004, p. 76.
