Rasoul Sorkhabi
The Shahnameh (or Shahnama, شاهنامه) of Ferdowsi (940-1020 AD) composed in Persian at the turn of the 11th century is the national epic of the Iranian and Persian-speaking peoples. This book was instrumental in reviving the pre-Islamic Persian cultural and historical heritage and elevating the Persian language and literature on par with Arabic that was intensely promoted by the Abbasid caliphate in Ferdowsi’s time. Discourses on the Shahnameh have heavily focused on its national importance. While this dimension has its own historical significance for the Persian-speaking peoples, it has, however, masked the hidden and more fundamental and humanistic layers of the Shahnameh as world literature.
The term “world literature” (weltliteratur in German) was first coined by the German poet Goethe in the early 19th century. In a conversation with his student Johann Peter Eckermann in 1835, Goethe remarked: “I am more and more convinced that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and hundreds of men. … I therefore like to look about me in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same. National literature is now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach” (quoted from J.W. von Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann, translated by John Oxenford, North Point Press, 1994, p. 132).
This article is a small attempt to introduce the Shahnameh as world literature. (For information about Ferdwosi see my article “2020: Millennium of Ferdowsi” in Persian Heritage, Spring 2020.)
What’s in a Name?
The word Shahnameh is composed of two words: “Shah” usually means “king” but also sometimes as a prefix it means “best, main or master” as in the word “shah-kar” (masterpiece). “Nameh” means “book or letter.” In the modern Persian “nameh” usually means “letter” that one sends to another person, but in the classical Persian it also meant “book,” such as in the titles of Danesh Nameh (“Book of Knowledge” or Encyclopedia, written by Avicenna), Siyasat Nameh (“Book of Politics,” by Nezam al-Mulk), Qabus Nameh (“Book of Qabus,” by Keikavus) – all written in the 11th century, when Ferdowsi also lived. Shahnameh means “Book of Kings” or “Royal Book.” Ferdowsi’s original manuscript has not survived; therefore, we do not exactly know what title he had put on the cover page of his book. However, references made to this book by poets contemporaneous with Ferdowsi mention it as Shahnameh. Even its Arabic translation by Bondari in the 13th century retained the title Al-Shahnameh. As to the meaning of the word, Ferdowsi probably meant “The Book of Kings,” rather than “Master Book,” because here and there in his book, Ferdowsi refers to it as the Book of the Kings (“Nameh-ye Shahryaran,” نامه شهریاران, “Nameh-ye Khosrovan,” نامه خسروان) or “Book of the Noble” (“Namvar Nameh,” نامور نامه). This is also consistent with the content of the book, which chronicles the stories of pre-Islamic Iranian kings, some mythical and legendary while others historical figures. Shahnameh is actually the name of a genre that dates back to the Khoday Nama (Kahwtay Namak, “Book of the Lords”) written in Middle Persian (Pahlavi language) during the Sassanid king Khosrow I (531-579 AD), and was the source for several prose and poetry books of that genre both in Persian and Arabic in the subsequent centuries.
An Epic from the Classical World
The word epic (Latin: epicus) comes from the ancient Green epos, meaning “word, narrative, or song.” Epic, according to Oxford English Dictionary, is a type of poetry, “typically derived from ancient oral tradition, which celebrates in the form of a continuous narrative the achievements of one or more heroic characters of history or legend.” The equivalent word used in Persian is hamaseh (or hamasa, حماسه), which is originally an Arabic word, meaning “fervent and fiery,” but which in Persian means “courage and bravery.” Interestingly, the Arabs themselves do not say hamaseh for epic; the equivalent word for epic used in Arabic is malhama (ملحمه), meaning “bloody battle, fierce fighting or slaughter.”
The Shahnameh is an epic work from the classical world, similar to the Iliad and the Odyssey of ancient Greece and the Mahabharata and the Ramayana of ancient India. Like these epics, the Shahnameh is a narrative of a long war between evil and good forces in society. However, the Shahnameh does not revolve around a certain hero or a certain war. Its chronological and geographic coverage is remarkably vast. It begins with the creation story of the first man (and king), Kayumars (“mortal life”) who lived in caves and wore leopard skin; it ends with the death of Yazgerd III, the last Sassanid king following the invasion of Iran (Persia) by the Arab Muslims in the seventh century AD.
The entire chronology amounts to 3,863 years and is divided into four dynasties as follows: The Pishdadian (پیشدادیان “Ealiest givers of law and justice,” 2,441 years), Kayanian (کیانیان “Great Kings,” 721 years), Ashkanian (اشکانیان Parthians, 200 years), and Sassanian (ساسانیان Sassanids, 501 years). Scholars have also divided this chronology into mythical, heroic, and historical periods. The mythical period (1800 years) begins with Kayumars and ends with the killing of Zahhak (“Dragon”). The heroic period (1071 years) begins with the rule of Feraydun and ends with the death of Rostam, the most celebrated hero in the entire epic, and of Gosh’tasp, the Persian king who embraced the religion of Zoroaster. The Pishdadian and Kayanian kings also feature in the Avesta, the sacred Zoroastrian scriptures, but with some differences.
The historic period (992 years) begins with semi-true stories about the lives of kings in the later part of the Achaemenid dynasty and swiftly goes through the Parthian dynasty, but offers considerable historical details about the kings and queens of the Sassanid dynasty. The reason why the Achaemenid and Parthian kings are either absent, briefly discussed or inaccurately presented is that Ferdowsi’s main sources for the Shahnameh came from those compiled during the Sassanids, who made every effort to obscure the history and memory of the previous Persian dynasties rival to them.
Although the land of Iran constitutes the core of the Shahnameh’s stories, the events and wars portray the interactions of the Iranian kings with their neighbors – China and Turan (Central Asia) on the east, and Rum (Greco-Roman empires) and Arabia on the west. The Shahnameh thus covers the vast part of the known habitable world in classical times from a pre-Islamic Persian perspective.
The Shahnameh is the longest epic ever composed by a single poet in the same poetic style. Ferdowsi himself mentions that his book comprised 60,000 verses (beyt in Persian), but the manuscripts that have reached us contain about 50,000 verses, which still make the book a massive literary work. (Note that each beyt in Persian poetry consists of two rhyming lines.)
Persian Edition and English Translations
There are probably close to 1000 manuscripts of the Shahnameh at various libraries and museums around the world; some are complete, some partial; some are dated, some without dates. These manuscripts have survived from the pre-print era, but none dates back to Ferdowsi’s own time. The oldest manuscripts are from the 13th and 14th centuries. The first task in presenting the Shahnameh as world literature is to produce a critically edited Persian version of the book based on a comparison of reliable manuscripts. This task has been performed by various scholars including Turner Macan in India and Julius von Mohl in France in the 19th century, by E. Bertles and his Russian colleagues during 1950-1971, and more recently by the German-based Iranian scholar Djalal Khaleqi Motlaq in the 1980s-2000s.
English translations of the Shahnameh is another important task. James Atkinson, a British scholar in India, published an abridged translation in 1832, which has been printed numerous times. The first complete translation of the Shahnameh in verse was published by the brothers Arthur and Edmond Warner in London from 1905-1925 in nine volumes. The first complete prose translation was done by Bahman Sohrabji Surti, an Indian Zoroastrian scholar, from 1986-1988 in seven volumes.
None of the above works are, however, easily accessible. For those interested in reading the Shahnameh, four recent translations, all in prose, are suggested. The Epic of the Kings, translated and abridged by Reuben Levy, a former professor of Persian literature at Cambridge, was first published in 1967 and has been reprinted by Mazda Publishers in California in 1996. Shahnameh: The Persian Book of the Kings by Dick Davis (Penguin Classics, 2006) is more detailed and also based on the more recent Persian editions of the book. Shahnameh: The Epic of the Persian Kings, translated and adapted by Ahmad Sadri, and with fabulous illustrations by Hamid Rahmanian (Quantuck Land Press, New York, 2013) is itself a work of art worth colleting; this translation, however, ends with the death of Rostam. The Persian Book of Kings (Routledge Curzon, London, 2002) by B.W. Robinson is a summary of the Shahnameh based the verse work of the Warner brothers. Robinson writes: “Throughout my abridgment I have concentrated on the narrative, and have excluded lengthy speeches, letters, etc. which occupy a considerable space in the poem.” Indeed, this is a shortcoming of all these four translations. They have focused on the stories but have ignored the philosophical and moral portions of the Shahnameh.
Structure and Teachings of the Shahnameh
In his book on Rhetoric, Aristotle describes three components that a poet or an orator should employ to demonstrate the case and appeal to the reader or the listener. These are also called Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion. First is logos, which is the meaningful content and reasoning (logic) of a literary work; logos is the reasoned speech. In the Greco-Christian mysticism, Logos referred to the manifestation of God; the Gospel of John beings: In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The second component is Pathos, or emotions and all that appeals to the audience’s sensibilities. Third is Ethos, or moral qualities. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle also discusses Telos (purpose of the story) and Kairos (time-place context or setting).
It is not clear if Ferdowsi had read Aristotle’s Rhetoric, although the book had been translated from the Greek into Arabic by Is’haq ibn Hunayn and Ibrahim al-Katib, in the ninth century (a century before Ferdowsi). In any case, all components Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric are displayed in the Shahnameh.
Ferdowsi begins many of his stories with Logos and Theos: Faith in One God (khoda) and the importance of wisdom (kherad) and knowledge (danesh). Wisdom and knowledge are essential to a happy life and successful society as they are the foundation of the created universe. Consider the very opening of the Shahnameh:
In the name of God, the Lord of life-giving soul and wisdom; thought cannot conceive God more than this. God is the Lord of all names (things) and all places; God grants us our daily sustenance and guides us in life. God is the Lord of the cosmos and the revolving sky; God is the Lord of the Moon, Venus and the Sun.
Interestingly, when Ferdowsi narrates a story in which a king or a hero wants to send a written message, the letter also begins with this Logos of unfailing faith in “one wise God,” a cornerstone of not only Islamic religion but also of Zoroastrian faith in Ahura Mazda (“Lord of Wisdom”).
The Pathos forms the major part of every story in the Shahnameh. Here, the poet elaborates those qualities that would appeal to human heroes to strive and fight for righteousness and light, and against the forces of evil and darkness – again a direct reference to Zoroastrian faith. These qualities include justice (vs. injustice and oppression), strength and courage (vs. weakness and laziness), goodness and virtue (vs. evil and lies), liberation and freedom (vs. slavery and captivity), and patriotism. These qualities were admirable features of the chivalry class in ancient Persia, strands of which have survived in wrestling sports in today’s Iran. Ferdowsi in his epic also emphasizes that God’s grace (farr) upon a king manifests itself in the wisdom, justice, and righteousness of the king and his rule. At the end of the story of Zah’hak, Ferdowsi writes:
Let us not hand over this world to the evil. Let’s all strive for what is good and right. Neither good nor evil lasts forever; it is, however, better to leave goodness as our legacy.
Ferdowsi often ends the stories with ethical teachings that appear prominently in the Shahnameh and constituted Ferdowsi’s own ethos. These teachings include non-attachment (vs. greed), understanding the impermanence of life and the world, and keeping good name and honor in life. Consider these lines at the end of the story of Bizhan and Manizhen (the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ of the Shahnameh):
Live in joy with your beloved now, and contemplate on how this world turns and passes: It lifts a man to the heights of pleasure, and then throws him underneath the soil.
These sentiments are also found in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, composed by an astronomer-poet who lived several decades after Ferdowsi.
Concluding Remarks
The following are some suggestions to introduce and share the Shahnameh as a masterpiece of world literature.
Modern readable translations. Highly academic, dull and literal translations may be good for scholars, but not for the general public. It is important to have modern, easy-to-read translations of the Shahnameh into major languages of the world. Iranian cultural centers need to financially sponsor skilled translators to undertake such tasks.
Use of the Shahnameh in Persian teaching courses. The Persian language used in the Shahnameh is still alive in the modern world; moreover, it has more Persian vocabulary than words borrowed from Arabic. This makes the Shahnameh an excellent textbook for teaching and learning Persian.
Children and juvenile story books. Harry Potter books (and films) have become bestsellers and have captured the imagination of hundreds of millions of readers (and viewers) around the world mainly because of their elements of fantasy and entertainment. The Shahnameh is indeed full of fabulous stories which can make great literature for children and young adults.
Documentary films. We do not have professional, informative and interesting documentary films that explore the life, work and time of the poet Ferdowsi or various historical, archeological and cultural aspects of the Shahnameh.
Movies and plays. Hollywood movie productions have become global because in the modern world many people prefer visual and entertaining materials.
While there are classic Hollywood movies about the Odyssey and the Iliad and even about the lives of outlaws and gangsters like Al Capone and Butch Cassidy, we are yet to have professional and artistic movies based on the legends of the Shahnameh. In this regard, India with its massive investments on movies about the Mahabharata and the Ramayana is far ahead.
A scholarly journal in English, published at least annually, and devoted to Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh, similar to academic journals dedicated to Shakespeare. Likewise, it will be helpful to organize international conferences, once every two to four years, in various cities, in order to deepen research and discourse on Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh.