The Shahnama & Persian Mythology
A fantastic source of Persian mythology is an epic poem called the Shahnama – or “Book of Kings”. It was completed in the 1010 AD by a man named Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi, a few centuries after the Arab conquest of Persia when efforts were made to retain Persia’s distinct culture within the wider medieval Islamic community. The Shahnameh tells a legendary history of Persia, it starts with creation and the doings of the first kings, and then covers stories of successive generations of kings and their heroic champions. After that, it also provides a loose history of Sassanid Iran up to the Arab Conquest.
Ferdowsi used older material to make his poem, much of it from a very vibrant oral tradition of Persian myths, legends, and fairy tales. Many elements of these stories are referenced in the Avesta, a collection of Zoroastrian holy books, and can thus be traced back to the beginnings of Iranian civilization over 3000 years ago!
The Shahnama’s Legacy
In this way, I would describe the Shahnama as a Persian Iliad. It tells great stories about legendary heroes and is also a work of outlasting cultural significance. Today many Shahnama stories are popular beyond modern-day Iran, in parts of central Asia, and across the Middle East. Like with the Iliad in the West, it has inspired artists, musicians, and writers over several centuries.
However, Ferdowsi’s great work did not exist by itself and was not the only epic poem that was written around that period. In the years afterwards, many poets tried to do the same as Ferdowsi, and so we ended up with an entire genre of epic poems telling the myths of ancient Iranian heroes. Some of these other poems cover stories the author of the Shahnama left out.
The Garshaspnama
One critical example is the Garshaspnama. This poem was completed around 1066 AD by a man named Asadi Tusi. Not much is known about him. He was likely inspired by the Shahnama, as the two texts have a similar style, but the two poems focus on completely different stories. The name Garshaspnama translates to “Book of Garshasp”, and Garshasp is the poem’s main character. Interestingly, the hero Garshasp is almost completely absent from the Shahnama. He only gets a few very brief mentions. This is really weird, since Garshasp is very important in the earlier Avesta. This fact made me especially keen to cover the Garshasp stories on the Myth Madness Podcast.
Not available in English, until now
But, the Garshaspnama is rarely discussed in English, especially outside of an academic setting. As far as I know the poem has never been translated into English, with most academic scholars directly relying on Persian texts.
Now, I don’t read Persian and so to properly tell the stories of the Garshaspnama I was forced to take matters into by own hands. Even though the poem is not available in English, it was translated from Persian to French almost 100 years ago (the first part in 1926 by Clément Huart and the rest by Henri Massé in 1951). It was translated into German in the 1990s by H. Kanus-Credé. I got a hold of both of these – which was in itself a long adventure and required me to actually scan a multi-volume physical copy of the German one page-by-page over the course of a few days at my library – as well as some other translations (Tajik and Arabic).
Due to the different alphabetic scripts the Tajik and Arabic translations ended up being unhelpful. Using software and dictionaries, I translated both the German and French versions into English. I then did a side-by-side comparison to smooth out some of the translation weirdness, relying more on the German one. Then I rewrote the poem in prose, shortening dialogue and flowery descriptions (which are extensive!). At the end, I had a shorter but still mostly complete English version in my own words. Its not a word-for-word translation, it wasn’t supposed to be. However, I do think it gives a very good idea of the poem’s entire plot, which was the whole point anyway. It also means I’ve made the most complete English rendering of the Garshaspnama, ever. Which I think is pretty cool.
Check out the Myth Madness Podcast
I covered my English rendering on six episodes of the Myth Madness Podcast. As I mentioned above, while Garshasp’s appearances in the Shahnama are limited he plays an important role in the Avesta. This was the main reason why I wanted to cover the Garshaspnama. So I also compared the Garshaspnama’s story to those in the ancient Persian sources. There are significant differences! Asadi Tusi claims to have taken the poem’s story from an earlier book on Garshasp’s adventures, so there were obviously a couple different accounts of Garshasp kicking around!
Check out all six episodes below, in descending order!