Ayadgar-i Zariran

Historically, Iranian epic poems such as this one were composed and sung by travelling minstrels, who in pre-Islamic times were a fixture of Iranian society.[4][5] Although heroic tales such as the Memorial of Zarēr were collected by Zoroastrian priests for the now-lost Sassanid-era Book of Kings,[3] (the Xwadāy-nāmag, a 5th/6th-century collection of heroic legends), other minstrel compositions were either never written down (and have thus been lost), or are only known of from later translations into Islamic-era languages such as Arabic or Persian. While the Sassanid-era Book of Kings has also been lost, a copy of the Memorial of Zarēr was preserved by Zoroastrian priests in Zoroastrian Middle Persian (so-called "Pahlavi", an exclusively written late form of Middle Persian used only by Zoroastrian priests), and it is the only surviving specimen of Iranian epic poetry in that Middle Iranian language.[3]

The surviving manuscripts of the Memorial of Zarēr are part of (copies of) the MK Codex, the colophones of which date to 1322, but—like most other "Pahlavi" literature — represents a codification of earlier oral tradition. The language of the poem is significantly older than the 14th century, and even has Parthian language words, phrases and grammatical usages scattered through it.[4] The manuscript came to the attention of western scholarship following Wilhelm Geiger's report of the MK collection and the translation of the text in question in 1890. [6] Following an analysis by Émile Benveniste in 1932,[7] the poem is now generally considered to be a 5th or 6th-century (Sassanid-era) adaptation of an earlier (Arsacid-era) Parthian original.[3][2]

The story of Memorial of Zarēr plays in the time of the mythological Kayānid monarch Wištāsp (< Avestan Vištāspa), the patron of Zoroaster. The story opens with the arrival of messengers at the Wištāsp's court. The message is from the Daēva-worshipping king of the Un-Iranian Xyonites (< Av. x́yaona-), Arjāsp ( Middle Persian Arzāsp < Avestan Arəjaṱ.aspa), who demands that Wištāsp "abandon 'the pure Mazdā-worshipping religion which he had received from Ohrmazd', and should become once more 'of the same religion'" as himself.[1] Arjāsp threatens Wištāsp with a brutal battle if Wištāsp does not consent.

Zarēr, who is Wištāsp's brother and the command-in-chief of Wištāsp's army, pens a reply in which Arjāsp's demands are rejected and a site for battle is selected. In preparation for battle, the army of the Iranians grows so large that the "noise of the caravan of the country of Iran went up to heavens and their clamors went down to hell." Wištāsp's chief-minister, Jāmāsp (< Av. Jāmāspa), whom the poem praises as infinitely wise and able to foretell the future, predicts that the Iranians will win the battle, but also that many will die in it, including many of Wištāsp's clan/family. As predicted, many of the king's clansmen are killed in the fight, among them Wištāsp's brother Zarēr, who is slain by Wīdrafsh / Bīdrafsh, the sorcerer (the epithet is jādūg, implying a practitioner of wicked magic) of Arjāsp's court.

Zarēr's 7-year-old son, Bastwar / Bastūr (< Av. Basta.vairi) goes to the battlefield to recover his father's body. Enraged and grieving, Bastwar vows to take revenge. Although initially forbidden to engage in battle due to his youth, Bastwar engages with the Xyonites, killing many of them, and revenging his father by shooting an arrow through Wīdrafsh's heart.[1] Meanwhile, Bastwar's cousin Spendyād (< Av. Spǝṇtōδāta) has captured Arjāsp, who is then mutilated and humiliated by being sent away on a donkey without a tail.

Although quintessentially Zoroastrian (i.e. indigenous ethnic Iranian religious tradition), the epic compositions of the traveling minstrels continued to be retold (and further developed) even in Islamic Iran, and the figures/events of these stories were just as well known to Muslim Iranians as they had been to their Zoroastrian ancestors. The 5th/6th-century Book of Kings, now lost, and partly perhaps a still living oral tradition in north-eastern Iran,[3] served as the basis for a 10th-century rhymed-verse version of the Memorial of Zarēr by Abū-Manṣūr Daqīqī. In turn, Daqīqī's poem was incorporated by Ferdowsi in his Šāhnāma.[3] In 2009, these adaptations of Memorial of Zarēr became the basis of the stage play Yādgār-i Zarirān written by Qoṭb ed-Din Ṣādeqi, and played by Mostafa Abdollahi, Kazem Hozhir-Azad, Esmayil Bakhtiyari and others.[8]

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