Arjasp: The Turanian King and Enemy of the Faith
- Dala Sarkis
- 5 days ago
- 13 min read
Introduction
Arjasp is the great antagonist of the Zoroastrian war-cycle of the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings: a powerful king of Turan, the enemy of the new faith, who warred against the Iranian king Goshtasp and his realm, and who was slain at last by the invulnerable prince Esfandiyar at the Brazen Hold.
When Goshtasp embraced the religion of the prophet Zoroaster and refused to continue paying tribute, Arjasp, enraged and rejecting the faith, invaded Iran, beginning a great and terrible war over the new religion. In the course of this war, Arjasp and his forces slew Goshtasp's brother Zarir, later sacked the holy city of Balkh and killed the aged Lohrasp, and carried off the prince's sisters into captivity, until the tide was turned by the heroism of Esfandiyar, who at last slew the enemy king.
Like all the figures of the Book of Kings, Arjasp belongs to the shared epic heritage of the Iranian peoples, a tradition the Kurds hold in common with the Persians, the Lurs, and others of the Iranic world. To know Arjasp is to encounter the great enemy of the Zoroastrian war-cycle, the Turanian king whose war against the faith brought grievous losses to the house of Goshtasp before his defeat and death at the hands of the invulnerable prince.
Contents
Who Is Arjasp?
Arjasp, also spelled Arjasb or Arjasap, is a king of Turan in the Shahnameh, the great enemy of the Iranian king Goshtasp and the chief antagonist of the war-cycle that followed the coming of the new faith. When Goshtasp embraced the religion of the prophet Zoroaster and refused to continue paying tribute to Turan, Arjasp, rejecting the faith, invaded Iran, beginning a great war over the religion. In the course of this war, Arjasp inflicted grievous losses on the house of Goshtasp, slaying his brother Zarir, later sacking the holy city of Balkh and killing the aged Lohrasp, and carrying off the prince's sisters into captivity. He was defeated and slain at last by the invulnerable prince Esfandiyar at the Brazen Hold. He is remembered as the great enemy of the faith and of the house of Goshtasp, the Turanian king whose war brought disaster before his fall.
The King of Turan
Arjasp was a powerful king of Turan, the great rival land of Iran, and in the epic he stands as the chief enemy of Goshtasp and his realm during the era of the new faith. In the older tradition and in scholarship, Arjasp is associated with the Chionites or Hyonites, a people of the eastern lands, and he is portrayed as a mighty and formidable ruler, the powerful overlord to whom Iran had been accustomed to pay tribute.
As the king of Turan in this later era of the epic, Arjasp holds a place comparable to that of the great Turanian king Afrasiab in the earlier wars, the powerful enemy of Iran from the rival land. The wars of Iran and Turan run through the whole epic as its central and recurring conflict, and in the era of Goshtasp and the new faith it is Arjasp who is the Turanian adversary, the enemy king against whom the heroes of Iran must contend. His standing as a mighty and powerful king, the overlord to whom tribute had been paid, establishes him as a formidable foe, not a mere raider but a great ruler with the power to invade Iran and to inflict serious losses upon it. It is as the king of Turan, the powerful enemy of Goshtasp and the new faith, that Arjasp enters the epic, the formidable adversary whose war against Iran and its religion is the great conflict of this part of the Book of Kings. His role as the Turanian king sets him as the chief antagonist of the war-cycle, the enemy whose defeat would require the heroism of the invulnerable prince Esfandiyar.
Key Takeaways
Arjasp is a powerful king of Turan and enemy of Goshtasp in the Shahnameh.
He rejected the new faith and invaded Iran when Goshtasp refused tribute.
He slew Goshtasp's brother Zarir in the first great war.
His forces sacked the holy city of Balkh and killed the aged Lohrasp.
He carried off Esfandiyar's sisters into captivity in the Brazen Hold.
He was defeated and slain at last by the invulnerable prince Esfandiyar.
Quick Facts
Name: Arjasp (also Arjasb)
Role: King of Turan; enemy of the new faith
Associated with: The Chionites of the eastern lands
Enemy of: Goshtasp and the house of Lohrasp
Cause of war: Goshtasp's new faith and refusal of tribute
Slew: Zarir, and later the aged Lohrasp (through his forces)
Sacked: The holy city of Balkh
Captives: Esfandiyar's sisters, held in the Brazen Hold
Slain by: Esfandiyar, at the Brazen Hold
Heritage: Shared Iranic epic tradition
The War of the Faith
The great war between Arjasp and Iran arose from the coming of the new faith. When the Iranian king Goshtasp embraced the religion of the prophet Zoroaster and made it the religion of Iran, he refused, on the counsel of the prophet, to continue paying the customary tribute to Arjasp, calling upon the Turanian king instead to accept the new faith.
Arjasp, enraged by the refusal of tribute and rejecting the new religion, sent envoys with a threatening letter demanding that Goshtasp recant the faith, and when Goshtasp refused, the Turanian king invaded Iran, beginning a great and terrible war over the religion, a holy war of the faith against its enemies. In the first great battle of this war, the forces of Arjasp inflicted grievous losses on the house of Goshtasp: his gallant brother Zarir, a death long mourned in the tradition, was slain in the fighting, along with several of Goshtasp's sons. Yet the tide of this first war was turned by the valour of the Iranians, above all by the young and invulnerable prince Esfandiyar, the champion of the faith, who defeated the Turanians and drove back the invasion. The war of the faith, begun by Arjasp's refusal of the new religion and his invasion of Iran, is the great conflict of this part of the epic, a holy war between the new faith and its enemies, in which Arjasp stands as the chief adversary, the enemy king who warred against the religion of Iran.
The Sack of Balkh
The war between Arjasp and Iran was not ended by the first Iranian victory, for the Turanian king renewed the conflict in a later assault that brought one of its greatest disasters: the sack of the holy city of Balkh and the killing of the aged Lohrasp, the father of Goshtasp.
In this later assault, the tradition relates, the forces of Arjasp, in some accounts led by his son, fell upon the city of Balkh while Goshtasp was away. Balkh was a holy city, a centre of the new faith, and its fall was a grievous blow. The aged Lohrasp, the former king and father of Goshtasp, who had retired from the throne to a life of worship, was drawn from his retirement to defend the city, and was killed in the fighting, a death much lamented in the tradition. The attackers sacked the city, killed many of the priests of the faith, and, in the tradition, burned down the fire-temple and even the holy book, and carried off the Iranian royal banner. The sack of Balkh and the killing of the aged Lohrasp mark the darkest hour of the war, the deepest penetration of the enemy and the gravest losses to Iran and its faith. This disaster, the destruction of the holy city and the death of the old king, deepened the war and set the stage for the great Iranian counterstroke, the mission of Esfandiyar to free the captives and defeat the enemy. The sack of Balkh is among the most significant and terrible events of Arjasp's war, the moment of Iran's greatest peril before the turning of the tide.
The Captivity of the Sisters
Among the deeds of Arjasp in his war against Iran was the carrying off of the sisters of the prince Esfandiyar into captivity, an act that would set in motion the prince's most famous adventure. In the course of the war, the daughters of Goshtasp, the prince's sisters, were captured by Arjasp and carried off to his stronghold, the Brazen Hold, the fortress called Ruyin Dezh.
The captivity of the sisters in the Brazen Hold was the provocation that led to the great mission of rescue. It was to free his captive sisters from the stronghold of Arjasp that the prince Esfandiyar undertook his famous Seven Labours, the Haft Khan, the sequence of seven perilous trials on the road to the Brazen Hold. The holding of the prince's sisters in his fortress thus makes Arjasp the direct antagonist of the prince's most celebrated adventure, the enemy whose stronghold must be stormed and who must be slain to free the captives. In this way, the captivity of the sisters connects Arjasp to the famous tale of the Seven Labours of Esfandiyar, the prince's heroic quest to the Brazen Hold. The carrying off of the sisters is among the chief deeds of Arjasp in the epic, the act that provokes the prince's mission and that leads, ultimately, to the king's own defeat and death. The captivity of the sisters in the Brazen Hold is thus a crucial part of Arjasp's role in the tale, the provocation that sets the stage for his fall at the hands of the invulnerable prince.
The Fall of Arjasp
The war of Arjasp against Iran ended at last with his defeat and death at the hands of the invulnerable prince Esfandiyar, who stormed the Brazen Hold, freed his captive sisters, and slew the enemy king. The fall of Arjasp is the culmination of the prince's great mission and the resolution of the war-cycle.
Having completed his Seven Labours, the perilous trials on the road to the fortress, Esfandiyar came to the Brazen Hold where Arjasp held the prince's sisters captive. The tradition relates that the prince entered the stronghold by a stratagem, disguising himself as a merchant, and once within, found his sisters, signalled to his army to attack, and fell upon the enemy. In the storming of the Brazen Hold, Esfandiyar confronted and slew Arjasp, the great enemy of the faith and of the house of Goshtasp, and freed his captive sisters, bringing them home. With the death of Arjasp and the taking of his stronghold, the long war was brought to its end, the enemy king slain and the captives freed, and the victory of Iran and its faith secured. The fall of Arjasp at the hands of Esfandiyar is the triumphant climax of the war-cycle, the defeat of the great antagonist by the invulnerable champion of the faith. In his fall, Arjasp meets the fate of the great enemy overcome by the hero, the Turanian king whose war against Iran and its religion is ended by his death at the Brazen Hold. The slaying of Arjasp is among the great deeds of Esfandiyar, the crowning achievement of his mission and the resolution of the conflict that Arjasp had begun.
Symbolism and Meaning
Arjasp embodies, above all, the great enemy of the faith, the powerful adversary who wars against the new religion and its people. As the Turanian king who rejected the faith of Zoroaster and invaded Iran to make war upon it, Arjasp represents the forces of opposition to the new religion, the enemy against whom the holy war is waged. In this, he is the antagonist of the great religious war-cycle of the epic, the embodiment of the enemy of the faith.
Arjasp embodies, too, the recurring figure of the Turanian enemy, the powerful adversary from the rival land whose wars against Iran run through the whole epic. As the chief Turanian foe of the era of Goshtasp, he holds a place comparable to that of the great Afrasiab in the earlier wars, the formidable enemy king whose defeat is the work of the Iranian heroes. And in the grievous losses he inflicts, the deaths of Zarir and Lohrasp, the sack of Balkh, the captivity of the sisters, Arjasp embodies the terrible cost of war and the depth of the peril from which Iran must be delivered. In all this, Arjasp is a figure of real significance, embodying the great enemy of the faith, the recurring Turanian adversary, and the terrible cost of the war, the formidable antagonist whose defeat and death at the hands of the invulnerable Esfandiyar is the triumphant resolution of the great religious war-cycle of the Shahnameh.
Arjasp and the Kurds
Arjasp, like all the figures of the Shahnameh, belongs to the shared epic and mythological heritage of the Iranian peoples, a tradition that the Kurds hold in common with the Persians, the Lurs, and others of the Iranic world. The great epic of Ferdowsi, with its kings and its wars, is the common inheritance of these peoples, who share in the ancient Iranian tradition from which it springs. It is honest and accurate to understand Arjasp and the war of the faith as part of this shared heritage, rather than as uniquely Kurdish material.
For the Kurds, as an Iranian people, the figures and tales of the Shahnameh are part of the wider cultural and mythological world to which they belong, and the epic and its figures, of both Iran and Turan, hold a place in the broad Iranic heritage that the Kurds share. The figure of Arjasp, the Turanian enemy of the faith, is part of the common store of Iranian epic tradition, known across the Iranic lands. In presenting Arjasp, then, we present not a specifically Kurdish figure but one of the great antagonists of the shared Iranian epic, belonging to the heritage that the Kurds hold in common with the other peoples of the Iranic world. It is worth recalling, too, that the Turanians of the epic are a legendary people, and that the wars of Iran and Turan are the central recurring conflict of the tradition, not to be simply identified with any modern nation. This honest framing places Arjasp accurately within the broad and rich tradition of Iranian epic to which the Kurds, as an Iranic people, are heirs alongside their neighbours.
Debates and Misconceptions
Is Arjasp the same as Afrasiab? No; the two are distinct Turanian kings of different eras of the epic. Afrasiab is the great Turanian enemy of the earlier wars, the long-reigning antagonist of the era of Kay Kavus and Kay Khosrow. Arjasp is the Turanian king of the later era, the enemy of Goshtasp and of the new faith. Both are powerful Turanian kings and great enemies of Iran, and they hold comparable roles as the chief Turanian foe of their respective eras, but they are distinct figures of different parts of the epic and should not be confused.
Was the war with Arjasp a religious war? Yes; the war between Arjasp and Goshtasp is presented in the epic as a war over the new faith, a holy war between the religion of Zoroaster, which Goshtasp had embraced, and its enemies. It was Goshtasp's adoption of the faith and his refusal of tribute, on the prophet's counsel, that provoked Arjasp's invasion, and the war is framed as a conflict over the religion, with the sack of Balkh including the burning of the fire-temple and the holy book. This religious dimension distinguishes the war with Arjasp from the earlier wars of Iran and Turan and gives it the character of a holy war of the faith.
Is Arjasp a specifically Kurdish figure? No; like all the figures of the Shahnameh, he belongs to the shared epic heritage of the Iranian peoples, a tradition the Kurds hold in common with the Persians, the Lurs, and others of the Iranic world, rather than a uniquely Kurdish figure. Indeed, he is a king of Turan, the legendary rival of Iran. As an Iranian people, the Kurds share in the broad Iranic heritage of the epic, whose figures, of both Iran and Turan, are part of the common Iranian tradition to which the Kurds, alongside their neighbours, are heirs.
Related Topics
Esfandiyar: the invulnerable prince who slew Arjasp
Goshtasp: the Iranian king and enemy of Arjasp
Zarir: Goshtasp's brother, slain in Arjasp's war
Lohrasp: the aged former king, killed in the sack of Balkh
Zoroaster: the prophet whose faith Arjasp opposed
The Seven Labours of Esfandiyar: the prince's mission to Arjasp's stronghold
Afrasiab: the Turanian enemy of the earlier wars
The Shahnameh: the Persian Book of Kings, the great epic of Iran
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Arjasp in the Shahnameh?
Arjasp, also spelled Arjasb, is a powerful king of Turan in the Shahnameh, the great enemy of the Iranian king Goshtasp and the chief antagonist of the war-cycle that followed the coming of the new faith. When Goshtasp embraced the religion of Zoroaster and refused tribute, Arjasp invaded Iran, slew Goshtasp's brother Zarir, later sacked the holy city of Balkh and killed the aged Lohrasp, and carried off the prince's sisters, until he was slain at last by the invulnerable prince Esfandiyar.
Why did Arjasp go to war with Iran?
Arjasp went to war with Iran because the king Goshtasp, having embraced the new faith of Zoroaster, refused on the prophet's counsel to continue paying the customary tribute to Turan, and called on Arjasp instead to accept the new religion. Arjasp, enraged by the refusal of tribute and rejecting the faith, sent a threatening letter demanding that Goshtasp recant, and when he refused, invaded Iran, beginning a great war over the religion, a holy war of the faith against its enemies.
Whom did Arjasp kill in the war?
In the course of his war against Iran, Arjasp and his forces inflicted grievous losses on the house of Goshtasp. In the first great battle, his forces slew Goshtasp's gallant brother Zarir, along with several of the king's sons. In a later assault, his forces sacked the holy city of Balkh and killed the aged Lohrasp, the former king and father of Goshtasp, who had been drawn from his retirement of worship to defend the city. These deaths were among the great losses of the war.
How did Arjasp die?
Arjasp was slain by the invulnerable prince Esfandiyar at the Brazen Hold, the fortress Ruyin Dezh where the king held the prince's sisters captive. Having completed his Seven Labours, Esfandiyar came to the stronghold, entered it by a stratagem disguised as a merchant, found his sisters, signalled his army to attack, and slew Arjasp, freeing the captives. The death of Arjasp ended the long war and secured the victory of Iran and its faith.
Is Arjasp the same as Afrasiab?
No; they are distinct Turanian kings of different eras. Afrasiab is the great Turanian enemy of the earlier wars, the long-reigning antagonist of the era of Kay Kavus and Kay Khosrow. Arjasp is the Turanian king of the later era, the enemy of Goshtasp and the new faith. Both are powerful Turanian kings and great enemies of Iran, holding comparable roles as the chief foe of their respective eras, but they are distinct figures and should not be confused.
Is Arjasp a Kurdish figure?
Arjasp belongs to the shared epic heritage of the Iranian peoples, a tradition the Kurds hold in common with the Persians, the Lurs, and others of the Iranic world, rather than a uniquely Kurdish figure. Indeed, he is a king of Turan, the legendary rival of Iran. As an Iranian people, the Kurds share in the broad Iranic heritage of the epic, whose figures, of both Iran and Turan, are part of the common Iranian tradition to which the Kurds are heirs alongside their neighbours.
References and Further Reading
Comments