Arjasp appears as an enemy of Vishtaspa in the Avesta and as the ruler opposing Goshtasp in later epic. Comparing the hymn, the Memorial of Zarer and the Shahnameh reveals different battles, agents and endings.

Manuscript painting of a struggle in a palace courtyard surrounded by blue-and-gold tiled walls, domes and rocky cliffs, with Persian text above
Esfandiyar slays Arjasp in the Brazen Hold, Herat, about 1444. Royal Asiatic Society, Persian MS 239, fol. 278r, made for Mohammad Juki. This manuscript painting represents an epic episode, not an eyewitness record. Anonymous artist, Herat, c. 1444 · Royal Asiatic Society, Persian MS239 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons.

An enemy in the Avestan prayers

The Avestan form of Arjasp’s name is Arejat-aspa. In Yasht 5.108–110, Vishtaspa asks Anahita for victory over several opponents, including him, and receives the requested favour. Zarer, named Zairi-vairi in the hymn, makes a related successful request in verses 112–114. In verses 116–118, Arejat-aspa and Vandaremaini ask to defeat Vishtaspa and Zarer, but Anahita refuses. The contrasting prayers establish the text’s alignment between the opposing sides. They do not provide the complete sequence of later invasions, captivity and rescue. [1]

The demand to abandon the faith

The Middle Persian Memorial of Zarer begins after Vishtaspa and his household accept the Mazdayasnian religion. In Modi’s translation, Arjasp, ruler of the Khyaonas, sends Vidarafsh and Namkhvast with a letter demanding that the king return to the same religion as Arjasp. Compliance is offered gifts and recognition; refusal brings threats of war and destruction. Zarer dictates the rejecting reply. Jamasp then foretells the family losses to come. These scenes make diplomacy, religious allegiance and foreknowledge part of the plot, rather than presenting the war as a simple personal quarrel. The huge troop totals and supernatural feats belong to epic narration. [2]

Who kills Zarer, and what happens to Arjasp?

Arjasp commands the opposing army, but Biderafsh—Vidarafsh in Modi’s translation—is the fighter who strikes Zarer down. In the Memorial, he attacks from behind with a magically prepared weapon; Zarer’s young son Bastwar later takes vengeance. The tale ends with Esfandiyar, called Spendadad in the translation, capturing Arjasp, mutilating him and sending him home. Tafażżoli contrasts this ending with Arjasp’s escape in the Shahnameh’s first war. Mixing those versions produces an account in which the same event seems to have incompatible outcomes. Arjasp’s later death belongs to a subsequent episode in the Persian epic. [2] [3] [4]

Daqiqi’s verses inside Ferdowsi’s poem

The religious war also matters to the history of the Shahnameh’s composition. Ferdowsi incorporates roughly a thousand verses by the earlier poet Daqiqi. Khaleghi-Motlagh explains that this section begins with Goshtasp’s reign and continues through the first conflict and the circumstances preceding Arjasp’s renewed attack. Ferdowsi’s continuation follows. The scholar also distinguishes Daqiqi’s source tradition from a direct versification of the surviving Middle Persian Memorial. Similar subject matter does not mean that two texts preserve identical wording, roles or narrative structure. [5]

The second war and the Brazen Hold

In the later cycle, Goshtasp has imprisoned Esfandiyar, weakening his ability to respond to a renewed attack. Balkh is assaulted, Lohrasp dies, and Goshtasp’s daughters Homay and Behafrid are captured. Jamasp helps secure Esfandiyar’s release. The prince eventually enters Arjasp’s fortress, the Brazen Hold, through deception. The Fitzwilliam exhibition’s account of the illustrated manuscript describes his merchant disguise, discovery of his sisters, signal to the army and killing of Arjasp. The painting’s bird’s-eye arrangement sets a small central struggle within a much larger architectural scene. It documents a fifteenth-century artist’s interpretation of the episode, centuries after the epic’s composition. [3] [6]

Names, genealogy and the limits of historical identification

Arjasp is not another name for Afrasiab. Later authors disagree about their relationship: Tafażżoli records versions making Arjasp a nephew, grandson or brother of the earlier enemy king. His association with the Xyons and later title as ruler of Turan likewise belong to particular textual traditions. They should not be converted directly into the identity of a modern nation. For Kurdish readers, the useful connection is the study of a regional epic and its transmission. A claim about a specific Kurdish oral or written version needs that version to be named, rather than inferred solely from the classification of Kurdish as an Iranian language. [3]

Sources and further reading

  1. Yasht 5.108–118, Aban Yasht, James Darmesteter’s English translation; primary prayers of Vishtaspa, Zarer and their opponents.
  2. Jivanji Jamshedji Modi, translation of the Memorial of Zarer (1899), especially sections 1–22, 71–76 and 101–114, hosted by the Avesta archive; primary narrative in translation.
  3. Aḥmad Tafażżoli, “Arjāsp”, Encyclopaedia Iranica II, p. 412; first and second wars, variant endings and differing genealogies.
  4. Aḥmad Tafażżoli, “Bīderafš”, Encyclopaedia Iranica IV, pp. 246–247; identification of Zarer’s killer and comparison of the vengeance episodes.
  5. Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Daqīqī, Abū Manṣūr Aḥmad”, Encyclopaedia Iranica VI, pp. 661–662; the thousand verses preserved by Ferdowsi and source transmission.
  6. Fitzwilliam Museum, archived exhibition record No. 55; primary object documentation for Royal Asiatic Society Persian MS 239, fol. 278r, Herat, c. 1444.
  7. Anonymous Herat manuscript painter, Esfandiyar slays Arjasp in the Brazen Hold, c. 1444; public-domain reproduction on Wikimedia Commons.