Bastur: The Boy Who Avenged His Father
- Daniel R
- Jun 3
- 13 min read
Introduction
Bastur is one of the most moving of the boy-heroes of the Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings: the young son of the martyr Zarir, who, though forbidden to fight on account of his youth, rode into battle to avenge his slain father in one of the most affecting episodes of the holy war of the faith.
Bastur's tale belongs to the war between the Iranian king Goshtasp and the Turanian Arjasp over the new faith of Zoroaster, in which his father Zarir was treacherously slain. The grieving boy found his father's body, lamented him, and then, defying the king's command, took up arms and avenged his father, slaying the enemy who had killed him. His story is rooted in the ancient Memorial of Zarer, one of the oldest surviving Iranian heroic poems, far older than Ferdowsi's epic.
Like all the figures of the Book of Kings, Bastur 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 Bastur is to encounter one of the most touching of the heroes of the epic, the brave boy who avenged his father, and a figure whose tale reaches back to the most ancient layers of the Iranian heroic tradition.
Contents
Who Is Bastur?
Bastur, also spelled Bastwar or Bastvar, is a young hero of the Shahnameh and of the ancient Memorial of Zarer, the boy son of the martyr-hero Zarir, the brother of the Iranian king Goshtasp. In the great war over the new faith between Iran and the Turanian Arjasp, Zarir was treacherously slain, and his young son Bastur, still a child, went out to the battlefield, found his father's body, and uttered a moving lament over him. Then, though the king his uncle had forbidden him to fight on account of his youth, the grieving boy defied the command, rode into battle, fought valiantly, and avenged his father by slaying the enemy who had killed him. Bastur is remembered as one of the most touching of the boy-heroes of the epic, the brave child who avenged his father, and his tale is among the most affecting of the holy war of the faith.
Son of the Martyr Zarir
Bastur was the young son of Zarir, the gallant brother of the Iranian king Goshtasp and the commander of Iran's army in the great war over the new faith. Zarir was one of the noblest heroes of this part of the epic, the martyr-hero who fell defending the religion of Zoroaster against the enemies of the faith.
As the son of so noble a father, Bastur was of the highest royal and heroic stock, the nephew of the king and the son of the army's commander and champion. Yet at the time of the great war, Bastur was still a child, a boy not yet of an age to bear arms in battle, and this youth is central to his tale. The bond between the boy and his heroic father, and the boy's grief and rage at his father's death, are at the heart of the story, and it is as the son of the martyr Zarir that Bastur enters the epic. His descent from the noble line of Goshtasp and Zarir, and his place as the son of the fallen champion, set the stage for his own heroic deed, the avenging of his father. The figure of the noble boy, the son of the martyr, who rises to avenge his fallen father despite his tender years, is one of the most affecting in the epic, and it is in this role, as the son of the martyr Zarir, that Bastur holds his moving place in the tradition. His tale is bound up with that of his father, the one a story of heroic martyrdom, the other of a child's grief and vengeance.
Key Takeaways
Bastur is the young son of the martyr-hero Zarir in the Shahnameh.
He was the nephew of King Goshtasp and still a child in the great war.
His father Zarir was treacherously slain in the war over the faith.
Bastur found his father's body and uttered a moving lament over him.
Though forbidden to fight for his youth, he defied the king and rode to battle.
He avenged his father by slaying the enemy who had killed him.
Quick Facts
Name: Bastur (also Bastwar, Bastvar)
Role: Boy-hero; avenger of his father
Father: Zarir, the martyr-hero and commander
Uncle: Goshtasp, king of Iran
Cousin: Esfandiyar, the invulnerable prince
Setting: The holy war against Arjasp
Famous deed: Avenging his father despite his youth
Enemy slain: Bidarafsh, the sorcerer who killed Zarir
Ancient source: The Memorial of Zarer (Ayadgar-i Zariran)
Heritage: Shared Iranic epic tradition
The Death of His Father
The tale of Bastur's heroism begins with the tragedy of his father's death. In the great war over the new faith, the Turanian Arjasp had invaded Iran, and Zarir, the brother of the king and the commander of Iran's army, led the Iranian forces and fought heroically in the defence of the faith.
In the fighting, Zarir performed great deeds, but he was treacherously slain by an enemy warrior, a sorcerer of the Turanian side, who killed the noble commander by guile. The death of Zarir was a grievous blow to Iran and to the cause of the faith, for he was one of its noblest champions, and his fall is mourned in the tradition as the martyrdom of a hero. For the young Bastur, the death of his father was a personal catastrophe, the loss of his heroic father in the great war. When word of Zarir's death reached the boy, it set in motion the events of his own tale, his grief, his lament, and his resolve to avenge his father. The death of his father is thus the dark beginning of Bastur's story, the tragedy that calls forth the boy's heroism. It is the fall of the noble Zarir, treacherously slain in the defence of the faith, that sets his young son upon the path of vengeance, and that makes Bastur's tale one of grief transformed into heroic resolve. The death of the father is the necessary prelude to the deed of the son.
The Lament on the Battlefield
When word came of his father's death, the young Bastur went out to the battlefield to find the body of Zarir. There, finding his father fallen, the grieving boy uttered a moving lament over the body of the hero, one of the most affecting passages of the ancient tradition.
The lament of Bastur over his fallen father is among the touching moments of the old poem and of the epic, the grief of a child for his heroic father poured out upon the battlefield. In the tradition, the boy mourns his father, calling out to him in his sorrow, lamenting the loss of so noble a hero and the manner of his death. This lament, a child's grief for a fallen father, gives the tale its deep emotional power, for it sets the boy's love and sorrow at the heart of the story before turning to his vengeance. The scene of the boy upon the battlefield, mourning over his father's body, is one of the affecting images of the ancient Iranian heroic tradition, a moment of pure grief that humanizes the heroic tale and grounds the vengeance to come in the boy's love for his father. It is out of this grief, this lament, that Bastur's resolve to avenge his father is born, the sorrow of the child transformed into the courage of the avenger. The lament on the battlefield is thus a pivotal moment in the tale, the expression of the boy's grief that gives meaning and depth to the heroic deed that follows.
The Boy Who Defied the King
Resolved to avenge his father, the young Bastur sought to ride into battle, but he was forbidden to do so by his uncle, the king Goshtasp, on account of his youth, for the boy was still a child, too young in the king's judgment to take part in the fighting.
But the grief and the resolve of the boy were too strong to be held back. In a stirring act of defiance, the young Bastur disregarded the king's command and rode out into the battle, determined to avenge his father whatever the prohibition. This defiance of the king's order, born of the boy's grief and his fierce desire for vengeance, is one of the most striking features of the tale, for it shows the courage and the determination of the child, who would not be kept from the battlefield even by the command of the king. The image of the boy, forbidden to fight on account of his youth, yet defying the prohibition and riding into the thick of the battle to avenge his father, is a powerful one, an expression of the irresistible force of the boy's grief and love. In defying the king, Bastur shows himself a true hero in the making, a child whose courage and resolve overmaster the caution that would keep him safe at home. The boy who defied the king to avenge his father is at the heart of Bastur's appeal, the young hero whose love for his father drives him to a courage beyond his years, onto the battlefield and into the deed of vengeance.
The Vengeance for Zarir
Riding into the battle in defiance of the king's command, the young Bastur fought valiantly against the enemy, slaying many of them, and at last took vengeance for his father Zarir by striking down the enemy warrior who had killed him.
In the tradition, particularly in the ancient Memorial of Zarer, the boy Bastur avenged his father by shooting an arrow through the heart of Bidarafsh, the sorcerer of the enemy who had treacherously slain Zarir, so taking vengeance for his father's death with his own hand. This deed of the boy, fighting valiantly and slaying the enemy who had killed his father, is the triumphant climax of his tale, the accomplishment of the vengeance that his grief had demanded. That a mere boy, forbidden to fight on account of his youth, should ride into battle and slay the slayer of his father is a stirring reversal, a heroic deed beyond the expectation of his years, and it marks Bastur as a true hero, a worthy son of the martyr Zarir. The vengeance for Zarir is the fulfilment of the tale, the transformation of the boy's grief and defiance into the heroic deed of avenging his father. With this vengeance accomplished, the boy has proved himself, and the death of his father is answered. The avenging of Zarir by his young son Bastur is one of the most satisfying and affecting acts of vengeance in the epic, the deed of a brave boy who would not let his father's death go unanswered, and it is for this that Bastur is chiefly remembered and celebrated in the tradition.
Symbolism and Meaning
Bastur embodies, above all, the theme of filial love and vengeance, the devotion of a son to his father and the resolve to avenge his death. As the boy who grieves for his fallen father Zarir and rides into battle to avenge him, Bastur represents the bond between father and son and the heroic duty of vengeance, one of the recurring and powerful themes of the epic.
Bastur embodies, too, the theme of the boy-hero, the child whose courage and resolve rise beyond his years to accomplish a heroic deed. In defying the king's prohibition and riding into battle despite his youth, he represents the irresistible force of grief and love, and the emergence of heroism even in a child. His tale is one of the most affecting in the epic precisely because it sets a child at the heart of the heroic action, his grief and his courage giving the story its deep emotional power. And as a figure of the holy war over the faith, Bastur shares, too, in the meaning of that war, the defence of the religion against its enemies, in which his father was martyred and which the boy serves by his vengeance. In all this, Bastur is a figure of real significance, embodying filial love and vengeance, the heroism of the boy-hero, and the irresistible force of grief transformed into courage. He is the brave boy who avenged his father, one of the most touching and admired of the young heroes of the Shahnameh and of the ancient Iranian tradition.
Bastur and the Kurds
Bastur, 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. His tale is rooted, moreover, in the ancient Memorial of Zarer, one of the oldest surviving Iranian heroic poems, a work of the most ancient layers of the shared Iranian tradition.
For the Kurds, as an Iranian people, the figures and tales of the Shahnameh, and of the ancient heroic tradition from which it springs, are part of the wider cultural and mythological world to which they belong. The tale of Bastur, the boy who avenged his father, reaches back to the most ancient layers of this shared tradition, in the Memorial of Zarer, a poem far older than Ferdowsi's epic and rooted in a still earlier heritage common to the Iranian peoples. It is honest and accurate to understand Bastur as part of this shared Iranic heritage, rather than as a uniquely Kurdish figure; yet the antiquity of his tale, reaching back to the oldest layers of the Iranian heroic tradition, makes him part of a heritage that is genuinely ancient and common to all the Iranic peoples, the Kurds among them. The theme of his tale, the boy who avenges his father, is a universal and deeply human one, at home in the folklore and heroic story of the Kurds as of all peoples. In presenting Bastur, then, we present a figure of the shared and ancient Iranian heritage to which the Kurds, as an Iranic people, are heirs alongside their neighbours, and whose touching tale of filial vengeance is part of the common treasury of Iranian heroic story.
Debates and Misconceptions
Who actually killed the slayer of Zarir, Bastur or Esfandiyar? The traditions differ on this point. In the ancient Memorial of Zarer, the oldest source, it is the boy Bastur himself who avenges his father by shooting Bidarafsh, the sorcerer who killed Zarir, through the heart. In some other tellings and summaries, the slaying of Bidarafsh is credited to the great hero Esfandiyar, Bastur's cousin and the son of Goshtasp. The most ancient and most celebrated version of the tale, however, gives the vengeance to the boy Bastur, and it is for this deed that he is chiefly remembered. The variation reflects the different sources and layers of the tradition.
How old is the tale of Bastur? The tale is genuinely ancient. While Bastur appears in the Shahnameh, his story is preserved independently in the Memorial of Zarer, the Ayadgar-i Zariran, a Middle Persian poem that in its surviving form is among the oldest examples of Iranian epic poetry, far older than Ferdowsi's work and rooted in a still earlier tradition. The tale of Zarir and his son Bastur is thus one of the most ancient of the heroic tales, reaching back to the earliest layers of the Iranian epic tradition.
Is Bastur 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. Yet his tale, rooted in the ancient Memorial of Zarer, is part of the most ancient and common layers of the Iranian heroic tradition, a heritage genuinely shared by all the Iranic peoples, the Kurds among them. As an Iranian people, the Kurds share in this broad and ancient heritage, of which Bastur and his touching tale of filial vengeance are a part.
Related Topics
Zarir: the martyr-hero, father of Bastur
Goshtasp: the king and uncle who forbade Bastur to fight
Arjasp: the Turanian enemy of the holy war
Esfandiyar: the invulnerable prince, Bastur's cousin
Zoroaster: the prophet whose faith the war defended
Lohrasp: the aged former king of the same era
The Seven Labours of Esfandiyar: the cousin's famous quest in the same war
The Shahnameh: the Persian Book of Kings, the great epic of Iran
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Bastur in the Shahnameh?
Bastur, also spelled Bastwar, is a young hero of the Shahnameh and of the ancient Memorial of Zarer, the boy son of the martyr-hero Zarir and nephew of King Goshtasp. In the great war over the new faith against the Turanian Arjasp, his father Zarir was treacherously slain. The boy Bastur found his father's body, lamented him, and then, though forbidden to fight on account of his youth, defied the king, rode into battle, and avenged his father by slaying the enemy who had killed him.
How did Bastur avenge his father?
Bastur avenged his father by riding into battle, in defiance of the king's command, and slaying the enemy warrior who had killed Zarir. In the ancient Memorial of Zarer, the boy avenged his father by shooting an arrow through the heart of Bidarafsh, the sorcerer of the enemy who had treacherously slain Zarir. That a mere boy, forbidden to fight for his youth, should slay the slayer of his father is a stirring heroic reversal and the climax of his tale.
Why was Bastur forbidden to fight?
Bastur was forbidden to fight by his uncle, the king Goshtasp, on account of his youth, for the boy was still a child, too young in the king's judgment to take part in the battle. But the boy's grief at his father's death and his resolve to avenge him were too strong to be held back, and in a stirring act of defiance he disregarded the king's command and rode out into the battle, determined to avenge his father whatever the prohibition.
What is the lament of Bastur?
When Bastur found his father's body on the battlefield, the grieving boy uttered a moving lament over the fallen hero, one of the most affecting passages of the ancient tradition. In the lament, the boy mourns his father, pouring out his grief and sorrow at the loss of so noble a hero. The lament gives the tale its deep emotional power, setting the boy's love and grief at the heart of the story before turning to his vengeance.
How old is the tale of Bastur?
The tale is genuinely ancient. While Bastur appears in the Shahnameh, his story is preserved independently in the Memorial of Zarer, the Ayadgar-i Zariran, a Middle Persian poem that in its surviving form is among the oldest examples of Iranian epic poetry, far older than Ferdowsi's work and rooted in a still earlier tradition. The tale of Zarir and his son Bastur reaches back to the earliest layers of the Iranian epic tradition.
Is Bastur a Kurdish figure?
Bastur 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. Yet his tale, rooted in the ancient Memorial of Zarer, is part of the most ancient and common layers of the Iranian heroic tradition, a heritage genuinely shared by all the Iranic peoples, the Kurds among them, as heirs of the same ancient tradition.
References and Further Reading
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