Faramarz: Rostam’s Son in the Shahnameh and Later Epic Traditions

Faramarz is a legendary warrior of Rostam’s family. His Shahnameh episodes, the two Faramarz-nama poems and later religious interpretations preserve different stories rather than one historical biography.

A legendary warrior from Rostam’s family

Faramarz, or Farāmarz, is Rostam’s son in the Iranian epic tradition. His story belongs to the legendary world associated with Sistan and Rostam’s family, not a securely dated biography of a medieval ruler. Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh distinguishes the hero’s appearances in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh from the separate Faramarz-nama poems and other narratives. Maternal genealogies vary between sources. A family tree assembled from several versions should not be presented as though every narrator agreed on it. [1]

What he does in the Shahnameh

Khaleghi-Motlagh identifies concrete episodes: Faramarz takes part in Rostam’s campaign against Turan after Siyavash’s death, kills Varazad and captures Surkha, Afrasiab’s son. In the conflict involving Esfandiyar’s family he kills Mehrnush. After Rostam’s death he attacks Kabul in revenge. The Shahnameh also sends him towards India but gives much less of that campaign than the later poems. These distinctions prevent adventures developed elsewhere from all being assigned to Ferdowsi’s text. [1]

Two Faramarz-nama poems, not a single supplement

The title Faramarz-nama covers two surviving verse narratives. Khaleghi-Motlagh describes the shorter poem’s Indian expedition under Kay Kavus, its monsters and a debate with a Brahman; its surviving versions end incompletely. He also distinguishes the composite Bombay printing of 1906 from the older narrative material it preserves. Marjolijn van Zutphen’s introduction to her 2017 translation treats the Large Faramarzname as a separate, much longer poem. It explains how later epics imitate the Shahnameh’s verse form and vocabulary and were sometimes inserted into Shahnameh manuscripts. A copied insertion is part of a manuscript’s reception history, not automatic evidence of Ferdowsi’s authorship. [2] [3]

Bahman’s revenge and different endings

The confrontation with Bahman, Esfandiyar’s son, extends the feud between the royal house and Rostam’s family. In the Shahnameh tradition represented by the painting here, Faramarz loses the battle and his life. Van Zutphen explains that the Bahman-nama greatly expands this conflict and continues with Faramarz’s son Azar-borzin. Other accounts do not all end identically: Khaleghi-Motlagh notes a peace settlement in the Tarikh-e Sistan and a different death in the Mojmal al-tawarikh. The familiar execution story is therefore one transmitted ending rather than a universal conclusion across every source. [1] [3] [5]

A specific connection with Yarsan religious interpretation

Seyedehbehnaz Hosseini’s 2016 study of life after death in Yarsan draws on fieldwork and religious manuscripts. On page 19 she discusses a passage of the Divan Gureh identifying Baba Yadegar with an earlier doon, or manifestation, as Faramarz son of Rostam. This is a named instance of an epic figure receiving religious interpretation in a Kurdish setting. It should be attributed to that study and textual tradition, not generalized into a claim that all Kurds share one account or that the hero’s legendary genealogy proves a modern ethnic identity. [4]

Reading the illustrated page

The Met dates this folio to about 1530–1535 and attributes its painting to Aqa Mirak. Made in Tabriz for Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnameh, it depicts the warrior surrounded by mounted opponents. The museum identifies the medium as opaque watercolour, ink, silver and gold on paper. Its figures, banners and calligraphy document Safavid illustration of the episode centuries after Ferdowsi. Keeping the image’s date, attribution and museum number visible lets readers connect the story with a specific surviving object while recognizing the difference between epic narration and historical evidence. [5] [6]

Sources and further reading

1. Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Farāmarz,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (1999; updated 2013): Shahnameh episodes, maternal variants and conflicting accounts of the hero’s fate.
2. Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Farāmarz-nāma,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (1999; updated 2013): shorter and longer narratives, incomplete endings and the 1906 Bombay compilation.
3. Marjolijn van Zutphen, introduction to A Story of Conquest and Adventure: The Large Farāmarznāme (Leiden University Press, 2017), pp. 11–29; publisher’s sample on later epics, manuscript interpolation, the two poems and Bahman-nama.
4. Seyedehbehnaz Hosseini, “Life after Death in Manichaeism and Yārsān,” Fritillaria Kurdica 13–14 (September 2016), pp. 4–34, especially pp. 5 and 19: fieldwork/manuscript method and Baba Yadegar’s Faramarz manifestation in the Divan Gureh.
5. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Faramarz Encircled While Battling Bahman,” Shah Tahmasp Shahnameh, folio 475r; about 1530–1535, painting attributed to Aqa Mirak, object 1970.301.57. Museum catalogue and public-domain image.
6. Met Open Access image DP107172 via Wikimedia Commons, CC0. Original object credited to the Met, Gift of Arthur A. Houghton Jr., 1970.