Hushang and Tahmuras: Fire, Writing and the First Kings of the Shahnameh

Two legendary rulers, the arts attributed to them, and the difference between epic stories, manuscript history and living festivals.

Legendary kings and changing traditions

Hushang and Tahmuras belong to the opening, legendary world of the Shahnameh, rather than a dynasty dated by contemporary inscriptions. Alireza Shapur Shahbazi traces Hushang through Avestan, Middle Persian and later Arabic and Persian sources. Their versions do not form one unchanging genealogy: some place Hushang at the beginning of kingship, while the familiar epic sequence makes him the successor of Gayumars. His title Peshdad became associated with the Pishdadian line. Even its interpretation has a scholarly history, with explanations involving primordial status as well as the establishment of law. [1]

Hushang’s arts of settled life

In the English translation by Arthur George and Edmond Warner, Hushang obtains iron from rock, makes tools, channels water and encourages cultivation. These deeds compress many kinds of human work into one exemplary reign. The poem gives that reign forty years: this is its narrative chronology. The list of inventions expresses the king’s ideal role as a provider of useful knowledge and order, rather than an archaeological account of how metallurgy or irrigation first developed. [2]

The fire story and Sadeh

The familiar fire episode tells how a stone thrown at a serpent or dragon strikes rock and releases sparks. Hushang recognizes the discovery and celebrates it with a fire and feast. The Met’s illustrated folio shows the celebration rather than the moment of the stone’s impact. [3] The episode’s place in the text requires care: Shahbazi reports Khaleghi-Motlagh’s conclusion that the Sadeh passage is an interpolation, a later addition to the poem. A beloved story in the Shahnameh tradition therefore need not be securely attributed to Ferdowsi’s original composition. [1]

Tahmuras and the writing of the demons

Tahmuras succeeds Hushang in the poem and rules for thirty years. He promotes wool-working and the taming of animals; with the guidance of his virtuous minister Shidasp, he subdues Ahriman and rides him. The defeated divs bargain for their lives by teaching writing in numerous scripts. The narrative makes useful knowledge emerge from a confrontation with dangerous beings. Its list of scripts belongs to the poem’s imagined world, not a dated record of the invention of literacy. [2]

Reading the manuscript paintings

The two illustrations reproduced here are neighbouring folios in Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnameh, made in Tabriz around 1525 and attributed to Sultan Muhammad. In The Feast of Sada, people and animals gather within an elaborate rocky landscape. [3] In Tahmuras Defeats the Divs, a mounted ruler advances among strange, expressive creatures. The museum highlights the humour in their faces and gestures. [4] These are sixteenth-century interpretations of much older stories: the painter supplies another stage in the tales’ transmission, not a portrait made in either king’s lifetime.

Living festivals and Kurdish connections

Sadeh is distinct from the spring New Year. Anna Krasnowolska places its traditional date on 10 Bahman, around 30 January. [5] UNESCO’s 2023 inscription for Iran and Tajikistan describes fire gatherings, food, storytelling and seasonal agricultural work. [6] Kurdish connections to the epic are best approached through actual narrative traditions: Christine Allison and Philip Kreyenbroek document Kurdish oral versions of parts of the Shahnameh. That establishes circulation and adaptation; it does not establish that every Kurdish community preserves these particular episodes or celebrates Sadeh in the same way. [7]

Sources and further reading

1. Alireza Shapur Shahbazi, Hōšang, Encyclopaedia Iranica XII/5 (2004), pp. 491–492, updated 2018; traditions, title and the fire episode’s textual status.
2. Ferdowsi, The Sháhnáma, translated by Arthur George and Edmond Warner, volume I (1905), pp. 122–129; Hushang and Tahmuras, via Persian Literature in Translation.
3. Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Feast of Sada, Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnameh, folio 22v, about 1525, attributed to Sultan Muhammad; 1970.301.2, public domain.
4. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tahmuras Defeats the Divs, Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnameh, folio 23v, about 1525, attributed to Sultan Muhammad; 1970.301.3, public domain.
5. Anna Krasnowolska, Sada Festival, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2009), updated 2012; calendar, historical accounts and varying foundation stories.
6. UNESCO, Sadeh/Sada celebration, nomination 01713, Iran and Tajikistan; inscribed in 2023, description of living practices.
7. Christine Allison and Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Oral Literature in Iran, Encyclopaedia Iranica (2022), updated 2023; Kurdish oral epic and interaction of oral and written traditions.