Document Type : علمی- پژوهشی
Author
Associate Professor of Persian Language and Literature/ Payame Noor University of Urmia, Iran
Abstract
The greatest act of epic-mythological stories is kill the dragon. Other than Sistan’sheroes in Iran’s gladiatorship-national narratives, a number of kings also fight with dragon, creatures like dragon and dragons that have changedand they kill or capture them.In well-known sources and common narrations about him,Keixosrow Kiani is also one of these kings whohe is not a dragon race, but the story of his confrontation with the dragon is a genuine and ancient narrative that its background may be pre-Islamic sources of Iran and two different reports have survived in Arabic and Persian sources.The first report is in the book of “history of the Senii of the Moluk al-arz va al-anbia” written by Hamze Isfahani and then Zajjaji’sHomayoon nameh and Tarikhe Gozideh and Mostofi’sNozhat al goloob, in which Kexosrowkilled a dragon on the mountain between Fars and Isfahan and the other is the history narrative of Qom that the king is going to Qom to keeping back the dragon’s damage and the dragon escapes from her.The story of killing the dragon by Keyxosrowdue to lack of it in important and impressive texts such as Shahnameh and Tabari historyandagain tobe more prominent of the sacred and spiritual aspect of the king than his warfare and gladiatorship remained unknown and far from attention.
Highlights
Kaykhosrow, the Dragon Hunter
Sajjad Aydenloo
Associate Professor, PNU University of Urmia
Abstract:
The confront of Kaykhosrow with the dragon is one of the unique and almost unknown narratives ofIran’s epic tradition. Hamzeh Isfahani was the first who coined it in the book “SunniMoluk al-arzva al-anbia”that way: “people told Kaykhosrow, the red mountain called Kooshid located between Fars and Isfahan where a dragon dominates the region and humans.He [Kaykhosrow] went there with his people and killed the dragon and a fire-temple built on the mountain which became known as the Kooshidfire.”
The Arabic origin of the book “History of Qom” was written in 387 AH by Hasan ibn Mohammad Qomiand it has been translated into Persian in the years 805 and 806 AH. He mentioned another narrative about how to building the Saraft/Saraf village and confront of KayKhosrow and the dragon in this book: “Kaykhosrowhas built this land and when he got there [meaning: Saraft] a lake was there where all the groundwater and the rivers flowed into that lake. “This place is very suitable for construction”Kaykhosrowsaid. He ordered to build “Saraft” in this place and they called it “Saraf” which in their language that’s mean“Sarab” and in Arabic means “Rasol Ma”.The narrator says that Kaykhosrow came from the city of “Shir” [probably: “Shiz”] to here looking for the dragon and when he got to this area, he finds where the dragon lives and break up it. The dragon escaped and he went up the stack, so Kaykhosrowbuilt “Saraft” there.”
Beast killing some kings and myths in Iranian’s narratives means proving the legitimacy of the position of the prince and their bravery. I think that Kaykhosrow’sstory and the Dragon can be analyzed from this perspective as well:because Toos and Nozarian are opposed to Kaykhosrow's choice to replace Kavus for the reason Turanian race and that Kaykhosrow's mother is of Afrasiab race; therefore, perhaps in addition to the conquest’s test of Bahman’s devilish castle and the success of Kaykhosrowin this mission – as its narration mentioned in Shahnameh - motif of confront with the dragonalso attributed to him up to this important act the genius of the descent and deserving the young Kaykhosrow to sit on the throne of Iran shown.
Why does Kaykhosrow build a fire-temple there after killing the Kooshidmount’s dragon? In national narratives mentioned: Kaykhosrowis one of the kings who is a fire temple-maker or somehow relates to the fire temples. Except the famous Azargoshasp Fire-temple that narrative of its construction by Kaykhosrow after than conquest of Bahman’s castle mentioned in Shahnameh, building the Kosje, Karkuy and Ramesh’s villagefire-houseis also attributed to him. Probably attribution of the building the several fire-temple(like the Kooshid mount’s fire-temple) to Kaykhosrowis related to the clerical and spiritual image of this king.On the other hand, the general answer and relatively specificto building a fire-temple where the dragon is killed can be substitution a sacred and beneficial fire instead of a devilish creature with burning and damaging properties.
The story of Kaykhosrow’s beast killing is an origin and ancient narrative thatprobably is related to one of the Pahlavi Xodayname transcriptionsor Iranian pre-Islamicnarratives but for two reasons it is almost unknown and forgotten.The first and most important reason is that none of the valid and famous references (e.g. Abu Mansouri’sShahnameh and Tabari historyhas used of Pahlavi texts or Xodayname’sArabic translations or the ancient references of the Persian) have mentioned to this story for reasons that it is not clear to us today and strangely enough there is no mention of this important narrativein Pahlavi texts.Only the old and well known text is shortly mentioned to this narrative is the book of “SunniMoluk al-arzva al-anbia”. The book “History of Qom” has pointed to it as well, but it can never validate public histories.The books “TarikheGozideh” and “Mostofi’sNozhat al Golub” are one of the more recent references and Homayunnameh is one of the anonymous and unnoticed poems of Persian literature, too. The Kaykhosrow’s story and the dragon like other acts of this king was once famous either spoken about that in Pahlavi textsor mentioned in famous historical references such as Tabari history, al-BadovaTarikh, MojmalolTawarikh and etc. or Ferdowsi through his prose’sreference/references it sings poetry and would be immortal. This story is due to its narratives relevance to world motif of beast killing and it is similar to other stories of this repetitious narrative, so it has the ability to express in this way which unfortunately has not been the case.
Keywords:SuuniMoluk al-arzva al-anbia, Qom history, Kaykhosrow, dragon, dragon hunting.
Bibliography:
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