The Polemics of Making Heroes and Anti-Heroes

CHAPTER 5 The Polemics of Making Heroes and Anti-Heroes Had it not been for the incorporation of Rostam stories very early on in Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāmeh, it is not unlikely that Farāmarz would have shared if not surpassed Rostam’s fame. After all, we know of the existence of the 12-volume Ketāb-e Farāmarz1 in addition to the inclusion of many stories per- taining to his adventures in the various prose and verse Shāhnāmehs, which were composed prior to Ferdowsi’s work.2 In spite of their near exclusion from Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāmeh, Farāmarz’s extensive adventures have continued to sound a chord with audiences throughout the centuries. The survival of the Sistani stories in the oral tradition of Shāhnāmeh Khāni and naqqāli is attested by the large number of the Sistani episodes included in the Qajar period scroll of storytellers Haft-Lashkar.3 Among the Sistani stories, Farāmarz’s story and his end at the hand of Bahman has received particular attention in the popular recounting of the tales. Morshed Torābi, one of the contemporary storytellers, usually talks about his admiration for Farāmarz, who is his favorite hero.4 But why Farāmarz, one might ask? After all, if we rely on the Shāhnāmeh Farāmarz has a minimal role. In Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāmeh, aside from the mention of his name as one of the heroes present at some war or at the court, there are two episodes where he is depicted as more than a mere name. The first is during Kay Khosrow’s reign, when he is mentioned as one of the heroes going to Turān to avenge Siāvush’s blood.5 In this episode we do not learn much about Farāmarz, and in the second episode where his name is invoked we are told that he is dispatched to India in order to expel the Turānians from Khargāh,6 a territory stretching between Sistan on the west, Turān on the north and India in the east. Once he accomplishes this task, Kay Khosrow grants him the entire land of India from Qannuj (Kannauj) to Zābolestān.7 What is left 1 Tārikh-e Sistān 7. 2 For a discussion of sources of the SCE, see Gazerani, Old garment. 3 Haft-Laskhar. 4 Ibid. 28; I have also witnessed him express the same when asked about his favorite hero during a photo shoot at his home in spring of 2011 in Shahr-e Rey. 5 Shāhnāmeh 2: 385. 6 See below for a discussion of this episode as it appears in the Farāmarznāmeh. 7 Ibid. 2: 17; 23: � ن ن ن ت ن ن ��ن� ��م ��م �هن��د � ��ست�ا ت� ا ��س ت �� ن� � �ت��ا �م د ��ست�ا ت� ا ��س ت �و� نر ر و � ر � � �ونج ر� � ر � © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi ��.��63/9789004�8�964_007 146 CHAPTER 5 out of the Shāhnāmeh is the actual account of Farāmarz’s heroic adventures in India, which reaffirms his status as the ruler of Khargāh and India. Instead, what we have in the Shāhnāmeh seems to be an intertextual reference to the story, whose detailed version one finds in the Farāmarznāmeh; the story must have been known widely for it to be omitted yet mentioned in passing. In the Shāhnāmeh, after Kay Khosrow’s reign there is no mention of Farāmarz. He vanishes from the stories only to make a brief and tragic final appearance during the reign of Bahman. 5.1 Farāmarz in Qannuj Farāmarz’s adventures during the reign of Kay Khosrow consist of two parts: first his conquests that culminate in the capture of the city of Qannuj (Kannauj) in India, and second his various adventures in the “west” and his return to India. Farāmarz’s adventures in Qannuj, however, deserve our attention because embedded in the account of Farāmarz’s conquest of the city of Qannuj are, as we shall see shortly, unmistakable reflections of the “Indo- Parthian’s” struggles to capture and maintain vast territories in Northern India, including the ancient city of Kannauj. As mentioned before, allusions to Farāmarz’s adventure and his eventual conquest of Kannauj appear in the Shāhnāmeh, with the actual story omitted. This is one of the many places in the Shāhnāmeh where one gets the sense that the audience must have had some familiarity with the story, which is merely referenced. What we do know of the story according to the Shāhnāmeh is as follows: having replaced his grandfather Kay Kāvus as king, Kay Khosrow in the beginning of his reign is faced with two different tasks: first, avenging the blood of his father Siāvush that eventually leads to expeditions in Turān and second, recapturing the east- ern territories of the kingdom, stretching from Sistan to India. The accounts of the first task occupy the bulk of Shāhnāmeh’s account of Kay Khosrow’s reign;8 the second task, namely the recapture of the Indian territories, is delegated to Farāmarz. Ferdowsi could have had several reasons for omitting the actual story of Farāmarz’s adventures in India. One consideration may have been the sheer length of the work. Another is that this part of the Shāhnāmeh is dominated by Translation: Now all of India is yours, all the way from Qanauj to the borders of Sistan (lit. Dastān’s territories). 8 Many of the stories appearing in relationship to this task belong to the Karenid cycle, such as the story of Forud, whose Karenid provenance has already been discussed in chapter 1..

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