Pishdadian dynasty

The Pishdadian dynasty is a mythical line of primordial kings featured in Zoroastrian belief, Persian mythology and Iranian national history. They are presented in legend as originally rulers of the world but whose realm was eventually limited to Ērānshahr or Greater Iran. Although there are scattered references to them in the Zoroastrian scriptures—the Avesta—and later Pahlavi literature, it is through the 11th-century Iranian national epic, the Shahnameh, that the canonical form of their legends is known. From the 9th century, Muslim writers, notably Tabari, re-told many of the Pishdadian legends in prose histories and other works. The Pishdadian kings and the stories relating to them have no basis in historical fact, however.
According to the Shahnameh, the Pishdadians were the first Iranian dynasty, pre-dating the historical Achaemenids, and ruling for a period of over two thousand years. Their progenitor was Keyumars, the first human and the "Zoroastrian Adam". He was followed by his descendants who, as kings of the world, fought demons and improved the lives of humankind by introducing them to new knowledge and skills. His most renowned successor, Jamshid, established the main elements of civilization, but, as a result of his pride and hubris, was overthrown by the evil tyrant Zahhak. Following a popular insurrection against Zahhak, the throne was eventually restored to the Pishdadians. However, the next king, Fereydun, divided the world between his three sons with his youngest, Iraj, receiving Iran, the choicest portion, after whom it is named. Iraj and his successors aroused the envy of the other descendants of Fereydun, leading to a lengthy feud and series of wars which eventually caused the downfall of the dynasty. The Shahnameh tells how the Iranians, having no confidence in the last of the Pishdadians, replaced them with another mythical dynasty, the Kayanians.
Tabari repeated many of the same stories in his History, with some variations. As with many of the medieval Muslim writers, he intermixed these stories with narratives relating to Quranic figures, and stories of the prophets, to give them a distinctively Islamic perspective.
The stories of the Pishdadian kings have been politically and culturally influential in Iranian society. Both in antiquity and the Middle Ages, ruling dynasties claimed descent from them in order to be imbued with their prestige and political legitimacy. Into the modern era, the tales of the Shahnameh continue to pervade all aspects of Iranian culture and, as part of that, the Pishdadians remain central to Iranians' sense of the roots of their own history and national identity.

Origins, etymology and sources

The Pishdadian kings are figures in Persian mythology, about whom a number of legends are recorded in Zoroastrian texts, including the Avesta, and in the Shahnameh, a medieval Persian poem recognised as Iran's national epic. From the 9th century, the Pishdadians also appear in Arabic prose works of Muslim writers. The overwhelming evidence is that the existence of the Pishdadian dynasty has no historical basis. The various tellings of their story nevertheless portray them as the first Iranian dynasty ruling a mythical kingdom that existed at a time before the Achaemenids, the first historical Persian dynasty. The etymology of Pishdadian is usually thought to mean "those who first promulgated laws". However, an alternative view is that it comes from paradhata, a word from the Avesta, meaning "created before " or "first created".

Source	Date	Language
Avesta	550 BCE	Avestan
Denkard	9th cent CE	Middle Persian
Bundahishn	9th cent CE	Middle Persian
Ayādgār ī Jāmāspīg	9th/10th cent CE	Middle Persian
Tabari's History	Early 10th cent. CE	Arabic
Tarikhnama	962 CE	New Persian
Shahnameh	1010 CE	New Persian
Garshasp-nama	1066 CE	New Persian

The most canonical account of the mythical early kings of Iran is provided by the Shahnameh, an epic poem of the early 11th century composed by Abolqasem Ferdowsi, a Persian poet from Tus in Khorasan. Considered to be a globally significant literary masterpiece, the poem is a history of Iran from its mythic beginnings to the Muslim conquest at the end of the Sasanian period, and opens with the story of the Pishdadian kings. Ferdowsi's work was the culmination of a long tradition of oral and written prose and poetry, and the stories he drew on may reach back to Indo-European traditions pre-dating Iranian culture. He is thought to have used both oral and written sources, including, apparently, a now lost prose epic compiled in Tus in the mid-10th century, and which itself was based on a late Sasanian chronicle, also now lost, called the Xwadāy-nāmag. Additionally, Ferdowsi may well have used his own poetic imagination to add to or change the stories, although it is difficult to judge the extent to which he did this. Although Ferdowsi was a Muslim writing for a Muslim audience, the Shahnameh is seen as "non-Islamic" and partly reflecting a Zoroastrian perspective. Ferdowsi excludes Islamic cosmology and chronology from the Shahnameh and makes the pre-Islamic Persian myths the core message of the epic.
Following the Shahnameh, an Iranian tradition of writing epics about mythological heroes lasted for about 300 years. The only significant one to contain material on the Pishdadians was the Garshasp-nama, which opens with a retelling of some of the stories of the Shahnameh.
The mythical kings of the Shahnameh have parallels with characters in the much earlier Avesta, which likely reached its final form by the middle of the first millennium BCE. However, the Avesta gives only brief references to the characters involved, using different or variant names, with little detail of the myths that later find their full expression in the Shahnameh. These are mainly in the yashts or Avestan hymns. Although these references are brief, it is clear from the context and the way they are presented that they allude to stories very similar to the later, more developed, Zoroastrian tradition. Sitting between the Avesta and the Shahnameh are Middle Persian or Pahlavi Zoroastrian texts, such as the Denkard, the Bundahishn and the Ayādgār ī Jāmāspīg. Although they are nearly contemporaneous with the Shahnameh, they may embed stories and traditions from much earlier sources and provide a link with the ancient Avestan texts. They give more detail than the Avestan references on some of the stories relating to the mythic kings, but still do not provide full narratives in the manner of the Shahnameh. In some instances, the descriptions are at variance with both the Shahnameh and the Avesta.
From the 9th century CE, most Muslim "universal histories", that is histories of the world purportedly from the creation, include an account of the Pishdadian kings. The most important of these, and the one that provides the most comprehensive coverage of traditional pre-Islamic Iranian narratives what the Iranologist Ehsan Yarshater called Iranian "national history" is Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings, written in Arabic during the early 10th century. His narrative intertwines an account of the mythical Persian kings with biblical stories and the prophets of Islam, and integrates the Zoroastrian myths of the Pishdadians’ conflict with evil into the concept of mankind's struggle against satanic forces. Tabari, like Ferdowsi, is thought to have included the lost Xwadāy-nāmag among the sources he used. Tabari's History was an important influence on the Muslim historiography that followed him, and the most significant subsequent Persian development of this genre was the mid-10th century Tarikhnama of Bal'ami. Ostensibly a translation of Tabari's History into Persian, in fact Bal’ami drew on other sources to substantively develop the text; for example, the account of two of the Pishdadian kings, Keyumars and Jamshid, differs significantly between Bal’ami and Tabari.

The ''Shahnameh'' and Zoroastrian tradition

Overview

Zoroastrian belief held that the dynasty originated with the first human, Gayomard, who was brought to life by Ahura Mazda, the creator deity of Zoroastrianism.
In the Shahnameh, Gayomard is the first king of the world and, wearing animal skins and living in the mountains, he teaches humankind how to feed and dress itself and lays down the rules of kingship. During Gayomard's rule, Siyamak, his son, is killed in a battle with the evil deity, Ahriman. Ahriman is, in turn, defeated in a further battle with Gayomard and Siyamak's son, Hushang. Gayomard rules for thirty years and, on his death, is succeeded by Hushang who founds the Pishdadian dynasty.
The epic goes on to tell the story of how the Pishdadians ruled for over two millennia during which they fought demons, gave knowledge and skills to humanity, and created civilisation. However, hubris leads to them being overthrown by an evil tyrant. The throne is eventually restored to the Pishdadians, but they divide their world realm between three different branches of the royal line, creating three new kingdoms: one in the west, one in the east, and Greater Iran in the centre of the world, later equated with the Sasanian concept of Ērānshahr. This results in an ongoing feud and lengthy war between the Iranians and Turanians which ultimately causes the downfall of the Pishdadians and their replacement by a new dynasty, the Kayanians. In all, as narrated in the Shahmaneh, there are ten kings considered to be Pishdadian: Hushang, Tahmuras, Jamshid, Zahhak, Fereydun, Iraj, Manuchehr, Nowzar, Zav and Garshasp. However, Zahhak, Zav and Garshasp are unrelated to the other monarchs.
These stories are not found in the Avesta. Gaya Maretan is referenced as one of the two first living creatures, the other being a bull, without explaining how they were created. In the yashts, or hymns of the Avesta, there are scattered references to characters who subsequently figure in Shahnameh, including the Pishdadians. These are usually in the context of a brief reference to the character sacrificing to the gods in order to ask for their wishes to be granted with short descriptions of their attributes.