A Thousand Years of the Persian Book
The Epic of Shahnameh

The Shahnameh, the seminal Persian literary work, is based primarily on a prose translation of an earlier Pahlavi work, known as the Xvatāynamāk (Book of Kings), from the pre-Islamic Sassanid era (224–651). The poet Daqiqi (942–980), a contemporary of the poet Ferdowsi (940–1020), began rendering the Shahnameh in verse, and, in turn, Ferdowsi included many of Daqiqi’s couplets in his version of the Shahnameh. Although the manuscript’s place of publication is not noted, it is in an Iranian style with text written in the Persian Nasta‘liq calligraphic style, one of the oldest and most prized styles of Persian calligraphy used for manuscripts. The displayed page showcases a painting of an epic battle scene.

This rare Shahnameh manuscript, copied in India in a regional Indian provincial style, demonstrates the popularity of the epic throughout South Asia as well as in the central Persian lands. The manuscript has highly decorated illuminated chapter and section openings in gold ink and numerous illustrations and miniature paintings that fuse Persian, Mughal Indian, regional Indian, as well as European styles. Although the manuscript is not dated, the work reflects a late-seventeenth-century to early-eighteenth-century aesthetic prevalent in India. The text is written in the Persian Nasta‘liq calligraphic style.

As communication and contact between Zoroastrian communities in Iran and India expanded throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Indian Zoroastrian Parsi community began reconnecting to their ancestral homeland in Iran. Produced in the Iranian Qajar style, characterized by a more realistic treatment of portraiture, this twentieth-century Shahnameh includes an additional chapter introducing the notables of the Indian Parsi community to Persian speakers. Illustrated here is the court of Sultan Mahmud, to whom the Shahnameh was dedicated, surrounded by notable Persian poets including Ferdowsi.