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I have seen in the city of Istakhar in Fars in the year 303 in the house of a high noble Persian, a large book in which were set out along with the descriptions of several sciences the histories of the kings of Persia, their reigns and the monuments which they had erected, fragments which I have not been able to find anywhere else in Persian books, neither in the Khoday Nameh, nor in the Ain Nameh nor in the Kohan Nameh or anywhere else.
The Iranians who from very remote antiquity extravagantly lauded truth, had in reality never any great sense of it. The Khoday Nameh and kindred productions were unfairly biassed and rhetorical. The ornamental and figurative ingredients are indicated even by the Arabic reproductions, though the latter are greatly condensed. Compare likewise Hamza's remarks on the works on Persian history.
Says Behram the mobed: I collected together a little over twenty copies of the book called Khoday Nameh and I put together properly the chronology of the kings of Persia from the times of Kayumarth, the father of mankind, till the last days when the empire was transferred from them to the Arabs.
The term used was Khoday which in Persian meant Lord, applicable equally to God and any high dignitary. "Yes." Muhammad Ibn Abdal Maliq asked upon this, "Do they tolerate such a thing? For what greater blasphemy would be left to Pharaoh to commit who suggested to his people 'I am your God the Highest.?"
His rendering of Kalila and Dimma is well-known. It enjoys a prime role in the migration of this collection of stories to the West. Well-known also is his translation of the Persian book of Khoday Nameh, that is, the official chronicle of the Sasanian times and of the Ain Nameh, the Institutes of the time. We shall have occasion to speak about these books later on.
The castle of Shiz in the district of Arrajan in the province of Fars described by Istakhri, p. 118, 2-4; 150, 14-7; Ibn Hauqal, p. 189, 1-2; cf. the translator of the Khoday Nameh, Behram, son of Mardanshah of the city of Shapur in the province of Fars 19 To the Iranian element belongs a very rich rôle in the external as well as the internal history of Islam.
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