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Updated: June 13, 2025
The text, however, of Tabari, at all events and more so a comparison of Tabari and other Arabs with one another and with Firdausi exhibits that entire sections of the History of Kings were already in the Pahlavi original in essentially different shapes. It is very important for a knowledge of the history that thus we have at our command all manner of dissonant reports about the Sasanide epoch.
A superficial reading of Firdausi would engender the view that he obtained his material partly from Pahlavi books direct and partly from the oral communication of competent renconteurs. That this is only a deceptive illusion we conclude at once from his strong resemblance not only in the main features but also in the details and the order, with Arab writers some of whom were much anterior to him.
These facts generally important for the history of the preservation of the epic, historic and artistic traditions of Iran, are particularly important for the investigation of the sources of the Arabic translations of the Sasanian chronicles and of the epopee of Firdausi.
Further, the information adduced by us above regarding the castle refers to times a little previous to the age of Firdausi and undoubtedly among the materials in these archives were the sources of the Shah Nameh which were available to Firdausi through intermediate versions.
Thus Rise and Set In Constant Change Those Shining Orbs and Regulate the Very Life of this Our World. Kalidasa, India. Hitomaro, Japan. Confucius, China. So Tempered is the Genial Glow That We Know Neither Heat Nor Cold. Tulips and Hyacinths Abound. Fostered by A Delicious Clime the Earth Blooms Like A Garden. Firdausi, Persia. From Untrodden Ways Turn Aside. Phra Ruang, Siam. Zuhayr, Arabia.
Firdausi positively knew no Pahlavi and as for Arabic he knew next to nothing. He did employ written sources preponderatingly if not exclusively and these were in modern Persian. So far our information is surely trustworthy. For, Biruni testifies to a Shahname by Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak of Tus.
Indeed the poet often reproduces almost the identical phraseology of the historian. But now since according to both tradition and internal grounds Firdausi's bases were not Arabic books, the coincidence must be explained from a common ultimate source. The original work has been reflected to us in Tabari and other Arabs as well as Firdausi through a series of intermediate texts.
Moreover, Firdausi's poem occasionally betrays that his sources had not flowed to him through Arabic. Of those men one only is met with again, Shahzan son of Barzin. He is mentioned by Firdausi at the head of his account of the genesis of KALILA WA DIMNA: "Listen to what Shahzan, son of Barzin has said when he revealed the secret."
The panel in the center of the attic, representing Persia, is inscribed The balmy air diffuses health and fragrance, So tempered is the genial glow that we know neither heat nor cold. Tulips and hyacinths abound. Fostered by a delicious clime, the earth blooms like a garden. Firdausi. The panel at the right of the attic, representing Spain, reads
It was easy for anyone who knew from Firdausi that the landed nobility called the Dihkan constituted the peculiar custodians of national lore to name a "learned Dihkan" as the collector of the stones of kings. The compilation prepared at the time had undoubtedly drawn upon written documents without which It would have been impossible to give minute particulars of a long by-gone past.
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