Rustam and his zīn-i palang

NICHOLAS AND URSULA SIMS-WILLIAMS

(London)

1. The name Rustam

Unlike many other heroes of the Šāhnāma, Rustam does not appear in the legends told
or alluded to in the Avesta. The same applies to his father Zāl or Dastān, not to men-
tion his mother Rūdāba, his son Suhrāb and his horse Rakhš, with the result that, as
Ehsan Yarshater has written, “the origin of their legends has been one of the thorny
problems of the national epic”.1 Amongst the ideas conveniently summarised by Yar-
shater are Marquart’s theory, further elaborated by Herzfeld, that the figure of Rustam
is a conflation of the legendary Avestan Kərəsāspa (Persian Garšāsp) and the historical
Indo-Parthian king Gondophares, and the more sober opinion of Nöldeke and Chris-
tensen, who attributed the story of Rustam-i Sagzī to the early Iranian inhabitants of
Sīstān. Yarshater himself finds it most plausible to attribute the origin of the Rustam
legends to “the remoter past of the Saka people”, before their arrival in Sīstān.2 More
recently, Shahbazi has energetically supported Bivar’s arguments for a Parthian back-
ground to the Rustam story,3 Melikian-Chirvani has drawn attention to parallels in the
Greek legends of Heracles and his son Scythes,4 while Davidson and Skjærvø have
emphasised the extent to which the character and story of Rustam are a continuation
of Indo-Iranian and even Indo-European poetic traditions.5

———
1 Yarshater 1983: 454.
2 Ibid., 456.
3 Bivar 1981; Shahbazi 1994; Bivar 2003: 24–26. A cornerstone of Bivar’s thesis is his reading
of the name Sām in Greek script on a coin of Gondophares, but the legend clearly has ΣΑΗ =
SAĒ, not ΣΑΜ = SAM.
4 Melikian-Chirvani 2001.
5 Davidson 1994; Skjærvø 1998.

From Aṣl to Zā’id: Essays in Honour of Éva M. Jeremiás, ed. by IVÁN SZÁNTÓ,
Piliscsaba 2015: 249–258.
NICHOLAS AND URSULA SIMS-WILLIAMS

We do not have space, nor do we have the competence, to analyse all the argu-
ments which have been put forward by these and other scholars in favour of their vari-
ous hypotheses. In this short offering to our friend Éva Jeremiás we will focus on just
two matters which we had the pleasure of discussing with her when she visited us in
Cambridge a few years ago. The first is the origin and form of the name of the hero,
which of course has a bearing on the more general question of the origin of the Rustam
legend.
The etymology of the name Rustam has been much discussed, but many of the
derivations suggested are incompatible with the evidence of the earliest forms. Setting
aside two doubtful Elamite forms mentioned by Gershevitch (see below), the name is
first attested in the Greek form Rōstamos, which occurs in a document of about AD 250
from the vicinity of Dura-Europos,6 and the Armenian form Aṙostom in the history
attributed to Faustus of Byzantium,7 which is thought to have been compiled in the
fifth century. To the east of the Iranian area, one finds the name Rostama written in
Brahmi script on a sixth-century seal and in several inscriptions of the Upper Indus.8
One need not assume that all of these individuals were named after the hero Rustam,
but there can be little doubt of the identity of the name. For its etymology it is signifi-
cant that these early occurrences all indicate -ō- rather than -u- in the first syllable.
That in itself is enough to cast doubt on etymologies such as Gershevitch’s *rastu-
taxma- “of strong growth” (a wholly artificial construction, designed solely in order
to allow a comparison with the Elamite names Rašdama and Rašdakma)9 or Gignoux’s
*rusta-taxma- “having grown strong”.10 In our opinion, Hübschmann’s derivation from
*rautas-taxma- “river-strong”, i.e. “as strong as a river”, should never have been
doubted.11 Not only does this reconstruction perfectly account for the older form with
-ō- in the first syllable and the historical spelling of the hero’s name as lwtsthm in
Zoroastrian Pahlavi,12 it is confirmed by the associations of the name in the Šāhnāma,
in particular with the name of Rustam’s mother Rūdāba, literally “(she) of the River

———
16 Feissel–Gascou 1995: 86–90, cited by Grenet 2002: 219, note 31.
17 See Nöldeke 1920: 12, note 2; Bailey 1937: 1154.
18 Grenet 2002: 219.
19 Gershevitch 1969: 226–227.
10 Gignoux 2003: 58 (who cites the form as *rusta-tahma-, with Persian -hm- rather than general
Iranian -xm-).
11 Hübschmann 1895: 251, note 1. So too Davidson 1994: 117–118 (without reference to Hübsch-
mann).
12 E.g. in the Šahristānīhā ī Ērān, § 37 (ed. Markwart 1931: 17). For further references see
Skjærvø 1998: 162, note 8.

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 Rustam and his zīn-i palang

Water”.13 The eventual shortening and simplification of the first syllable is not unpar-
alleled, cf. Persian rustā(q) beside rūstā(q) “district, town, village” < *rautas-tāka-
(= Parthian rwdystʼg, originally “river-bed”), bustān beside būstān “garden” < *bauda-
stāna-, while the original long vowel seems to survive in the form Rūstam, scanned
–  –, in ‘Abd al-Qādir’s Šāhnāma lexicon.14
The name Rustam begins to be common at the very end of the Sasanian period, in
the seventh century, no doubt reflecting the fact that by this time the Rustam legend
had become widely popular in the Western Iranian lands.15 It is at this time that we
have the earliest occurrences of the name which definitely allude to Rustam son of
Zāl. According to the Tārīkh-i Sīstān, the last Sasanian marzbān of Sīstān, Īrān ī Rus-
tamān, had a genealogy going back to the hero; and according to Balāzurī and others,
when the Arab invaders reached Sīstān they were shown the “stall of the horse of
Rustam”.16 The Armenian writer Moses of Khorene, who is now thought to have writ-
ten in the eighth century, mentions Ṙostom Sagčik, referring to him rather dismiss-
ively as a character in fantastic Persian tales.17 The murals of Panjikent in Sogdiana,
which depict Rustam and Rakhš in battle with the dīvs, are also attributed to the first
half of the eighth century, perhaps ca. AD 740,18 while a Sogdian text from Dunhuang,
which recounts a similar episode,19 may belong to the ninth century. Recently Yoshida
has published another Sogdian text, attributed by him to the tenth century, which con-
tains in close proximity the names not only of Rustam (rwstmy) but also of Sām (sʼxm),
Suhrāb (swrxʼp) and other heroes of the Šāhnāma.20
The point to be emphasised here is the fact that the writing of the name Rustam as
rwstmy in these two Sogdian texts indicates that it ultimately derives from a Persian
form.21 The final -y must be a generalised nominative ending, indicating that the name

———
13 Skjærvø 1998: 163–164 with n. 15; cf. also Davidson, loc. cit. The etymological comparison
of the names Rustam and Rūdāba was first suggested by Justi (1895: viii, 261a, 266a), but he
equated the first element of both names with Avestan raoδa- “growth”, which is problematic
from a phonological point of view.
14 Nöldeke 1920: 12, note 1.
15 Nöldeke 1920: 11.
16 Grenet 2002: 219; Nöldeke 1920: 11 with note 10.
17 Thomson 2006: 139.
18 Marshak 2002: 28.
19 Sims-Williams 1977: 54–61. Revised translation in Whitfield 2004: 119.
20 Yoshida 2013.
21 The name cannot be of Bactrian origin, as suggested by Lurje 2011: 333, since that language
preserves original *-xm-, cf. such forms as laxmigo “dakhma”, taxmo “stream” and toxmano
“seed”.

251
NICHOLAS AND URSULA SIMS-WILLIAMS

was borrowed in the form Rustam, with two short vowels, and therefore treated as a
so-called “light stem”. If the word had been borrowed with a long vowel in the first
syllable, it would necessarily have been treated as a “heavy stem” and the nominative
ending would have been omitted. If on the other hand it were an inherited form, one
would expect something like *rōstaxm, cf. Sogdian mrtxmy “man” < *marta-tauxma-
(with preserved -x-) as opposed to Persian mardum, Manichaean Middle Persian and
Parthian mrdwhm. Similarly, some of the names of heroes in the Sogdian text pub-
lished by Yoshida, e.g. γwδ-ʼrz “Gūdarz” and βry-twn “Firīdūn”, display distinctively
Persian features.22 It is also noteworthy that the last surviving lines of the Sogdian
Rustam text contain two Middle Persian loanwords which are not attested anywhere
else in Sogdian, namely, ʾβtʾr “hyena” (= Middle Persian haftār, contrast Classical
Persian kaftār) and zδxh “snake” (= Middle Persian azdahā(g), Classical aždahā).
These facts, together with the extremely unusual style of the text, suggest that the
Sogdian version of the Rustam story may depend, at least in part, on a Persian origi-
nal.23 This would not rule out the possibility of a transmission via Bactria, which was
under strong Persian influence during much of the Sasanian period. On the other hand,
the “Hephthalite” appearance of Rustam in Sogdian art,24 which is the principal reason
for contemplating such a possibility, is perhaps intended merely to show that he is a
man from the south, a Sagzī or Sīstānī, in accordance with Persian tradition.

2. zīn-i palang

The material surveyed so far proves that the Rustam legend was fully formed and well
known in Western Iran by the seventh century AD at the latest and in the Eastern Ira-
nian lands by the early eighth century. In some recent publications Frantz Grenet has
attempted to find pictorial allusions several centuries earlier, in the “sīmurgh” depicted
on the buckle of Shapur I (AD 240–272) on the Rag-i Bībī rock relief in northern
Afghanistan,25 and in the scene of a prince breaking in a foal depicted on an East-
ern Sasanian silver dish attributed to the first half of the fourth century.26 Nicholas
Sims-Williams has referred to the personal name Purlang-zin, spelt πορλαγγοζινο

———
22 Yoshida 2013: 210.
23 As suggested by N. Sims-Williams apud Whitfield 2004: 119.
24 Marshak 2002: 37–38; Grenet 2002: 218.
25 Grenet 2007: 126–127.
26 Grenet 2009. (In n. 16 the comparison with the story of Rustam and Rakhš is credited to H. Ina-
gaki.)

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 Rustam and his zīn-i palang

in Greek script, in a Bactrian document which was almost certainly written in the
fourth century under Sasanian rule, claiming that this may be translated as “the man
with the panther’s skin” and that it represents “a clear reference to the zīn-i palang of
Rustam.”27 This statement, which was made without further comment in a general lec-
ture, requires some explanation.
The possessive compound Purlang-zin belongs to a common Indo-European name-
type. It is hardly possible to doubt that πορλαγγο, the first element of this name, is
the Bactrian word for “panther” or “leopard”, the etymological equivalent of Persian
palang and Sogdian pwrδnk. The second element is more ambiguous, as there are sev-
eral Old Iranian forms which might be expected to result in a Bactrian word written
ζινο. One can rule out straightaway that the name contains the attested Bactrian word
ζινο “woman”, which would be quite out of place in such a name. In theory *ζινο could
be a later form of ζηνο “weapon” (attested in the compound ζηνοβιδο “armourer”) or
of an unattested *ζηνο “saddle” corresponding to Persian zīn “id.”, but neither gives
a very plausible name. In this respect “he who wears a panther skin”, with Bactrian
*ζινο from Old Iranian *azina- “skin”, is clearly preferable. This would be a typical
heroic name, which might have originated as the epithet of a famous warrior. In Homer’s
Iliad, both Paris and Menelaos are described as wearing a panther skin, and in the
Ṛgveda, the epithet pṛdāku-sānu- “having a panther (skin on his) back” seems to be
used of the god Varuṇa.28 If we ask ourselves which Iranian hero could have been de-
scribed as “the man with the panther’s skin” we find only one plausible answer: Rustam.
The fact that Rustam wore a garment made from the skin of a panther or leopard
is well attested. The Sogdian Rustam text states unambiguously that Rustam put on a
pwrδnkʾ crm nγwδnn “leopard skin garment” before going into battle and he is shown
wearing such a garment in the Panjikent murals, the earliest known portrayals of the
hero. In the Šāhnāma too, Rustam is described as going into battle wearing a “gar-
ment” (jāma), “cuirass” (jawshan) or “shirt” (pīrāhan) made of “leopard skin” (čarm-i
palang or palangīna).29 It is important to note that Rustam is the only hero of the Šāh-
nāma who has such a garment; apart from passages referring to Rustam, the term pa-
langīna only occurs in the Šāhnāma in passages referring to the reign of Gayūmars,
the first king of mankind, in whose time there was no clothing other than animal skins.

———
27 Sims-Williams 1997: 10. The text in question is edited and translated in Sims-Williams 2007:
162–165.
28 Lubotsky 2004.
29 For a useful collection of textual and pictorial examples, as well as a discussion of the various
felines involved, see Melikian-Chirvani 2001: 173–178. A full list of passages can be found
by checking the references in Wolff 1935: 203b.

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NICHOLAS AND URSULA SIMS-WILLIAMS

Confusingly, Rustam’s garment is also referred to as babr, apparently meaning

“tiger”, or more specifically babr-i bayān, and illustrations to the Šāhnāma usually pic-
ture Rustam wearing a coat made of tiger skin, often with a leopard skin headdress
(Figure 1). However, it seems that babr-i bayān is properly the name of Rustam’s gar-
ment rather than an indication of the material from which it is made:

‫ﯾﮑﯽ ﺟﺎﻣﮫ دارد ز ﭼﺮم ﭘﻠﻨﮓ‬

‫ﺑﭙﻮﺷﺪ ِز ﺑَﺮ َواﻧﺪرآﯾﺪ ﺑﮫ ﺟﻨﮓ‬
‫ھﻤﯽ ﻧﺎم ﺑﺒﺮﺑﯿﺎن ﺧﻮاﻧﺪش‬
He has a garment of leopard skin,
He puts it on and goes into battle;
He calls it babr-i bayān.30

Mahmoud Omidsalar has argued that Rustam’s babr or babr-i bayān originally re-
ferred not to the “tiger” but to the “beaver” (Avestan baβra-) and that babr-i bayān is
the “beaver of the gods” or “divine beaver”.31 But it is clear that Firdawsī – rightly or
wrongly – understood babr-i bayān as a term for a tiger, since he also uses the phrase
in this sense in two passages which do not refer to Rustam and his clothing.32
In addition to his leopard skin garment, Rustam has a zīn-i palang “saddle of leopard
(skin)”, as do several other heroes of the epic. The occurrences of this expression in the
text of the Šāhnāma leave no room for doubt that the zīn-i palang is indeed a saddle,
and that is also how it is illustrated (Figure 2). But the similarity with the Bactrian
name πορλαγγοζινο, which is quite unlikely to mean “the man with the leopard skin
saddle”, makes one wonder whether zīn-i palang “saddle of leopard (skin)”, is not a
reinterpretation of an old phrase for the “skin of a leopard”, which was no longer un-
derstood once the word zīn in the meaning “skin” had disappeared from the Persian
language.
A close parallel is provided by the case of the hero Ṭahmūras, the Taxma Urupi of
the Avesta. As Karl Hoffmann pointed out long ago,33 the Avestan Taxma Urupi has
the word azina-uuaṇt- “having a skin” as an epithet (or perhaps as a component of his
name). This was apparently translated quite correctly into Middle Persian as zyn’wnd,
which was then transposed into the New Persian form zīnāvand. In this form it is given
———
30 Šāhnāma, ed. Jalāl Khāleqī-Moṭlaq, vol. 3 (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1992), 187–
188, verses 1359–1360.
31 Omīd-Sālār 1983; Omidsalar 1984.
32 Khaleghi-Motlagh 1988a. See also Khāleqī-Moṭlaq 1988b.
33 Hoffmann 1967: 30–32.

254
 Rustam and his zīn-i palang

Figure 1: Rustam mortally wounds his son Suhrāb unaware of their relationship.
Signed by Muḥammad Yūsuf. Iran, c. 1640. British Library IO Islamic 3682, f. 92r.
© British Library Board.

255
NICHOLAS AND URSULA SIMS-WILLIAMS

Figure 2: The death of Rustam, showing Rakhš with his leopard skin saddle impaled in a pit.
Illustration from the Great Mongol Šāhnāma (also known as the Demotte Šāhnāma), Tabriz, c. 1335.
British Museum ME OA 1948.12-11.025. © Trustees of the British Museum.

both by al-Bīrūnī and by Ḥamza Iṣfahānī as an epithet of Ṭahmūras. We cannot know

what they thought it meant, but it eventually came to be understood as the ordinary
Persian word zīnāvand “watchful”. This is shown by a very late and ungrammatical
Avestan text, the Āfrīn-i Zartušt, where Taxma Urupi is described as zaēnaŋvhaṇt-
“watchful”, the etymological equivalent of Persian zīnāvand. This example demon-
strates that the old word zīn meaning “skin” was no longer recognised and that where
it occurred in an inherited expression it had to be reinterpreted. If tradition preserved
a memory of Rustam as the hero with the zīn-i palang “leopard skin”, it was only natu-
ral that Firdawsī or one of his predecessors would have reinterpreted zīn as “saddle”,
this being the only zīn which survived into Classical Persian.

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