From the Land of the Pure, in Search of the Lost Origin: An Interview with Bahram Beyzaie on Siyavush-Khani (Siyavush Recitation) and its Mythological and Literary Roots

Abstract

The interview was conducted in 1997 after the publication of Beyzaie's extraordinary engagement with the legend of Siyavush in Siyavush-Khani (Siyavush Recitation). Beyzaie's experiments with Shahnameh legends are not adaptations in the strict sense of the term. This is primarily because their stories are often different from what appears in the Shahnameh, mix the narratives with other mythical sources and place them in contemporary templates with an inter-paradigmatic gaze that reflects on the meaning and the history of the present. The interview is significant in that, as it has been conducted by a leading playwright and scholar of Iranian performing arts, it enables the reader to have firsthand experience of working in Iran as a playwright and reveals some of the methods Beyzaie uses to handle his subjects.

Notes

⁸Noh or Nogaku is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama performed since the fourteenth century.

¹“Mani-type paintings” is Beyzaie's term for the painting style known as miniature which was used to illustrate the pages of famous Shahnameh manuscripts in different eras. Beyzaie calls this style of painting after Mani, the Iranian prophet (216–76), who reportedly used paintings to preach his teachings. In close association with this is pardeh, large paintings of the key scenes of a narrative used by naqqals (traditional storytellers/troubadours) to facilitate their dramatic narration. Pardeh is drawn in a style which has some similarities with these miniatures but is closer to teahouse murals due to its higher degree of fantasizing. See Beyzaie's explanations in Zaven Ghookasiyan, Goftegu ba Bahram Beyzaie [Interview with Bahram Beyzaie] (Tehran, 1999), 173–7.

²See Firouz Bagherzadeh, Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections Vol. 4: Iran Bastan Museum (Tokyo, 1978).

³This also appears on the cover of the following publications of Beyzaie's Siyavush-Khani. See Bahram Beyzaie, Namayesh dar Iran [Theater in Iran] (Tehran, 1365), 30–32; Alexander Mongait, Archeology in the U.S.S.R. (Moscow, 1959), 293–6; and Ehsan Yarshater, “Ta'ziyeh and Pre-Islamic Mourning Rites,” in Ta'ziyeh: Ritual and Drama in Iran, ed. Peter Chelkowski (New York, 1979), 91–2.

⁴See Abubakr Narshakhi, Tarikh-e Bokhara [The History of Bokhara, ca. 943] (Tehran, 2005), 19 and 28–9.

⁵Mashhad Ardehal is a village near Kashan in central Iran. Literally “Mashhad” means the place of martyrdom and Ardehal means the holy. The name of the place, therefore, seems to have been taken from the special ceremony currently performed to commemorate the martyrdom of a holy figure. See Beyzaie, Theater in Iran, 56–7.

⁶Baal and Tammuz are Mesopotamian fertility gods. See David Livingstone, The Dying God: The Hidden History of the Western Civilization (Lincoln, NE, 2002), 35–61, 85–6, 182–3.

⁷I was unable to locate this in the English translation of the Denkard, but as Beyzaie himself is not sure about the source, and I have also seen the exact terms in the past, it is very likely that it is from another Zoroastrian text. The Dēnkard or Dēnkart is the ninth century encyclopedia of Zoroastrianism written in Pahlavi script. Though produced after Islam, it quotes passages that are thousands of years old and refers to manuscripts which have been lost. The extant text which has been translated into different languages includes less than a third of the original.

⁹In the Shahnameh, Siyavush's mother is said to be the granddaughter of Garsivaz, Afrasiyab's brother. This is particularly significant as Garsivaz later becomes the main persecutor of Siyavush.

¹⁰The idea of sacred marriage originates in the belief in the archetypal union of the sky and the earth, but it has allegorical representations in human forms in the myths of different regions. For more see James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, abridged (Oxford, 1994), 98–114.

¹¹ Ramayana is the title of an Indian epic, which deals with the journey of Rama, the protagonist to save his intended wife, Sita, who has been abducted by a demon king called Ravana.

¹²Mehregan is an ancient Iranian festival celebrated between 7 and 12 October to celebrate the harvest. As such it is also associated with the glorification of Mithra, the protector of the covenant and harvest, who is known in modern Persian as Mehr,

¹³The term refers to the location of the martyrdom of the Shiite saint Imam Husain whose sacrificial feat is the central theme of ta'ziyeh passion plays.

¹⁴Fin is small town in Kashan province. The Sialk mound is an archeological site which contains the remains of one of the earliest civilizations in Iran dating back to the sixth millennium BC.

¹⁵Nahid is the new Persian term used to refer to Anahita (the ancient Iranian goddess of waters).

¹⁶Tus was the legendary hero who backed Kay Khosrow's uncle, Fariborz, in the competition between the two for kingship. His rashness and arrogance also led to the death of Kay Khosrow's half-brother, Forud.

¹⁷In pre-Islamic Iran Mithra was the divine protector of oath, covenant, harvest and cattle, the male figure who was also invoked in heroic and chivalric cults. Anahita, on the other hand, was the goddess of waters and hence associated with fertility and blessing. Nevertheless, she was also invoked to grant victory. James Darmesteter, “Aban Yasht” and “Mehr Yasht” at http://www.sacred-texts.com/zor/sbe23/index.htm (accessed February 5, 2011).

¹⁸The day which coincides with 20 March is celebrated as the first day of spring and the Iranian New Year.

¹⁹First published in 1969, Suvashun, the best known novel of Iranian novelist Simin Danshvar (1921–2012), is set in Shiraz during the Second World War (1939–45). Daneshvar highlights as a motif a rural ritual, which commemorates Siyavush as a sacrificial hero, to celebrate the heroism of the protagonist, Yusef. The novel was translated by Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar and published in 1991 under the title of Savushun by Mage, USA.

²⁰ Yarsan or Ahl-e Haqq (People of Truth), refers to the members of an Iranian cultic religion in western Iran, mostly in Kurdistan Province. The religion has its origins in the teachings of Sultan Es-haq in the late fourteenth century.

²¹ The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal; the other being The Ramayana.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hamid Amjad

Hamid Amjad is a scholar, playwright and filmmaker. He teaches drama at Iranian universities. The interview has been translated by Ghazaal Bozorgmehr, Iranian-based researcher and translator, and revised, reconstructed and annotated by Saeed Talajooy. The abstract is by Saeed Talajooy.