Khwadaynamag: The Middle Persian Book of Kings

Now available in Open Access thanks to the support of the University of Helsinki. Khwadaynamag. The Middle Persian Book of Kings by Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila analyses the lost sixth-century historiographical work of the Sasanians, drawing on a large number of Middle Persian, Greek, Arabic, and Classical Persian sources.

The Khwadaynamag is often conceived of as a large book of stories, comparable to Firdawsi's Shahname, but Hämeen-Anttila convincingly shows that it was a concise and dry chronicle. He also studies the lost Arabic translations of the book, which turn out to be fewer than hitherto thought, as well as the sources of Firdawsi's Shahname, showing that the latter was only remotely related to the Khwadaynamag. It also becomes clear that there were no separate "priestly" and "royal" Khwadaynamags.