Khwaday-Namag

E125609

Khwaday-Namag was a lost Middle Persian royal chronicle of pre-Islamic Iran that compiled legendary and historical accounts of Persian kings and served as a key source for later works like Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh.

All labels observed (2)

Label Occurrences
Khwaday-Namag canonical 1
Xwadāy-Nāmag 1

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (47)

Predicate Object
instanceOf Middle Persian text
historical chronicle
lost literary work
royal chronicle
source text for the Shahnameh
alternativeName Khwadāy-Nāmag
Khwaday-Namag
surface form: Xwadāy-Nāmag
associatedDynasty Sasanian Empire
surface form: Sasanian dynasty
compiledIn late Sasanian period
contains genealogies of Persian kings
historical accounts
legendary narratives
countryOfOrigin Sasanian Empire
culture pre-Islamic Iran
extantStatus survives only in later translations and adaptations
genre historiography
legendary history
royal chronicle
historicalSignificance major source for later Islamic-era narratives of pre-Islamic Iran
influenced Arabic historical works on Persian kings
Shahnameh
surface form: Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh

Persian epic tradition
influencedBy oral epic traditions of Iran
keyRoleIn formation of Iranian national epic
language Middle Persian language
surface form: Middle Persian
literaryTradition Middle Persian prose
originalLanguage Middle Persian language
surface form: Middle Persian
preservedThrough Arabic translations
New Persian adaptations
primaryFunction legitimation of royal authority
region Iran
religiousContext Zoroastrianism
scholarlyDebate exact contents and structure are uncertain
script Pahlavi script
status lost work
subject Iranian national history
Persian kings
Sasanian royal ideology
timePeriodCovered Achaemenid period
Parthian period
Sasanian Empire
surface form: Sasanian period

legendary kings of Iran
titleMeaning Book of Lords
typeOfWork court-sponsored historiography
usedAsSourceBy Ferdowsi
Ibn al-Muqaffa'
surface form: Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ

Al-Tabari
surface form: al-Tabari

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (2)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Shahnameh basedOn Khwaday-Namag
Khwaday-Namag alternativeName Khwaday-Namag
this entity surface form: Xwadāy-Nāmag