Beate Dignas & Engelbert Winter - Kaveh Farrokh

29 The Sasanian Empire 211
and Hellenistic cults mixed profoundly. 5 Just as in other regards, after the
change of rule in 224 we observe a politically motivated return to old
Persian traditions. The beginning of Sasanian rule therefore was an important
benchmark in the religious history of Iran. All Sasanian kings explicitly
declared their faith in Ahura Mazda. 6 There is no doubt that the ‘Iranisation’
observed with regard to politics and society also applied to religious
affairs. The following two passages give insight into the relation between
the Sasanian state and the Zoroastrian ‘state cult’. 7
Masūdī, Murūˇg i § 586
My son, religion and kingship are brothers who cannot do without each other,
for religion is the foundation of kingship and kingship is religion’s protector. And
that which does not have a foundation collapses and that which does not have a
protector perishes.
So called ‘Will of Ardaˇsīr I’, ed. Grignaschi 49 8
Know that kingship and religion are twin brothers each one of which cannot do
without its partner. For religion is the foundation of kingship, and kingship is
the protector of religion. Kingship cannot do without its foundation, and religion
cannot do without its protector, for that which has no protector perishes and that
which has no foundation collapses.
The author of the first Arabic text, Masūdī, lived in the tenth century. He
tells us about Ardaˇsīr I (224–70) advising his son and successor ˇ Sāpūr I (240–
72) to make religion the foundation of his monarchical rule. Accordingly,
he should show himself as the protector of religion. 9 Around the same time
the author Ibn Miskawayh transmits the so-called ‘will’ of the founder of
the Sasanian Empire, Ardaˇsīr I, which is a late Sasanian fabrication. 10 In
this passage, too, the close link between kingship and religion is expressed,
if not without alluding to the fact that the ‘twins’ are actually rivals. 11 In the
eyes of both authors religion as the foundation of the empire has priority
over kingship, which merely functions as the ‘guardian’ of religion.
5 Boyce 1987: 540–1 and Wiesehöfer 2001: 149.
6 On this supreme deity, the ‘wise, omniscient lord’, who represented the light and the truth, see
Boyce 1985: 684–7.
7 Gignoux 1984a: 72–80.
8 The same text with only minor deviations can be found in Caetani 1909: 102.
9 This is also expressed in the so called ‘letter of Tansar’, ‘Church and state stem from the same
body and are inseparably linked’ (tr. Boyce 33–4); see also Wiesehöfer 2001: 170. 211; the ‘letter of
Tansar’ – we have a neo-Persian translation of an Arabic translation going back to a source from the
late Sasanian period – claims to be a letter written by Ardaˇsīr’s ‘religious advisor’ Tansar (Tōser),
who is known through the Zoroastrian tradition.
10 Grignaschi 1966: 70. 11 On the metaphor see Shaked 1990: 262–74.