Bāzrangī (also known as Bazrangids or Badhrangids) is the attested family name of a dynasty of petty rulers in
south western Iran near the end of
Arsacid Empire
The Parthian Empire (), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power centered in ancient Iran from 247 BC to 224 AD. Its latter name comes from its founder, Arsaces I, who led the Parni tribe i ...
as well as the name of geographical districts.
As Sasan's wife family
The lord
Sasan who is named as the eponymous ancestor of
the Sasanians took, according to
Tabari, a wife from a family called "Bazrangi". The woman was called
Rambehesht Rambehesht (Middle Persian: ''Rām Vahišt'', New Persian: ''رامبهشت''), also known as Denag (Middle Persian: ''Dēnag'', New Persian: ''دینگ'') was a 3rd-century Sasanian noblewoman from the Bazrangi family and the wife of Sasan, th ...
and according to Tabari "possessed beauty and perfection". She bore Sasan a son called
Papak
Pabag (, ''Pāpak/Pābag''; New Persian: ''Bābak'') was an Iranian prince who ruled Istakhr, the capital of Pars, from 205 or 206 until his death sometime between 207 and 210. He was the father, stepfather, grandfather, or father-in-law of Ar ...
.
[ page 4.]
In the account of Tabari, Ardashir, the founder of Sassanid dynasty was sent for educational reasons, at the request of his father Papak, to Tīrī who was the eunuch of
Gōčehr the king of Eṣṭaḵr. Later Ardashir succeeded Tīrī who was the chief officer (i.e.
argbed) of Dārābgerd. Ardashir managed to make a number of local conquests and then wrote to his father to revolt against Gōčehr. Papak did so and killed Gōčehr and took his throne. This is the last time Tabari mentions about Gōčehr or the Bāzrangī family and other notices of Bāzrangī in later sources are all taken from Ṭabarī. There has not been found any coins naming Gōčehr or Bāzrangī.
[
There is a suggestion by S. Wikander that Bāzrang is not a name but rather a title with the etymology of "holding a mace", or "possessing miraculous power". This suggestion is unproven for R. N. Frye.][
]
As geographical district
The word Bāzrang has been used in other historical sources, such as Eṣṭaḵrī, to refer to a geographical district in the mountainous BoyerAhmad area where the Šīrīn and Šāḏkān rivers have their origin. R. Frye indicates that this district could be the one in the Pahlavi text Xusraw ud rēdag where excellent wine or must came from. Today however there are the villages upper Bāzrang and lower Bāzrang in the Behbahān district of the province of Ḵūzestān. There is also a mention in popular folktales of Iran that the word bāzrangī means wild person. The connection of the geographical name and other occurrences of the word is uncertain.[
]
See also
* Iranian people
*History of Iran
The history of Iran (also known as Name of Iran, Persia) is intertwined with Greater Iran, which is a socio-cultural region encompassing all of the areas that have witnessed significant settlement or influence exerted by the Iranian peoples and ...
* Bajran bali
Notes
References
*
* {{citation, title=The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen, work= Tarikh-e Tabari, volume=5, translator=C. E. Bosworth, translator-link=Clifford Edmund Bosworth, edition=SUNY series in Near Eastern studies, last=Tabari, isbn=0-7914-4355-8, publisher=SUNY Press, pages=458, year=1999
+
Sasanian Empire