''Bijan and Manijeh'' (also ''Bizhan and Manizheh'', Persian بيژن و منيژه - ''Bīžan ow Manīža'') is a love story in

Ferdowsi Abu'l-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi (also Firdawsi, ; 940 – 1019/1025) was a Persians, Persian poet and the author of ''Shahnameh'' ("Book of Kings"), which is one of the world's longest epic poetry, epic poems created by a single poet, and the gre ...

Shahnameh The ''Shahnameh'' (, ), also transliterated ''Shahnama'', is a long epic poem written by the Persian literature, Persian poet Ferdowsi between and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couple ...

. Bijan was the son of Giv, a famous Iranian knight during the reign of Kay Khosrow, the Shah of Iran, and

Banu Goshasp Bānu Goshasp () or Goshasp Banu is an important heroine in Iranian mythology.Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh
"G ...

, the heroine daughter of

Rostam use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = Kabulistan , death_cause = With the conspiracy of his half-brother Shaghad, he fell into a we ...

. Bijan falls in love with Manijeh, the daughter of

Afrasiab Afrasiyab ( ''afrāsiyāb''; ; Middle-Persian: ''Frāsiyāv, Frāsiyāk'') is the name of the mythical king and hero of Turan. He is the main antagonist of the Persian epic ''Shahnameh'', written by Ferdowsi. Name and origin ''Afrā'' is the po ...

, the king of

Turan Turan (; ; , , ) is a historical region in Central Asia. The term is of Iranian origin and may refer to a particular prehistoric human settlement, a historic geographical region, or a culture. The original Turanians were an Iranian tribe of th ...

and the greatest enemy of Iran. The tale of his suffering and Manijeh’s constancy has been quoted by several others.

The tragedy of Bijan and Manijeh

People from

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

complain to Kay Khosrow, the Shah of Iran, that wild boars are invading their fields. Bijan fights the boars, forcing them back to their lairs. The day after, Gorgin, an Iranian knight who had accompanied Bijan on the quest, describes the beautiful gardens of

to Bijan, tempting him to cross the border from Iran into the mythical land of Turan on the northern shores of the Caspian Sea. Turan is ruled over by the evil and egotistical King Afrasiab. In the garden, he meets Manijeh, Afrasiab's beautiful daughter. They fall madly in love; however, knowing her father's reaction to accepting an Iranian prince in her private chambers, Manijeh gives Bijan a sleeping potion and smuggles him into her house. He wakes, and Manijeh and her maids keep him hidden for many days. Eventually Afrasiab learns of Bijan and captures him. Afrasiab sentences Manijeh into exile, so that both Bijan and Manijeh are forced to live out their days in the wilderness. Bijan also sends secret messages to Rostam, the Iranian hero charged with keeping the country safe from Afrasiab. Kai Khosrow, the Shah of Iran, looks into his Crystal Cup, and sees Bijan in the forest. Instead of launching a frontal invasion to find Bijan, the hero Rostam disguises himself as a merchant and, along with a few knights, enters Turan. When Manijeh hears that a wealthy merchant from Iran has arrived in Turan, she hopes that he was sent to find Bijan. They find Bijan and escape into Iran where there is much rejoicing at Bijan return to his homeland. Furious with his own daughter's treason, Afrasiab declares war on Iran. The Iranian and Turanian armies meet and a mighty battle ensues. The skies turn dark from the dust of the battlefield while trumpets and clashing cymbals signify the attack of the Iranian cavalry. Turan is defeated, and Afrasiab is forced to return home without his daughter and in shame.This story reflects the ongoing wars between the Iranian kings and two of their greatest enemies. "Turan" is a reference to the nomadic peoples of Central Asia (initially

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

-speaking), and the boar is a symbol of the Roman armies advanced into Armenia under the leadership of

Mark Antony Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman people, Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the Crisis of the Roman Republic, transformation of the Roman Republic ...

. The theme of doomed love stories between the youth of Iran and Turan is repeated several times in the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) and reaches its pinnacle in the epic of Siyâvash.

Family tree

References

Sources

Shahnameh. From the Moscow version. Mohammed Publishing. * ''Bijan and Manijeh'', by Hakim Abol-Qasem Ferdowsi Tousi, translated into English by Helen Zimmern
Iran Chamber Society
.
A king's book of kings: the Shah-nameh of Shah Tahmasp
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Bijan and Manijeh

External links

{{Other Shahnameh characters Shahnameh characters Shahnameh stories Persian mythology Poems in Persian Narrative poems