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The Aura of Kings: Legitimacy and Divine Sanction in Iranian Kingship (Bibliotheca Iranica: Intellectual Traditions Series)

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Bibliotheca Iranica must be congratulated in sanctioning the publication in it's Intellectual Traditions Series, a unique and novel study on the Aura of Kings, particularly in reference to Ancient Persian and Iranian Kings by Abolala Soudavar.

Since early antiquity, rulers and kings of various dynasties in varied civilizations have claimed themselves or had their chosen ministers proclaim some kind of divine connection with the Divinity. Claiming a divine connection, makes the task of ruling
and formulating policies much easier as few (if any) would like to defy the ultimate source of all power in this universe. Pre-Achemenid, Achemenid, Parthian and Sassanian Kings of Persia were no exception to this rule. This divine connection, legitimacy and sanction of Persian kings was acheived by the ideological concept of the "khvarnah" or the "Divine Glory" usually, visually symbolized as a circular disk or a ringed circle around the head of the king. In early antiquity it was also iconographed as a winged circular disc above the head of the ruling king. Persian literature and sculptures abound with references to the ruler's "Divine Glory" and past studies often emphasized the centrality of this theme to the topics of authority and power. Yet so far little attention and studies have been devoted to this visual symbolism of the "khvarnah" and it's potential for shedding more light on the understanding of Ancient Iranian history. Abolala Soudavar has attempted in his bold daring and novel publication to develop this wealth of iconographic material available into an essential tool for Ancient Iranian historiography.

Soudavar's study traces back the "khvarnah" symbolism from the Mughal era which gives textual references on the subject of kingly "khvarnah" and it's representation to the Il-Khanid era in which legitimacy symbols of pre-Islamic Iran were revived, to the Sassanian era, where multiple ways of the "khvarnah" representaions were created, back to the Achaemenid era when universal symbols of authority were created to demonstrate divine connectedness.

Readers interested in Ancient Iranian history, art and culture would do well to give this book their undivided attention as it is a novel and bold approach at studying a rare and difficult subject, where the past written words are scarce. The book has an excellent bibliography with many new and "fresh" references in the Persian language. However the black and white plate reproduction at the end of the book is marginally satisfactory. The publisher could have provided coloured plates and the layout more spread out for easy reading and comparison.

The book does open up new avenues for discussion and will serve a good reference source for some time.

This is a very interesting book about legitimacy and divine sanctions in Iranian kingship during different Iranian dynasties, Achaemenid, Sasanian, Mughal, and Il Khanid.
As a Turko-Mongol Muslim ruler, the emperor ruler Akbar encountered problem to get an acceptable legitimate right to rule based on Islamic principle of legitimacy and his Vizir based Akbar's Legitimacy on a more acceptable principle of Farre Izadi (Divine glory) and Kayan Kharra (Kayanid Glory) which had deep roots in Iranian culture.
The book consists of 4 chapters:
Chapter I: Khvarnah symbolism is discussed during different dynasties and its connection to Mithraic symbolism.
Chapter II: Reinterpreting Sasanian reliefs: The author has introduced new ways to analyse Sasanian iconography and has rejected the classical translation of Sasanian regal inscriptions which describes the king as `whose seed is from the gods' and a correct translation is `image of god', Chihr az Yazdan.
In this chapter he has also discussed Apam-Napat/Anahita and Mithra as protector of Khvarnah and how Ahura Mazda rose to prominence, while Mithra and Apam-Napat were demoted to a secondary position during Zoroasrtianism.
Chapter III: Symbols of authority for a nascent empire: he traces back the origins of symbolic winged disc to Egyptian art which represented the sky-god and Assyrians used lotus as regal iconography
And it provided Achaemenids with new ideas of combining the lotus and sunflower for a dual representation of the Khvarnah.
Chapter IV Aspects of Farr duality: he has discussed common roots of Iranian and Roman Mithra
The book is very easy to read and is based on calligraphic, pictorial and textual analysis and last 33 pages provides the reader with helpful images and have fantastic footnotes.
I thank Ahura Mazda for having dedicated people like Mr Soudavar among us and recommend this book to readers with love and passion for Iranian history.