What’s in a Shāhnāma manuscript? Reflections on the Shāhnāma manuscript tradition

As part of the 12th Biennial Conference on Iranian Studies, Ehsan and Latifeh Yarshater: “Witches and demons, kings and prophets: The Shāhnāma and its afterlife in the Persian manuscript tradition”.

With Prof. Gabrielle van den BERG, Leiden University

Scène d'affrontement entre un roi perse et un démon — Shāhnāma [Livre des Rois], Ms Ouseley, add 176-00147, fol. 69a © Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford‎

What’s in a Shāhnāma manuscript? Reflections on the Shāhnāma manuscript tradition through the 15th-century Shāhnāma manuscript copy preserved in Leiden University Library

It is impossible to compile a comprehensive inventory of Shāhnāma manuscripts preserved to this day, even though the Cambridge Shāhnāma Project has provided us with considerable insight into the scope and nature of illustrated Shāhnāma manuscripts. On the basis of the findings of this and other projects related to the study of the Shāhnāma manuscript tradition, it can be concluded that each Shāhnāma manuscript is unique, and may contain hidden treasures that cannot be found in other manuscripts: at the same time, each manuscript also closely follows earlier models. In this lecture, some notable features of the Shāhnāma as transmitted through manuscripts will be discussed by taking a closer look at what may at first glance appear to be an ‘ordinary’ Shāhnāma manuscript, namely the 15^th-century Timurid manuscript copy Or. 494, the only illustrated Shāhnāma copy held in the manuscript collection of Leiden University Library, and one of the manuscripts used by the much-lamented Djalal Khaleghi Motlagh for his edition of the Shāhnāma.