Bozorgmehr Boktagan: Sassanid Scientist and Prime Minister

BOZORGMEHR-E BOḴTAGĀN, identified in literature and legend as a vizier of Ḵosrow I Anōšīravān (r. 531-78; Masʿūdī, Morūj, ed. Pellat, I, pp. 318ff., erroneously identifies Bozorgmehr as a minister of Ḵosrow II Parvēz, r. 590-628, also mentioned in the Šāh-nāma, Moscow, IX, p. 136 v. 2145, and attributes his death to his adherence to Manicheism). According to Persian and Arabic sources, he was characterized by ex­ceptional wisdom and sage counsels. In Pahlavi his name was Wuzurgmihr ī Bōxtagān; it was adopted in Arabic as Abūzarjmehr, Bozorjmehr, or Būzorjmehr. Ferdowsī used the last of these arabized forms in the Šāh-nāma, probably because it best fits the meter. Bozorgmehr is referred to in the Aydāgār ī Wuzurgmihr as argbed and chief eunuch of the Antioch quarter at Ctesiphon (Camb. Hist. Iran III, p. 710). Semifabulous accounts of his career are given in the Šāh-nāma (VIII, pp. 110ff.) and to a lesser extent in Ṯaʿālebī’s Ḡorar (pp. 619ff.), and Masʿūdī’s Morūj (ed. Pellat, I, pp. 318ff.). According to Ferdowsī and Ṯaʿālebī, Bozorgmehr, while still a young student, was taken from Marv to Ḵosrow I’s court to interpret a royal dream. His interpretation proved correct, and thereafter his fortunes rose. He became the king’s counselor and vizier and sat in the place of honor beside him at weekly royal councils (Šāh-nāma VIII, pp. 116-46). When sages from India brought the game of chess to test the intelligence of the sages of Iran, it was Bozorgmehr who solved the puzzle, and he also invented the game of backgammon (nard), which baffled the Indian sages (Wizārišn ī čatrang, in Pahlavi Texts, ed. Jamasp-Asana; Šāh-nāma VIII, pp. 206-16; Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, pp. 622-25). One day, however, Ḵosrow sus­pected Bozorgmehr of having intended to make him swallow a jewel in his sleep; according to a commonly accepted medical superstition of the time, swallowing a jewel would purge the system. He imprisoned the vizier, who went blind during his captivity. Nevertheless, when the Byzantine emperor set the Iranian sages the problem of a locked casket (dorj), it was Bozorgmehr who solved it, thus winning the king’s pardon and renewed favor (Šāh-nāma VIII, pp. 255-66; Ṯaʿālebī, Ḡorar, pp. 633-36). Neither Ferdowsī nor Ṯaʿālebī mentions Bozorg­mehr’s death (Source: Encyclopedia Iranica).