BAHRĀMĪ SARAḴSĪ

 

BAHRĀMĪ SARAḴSĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ, Persian poet and leading literary scholar of the early 5th/11th century. He was one of the many poets who gained access to the court at Ḡazna in the reigns of Sultan Maḥmūd b. Sübüktegin (388/998-421/1030) and his sons Moḥammad and Masʿūd and composed odes (qaṣīdas) in their honor; a line preserved in Logāt-e fors (ed. Dabīrsīāqī, p. 158) seems to refer to Maḥmūd’s successful raids into India. ʿAwfī, in his Lobāb al-albāb, first mentions Bahrāmī as one of this group (II, pp. 55-57) and later (II, p. 68) places him at the head of the section on poets of the Saljuqs. If these statements are correct, it must have been after the conquest of Khorasan by the Saljuqs that Bahrāmī, like his better-known contemporary ʿAsjadī, began writing praises of prominent men of that dynasty. The date of Bahrāmī’s death is not known. The date 500/1106 given in Majmaʿ al-foṣahāʾ (I, p. 449) is quite unlikely.

Bahrāmī’s surviving poems are qaṣīdas, ḡazals, and graceful qeṭʿas in the style of the poets of the Samanid and early Ghaznavid periods. He also wrote on literary subjects. Neẓāmī ʿArūżī (Čahār maqāla, text, p. 48) ascribes to Bahrāmī two books with the titles Ḡāyat al-ʿarūżayn (The ultimate on the two prosodies), or ʿarūżīyīn according to Rāzī (Moʿjam, p. 182), and Kanz al-qāfīa (The treasure-store of rhyme); in his opinion, study of the two books was essential for acquisition of poetic skills. Both are lost. The title of the first book indicates that it dealt with Arabic as well as Persian prosody. The third title, Ḵojasta-nāma, mentioned by ʿAwfī (II, p. 56) and described by him as unequaled in its field, may well be the Persian title of Ḡāyat al-ʿarūżayn. Bahrāmī is twice mentioned by Rāzī, who acknowledges his debt to Bahrāmī in the composition of his own treatise on prosody, Moʿjam (pp. 174, 182).

Bibliography:

Neẓāmī ʿArūżī, Čahār maqāla, ed. M. Qazvīnī and M. Moʿīn, 3rd ed., Tehran, 1333 Š./1954, nn. pp. 98-99.

ʿAwfī, Lobāb (Tehran), nn. pp. 677-78.

Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia II, pp. 20, 115, 116, 156-57.

B. Forūzānfar, Soḵan o soḵanvarān, 2nd ed., Tehran, 1350 Š./1971, p. 1530.

Ḵayyāmpūr, Soḵanvarān, p. 93.

Šams-al-Dīn Moḥammad b. Qays Rāzī, al-Moʿjam fī maʿāyīr ašʿār al-ʿAjam, ed. M. Qazvīnī and M.-T. Modarres Rażawī, Tehran, 1336 Š./1957.

Haft eqlīm II, p. 40.

S. Nafīsī, Aḥwāl o ašʿār-e Rūdakī, 3 vols., Tehran, 1309 Š./1930-1319 Š./1940, pp. 17, 1307.

Rypka, Hist. Iran. Lit., p. 432.

Ḏ. Ṣafā, ed., Ganj-e soḵan I, 5th ed., Tehran, 1354 Š./1975, p. 146.

Idem, Adabīyāt I, 5th ed., pp. 567-68.

Search terms:

 بهرامی سرخسی bahrami sarakhsi bahramy sarakhsy bahraamy sarakhsy

(Z. Safa)

Originally Published: December 15, 1988

Last Updated: August 24, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 5, p. 526

Cite this entry:

Z. Safa, “BAHRĀMĪ SARAḴSĪ,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, III/5, p. 526, available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/bahrami-saraksi (accessed on 30 December 2012).