Explore Iranica

GORZ (or gorza; Av. vazra-, Mid. Pers. warz, Kurd. gurz “club, mace”), also referred to as gorz-e gāvsār/sar (ox-headed club/mace), a weapon often mentioned and variously described in Iranian myths and epic (Figure 1). The name gorz and its descriptions can be found in most texts dealing with mythical, religious,…

GORZEVĀN (thus in the Ḥodud al-ʿālam; Yaʿqubi, Qorzomān; Ebn Ḥawqal and Yāqut, Jorzovān; Moqaddasi, Jorzovān and Korzovān), a town in the medieval Islamic region of Guzgān (q.v.) in northern Afghanistan. It lay in the district of the headwaters of the Fāryāb and Andḵuy rivers, still in modern Afghanistan called Darzāb…

GŌŠ YAŠT, the title of the ninth Yašt of the Avesta, also known as Drwāsp Yašt, after the goddess Druuāspā (see DRVĀSPĀ) to whom, in fact, it is dedicated. This Yašt corresponds to the fourteenth day of the Zoroastrian calendar, which also bears the name Gōš and on which Gə̄uš…

GŌSĀN, a Parthian word of unknown derivation for “poet-musician, minstrel.” It was evidently much used, since it was borrowed into several neighboring tongues; but because the Parthian language almost disappeared and was not recovered to any extent until the 20th century, the term first came to notice through its use…

GOŠASB BĀNU, (or Bānu Gošasb) entitled savār (knight), Rostam’s daughter and the wife of Gēv (qq.v.). She is the heroine of a short epic of some 900 verses, called Bānu Gošasb-nāma, by an unknown poet probably from the 5th/11th or 6th/12th century. There is a manuscript of the poem at…

GOSTAHAM (< OI.*Vistaxma, "wielder of far-reaching power"; New. Pers. Gostaham, BestÂām; see Justi, Nāmenbuch, pp. 371-72), name of two heroes in the Šāh-nāma. 1. Son of Nōḏar and younger brother of Ṭōs (Šāh-nāma, ed. Khaleghi, I, p. 302). Gostaham is first mentioned in the Šāh-nāma in the reign of his...

GOŠTĀSP, Kayanian king of Iranian traditional history and patron of Zoroaster. The name and problems of identification. The name is attested in the following forms: Av. Vištāspa (AirWb, col. 1474); Old Persian Vištāspa, whence Gk. Hystāspēs, El. Mi-is-da-áš-ba and Akkadian Uš-ta-as-pa (Kent, Old Persian, p. 209; note that Ku-uš-ta-aš-pi, mentioned…

GŌŠURUN, the Pahlavi name for the soul of the Sole-created Bull (Gāw i ēwdād, q.v.). The name itself derives from gəuš uruuan- (the soul of the Cow) and refers to the figure of the archetypal Cow who is at the center of a religio-literary theme that has reflexes in both…