Aži Dahāka

Aži Dahāka is the three-headed dragon of Zoroastrian myth, created by the evil spirit Angra Mainyu, who becomes the tyrant Zahhāk with serpents growing from his shoulders in Ferdowsi's Persian epic, the Shahnameh.

The Story

Iran has two versions of this villain, and they are linked by name. In the ancient Zoroastrian scriptures, the Avesta, Aži Dahāka is a monstrous dragon. In Ferdowsi's Shahnameh ("Book of Kings"), completed around 1010 CE, he has become Zahhāk, a human tyrant with two black serpents growing from his shoulders.

In the Avesta, Aži Dahāka is the most powerful demon made by Angra Mainyu, the spirit of evil, to destroy the good creation. He offers sacrifices to the goddess Anahita, asking for the power to empty the seven regions of the earth of people, and she refuses him. He fights the divine Fire for possession of the royal glory. In the end the hero Thraētaona strikes him down. Later Zoroastrian texts in Middle Persian add that Thraētaona (Fereydun) could not kill him, because so many snakes, scorpions, and vermin would pour from his body that they would fill the world. Instead he chained him inside Mount Damavand. At the end of time, the dragon will break free and the hero Kərəsāspa (Garshasp) will finally slay him.

Ferdowsi's version is a darker political tale. Zahhāk is a prince who, tempted by Ahriman (the Devil), kills his own father to seize the throne. Ahriman, disguised as a cook, asks only to kiss the prince's shoulders. From each kiss a serpent grows. Cut off, they grow back, and they can be calmed only by feeding them human brains, so two young men are killed every day. Zahhāk overthrows the great king Jamshid and rules for a thousand years. Two cooks secretly save one victim each day, and, in a story Ferdowsi tells, the survivors hid in the mountains and became the ancestors of the Kurds. At last the blacksmith Kaveh, whose sons had been taken, raises his leather apron on a spear as a banner of revolt. The young Fereydun leads the uprising, strikes Zahhāk with an ox-headed mace, and, on an angel's advice, chains him in a cave on Damavand.

Appearance and Powers

The Avesta calls Aži Dahāka three-mouthed, three-headed, and six-eyed, a creature of a thousand tricks and enormous strength. It does not describe wings, legs, or fire. In the Shahnameh, his monstrous side survives only in the two shoulder-serpents. Because the creature shifts between dragon and man depending on the source, the shapeshifter trait is left open.

Origins and Sources

Aži is the Avestan word for serpent, related to ahi, the word for the serpent Vritra in the Indian Rigveda; the meaning of dahāka is uncertain. The pairing points to an older Indo-Iranian myth of a hero or god who slays a serpent. The Avestan hymns were composed over a long period in the first millennium BCE, though the surviving manuscripts are medieval. In modern Persian, aždahā, descended from his name, became the ordinary word for "dragon."

Legacy

Kaveh's banner, the Derafsh Kaviani, became the legendary royal standard of Iran, and the overthrow of Zahhāk is still a familiar story of resistance to tyranny. Persian manuscript painters loved to show the serpent-shouldered king. For dragons across the region, see dragons of the Middle East and the ancient Near East.

Related

• Vritra: Vritra is the serpent or dragon of drought in the Rigveda, a footless, handless monster who held back the world's waters until the storm god Indra killed him with the thunderbolt and set the rivers free.
• Tiamat: Tiamat is the primordial salt-water sea goddess of the Babylonian creation epic Enūma Eliš, who raised an army of monsters against the gods and was split in two by Marduk to make heaven and earth.
• Vishap: The vishap is the dragon of Armenian myth and folklore, a water and storm serpent of mountain lakes and springs, fought by the thunder god Vahagn and linked to the ancient carved dragon stones called vishapakar.
• Mušḫuššu: The mušḫuššu is the scaly, horned dragon of ancient Mesopotamia, with a serpent's head, lion forelegs, and eagle talons, best known as the sacred beast of Marduk on Babylon's Ishtar Gate.
• Dragons Across Cultures
• The History of Dragons
• Famous Dragons

Sources and Further Reading

• The Zend-Avesta, Part II: The Sîrôzahs, Yasts, and Nyâyis, trans. James Darmesteter, Sacred Books of the East 23 (Clarendon Press, 1883)
• Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, trans. Dick Davis (Viking, 2006)
• Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. "Aždahā" (P. O. Skjærvø, Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh, and M. Omidsalar), vol. 3 (1987)
• Mary Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 1 (Brill, 1975)

Cite this entry: “Aži Dahāka,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/azi-dahaka.