Person · Sassanian emperor · Iran
Khosrow I Anushirvan
Also known as Anushirvan, Khosrow Anushirwan, Chosroes I
Khosrow I Anushirvan ('of the Immortal Soul'), Sassanian emperor from 531 to 579 CE, is remembered in the Shahnameh and in Zoroastrian tradition as the ideal Persian king — patron of philosophy, medicine and translation. He expanded the Jundishpur academy as a trilingual Pahlavi-Greek-Sanskrit medical and translation centre and sent his court physician Burzōe to India to collect medical and philosophical texts. Burzōe returned with the Pañcatantra (translated into Pahlavi as Kalīlag ud Dimnag, the ancestor of Ibn al-Muqaffa’s Kalīla wa Dimna) and with the game of Chaturanga which became Persian shatranj and then Arab and European chess. Khosrow’s court at Ctesiphon is the setting of several episodes in Firdawsi’s Shahnameh.
- Date
- 501–579
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Sassanian
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (3)
- Ruled fromCtesiphon
Khosrow I Anushirvan ruled the Sassanian empire from Ctesiphon between 531 and 579 CE and ran its most consequential cultural programme — the expansion of Jundishpur, Burzōe’s mission to India, the translation of the Pañcatantra and the arrival of Chaturanga.
- PatronageBurzōe
Khosrow I Anushirvan sent his court physician Burzōe to India to collect medical and philosophical texts; Burzōe returned with the Pañcatantra, which he translated into Pahlavi as Kalīlag ud Dimnag (the ancestor of Ibn al-Muqaffa’s Kalīla wa Dimna), and with the Caraka Saṃhitā.
- TransmissionChaturaṅga / Chess
Chaturanga — the four-arm Indian ancestor-game of chess — was brought from India to Khosrow I’s court in the mid-6th century and became Persian shatranj; the Arab conquest of Persia in 637 CE carried the game onwards into Baghdad and from there into Europe. The pieces (king, chariot/rook, horse, elephant/bishop, foot soldiers) survive from the Indian army model.
Sources
Standard biography.
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