'The lands of the Eastern Caliphate Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia from the Moslem conquest to the time of Timur' [‎303] (342/586)

XXI]
KIRMAN.
303
times. In regard to its origin, we have it stated by Hamzah of
Isfahan, an historian of the 4th (10th) century, that King Ardashir,
the founder of the Sassanian dynasty, built a city called Bih-
Ardashir, meaning ' the good place of Ardashir'; this name the
Arabs corrupted in their pronunciation to Bihrasir (or Bihdasir)
and Bardasir (or Bardashir); while the Persians, as Mukaddasi
informs us, pronounced it Guwashir, from Wih-Artakhshir the
more archaic form of Bih-Ardashir. Yakut adds that the name
was in his day spelt Juwasir, Juwashir, or Gawashir, these being all
equivalent to, and used indifferently with, the Arabic form Bardasir 1 .
This city of Bardasir, which became the new capital of the
Kirman province under the Buyids, is without doubt identical in
every respect with the modern city of Kirman, as is proved by its
position as given in the Itineraries, and from the description by
the Arab geographers of various buildings in Bardasir, and natural
features, all of which still exist, and are to be recognised in
Kirman city. The Arab and Persian chronicles, it will be seen,
fully bear out the identification, for after the 4th (10th) century
Bardasir, indifferently called Guwashir, becomes in their narratives
the capital of Kirman, and these names are in time replaced by
' the city of Kirman,' or briefly Kirman, the province—as is so
often the case—giving its name to the capital.
Mukaddasi, writing at some length upon Bardasir, describes
it, at the time when the Buyid governor had made it the new
capital, as a well-fortified though not a very large city. Outside
the town was a great castle (Ival'ah) standing high up on a
hill with gardens, where there was a deep well, dug by the
governor Ibn Ilyas, and hither the aforesaid Ibn Ilyas was
accustomed to ride up every night to sleep on the height. At the
town gate was a second fortress (Hisn) surrounded by a ditch,
which was crossed by a bridge; and in the centre of the town was
a third castle (Kal'ah) overlooking the houses, alongside of which
1 Hamzah, 46. Muk. 460, 461. Yak. i. 555 ; ii. 927 ; iv. 265. The
pronunciation Yazdashir sometimes given is merely a clerical error, from
a mis-setting of the diacritical points in the Arabic writing. At the present
day Bardasir is the name of the small district lying to the south-west of modern
Kirman city, of which the chief town is Mashiz. As the name of a town
Bardasir is unknown. For another instance of Bih or Wih in Persian place-
names, see above p. 262, note.