The Simurgh is a Griffin-like gigantic bird creature in Persian literature, art and culture.
It is also evident in the iconography of medieval Armenia, the Byzantine empire, and other regions that were within the sphere of Persian cultural influence...
The Simurgh is also found in the folklore of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia...
The Persian legend describes the Simurgh is a gigantic, fabulous, benevolent, winged monster in the shape of a bird; a kind of peacock with the head of a dog and the claws of a lion. Its natural habitat is a place with plenty of water. In some legends, the Simurgh can actually purify water from poisons and encourage fertility...
The Simurgh is thought to have originally roosted in Gaokerena, the Tree of Life, which stood in the middle of the world sea, Vounukhasa.
The tree was said to house the seeds of all plant life on earth and when the Simorgh took flight from its branches its leaves shook causing the seeds of these plant to fall out.
These seeds were then said to have floated around the world on the winds of Vayu-Vata and the rains of Tishtrya, eventually taking root to become the many forms of plant life we know today...
This fabulous bird is said to have the gift of human speech.
As for the simurgh, in the Shahnama, the great 11th century Iranian epic poem of Ferdowsi, Prince Zal, the son of Saam was born an albino, so his father considered him the spawn of the devil and abandoned him to die.
But he didn’t die because he was adopted by the simurgh and taken to her nest where she raised him.
Years later, Saam regretted what he had done and when he learned his son was still alive, he called him back. As Zal left the simurgh’s nest, she gave him some of her feathers to burn if he ever needed help.
Zal eventually became shah of Iran and fathered Rustam, the great hero of the Shah-nama....
The simurgh is best described in a 13th century Persian book known as “The Conference of the Birds.” In it the author, Farid ad-Din ‘Attar (d. 1230), described how 30 of the birds (si means 30 in Persian, murgh is bird) decided to seek out their leader, the simurgh, the legendary bird...
They had to pass through seven valleys which represent the spiritual way before they reached the simurgh.
There they meditated and then asked the simurgh what was the secret of the mystery of the unity and plurality of beings. The answer was to annihilate themselves in the simurgh because there they would find themselves.
In other words, this was one of the earliest examples of an allegorical journey in Middle Eastern mysticism. Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi (d. 1273) is supposed to have been greatly influenced by ‘Attar’s work...
In another example, the physician Hypocrates has mounted a simurgh and is off to the Kaf Mountains, presumably to obtain medicine...
The Simurgh is sometimes compared to a Phoenix...
According to a legend, this creature is so old that it has seen the world destroyed three times over. In all that time, Simurgh has learned so much that it is thought to possess the knowledge of all ages...
Excerpted from the following Resources:
See the Gryphon:
See the Phoenix:
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