Parmūdha was the son of Šāba, the king of the Turks whom Bahram Chobin killed in the war of 588 and 589.[1][2] After his father’s death he took up the fight and was besieged in a fortress. He surrendered to Bahram, who sent him to the Persian king Hormizd IV.[1] Tabari tells this in a few sentences. The Arabic history of the Persian kings by aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī tells it at length and calls him Barmūdha.[3]

The account of Tabari

After Bahram had killed Šāba with an arrow, he took the enemy’s camp and stayed there.[1] Then Šāba’s son Parmūdha, “who was his father’s equal”, came up.[1] Bahram attacked and beat him. He shut him up in one of his fortresses and pressed him until he surrendered.[1] He sent him as a prisoner to Hormizd. With him went the great treasure of the fortress: money, jewels, vessels, weapons and other gear, two hundred and fifty thousand camel-loads by the account.[1]

The account of aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī

In aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī, Barmūdha shut himself up in the town of Baïkand, Paykent, with the goods and treasures and with the chief men of the Turks.[4] Hormizd ordered Bahram to march against him.[5] Bahram crossed the Oxus, and the two armies camped facing each other.[6] Bahram looked down on Barmūdha’s army from a height. He called Barmūdha “a young prince full of qualities and of high worth”, with numerous troops, who came to avenge his father and his uncle.[7]

Barmūdha judged Bahram’s small army formidable and chose to surprise it by night.[8] His men caught Bahram drinking wine in an orchard. Bahram and his companions broke out and drove them back to their camp.[9] Then Bahram attacked by night, and Barmūdha fled.[10] When Bahram was about to overtake him, Barmūdha conjured him by God and by the life of Hormizd to stop.[10] He warned him that a man such as he would not be killed with impunity. If pressed, he would fight to the death.[10] Bahram turned back to his camp.[10]

Barmūdha shut himself up in Baïkand. Bahram besieged it.[10] Brought to the last extremity, Barmūdha chose to surrender to the king.[11] Hormizd sent him a letter that guaranteed his life and was signed by the king and the great men of his court. With it came a royal robe of honour, a jewelled belt and a horse that had no equal.[11] Barmūdha came out of the fortress with two hundred horsemen. He handed it over with everything in it and set out for Iran.[11]

At the court of Hormizd

Hormizd sent his commanders to meet him and waited on horseback at the gate of the palace.[12] The king feared that Barmūdha would not dismount before him, and so dismounted first. Barmūdha hesitated before he too got down.[13] Hormizd, embarrassed, turned to the sun as though he had dismounted to give thanks to it. Then he touched Barmūdha’s hand and embraced him.[14] He seated him on two cushions and gave him a palace with servants and stores. He feasted him for three days and gave him rare presents.[14]

The treasure that Bahram sent after him was missing the earrings and the jewelled golden shoes of Siyāwush, a prince of the Persian epic.[15] Barmūdha, for his part, let it be understood that Bahram had kept back more of his own and his father’s goods than he had sent.[15] Hormizd’s anger at Bahram over the treasure led to Bahram’s revolt.[16] During that revolt Bahram made peace with “the khagan, the son of Barmūdha”. He gave him back his country and concluded a pact of friendship with him.[17] This khagan later gave Bahram refuge. In his land Bahram was murdered.[18]

Name and identity

The name, which Firdausi also gives, stands fairly firm in the tradition.[19] Dinawari writes Yertegin or Yeltegin instead. The translator of Tabari regards this as an adjustment to the Turkish names in tegin current in Dinawari’s own day.[19] Some scholars connect Dinawari’s Yeltegin with Ye-li tegin, the son of a king of the Tujue. By the account of the Chinese pilgrim Wukong, Ye-li tegin founded a temple in Kashmir.[20] They make Barmūdha a prince of the country of Bukhara. They hold that he and his father were not supreme rulers of the Turks but kings of one of the small Sogdian dynasties subject to them.[21] Whatever his rank, Parmūdha is the Turkish prince whose surrender ended the war of 588 and 589. His treasure set Bahram against his king.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Tabari; Nöldeke 1879, p. 272
  2. ^ Tabari; Nöldeke 1879, p. 269
  3. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 648–657
  4. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 648
  5. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 649
  6. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 650
  7. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 650–651
  8. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 651
  9. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 652
  10. ^ a b c d e aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 653
  11. ^ a b c aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 654
  12. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 655
  13. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 655–656
  14. ^ a b aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 656
  15. ^ a b aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 657
  16. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 657–658
  17. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 658
  18. ^ aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī; Zotenberg 1900, p. 674, 678–682
  19. ^ a b Nöldeke 1879, p. 272
  20. ^ Chavannes 1903, p. 198
  21. ^ Chavannes 1903, p. 198, 242–243

Sources

Literature

  • Theodor Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden. Aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari übersetzt und mit ausführlichen Erläuterungen und Ergänzungen versehn (1879)
  • Hermann Zotenberg (ed., trans.), Histoire des rois des Perses par Abou Mansour ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Mohammad ibn Ismaʿil al-Thaʿalibi (1900)
  • Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux (1903)

Related

What links here10

Persons
Bahram Chobin · Faghfura · Hormizd IV · Natra · Šāba
States
Sasanian Persia
Battles & Events
Göktürk prisoners with the cross (591) · Murder of Bahram Chobin
Places
Herat
Sources
Tabari

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Parmudha.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/persons/parmudha/

Last revised: 8 November 2026