Boran (Borandokht)

Kavad II had killed his brothers, Ardashir III was a child and was killed, and Shahrbaraz, who was not of the Sasanian house, ruled for forty days. After Shahrbaraz was killed the nobles chose Boran, Khosrow II’s daughter. No woman before her, nor after her and her sister Azarmidokht, became Sasanian king in her own right.

Emrani argues that the most important basis of Boran’s claim was her lineage as daughter of the most powerful Sasanian king. She notes that Ṭabari, Iṣfahāni and Sebeos raise no objection to Boran’s gender, while telling Shahrbaraz’s story so as to stress the sacrilege of a non-Sasanian on the throne. In her view Boran’s rise was not a revolution but an adjustment to preserve the Sasanian monarchy. Panaino, as Emrani reports, sees it instead as a clear break with Sasanian ideology.

When the dynasty had killed its own men, the rule “men only” gave way so that the rule “house of Sasan only” could survive. In a crisis, laws show which of them are fundamental. This is our reading.

Ṭabari says that on the day she was hailed as queen Boran proclaimed, “I will pursue righteousness and ordain justice.” She remitted arrears of land tax, repaired bridges and wrote open letters to all her subjects. In them she said that lands are not subdued by the strength of men nor victory gained by their stratagems, but all comes from God.

This account comes from the Islamic-era tradition and may draw on court sources. After a generation of her father’s great war with Byzantium, the letters place peace above military victory. We do not have the letters themselves, only Ṭabari’s summary.

Remitting tax arrears means admitting that the state had demanded more than people could pay. After a twenty-six-year war, plague and civil war, lightening the people’s burden was perhaps the wisest policy available. This is our reading.

Boran’s coins survive from her first, second and third regnal years. Her name is written BWLʾN. She is the only Sasanian woman shown crowned on the coinage. Her crown, like Khosrow II’s, carries the wings of Bahrām, the god of victory. Ḥamza al-Iṣfahāni says the picture book of Sasanian kings showed her dressed like the kings, in tunic and trousers, with a sky-blue crown, enthroned and holding a battle-axe.

Emrani argues that imitating Khosrow II’s crown and coins was a way for Boran to be recognized as rightful holder of the royal glory (xwarrah). In her view symbols made Boran’s gender irrelevant: she was seen not as queen but as king. This is Emrani’s interpretation, not a report of the sources.

Coins were the mass medium of the age. With her coins Boran told every market in the realm that her father’s kingship continued.

The major event of Boran’s reign, Chaumont says, was an embassy led by the catholicos Išoʿyahb to Heraclius. Tradition says this embassy restored the True Cross. Boran died in autumn 631. Two Christian chronicles say she was strangled.

Chaumont and Bosworth say the Cross had already been restored by Kavad II. So Boran’s embassy was mainly about settling the remaining issues of the peace. Who killed her, and why, is unclear.

Boran tried to calm the realm with peace, tax relief and a Christian churchman as her envoy. But the nobles who made rulers could also remove them.