Farzanah Khíradmand was descended from Sám, the son of Narimán: he joined Zu-l-Ulum and gave himself up to religious austerities. Khushi thus relates: “I once beheld Khiradmand while standing face to face to Rustam (who was descended from Bahram Gur,[328] and was one of Kaivan’s distinguished disciples), assume the form of a dragon, and shower out fire from his mouth, to such a degree that a strong palm was consumed by its violence.”
In three months after Bahman’s death, Khiradmand was restored to his original place. Buzurgi says:
The skilful and intelligent artist
Should have in this world two successive lives:
So that in one he might acquire experience,
Which he could carry into effect by another experiment.
Of these illustrious personages they have recorded many miraculous and mysterious deeds; such as, in the upper world, hiding the sun’s disk; causing him to appear at night; making the stars visible in the day-time: and in this lower world, walking on the surface of water; making trees productive out of season; restoring verdure to dried-up wood; causing trees to bow down their heads; also showing themselves between heaven and earth in the form of lightning; and such like: and, in the animated world, metamorphosing animals; rendering themselves invisible to men; appearing under various shapes and forms: some of which wonders have been recorded in the Bazmgah-i-Durveshi Khushí. They relate that these great personages were to such a degree enabled to divest themselves of corporeal elements, that they quitted the body at pleasure: also that they had acquired from the court of Heaven the knowledge of all sciences whether known or occult, and consequently had the power of exhibiting such wonderful works; having rendered, by the efficacy of their austerities, elementary matter subject to themselves. The author of these pages beheld these four holy personages, Kharrad, Farshid wird, Bahman, and Khiradmand, in Patna, on which occasion they bestowed their benedictions, and imparted to him the glad tidings of the means of obtaining the great object, or final salvation. Shaikh Saadi says:
“It becomes the truly wise to pass every day in the exercise of holy zeal,
And to offer up prayers for the prosperity of durveshes.”
Farzanah Bahram, the son of Farhad, was descended from Gudarz, the son of Hashwád. When Azar Kaivan had proceeded to Patna, in this sage’s latter days, Farzanah Bahram came from Shiraz and devoted himself to the practice of religious austerities. He was a man who had attained the highest degree of knowledge in logic, natural philosophy, the abstract sciences, and theology, which he had most attentively studied as far as set forth and expounded by sound reasoning in the Parsi, Pehlevi, and Arabic: in practical and theoretical science he was unequalled; being profoundly skilled and a perfect philosopher in all the objects of science and morality: among the Moslem doctors, he had established the relations of external tuition with Khajah Jumál-Uddin Mahmúd, one of the disciples of the Mulla Jalál Dawani. Farzánah Bahrám is the polished author and compiler of the book entitled Sharístán-í-Dánish, wa Gulístán-í-Binish, “the pavilion of knowledge and the rose-garden of vision.” In the Sharistan, he thus tells us: “Through the aid of Azar Kaivan, I reached the invisible, the angelic, the empyrean worlds, and the seat of the Divinity, and attained to union with him through revelations of the fourfold kind—impressive, operative, attributive, and essential.” The Mobed Hoshyar relates: “I have heard Farzánah Bahrám relate as follows: I was one day standing in the presence of Azar Kaivan, and conceived in my heart the wish that he should tell me what occupied my secret thoughts. The venerable personage unfolded the secret thoughts of my heart, and afterwards said: ‘O, Farzanah! it is an easy matter for me to know the secrets of the soul; but then what purpose does thy tongue answer? in order that thy tongue may not be useless, I shall for the future suffer thee to speak.’” He assumed the dress of a merchant, but people imagined it was for the purpose of concealment, and that he gave himself up to alchymy. In the year of the Hejirah 1034 (A. D. 1624), he ascended from this lower abode of darkness to the pavilions of light. The sage Sunái says: