Ferdowsi's Tomb is located 22 kilometres northwest of the holy city of Mashhad along the Quchan Highway in the historical city of Tous.

Be Nameh Khodavande Jano Kherad (In the Name of the Lord of the Soul and of Wisdom). These majestic words open the ’Shahnameh’ (’The Book of Kings’), that monument of universal literature. And as I read on I discover, immediately after the glorification of the Creator, a passage on this second page that forces me to stop, taken aback with amazement, wonder and near disbelief: the words before me sing the praises of intelligence!
Can it really be that a thousand years ago, long before the Western Renaissance and longer still before the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, before Voltaire and before Descartes, an Iranian poet was exalting above all else the process of thought based on knowledge? And he did it with such conviction and felicitous expression that he cannot fail to convince: ’The intellect is the greatest of all the gifts of God. It is the source of your joys and your sorrows, of your profits and your losses. It is the guardian of the soul, and to it is thanksgiving due.’
At that instant I knew I had come across a work and a man of exceptional qualities. This ’intellect’, which Ferdowsi calls Kherad, demands more than ’intelligence’ in the common meaning of the term: it includes the ability to perceive good, a deep-seated and generous wisdom and a serenity that comes from balance and self-control. The concept of Kherad runs through the entire book, being at one and the same time its dominant theme, the spirit that animates it and the good it extols.

Exceptional
There are few books in the world and in history that have become, like The Book of Kings, an expression of national identity. Ferdowsi’s poem is both the reflection and the leaven of a culture that is in many respects reconciled with itself. In terms of language, it forms--and this is something you know far better than I do--a reservoir, an encyclopaedia of inexhaustible wealth. In terms of historical perspective, it reconciles past and present, integrating in a unified culture the pre-Islamic tradition and the contributions of Islam; that is an achievement whose importance is not perhaps sufficiently appreciated, for the resulting fusion, with its creative repercussions, was to prove most prolific.
Lastly, in terms of literary genre, it is an epic that blends in a single creation the true and the legendary, the observable and the imaginary. Ferdowsi reconciles history and myth, resembling at one moment Herodotus and at the next Homer. As a historian, he relates an episode with the same fervor and magical inspiration as if it were a tale; as a mythologist, he describes an adventure with the same precision and concern for details as if it were drawn from real life.
Ferdowsi thus bequeathed to his country a heritage that has been transmitted from one generation to the next in all its vitality. There are few civilizations in which a poetic work has become so ’popular’, that is to say both widely known and deeply loved. Let me say once again how much I regret that my ignorance of your language prevents me from savoring in full the subtlety of these lines, their majesty and their secret music. But even when translated, Ferdowsi’s poetry preserves an inimitable charm.

Translations
The Book of Kings, which was translated into Arabic in the 12th century of the Christian Era, has been avidly read, studied and commented on.
Historians, linguists, poets, writers, painters and miniaturists have used it as the source material for the work of several lifetimes. Jules Mohl translated it in its entirety into French in the nineteenth century, and thanks should be rendered to him for devoting 30 years of his life to the translation of the 60,000 verses that Ferdowsi had spent 30 years perfecting 800 years before. The task was so tremendous that not all the volumes were published until two years after the translator’s death. Mohl, who closely followed the text of the great poet and took care to recreate as faithfully as possible the shimmering universe of the book, has been the benefactor of countless scholars in Western Europe--he has enabled them to discover one of the summits of world literature.
On 11 February 1850 the French writer, Sainte-Beuve, in one of his Causeries du lundi (Monday conversations), urged the resumption of publication by the Imprimerie nationale (national publishing house) of what he called ’the magnificent book’. Stressing the popularity of the work in Iran, he enthusiastically presented the author, his themes and a few episodes, based on his reading of Jules Mohl. His enthusiasm proved to be contagious: the English poet, critic and essayist, Matthew Arnold, became immersed in all the available historical and geographical works on Persia, reread the Iliad, and in 1853 published a splendid poem entitled Sohrab and Rustam, relating the tragic episode of the hero’s killing of his son on the field of battle.
A complete translation into English of The Book of Kings was published in 1925; the translation was an enormous task that had been carried out by two brothers, Arthur and Edmund Warner.
In Germany, the great lyrical poet ’and orientalist Friedrich Riickert translated the tragedy of Rustam and Sohrab, at the beginning of the 19th century, into language of great beauty, respecting the music and rhythm of the original. His translation was received with great interest in his country and throughout Europe. Another German poet, Schack, translated the entire epic part of the work, the translation being published in 1853.
Complete translations of The Book of Kings exist today in all the widely spoken languages, and numerous translations of extracts exist in some 40 languages. UNESCO has published extracts from the French translation by Jules Mohl, selected and edited by Mr Gilbert Lazard, and extracts from the English translation by Reuben Levy, edited by Mr Amin Banani, in the Collection of Representative Works.
It was last year that the UNESCO General Conference decided to associate the organization with the celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the completion of the manuscript. This continues a longstanding tradition whereby, ever since the death of the poet, scholars have attempted to make amends for the ingratitude of the Sultan to whom Ferdowsi offered this treasure and who failed to appreciate its true value. But what is it in The Book of Kings that draws us together, captivates our hearts and enables its author to triumph over both time and place?

Rustam and Sohrab
Of many outstanding passages in the work one might mention the meeting of the hero Rustam and his son Sohrab, a beautiful and poignant story of two beings related by blood and brought by destiny to a fatal confrontation.
It is a story that arouses in us feelings of both pity and horror, for Rustam, during the three days of the duel between them, has come to admire the qualities of his adversary - agility, intelligence in combat, nobility and chivalry. On several occasions father and son are on the point of recognizing one another ; their speeches are tinged with admiration and tenderness; but Fate will not be cheated. When Sohrab dies under Rustam’s blows and Rustam discovers the identity of his victim, all Ferdowsi’s readers shudder; all are fathers who have just killed their sons.
We can see why this great tragic theme has attracted the attention of poets of all periods and civilizations: the feelings to which it gives rise are common to all times and all countries.
Even when the enchantment of his tale fades and we fall back into the normal world from the fairyland into which he had carried us we are not disoriented: on the contrary, the poet deposits us on a well-marked road with a sturdy staff in our hand. Ferdowsi is everything we expect of a great poet, for he teaches us both what people are and what they should become’.
The Book of Kings is indeed studded with precepts, and it is not uncommon for an episode to be accompanied, in the same enchanting style, by a moral for the reader’s edification. Princes, for example, are exhorted to be humble, in a concept of power in which the notion of ’service’ predominates. ’When you become a sovereign’ says Ferdowsi, ’behave as a humble servant’.

Characteristics
Nevertheless, the characteristic of Ferdowsi by which he appears eminently modern to us is without doubt, first of all, his faith in the ability of people to rise above hostility, contempt, suspicion and hatred by an impulse of fellow feeling and compassion.
The French poet Lamartine, moved by the moral qualities with which Ferdowsi endows his heroes, wrote of them: ’They are more than kings, for kings reign only for a time and these heroes reign over the future.’
In The Book of Kings there are many colorful battle scenes, but they never glorify vanity nor the thirst for violence. On the contrary, Ferdowsi depicts in them the absurdity of conflict and struggle. We have seen the pain in which the duel between Rustam and Sohrab ends.
Respect for and appreciation of others, with their different religious, ethnic and social backgrounds. Ten centuries later the same message was delivered by Gandhi. One day a Hindu came and asked Gandhi how he could make reparation for the crime he had committed in killing the child of a Muslim; Gandhi answered ’Adopt a Muslim orphan and raise him in accordance with the rules of his religion.’
Would it not be worth while to relay and amplify this message Asia has passed on to the world down the centuries. I personally think that The Book of Kings should be distributed as widely as possible.

Human Heritage
UNESCO, for its part, is ready to contribute to that action with all the means at its disposal, for this work is ’not only part of the human heritage but can also help men and women of the 20th century--what am I saying, the twenty-first century--to improve and to live in greater peace with themselves and with others. I would in particular want to see it brought to the knowledge of young people throughout the world.
And here I wish to pay tribute to the many historians, linguists and scholars who, within these walls, have devoted their lives to the masterpieces of Iranian literature.
’It is through peace that men achieve happiness,’ said Ferdowsi. ’May those who preach war vanish from our midst.’
Peace, not violence. Temperance, not excess. Mercy, not cruelty. This love of life is love of one’s fellow, of all others.
Ferdowsi, the Persian national poet, is never a chauvinistic poet. Persia does not oppose its neighbors : it opens its doors to them. That is why the Arabs, the Turks and the Indians have adopted Ferdowsi, translating him into their languages and constantly employing his themes. He is becoming universal, he belongs to everyone. That is what makes Ferdowsi an inspired forerunner of today’s world, in which the spirit of war may be vanquished only by the spirit of tolerance and in which it is UNESCO’s task to ensure that peoples achieve a better understanding of each other through an ever-deeper knowledge of their respective cultures, which represent their most precious heritage.
Just as Ferdowsi’s words are in striking accord with the intention of UNESCO’s founders, so I hope that the organization will pursue its action in accordance with the ideals that inspired the poet: a sense of honor and human dignity, a demand for justice in the exercise of power, tolerance, compassion for the weak and the vanquished, serenity and wisdom--in a word, ’Kherad’.