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The story of "Rostam's death" in Shāh-nāma and Ghorar-assiar Tha'ālabi is different from all other sources. In these sources, there are four narrations of Rostam being killed by Bahman: natural death, the death of both opponents at the end of the war with Esfandiār, and being killed by “Ŝoghād/ Ŝaghād”. The source criticism of the story of Rostam and Esfandiār shows that it did not exist in Khodāy-nāma. The difference between the narrator of the story (Azād-sarv) and the narrators of Abu Mansouri's Shāhnāma and the anonymity of Ŝoghād in the sources has obscured the origin of the story. This article, considering the continuity of ancient contents in the folklore sources analyzes the role of Bahman in the murder of Rostam in narrative scrolls and epics. It also investigates an episode in Khāvarān-nāma of Khusfi (15 AD), which depicts Rostam being thrown in the camouflaged wells of Bahman. Finally, this research has proved that the killer of Rostam, in the oldest sources, was nobody other than Bahman, and in order to reduce the humiliation of being killed by a Kiani king, his guilt has been projected on the betrayal of a half-brother.

Keywords: Rostam's death, Ŝoghād (Ŝaoghāy), Bahman, Shāh-nāma sources, folk (oral) epic, Khāvarān-nāma.

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