Kayanian

The Kayanians, also Kays, Kayanids or Kaianids, or Kiani, are a semi-mythological dynasty of Persian tradition and folklore which supposedly ruled after the Pishdadids, and before the historical Achaemenids. Considered collectively, the Kayanian kings are the heroes of the Avesta, the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, and of the Shahnameh, Iran's national epic.

As an epithet of kings and the reason the dynasty is so called, Middle and New Persian kay(an) originates from Avestan kavi (or kauui) "king" and also "poet-sacrificer" or "poet-priest". The word is also etymologically related to the Avestan notion of kavaēm kharēno, the "divine royal glory" that the Kayanian kings were said to hold. The Kiani Crown is a physical manifestation of that belief.

The earliest known foreshadowing of the major legends of the Kayanian kings appears in the Yashts of the Avesta, where the dynasts offer sacrifices to the gods in order to earn their support and to gain strength in the perpetual struggle against their enemies, the Anaryas (non-Aryans, sometimes identified as the Turanians).

In Yasht 5, 9.25, 17.45-46, Haosravah, a Kayanian king later known as Kay Khosrow, together with Zoroaster and Jamasp (a premier of Zoroaster's patron Vishtaspa, another Kayanian king) worship in Airyanem Vaejah. The account tells that King Haosravah united the various Aryan (Iranian) tribes into one nation (Yasht 5.49, 9.21, 15.32, 17.41).

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