Kay Bahman

Illustration of Kay Bahman in the Tekyeh Moaven al-molk in Kermanshah

Kay Bahman or Wahman (from Middle Persian: Wahman "good mind") is a mythological figure of Greater Iranian legend and lore. The stock epithet Kai identifies Bahman as one of the Kayanian kings of Iranian oral tradition.

The 3rd-6th century Sassanians claimed to descend from Bahman and the Kayanids. This myth was combined with another legend in which the Sassanians were imagined to have descended from the Achaemenids, and in the post-Sassanid period Bahman came to equated with both Artaxerxes I and Cyrus the Great.[1]

  1. ^ Khaleghi-Motlagh 1989, p. 489.