Cup of Jamshid

The Cup of Jamshid, jam-e Jam in Persian, is the world-revealing vessel of Persian legend: filled with wine, it mirrors the doings of all seven regions of the earth, so that nothing remote or hidden escapes it — hence its other name, jam-e giti-nama, the world-showing cup. Tradition assigns it to Jamshid, the radiant primeval king whose reign the Shahnameh stretches over seven hundred years, three hundred of them without sickness or death, and cup and king together became Persian shorthand for golden ages and perfect insight.

Its fullest appearance in the Shahnameh comes in the tale of Bizhan and Manizheh. The Iranian knight Bizhan, in love with the Turanian princess Manizheh, was cast by King Afrasiyab into a pit in the wilderness with a boulder rolled over its mouth. When all searching failed, King Kay Khosrow fasted, prayed, and gazed into the cup; the seven climes turned within it until he made out Bizhan at the bottom of a pit in the wastes of Turan. He then sent Rostam disguised as a merchant, who heaved the boulder aside by night and drew the lovers out. Persian lyric poetry returned to the cup again and again under Jamshid's name: a famous ghazal of Hafez tells of a heart that begged for the Cup of Jamshid for years, only to learn that what it sought it had carried all along — the cup becoming the Sufi image of the heart that mirrors truth. Iran's state broadcaster named its international television channels Jam-e Jam, after the vessel that showed the world.