Aran

Aran is the legendary forefather of the Albanians in the Armenian historiographic tradition. Movses Khorenatsi makes him a descendant of the patriarch Hayk through Sisak, appointed by the Arsacid king Vałarsh (Vologases) as governor of the plains and mountains bordering Armenia to the northeast; from him the Aranshahik dynasty and the people of Aghvank are said to descend. The name of the land, Ałuankʿ, is derived by both Khorenatsi and Movses Dasxurantsi from Aran's by-name ału, 'gentle', so that the eponym and the ethnonym are bound together in a single origin legend.

Domains

• ancestry
• governance

Powers

• founds the ancestral house of the Albanians
• governs the northeastern march of the Caucasus

Epithets

• աղու — the Gentle / the KindMovses Khorenatsi, History of the Armenians, Book II.8, trans. R.W. Thomson (Harvard University Press, 1978) (primary)

Sources

• Aran is the legendary ancestor and eponym of the Albanians, appointed governor of the northeastern Caucasian march and forefather of the Aranshahik dynasty.: Movses Khorenatsi, History of the Armenians, Book II.8, trans. R.W. Thomson (Harvard University Press, 1978) (primary); Movses Dasxurantsi, The History of the Caucasian Albanians, Book I.4, trans. C.J.F. Dowsett (Oxford University Press, 1961) (primary)
• The country-name Ałuankʿ / Albania is folk-etymologized from Aran's nickname ału, 'gentle'.: Encyclopaedia Iranica, 'Albania' (C. J. F. Dowsett), on the eponymous ancestor and the derivation of the name (secondary)