According to Cyril Toumanoff he may have been a scion of the Pharnavazid dynasty,[1] while Richard N. Frye states that he was an Iranian, possibly related to the royal Sasanian family.
Although the precise etymology of *Hamazāsp/Hamāzāspa remains unresolved, it may be explained through Avestan *hamāza-, "colliding/clashing" + aspa-, "horse" i.e. "one who possessed war steeds".
However, Amazasp III is indeed attested in a contemporaneous text of the Sasanian Empire, an Old Persian written source, and in the tri-lingual inscription found in Ka'ba-ye Zartosht Temple in which is the lists of the Princedom of Wirričān (Iberia) as among the Persian dependencies and Protectorates and testifies to a privileged diplomatic position of its Princedom.
[5][6][7][8] Some modern historians such as Sir Giorgi Tsereteli, Dr T'amila Mgaloblishvili, and Prof. Stephen H. Rapp mainly identify King Hamazasp with Lord-Prince Habzā: a king of the Waručān who are mentioned in some of the early manichaean texts discovered by Zee German scientific expeditions of 1908 & early 1914; (in the West Asian), Xinjian Regions, and its Turpan oasis.
In an interesting aside, another document from this collection refers to an unnamed proud High-Prince of Waruzān, who appears to have impressed the Manichaeans by his perspectives on learning and knowledge.