final given to the by Sir H. Rawlinson, an initial, in supercession of his apparent w.

The succeeding may, with equal propriety, be transliterated as, a form we should look for with much interest as a dialectic advance towards the ultimate orthography of Ja, in spite of the incidental appearance of a later though, perhaps, mere provincial variety of the title in shape of

on the coins of Fíroz (AD. 458-484). This is the Khoda, Roi," of Anquetil (ii. 442, 515), and the conventional Pehlvi term for "king.

(10) The tenth detached portion of the original mural record,

among other words which need not be dwelt upon, concludes

گبر It would be unwise to insist upon .وهمكي شتري گبر with

as, however appropriate, it appears in too unconnected and

broken a form to be fairly relied upon.

(11) The eleventh stone is remarkable for the preservation

in پیروني The. و هرمزدي = اوهلمزدي ) of the name of Hormazd

1 M. Mohl (p. x. Preface, Shah Námah) has suggested a very original but scarcely conclusive explanation of the disuse of this term in its proper and archaic meaning, by assuming that when the word came to be accepted by the followers of Muhammad in the sense of "God," that they were able to obliterate all · ancient memories of the linguistic import of the designation, and to raise their Allah to the exclusively divine title, heretofore so simply affected in the ordinary acceptation of "king" by common mortals. It would, perhaps, be a more satisfactory way of explaining the difficulty, to infer that men of old, in the East, on attaining. royalty, were given to advance a simultaneous claim to divine honours, and with this notion to assume the designations and attributes of their local gods; but as the world grew older, the words so employed reverted to their proper and normal linguistic import, which had been thus temporarily and conditionally misapplied; terms which, in the case in point, had already in a manner ceased to convey any exceptional mundane distinction. See a note on the subject of the Armenian god H'aldia in the Numismatic Chronicle, vol. vii. N.S. (1867) p. 151. Masaudi tells us a good deal about the origin and use of the term; among other passages, in chap. xxiv. (vol. ii. p. 237, Paris edit.), he remarks "Les rois perses, depuis l'origine des temps jusqu'à la naissance de l'islamisme, sont divisés en quatre dynasties. La première, qui s'étend de Keyomert à Aféridoun, est celle des Khodaháns lol), mot qui a le sens de rebb () "maître," comme on dit rebb-elmeta "maître d'un bien," rebb-ed-dar, "maître de maison." In the time of Khusrú Parvíz the State Seal for Khorásán still retained the title in (p. 228), Aryan_philologists propose to derive the word from "selfcoming"), while the Sanskrit authorities suggest Swadatta +,"self-given," or preferably Swadhá +, "self-generated.”

(Benfey).

خود

line four may be another form of which is a frequent adjective in the Sassanian inscriptions.

. پرستي ول هوري

(12) No. 12, though much defaced, retains some indications of value in the possible restoration of line two, in the form of The word is not necessarily and exclusively "the Sun," but also applies to "fire, light," though the former interpretation is preferable in this place, as only occurs as the abbreviated form for fire in combination.

(13) The term again appears in No. 13, and is to be met with in various forms in the counterpart Chaldæo-Pehlvi version.

(14) The words and, if we could but rely upon their correct isolation in the general and undivided continuity of the writing, would claim a passing notice, while theėj as a standard expression identifies itself with ,, “life,"

66

the vital spirit ;” but the interest in this tablet centres in the conclusion, which, though greatly defective in the original, or its reproduction, seems to contain the word. The Soshyanto of the Parsis were "the ancient prophets" of the Zoroastrian creed.' I must repeat that the divisions in the modern Pehlvi representation of Sir H. Rawlinson's fac-simile are purely arbitrary, and that I have no reserve whatever in altering or re-arranging the connection of the letters.

(15) No. 15 contributes a more ample legend than its fellows, and has the additional merit of being reported by its English transcribers as "very plain" in its writing; the

are fairly legible towards the شتري يزدي, شايتي words appear ملا followed by پاردان and دولتان ;commencement

3

in the third line; but the point of the highest interest in the whole inscription from first to last is the mention of the name

1 Haug, Language of the Parsees, pp. 219, 196, 164. A far more serious and critical examination of the earlier chapters of the Zend Avesta, by Dr. Cajetanus Kossowicz, (Paris, 1865), gives 'Saos'yanḍ as "Salvator."

2 I am doubtful about this word, as the copy reads preferentially

The Gs and Zs are very difficult to distinguish in Sir H. Rawlinson's fac-similes. Avestah-"pur" ou "Parole."-Anquetil, ii. pp. 448, 449.

3 Partan=

of Zoroaster, with the appropriate introductory intitulation

1

The detached passage concludes و بگدت زي زوراد چت كمر من رب نفشي ول ببازي

(16) In the second line of No. 16 may be suggestively substituted for the, which, however, I have faithfully represented in the Pehlvi, in strict accordance with Sir H. Rawlinson's copy.

(17) No. 17 is one of the most complete and most carefully traced of the whole series, but the facilities of interpretation are not, as yet, commensurate; the third line may be

line four : شتردارسي بربيت ربا reproduced in modern Persian as

admits of many optional conversions, but Jo,, is the best merely mechanical transcript; line five proceeds

ملكا

من

and a very speculative restoration might,وتن (وطن) نيكي هشي شتري من دومن امیر define the contents of line six as

(18) No. 18 repeats the word, or, as it may be preferably rendered,,, "Princely," and adds a third and very

كاروان preceded by the word هرگوت clear example of the

Though Mr. Hector's copy gives a totally different version of the contents of line three, which may be freely rendered

,is transferred هرگوی while the ایران هري پش or هوي پور

in all its completeness, to line four.

(19) The nineteenth tablet, though very promising at first sight, seems to have been defective in the preservation of the definite forms of the letters. The opening may be suggested, as the first word occurs elsewhere. The conclusion of the last line gives the letters of; but Mr.

. یک شیکان شمون درهم Hector's transcript runs

(20) No. 20 presents us with the name of Tiridates, followed by the title of King, K. a. Tiridates was the early name of Sapor I. before he became prominent under the titular designation of "Son of the King," and the

The Armenian version of the name is Zorataschd. E. Dulaurier, Journal Asiatique, 1852, p. 32. See also Haug, p. 252, for variants of the original designation.

eventual associate in his father's sovereignty; though, in this instance, as his definitive identification and regal title appears in full in No. xxv. we are bound to conclude that the name of Tiridates here made use of applies to some other ruler or independent local Sovereign. In line three

;

but و مچانم شتي و ولد may be read, with every reserve

under a different arrangement of the words and a rejection of the dubious, the Pehlvi letters will equally correspond to

"The fourth line commences with a name مچان مروهي

optionally or(), which is followed by the titles of sand, iepápxns, Hierarch. Sir H. Rawlinson notices that there is a blank space at the bottom of the inscribed face of this stone, as if the last line of writing had formed a portion of the conclusion of the main inscription. (21) The twenty-first tablet is considerably damaged and defaced; but the fourth line runs continuously, Kho

. شتردار

ملكا

(22) No. 22 is the last of the Sassanian series copied by Sir H. Rawlinson. In the first line may be seen the personal. pronoun, Chald. 1), Zend, ava, "he or she," the Cuneiform Persian Hauva, and the modern Persian,, is, sg.2 The second line gives the frequently-recurring, with a word which may be rendered , a transliteration, however, that can scarcely be accepted in this place. The several terms

the concluding line may be restored under protest in regard

may be tentatively modernized, and نام and, زدي,كرتي, تركيهي

. همکي شتري هرپت as بہت to the original copy of the final

1 An apt illustration of the difficulty of expressing these and other gradational sounds in the imperfect Pehlvi alphabet is contributed by the anomalous state of the power of the literary definition in Kurdistan at the present day:-"Les Kurdes · lettrés sont, en général, les gens qui ne savent qu' imparfaitement leur langue maternelle. Ils correspondent avec leurs autorités et entre eux-mêmes, soit en persan, soit en turc, soit en arabe. Si parfois ils se voient obligés d'écrire en kurde, ils le font à l'aide de l'alphabet persan. En effet, toutes les consonnes persanes sont identiques avec celles des kurdes, du moins pour ce qui concerne le dialecte de Soléimanié; mais celui-ci contient beaucoup de voyelles et de diphthongues qu'il serait impossible de reproduire au moyen de l'orthographe en usage chez les Persans. Comment, par example, figurer en persan les articulations ae, ee, oo, âou, eeou, âou, aoue, etc., qui se rencontrent si souvent et se suivent les unes les autres, sans l'intervention des consonnes, dans les mots kurdes?"—J. A. 1857, p. 302.