sprengling, m. “kartir, founder of sassanian zoroastrism”

Kartīr, Founder of Sasanian ZoroastrianismAuthor(s): M. SprenglingReviewed work(s):Source: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Apr.,1940), pp. 197-228Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/529028 .Accessed: 18/06/2012 18:15

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KARTIR, FOUNDER OF SASANIAN ZOROASTRIANISM

M. SPRENGLING

With the campaign of 1939 the Oriental Institute concluded its work in Persepolis and environs. A trial dig down one wall of the so-called Kaabah of Zoroaster, which faces the Naq? i Rustam tombs of the Achaemenids with the reliefs of the early Sasanians beneath them, had in 1936 brought to light a badly corroded but evidently very important and lengthy inscription in Sasanian Middle Persian language and writing, Herzfeld's Parsik. A preliminary publication of a first reading from excellent photographs was published in AJSL, LVIII (January, 1937), 126-44. Additional details were added in ZDMG, XCI (1937), 652-72, where, likewise, at the request of Paul Kahle, a photograph, much reduced in size, was printed in a halftone reproduction. A limited number of somewhat less-reduced photographic copies had been distributed in various European and American centers. First publicly to identify the inscription as belonging to Sapor I was Professor W. Henning, now of the School of Oriental Studies in London (BSOS, IX, 823-49). Professor Arthur Christensen had at about the same time made a similar identification, on which he read a paper at the meeting of the International Congress of Orientalists at Brussels in the autumn of 1937. A few of his results appeared in his L'Iran sous les Sassanides (passim), chiefly in the matter of titles and offices, and in the Cambridge Ancient History, XII, 109-37. An article from this writer's pen, properly fixing the form pit-vadath-andar-im in the meaning "(related) to me by another father marriage," and adding a few other details, is in India and should, if Ahuramazda is propitious, be in print by now. Herr Henning has promised another study, which seems not yet to have appeared. Beside a number of communications, which have reached this writer by private correspondence, this is all that has come to my notice by way of public contributions to the reading of the KZ inscription found in 1936.

In the campaign of 1939 the OI expedition uncovered all four faces of the Kaabah down to the foundations. With this work it developed that three of the faces, all but the one facing directly toward the rock wall, which is made unsuitable by the doorway and the staircase leading up to it, contained exten- sive inscriptions. The two new sides, uncovered apparently for the first time since dust and sand began to heap up against them, the south and west sides, contain the Greek and the Parthian version of Sapor's great inscription. Though also somewhat marred, especially in the upper lines, these two ver- sions are so well preserved that an almost complete reading is possible.

In the meantime, later in the 1939 season, another inscription underneath Sapor's Sasanian or Parsik came to light. Judging from the scale of the excel-

197

198 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES

lent photographs, it begins, on the tier of stones below that on which Sapor's inscription ends, about 15-16 cm. underneath the last line of the royal inscription. Perhaps because at this level the stones directly beneath were not so well adapted for the purpose, the lower inscription begins at a point about two-thirds of a line to the left of the beginning of Sapor's lines. A rule held against the beginning of the lower inscription's lines cuts Sapor's line 34 in the t of yztan, and line 33 in the M of Mtrhwst. Thus the lines of the lower inscription run parallel with Sapor's lines for about 26 cm., but that is not all of their length. They continue on for about 160 cm. beyond, until they are stopped by the southeast corner pilaster. Being thus about 186 cm. long over all, they are more than twice as long as Sapor's lines; in fact, somewhere between two and a half and two and a third times the length of Sapor's. The reason for this seems to be that there was not enough good writing surface at the bottom to continue in that direction, though the inscription itself, with its nineteen lines (really eighteen, since two of them are half-lines) and its somewhat smaller letters, is at least as long as Sapor's. The last two lines, 18 and 19, run over onto the tier of stones next belowthat at the very top of which it was begun. The whole is so well preserved that, in contrast with the much- corroded royal inscription over it, it is pretty easily legible throughout its entire length. If the corrosion of the upper inscription is due to the disturb- ance of the covering soil by the dig, some sixty-five years ago (mentioned by Curzon in his Persia, II, 144, referred to by this writer in ZDMG, XCI, 652 f.)-probably a crude and inexpert affair-then that semiofficial sondage did not extend to the level of this new inscription, and that is a happy coinci- dence.

For this new, completely preserved inscription on the lower part of the east wall of the Kaabah of Zoroaster at Naq? i Rustam is not only fully as

long, it is also fully as valuable and important as the royal inscription of

Sapor. This is the life-story of a figure with which Ernst Herzfeld has been

playing tantalizingly for some fifteen to twenty years. It may be that he discovered him first in the monumental inscription of Narseh at Paikuli, the initial solution of whose picture-puzzle, however imperfect, remains to this date Herzfeld's greatest contribution to Pahlavi science. The great man occurs there in apparently questionable company--first listed without him in lines 7 and 8-in line 15 of the Pahlavik. In the Paikuli volumes Herzfeld

published, from and with the old photographs of Stolze, as he tells us in

BSOS, VIII (1937), 941, two inscriptions of this great dignitary, whom from that time forth he names persistently "Kartir Hormizd, the m6bed; kartir i Hormizd; the kartir"; later "KartFr of the king Hormizd I." Herzfeld was not the first to play with these matters. In Paikuli, I, Glossary, Nos. 556-58, on page 209, at the top of the page, he acknowledges some indebtedness to Theodor N6ldeke "in the introduction to Stolze's Persepolis," meaning, we take it, N6ldeke's Bemerkungen zu den Inschriften in the introduction to Vol- ume II of that work. Herzfeld quotes with some degree of approval N6ldeke's

KARTiR 199

suggestion that Kartir may mean something like "friend." N6ldeke's second suggestion, "protector," is ignored. But Herzfeld makes another quotation when he says: "The interpretation 'crown' by Thomas and West is probably a mere guess." Whence he quotes this, Herzfeld does not say. If he is quoting directly from the work of West and Thomas, then Herzfeld's excuse for an oversight pointed out by Schaeder in BSOS, VIII, 745, becomes doubly curious and unintelligible, when he says in BSOS, VIII, 941, note 2: "I had overlooked the reading . . . . in Westergaard's rare book." Schaeder referred to no rare book but to a statement by N6ldeke in ZDMG, XLVI, 139. And N6ldeke states clearly, whence he knows Westergaard's text of Kartir NiRst; he names his source in the Stolze volume, when he says: "Westergaard's Abschrift, welche kiirzlich von West herausgegeben und, soweit m6glich, erklirt ist (Indian Antiquary, 1881 Febr., pg. 29 sqq.)," and the Indian Antiquary is certainly no rare book of Westergaard's. N61ldeke read the form vaspwhrkn, to which he refers in ZDMG, where all of us can read it, in the only facsimile of Westergaard's copy ever published (Indian Antiquary, February, 1881, facing p. 30, near the end of 1. 6). That remains to the present day the best edition of the text of Kartir, NiRst, in public print. Farther on N6ldeke refers in his remarks on this publication to readings by Thomas as well as by West, but he ascribes the rendering "crown" to neither, but to Haug, rejecting it, not as a mere guess, but chiefly on the ground of an impossible etymology. In this instance Herzfeld is right against N6ldeke, for Haug himself says (Essay on Pahlavi, pp. 65 f.): "Thomas and West identify it with the Heb. ktr 'crown,' the cidaris of the Persian kings; and I cannot propose any better explanation." The first occurrence of the curious crown- idea seems to be connected with a misreading by Edward Thomas of the end of line 27 of Kartir, NiRj, in his article on "Sassanian Inscriptions," JRAS III (new ser.; 1868), 272. Our copy of the following volume of JRAS lacks West's follow-up article, which may have extended to the name Kartir the curious notion; in his extraordinary, emended translation of Kartir, NiRst, West simply translates everywhere "crown" without note or explanation. In this connection we recall another Kartir-or is it the same?-KLTYL

SHPWH•.RY, found on a seal in Florence by A. Mordtmann (ZDMG, XVIII [1864], 37, No. 114, and Pl. I, upper right). Justi's explanation (Namenbuch, s.v.), wrong etymologically, is in meaning near Henning (BSOS, IX, 84). All this makes it clear that the great old Dane Westergaard, the English scholars West and Thomas, and the German Martin Haug had known these Kartir inscriptions and worked on them by 1881. N6ldeke speaks of others as well, naming of them only Flandin, the Frenchman. With Stolze there had worked the redoubtable Andreas, from whose "Zeichnung" N6ldeke expected at least some help; all that came of it, as of much else, was one reading in a footnote in L'Empire des Sassanides of Andreas' admirer, Arthur Christensen (p. 20, n. 6), wrong, as not infrequently, and therefore dropped from the same footnote in its new form, L'Iran sous les Sassanides (p. 95, n. 1). Herzfeld in Paikuli, I,


89-93, read more of Kartir, NiRj, and presented a better rendering of it than had been done before, as a comparison of his work with Ndldeke's rendering of lines 27-31 in the Stolze volume will easily demonstrate.

In his "Reisebericht in ZDMG, LXXX (N.F., V) (1926), Herzfeld first told, on pages 246 and 256 f., of three inscriptions of the great dignitary. He retains from Paikuli a mistranslation making the man warden or administrator of the mint from Sapor I to Bahram II; this has since been changed. Of the two in-

scriptions near Istakhr he says that he formed them off, meaning, presumably, in our language, that he made squeezes of them. Of NiRj he says that he has now a complete decipherment and a determination and explanation of the words until then remaining unintelligible. With these two Herzfeld then refers on page 246 in passing to another inscription of the same man at Sar Mashhad (SM), much better preserved, of whose sentences some agree with

NiRj, others with NiRst. From the fact that thus in three places in Firs Kartir had inscriptions to the honor and memory of his name, Herzfeld now deduced that he must have been satrap of Firs, an assumption which again he seems never to have abandoned, though there is not a bit of other evidence for

it, and, as will be seen, there is good evidence now come to light against it. On

pages 256 f. Herzfeld fixes the location of Sar Mashhad, a village at the north- ern end of a tip, branch, or offshoot of the plain of Farrashband and "Gire" (= Jira, Girrah, Jirrah), southeast of Shiraz. There, above a notable relief of Bahram (Varahran) II, is found what Herzfeld considers the largest of Sasanian rock inscriptions, fifty-nine lines about 5 meters long with letters about 4 cm. high. Aside from repeating the other two, Herzfeld says, it goes beyond these in historical statements. One of the supposed additions, partly misread both here and elsewhere, which mentions Christians, is found also in

NiRst, as will be shown. If actually, as Herzfeld says at this point, but nowhere else, the names of Spfihn, Kirman, Sakastan, etc., are mentioned in

SM, then that would be a true addition to anything up to the present found elsewhere.

In his Archaeological History of Iran, delivered in lecture form in 1934, published in book form in 1935, Herzfeld recurs to the man and his inscriptions after a rather fanciful statement on various early written forms of the

Avesta, with which H. S. Nyberg, Die Religionen des alten Iran (trans. Schaeder [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1938]; Swedish, Irans forntida religioner [Stock- holm, 1937]), pages 404-29, must now be contrasted. In that connection Herzfeld then sketches, from the material above outlined with the help of some earlier historical sources and, most largely, of much later romancing literature, a picture of the man and his work, in which fact and fancy are not

easy for the non-Iranist to control and distinguish. Kartir (now become

Karter) remains to Herzfeld a title; the name, he insists, we do not know

(cf. Henning, loc. cit.), though he suspects it may have been Tansar. The functions named for him are: governor of Frs, retained from ZDMG; high priest, a misreading retained from Paikuli, I (transcription and translation

KARTIR 201

(p. 91, 1. 23), Glossary (pp. 149 and 204); high judge, whence derived not stated. He is now said to have served under five kings: Ardashir I, Shapur I, Hormizd I, Bahram I and II, Ardashir probably derived from the misreading of NiRst (Paikuli, I, 92). The dates of his activity "in official position" are given as "from about 230 to 293," the latter from the Paikuli inscription, the former from the misreading of Ardashir. The series of heretical religious groups, more extensively read here than in ZDMG, but in part misread in a

"passage, unfortunately isolated by gaps," is juxtaposed with a curious passage from an Armenian historian, and the whole is then welded together to make Kartir the author of a supposed edict of tolerance issued by Shapur I, which, as will be seen, is the exact opposite of the truth. The parallel between Kartir and the romances of Tansar and ArdavirZz is thereupon attractively elaborated (Arch. Hist. Iran, pp. 100-103).

Beyond this there have come to our notice only a series of statements on bits of these inscriptions, from single words to a sentence or two, scattered through various publications of Herzfeld's. With no attempt at completeness of enumeration we note AMI, VII, 15, 19, 49(?), 54, 55; Altpers. Ins., pages 61-63, 141, 146, 163, 171(?), 173, 180, 196 f., 212 ff., 220, 225, 234 f., 314. In the very last place here listed Herzfeld seems again to reduce the number of kings under whom Kartir served to four, not named.

The picture of early Sasanian times which Herzfeld has drawn from his incomplete material, and which has been broadcast in the world under the aegis of his well-publicized name, is most clearly and most fully corrected and supplemented by the new Kaabah of Zoroaster material brought to light by Erich Schmidt. The new Kartir inscription (KKZ) exists only in the one Sasanian Persian (Parsik) form; but this is so perfectly preserved and so easily legible that it has been possible to work it over pretty thoroughly in the six or eight weeks since it was placed into the writer's hands. As will appear, there are, of course, still a number of points imperfectly or not at all understood by this writer. Nevertheless, the work is far enough along, so that an intelligible account, in large part a translation, can be presented. This being so, it seems to the writer, on the one hand, unjust to the scholarship of the world to withhold from it at this point as full an account as possible, however preliminary this may be; and, on the other hand, foolish to waste time in first trying to solve all problems alone or solely with the aid of our excellent, but in these matters insufficient, Chicago staff, instead of letting other scholars elsewhere, who may have much-needed information ready at hand, join in such solutions before presenting a final or definitive publication. Much money can be wasted in that way, as the expensive Paikuli volumes, a most unsatisfactory, very preliminary publication in spite of Herzfeld's brilliant solution of so large a part of that picture-puzzle, have demonstrated. It certainly is cheaper, better, and in every way more sensible to make one's preliminary mistakes and to exhibit one's own insufficiencies to others for public or private correction and supplementing in the pages of a periodical


such as AJSL. A word or two more will be said anent this matter farther along. For the present we offer our new Kartir material.

In the first place we note that, as Kartir is mentioned latest in date in Nar- seh's Paikuli inscription, so his first mention in history occurs in all three of the Sapor inscriptions on the Kaabah of Zoroaster. He is, indeed, to Sapor of the pit-vadath-andar-im, as are all those there mentioned, i.e., he belongs to the now royal family. He is not, however, in Sapor's list among the great and outstanding members of his court, but well down in the list. He is found, not among the men enumerated as having served under Ardashir, but among those named for Shapur's (= Greek Sapor) time only. In the thirty-four-line Sasanian version his name occurs in about the middle of the next to the last line (1. 33) as Kartir, the ayhrpat. The ending of the inscription is consider-

ably more elaborate in both the Parthian and the Greek version, while in the

Sasanian, apparently written last, the weary scribe or stonecutter, or both in

collaboration, curtailed the repetitious material severely. In the thirty-line Parthian we find near the end of the first third of line 28 Kartir, the ahrpat. In the seventy-line Greek form he occurs at the end of about the first third of line 66, curtly, as Karteir, the magus, which is significant for the meaning and

standing of the ayhrpat, ahrpat, herbedh, in this earliest Sasanian time. That is all that is said about him. He must not be confused with another man, whose name is exactly the same as his in Persian, but slightly different in the

Greek, and who occurs still farther down the list, in the Sasanian, line 34, Kartir Artavan; in the Parthian near the end of line 28, Kartir Artabanu (or Artabanaw); in the Greek in the middle of line 67, Kirdeir (possibly Kirder) Irdouan (possibly corrected to Erdouan). For the Greek form of this name

Henning's kyrdyr, BSOS, IX, 84; kyrdgpr, MirMan., I, 41 (=[218]); II, 57 (=[3481); III, 57 (= [902]); qyrdg'r, ManBBb., Glossar, page 112, deserve notice and comparison. There is not the slightest indication that for our man in particular Kartir is a title; it is used simply like all the others roundabout it as a proper name. In his own inscription the case is just as clear, and his office under Shapur, just as here, is that of herbedh (ayhrpat). On the Florence seal and in the second name here we may have an epithet with a king's name

following, or one Kartir is distinguished from others by the name of his lord or father.

Our Kartir's own inscription was written some twenty years later, when he had attained a far different rank and station. It begins, as has been pointed out, a little below and leftward of the royal inscription. The leftward position may be due solely, as has been suggested, to the accident of good writing surface on the stones; it may possibly have been influenced by some idea of

indicating rank below the great king, after the manner of seatings at a diplo- matic table. Apparently all of Kartir's inscriptions which we know (the be-

ginning of SM is known to Professor Herzfeld and God and, perhaps, Nyberg, but not to us ordinary mortals) are thought of as beginning in some such

position. For the royal inscription here, whose beginning now is clear as crys-

KARTIR 203

tal, starts off royally: "I, Mazdayasnian god, Shahpuhr." Then Kartir starts off--shall we say?-semiroyally, right after the great king of kings:

"And I, Kartir, the magus-chief." Right here the difficulties, even in a perfectly preserved Sasanian inscription, begin. They lie in this case and frequently in the verbal forms and their use and the determination of their syntax with the other words forming a sentence. The series of words following magupat, "unsweetened," runs as follows: "the gods (yazddn) and Salhpuhir-y, king of kings, well-serving

(h.parasta-y) and good-willing (hiikamak-y)

hvytnn." There is not the slightest doubt about the reading of the verbal form. At the end of line 1 in the NiRst duplicate Herzfeld prints, in absolute agreement with Westergaard's copy, from which he deviates erroneously at the beginning of the line, hvytn; how he can have read that from the Stolze photograph, so far as either the reproduction in Stolze's volume or his own slightly improved copy go to show, is a mystery; what other help he had then remains undisclosed, and such other photographs or squeezes as he now has remain unpublished these fifteen years; SM may have some light, but we do not have it. The writing of the Semitic ending, -tn, as if it were the Persian infinitive ending -tan, for -t4n, or -tsn, need not trouble us too greatly at this point; it seems almost a habit with Kartir, the nature and meaning of which can safely be left to be examined later in a different and larger context. Final -n should be the Persian ending. Unless one assumes here an error to be emended, there appear to be but two possibilities with such an ending. From Turfan Middle Persian we have learned that the first person of the subjunctive and the present participle both end in -an. From the Pahlavi Psalter, which uses Semitic masks, Henning (Verbum, ZII, IX [1933/4], 235, 1. 9 [hereafter Henning, or H Vb, page, comma, line]) lists one occurrence of the subjunctive form with defective writing (it must be

ASABEH.UNn, not

HASKEH.UNn). But what is a subjunctive, or even a present participle,

doing here? A first-person singular of the subjunctive is wholly out of place. With the participle "I" (DNH), being the nominative case, would have to be subject of the verb "know," the object in turn being the gods and the king as

h.aparasta, "well-serving," which is out of the question. The gods and

Shahpuhr must be the objects of the verbal power inherent in hfiparastd and

hikdmak; in other words, objective genitives with these adjectives. Thus emendation seems forced upon us. Two very slight corrections are plausibly possible; instead of final -n read -t, as is done with apparently the same verb a few words farther on, or with the duplicate on the NiRst rock-wall omit one n! As a third possibility one might consider the first n an error for v. Any one of the three writings would be read in Persian as the preterite singular, really a past, passive participle: "I .... am known, have become known as god- serving, etc." If the verb is "to be," a participle will serve: "I .... being god-serving, etc.," the following apim introducing the apodosis.

These first few lines have their own peculiar difficulties. They appear on the photograph fainter, finer, perhaps more worn than the rest. One is at


times tempted to believe that they were first intended to form a little whole by themselves and that between their incision and that of the rest a con- siderable space of time may have elapsed. Then or later Kartir himself or the scribe to whom he dictated or gave orders may have erred, or the copy from which the stonecutter or the scribe who traced for him worked may have been unclear or blurred, or the attempt to re-write an earlier formulation may have been partially bungled, etc. Whatever the actual case may be, this preliminary reading goes forth with this writer's mind inclining toward the belief in accidental error here; the truer reading originally intended being that of

NiRj, line 2: YHIWWA HIWHm; possibly a bungling priestly scribe tried to write some other form of HWH to stand for Persian bitt ham, or this is used in this priestly writing, which has another mask for "to know," for some past form of "to be," perhaps an Avestan perfect. Suggestions or a solution will be welcomed. The meaning in general is fairly clear, even though this problem remain unsolved. Kartir proceeds:

"and I (me? apm) for that service (spSs-y), which by me (ZYm) for the gods and Shahpuhr, king of kings, was done (kl=rt-y), was known (or "he

knew")." Again there is trouble with this word. It looks as though the cutter had begun to incise WH, which perhaps he should have written in the former place, and, having there been reproved for his error, barely saved by an emergency alteration, he fell here into the opposite error, which was then before absolute completion turned into something that might serve as

H WYTNt. Or should this after all be intended for a form of HIWH, to make the whole thus far mean: "and by me for that service, that which by me for the gods and Shahpuhr, king of kings, was to be done"? The following two words would then fit in beautifully: "that by me (ZKm) was done"

(WBYDWNt, final -t being doubtful). Perhaps after all someone-Kartir, or his secretary, or the tracer on the stone, or the cutter-was having trouble with the verbal masks and confusing HWYTN and HWH; or, as suggested, Kartir was following priestly usage, hitherto unknown to us. There is not, to

my knowledge, a single occurrence of H WYT(W)N in the inscriptions which

definitely demands the meaning "to know." All rather favor a meaning "to

be," i.e., H instead of .,

hawftteln. For a meaning "to know" the Aramaic evidence is extremely dubious for the root assumed. We merely know that the intensified form hawwd means primarily "to show, point out" and secondarily "to inform," but the assumption that a simple stem ever existed with the

meaning "to know" is unfounded. This reading and interpretation seem to be a pure guess by Martin Haug, which we have carried on, because it was

seductive, and no one questioned it or thought of a better. The traditional Pazand reading of the BPhl is aniton-. It can easily be read yddcittn, and with the evidence at hand that is what should be read. The old Semitic mask in the meaning "to be" was discarded in BPhl because of its similarity to the form meaning "to know," and because whatever form of the verb "to be" it stood for became definitely obsolete in Persian.-The statement thus far

KARTIR 205

predicates for Kartir faithful service, on the one hand, but also, in contrast with statements under succeeding kings, distinct subordination to Shapur, king of kings. If we see rightly, this is borne out by what follows:

"and (uncertain, indistinct; if present, then, as in the Arabic Idl, it makes the following clause grammatically subordinate, = "while"; the same meaning and connection may inhere in the clause, even though the v- should not be here) Shahpuhr, king of kings, for the court (BBD) and country ('tr-y) upon country, region (gyvak, perhaps simply "place") upon region, throughout the whole empire (ham'tr-y) over the magus-estate (mgvstn, the entire class, order, or caste of the magi) (was) absolutely sovereign (kdmkdl= r-y Wpdth- dMy)." If this means anything, then it means that a king like Shapur was

supreme over the magus-estate, not in any sense subservient to it or domi- nated by it. He occupied in fact, if not in name, the position of mTbedhdn mobedh, a title and function which, apart from the exercise of personal authority by the king or another, seems not at that time to have existed, so far as the evidence of these early inscriptions goes. The highest title and office in the magus class in early Sasanian times seems to have been that which Kartir received after Shapur's death and bore until nearly or quite to the time of his own death, magupat, although, as will presently appear, in his case a modifier is attached to the title. In any case, very soon after the great king's death, he is what he calls himself without modifier at the outset, magupat, and with that we shall find him using for himself the adjectives, which here describe Shapur's position in the religious affairs of the empire and in its magus-estate. Likewise he ascribes here to Shapur, what later he claims for himself, as he now goes on to say:

"and by the command (prman) of Shahpuhr, [LINE 2] king of kings, and the provision (pv= rvv= rt-y) of the gods and the king of kings (in) country upon country, region upon region, many (KBYV=R; so throughout, never KBD, always meaning vas, "much, many"; never mas, meh, "great, high," as Herzfeld supposes, whose "high priest" will presently be seen to be pure fancy) works (krtkan; establishments rather than acts or doings, liturgical or other?) of the gods (in) abundance (apzadyh-y-or should one read as a sort of semicompound with objective genitive preceding, "gods' increase, increase of the gods," not, of course, in number, but in reverence, worship, etc., given to them?), and many fires of Varahran were established (YTYBWNd), and many magimen (mgvGBR ) became happy (Vl=rvhm-y) and prosperous (ptyhv-y), and many imperial fires and magi were instituted (WKBYR atvl= ran Wmgvn-y

path.tl= r-y ITYMWNd)." Here is Herzfeld's "high priest."

He reads KBYR=mas and atrvan= athravan, voil. tout! But KBYR clearly is not mas, but vas, and for the most part in this oft-repeated phrase our inscription has so clearly atvlan that there can be no question of athravan. NiRj, lines 23/24, reads simply and naturally: "To (or "through," or "for") me, Kartir, above all, kings ("the king," MLK%, or MLK n, not MN), rulers, and lords execute valid imperial deeds for (or institute by validly executed


imperial documents": GT-y path~itl = r-y HTYMWNd, the final -d being doubtful) "atvv (or L?)= ran Wmgvn-y." The "imperial deeds" or "documents" will be discussed later, as they occur in our inscription. The first thing needed is that we come down to earth with the term iUTYMWNtn, hambd~tan. The Semitic word is "seal," and, as Bthl., MirM, II, 37 f., has made more than probable, the Persian word is hamb&atan, hambd&-, to be distinguished from

hamb&dtan, hambdr-, "to fill up," though perhaps at some time conflated and confused with it, and meaning "to fix, make firm, validate, validly execute (a deed of sale or endowment, a will, or other important document, chiefly such as fixed ownership of property)," which is the sense of sealing. The acts here mentioned by Kartir from his angle are those which, from the king's angle fill the latter half of his great inscription, the establishment of "fires" and the endowment of them with a steady and enduring income for food and drink. "Letters close and patent" did not greatly interest Kartir of these

inscriptions, as I see him. What interests him, as will become increasingly apparent with our progress in reading this inscription, is the spread throughout the realm and even beyond its confines of Zoroastrianism as he understood it; that means establishment of more and more fire- and other houses, supplying them with priestly and other servants and with the paraphernalia of service, and outfitting these establishments with the necessary where-

withal, kids and lambs and bread and wine, as can now be read with certainty in the Shapur inscriptions. With this in mind the writer sought for an ap- proximately satisfactory explanation of this pair of terms, probably synonymous or nearly so, as so many other pairs of words in these inscriptions. The first "solution" which seemed to come near to satisfying these requirements, as it came to the writer's mind, was as follows: Modern Persian tir, "enter-

tainment, hospitality"; Avestan ti~ray-, tftirya-, "clabbered milk, curds," tpyfiray-, "bread," tartav-, "dry, solid (food)," or, if possible, some other derivative from Orav-, "rear, keep, nourish," suggested d, "for," prenominal with tar, "food," i.e., "alimony," such as in America gold-digging divorcees, elsewhere others as well, enjoy. Mgvn was a poser. It looks exactly like Gathic magavan-. This has of late received much attention. Bthl., AirWb, columns 1109 f. and 1111 f., with Geldner's earlier exposition, rejected all connection with Vedic maghd, "riches, gift," maghdvan, "giver, donator." Later Geldner, Andreas, Messina (Ursprung der Magier), probably with

Marquart, and Maria Wilkins Smith (Studies in the Syntax of the Gathas), probably with R. G. Kent, all fell back on the relationship with the Vedic and

interpreted maga-, "gift, gift of grace," and magavan- as a participant in the

gift. Now Nyberg (Religionen des alten Iran, p. 176) and Stig Wikander (Der arische Mannerbund, p. 55) again differ from all these; but, of course, Kartir knew none of these moderns at all. He could, no doubt, recite the Gathas with fluent murmuring, but what meanings, if any, he attached to their words escapes us pretty completely. He did, however, know Brahmins and

KARTIR 207

Buddhists, as we shall see, at least as well as did Khorasanian and Soghdian Manicheans. As the very small amount of the vocabulary of these Easterners which we know shows at least two or three words loaned from or influenced by Sanskrit, why should not Kartir's speech be influenced about as much? Whether through this channel or a much older and less obvious one of popular or learned transmission, Kartir may be using maga- in the sense of "riches, gift." The -vn might be to him as in Vedic not the recipient but the giver of

largess; the parallelism with "alimonies" would suggest things rather than a person, and it is at least possible that he understood the whole form as a plural in the meaning above assumed, "endowments." The complicated con- struction of these assumptions is as clear to their author as to others. A much simpler reading is atfirdn, "fires" other than Varahran fires, namely, imperial fires, such as are founded in Shapur's great inscription; mgvn might then be Vendidadic

ma'ya's, "purification halls with their pits"-Kartir's religion is much more in the spirit and practice of the Vendidad-Vid&vddt, as Nyberg expounds it, than Herzfeld's story in the Arch. Hist. Iran would make us

believe--or, still more simply, as Herzfeld reads in Paikuli, it is after all the plural of mgv, "magus," to tend these fires, even though elsewhere the simple magus appears as mgvGBRD. Precisely such guesses as these can be presented, weighed, and discarded at need much more sensibly and cheaply in a journal article than in an expensive, more or less final, publication. With this latter reading NTYMWNd exhibits something of that conflation of meanings mentioned above, and we read "were founded fully endowed, were instituted," the English passive properly translating, as so often in Aramaic, an impersonal third-person plural. This latter reading becomes more and more probable, as we read on, until it becomes absolutely certain in line 11. No Shapurian tolerance and broad-mindedness, but Vendidadic spirit, fanaticism, and practice meet us further in the statements, which now follow:

"and Ohrmazd and the gods great (L=RBD) profit (advantage, svt-y) attained

(YV.MTWN), and (to) Ahriman and the devs great damage (loss, de-

struction? mhykal=r-y) ensued (YI.WWNt)."

Mhykar is a curious form, but it can hardly be read otherwise. As the antonym of silt, "profit, advantage," it must mean something like "damage, loss, ruin, destruction." In meaning it corresponds to Avestan mahrka-, or mahrkdi (Bthl., AirWb, col. 1146; GdirPh, I, ? 268, No. 55; 288 with n. 1; 300, 1, 2; and 301, 2). Avestan h means that r was unvoiced (cf. Greek rough breathing over r5); the result in Kartir's speech may have been that h became the real consonant, while unvoiced r, which at first had no volume of voice at all, took on a bit of vocalic function and color and became some sort of y- or i-sound. It must be remembered, that Avestan writing was not fixed, until some fifty to a hundred years after Kartir and corresponded to the pronunciation of priestly schools at court at that time, which need not have been exactly Kartir's pronunciation. The writing here may be Kartir's attempt to write the same word in his


own pronunciation in Sasanian Pahlavi. Final -r here is no absolute proof to the contrary, though Avestan had -i or nothing at all. Such an r has a tend- ency to appear after d, especially when pronounced J, elsewhere; an eastern American lady's charade for Norwood is a case in point: her corsage was a mouse with its teeth set in a piece of wood; what did the mouse do? Why, gnawr wood, of course! In our case other nouns in -kar, or -ar following other consonants (Horn, GdirPh, I, 2, ? 105, p. 139, et passim) may have helped along such a pronunciation. Another possibility would be to read MHIY-= zat- (Schaeder, Iran. Beitr., I, 237) with -kar, a word otherwise unknown, but

possible both linguistically and as expressing Kartir's thought and action. With this the account of Shapur's reign approaches its end. Kartir's interest in it is, on the one hand, wholly religious or ecclesiastical; on the other, personal. He now says:

"And these (WZNH) many (and-y) fires (here unmistakable, atvv=r-y, which rather makes for atvl=ran in the meaning "fires," though apart from that phrase dtilr, "fire," does not seem to occur in these inscriptions with the

plural affix --n) and works, which are written down (MH PWN np't-y, cf. German aufgeschrieben, viz., in this inscription.), that by me (ZKm) thus

(KN) if (H.YN

or ht) done, [LINE 3] Shahpuhr, king of kings, to (PWN) the crown prince (vaspvtl = rkn) a testamentary instruction (PK = QDWN) made:" The text, as here presented, is clear and unmistakable, except for the "if

done," ht kl=rt-y, at the end of line 2. It can be fitted with reasonable ac-

curacy into the gaps of Westergaard's copy of the mutilated duplicate, NiRst, line 6, the only real variant there being h, for the interesting t here, in the word for the crown prince. Paikuli, I, 92, is rather less satisfactory, and for that we have seen Herr Herzfeld's reasons. The latest connected Herzfeld text known to us for these very words, worked out from whatever copies he now has at his disposal, appears in AMI, VII, 19, as follows: ut n (Pahlavi text has only ZNH) a... a.

.vy [kirt] ak[a]n (Pahlavi text writes the second a

without mark of doubt) Ue andar 'ahr (Pahlavi text has [H]tr[y]) .... i sahpuhre sAhdn s&h pa vdspuhrak[d]n PQDWN kirt, "und diese .... werke, welche im reich [auf befehl?] Shdhpuhr's des k6nigs der k6nige in Vaspuhrakan besichtigt waren." We are trying to do Herr Herzfeld full justice in the re-

production of his text and rendering. We might add that between Sahr and i the Pahlavi text reads .b . . v, the last two symbols doubtful. PQDWN, left in doubt between two meanings at this point in 1935, is not made very much clearer in APIns by a whole series of remarks, recurring passim from page 59

through 325. In the same tome (p. 354) he now translates vaspuhrakin as

"kronprinzlich," but leaves that lone word without context. That this text is intended for NiRst, not for SM, is made perfectly clear by BSOS, VIII, 941, note 1, though it is not made fully clear, just what SM does and does not have.

Against this we have here a full, connected, assured, and reasonably clear text. The archaic Avestan, perhaps better Vendidadic, form vdsputhrakan is

KARTIR 209

interesting as against NiRst vaspuhrakdn, on which the extremely careful Westergaard and the later reading of Herzfeld agree. That it designates a person, not a land or other thing, is perfectly clear; we shall presently meet verbal statements in the second-person singular in the "instruction" which follows. Nor can there be much doubt as to what person is intended. Shapur is approaching the end of his reign and life, which are summed up, so far as

they interested the priest, in the first two lines. Following the end of the instruction we have a brief statement on the records of Shapur's reign and the manner in which Kartir appears in them. Then Shapur disappears from this

earthly scene in an interesting phrase, which Herzfeld with the fragmentary state of his material has misunderstood, and his successor-designate, Ohr- mazd, becomes king of kings in his stead. It is this successor-designate, the crown prince Ohrmazd, who is here given his proper title vdsputhrakdn. That is the form of the title in Shapur's time. It means exactly the same thing as

pus i vdspuhr in the curious, late Pahlavi text, which the writer thus far knows only from a number of notes and quotations, chiefly those of Herzfeld (AMI, II, 20, n. 1; VII, 18; Schaeder, BSOS, VIII, 744; Herzfeld, BSOS, VIII, 943).1 Herzfeld's interpretation of vdspuhr (over against vispuhr) as "of the high nobility," though admitted by Christensen, Schaeder, and others, becomes doubtful for this early Sasanian time, when one sees the Parthian and, especially, the Greek text of Shapur's great inscription. In any case, and whatever may be the true linguistic analysis of the entire form, there can be little doubt that our vdsputhrakdn, AiRst vdspuhrakdn (cf. further Henning, MBBb, p. 73, note on 1. 579, and Benveniste, BSOS, IX, 506-8, with Schae- der, BSOS, VIII, 737) = pus i vdspuhr (-n = pus i, as in Ardashir i Pdpakdn, etc.) = "crown prince, heir apparent" to Shapur's sovereign throne. It is not a

plural and means neither "princes" nor "nobles" in the Karnamak i Ardashir (Nyberg's I, 25 and 28); it is a singular and means "the crown prince," who appears in person in I, 32 (cf. 36), as pus i mas i Ardavan, "the oldest, greatest son of Ardavan." The king's sons only are named as those in whose company Ardashir is to have the honor of being trained. The nobles appear at best only in the mass of asvdr&n, I, 34. The vaspuhrakdn's accountant is to begin with the manager of the finances of the crown prince. The crown prince's land, his Wales, in Shapur's time is Armenia, i.e., as much or little of eastern Armenia as Iran held against Roman "aggression," plus, probably, a base of operations on the soil of western Iran. As Shapur's inscription shows, his heir apparent and designate, Ohrmazd, is in Shapur's lifetime "great king of Armenia," or "of the Armenians." This goes far to settle the dispute about Armenia between Schaeder and Herzfeld in the places quoted. It corrects a notion, derived by Christensen (L'Iran sous les Sassanides, p. 97) and others from

I Just before going to press, the text, with translation, notes, etc., by Tavadia (Jour. Cama Inst., No. 29, December, 1935), has come to hand. It suggests no change from anything said here.


Herzfeld (Paikuli, I, 41-48), that in early Sasanian times Khorasan was this Wales or crown prince's land. For PQDWN Herzfeld's references to Cooke, NSI, page 243 (text and translation are on p. 241), and Lidzbarski, HbNSEp, page 503 (the text is on p. 451), mean one single occurrence of the word in one Nabataean inscription at Petra, the meaning being something like "command, order, charge, injunction." The other places quoted by Herzfeld in AMI, VII, 18, note 1, have nothing to do with this form, which is not a verb but a noun. More important than these is the PQDWN() of late Hebrew and Aramaic, defined by Dalman, s.v., as "a deposit, goods left in charge of someone." Syriac seems no longer to have this form, but it is noteworthy that there the related form puqddna is used in legal terminology for a last will and testament. More Semitic material might be added, but it does not seem necessary at this juncture. For the Persian equivalent Herzfeld (AMI, loc. cit.) proposes hands or tukhshidan, to which APIns, passim, adds further theories and suppositions along the same line; all are pure guesses, substantiated by nothing elsewhere. The word occurs in FrPhl, XVII, 2, in a short chapter on judicial procedure. Aside from the fact that the chapter itself, though short, is not overly lucid, the treatment of our word suffered considerably from the youthful Junker's inexperience, chiefly in Aramaic, of which he knew hardly anything, but also in English, which he, as did Herzfeld for Paikuli, had to use to satisfy the wishes of Parsee patrons and donors. The form PQDYN, chosen by Junker, in itself less probable, is proven wrong by the form in this inscription, which has been relegated by Junker to the variants in the foot- notes. The Pahlavi word, for which it stands, is patymar, rendered in Pazand by pdtimdr and padhimdr. This, by itself, elucidates little and is, indeed, in sore need of elucidation. Junker's English in the Glossary (p. 122) is of little help. Nor do his notes there furnish much-needed assistance. The Nirangis- tan passage, to which one is referred with AirWb, column 828, paitika-, merely adds further density to the general obscurity. Of the modern Persian lexicons Junker cites only the Burhdn i Qdticu, page 174 (new ed., I, 259). Junker abbreviates the attempt at a definition there given, as does Steingass. Vullers renders the Persian into Latin in full, so that he who knows no Persian can see that in modern Persian this is a mere dictionary word, a learned transcription into modern Persian script of something the author knows in what he calls Zand and Pazand, identical in form and in what he conceives to be the meaning. But the meaning given, "haste, dispatch," is that assigned in our FrPhl chapter to the Semitic word immediately following, which begins and ends like our word, but for the rest is quite different. This modern Persian dictionary word and its definition is simply the result of a poor reading or a poor copy of our FrPhl, in which two important words have been omitted and the two Persian words that defined them were made to define each other. The real meaning of the word must, with the help of our context, be reached by another path. In the first place, despite the Pdzand, the true reading of the

KARTIR 211

Pahlavi rendering in the FrPhl is pdtfimr or pdtemdr, all vowels long, not with short i. In the second place its use at the head of the chapter shows that this was a word which could be used to designate legal or judicial action or charge in general. Now, reading -?m&r, we find that Junker's own research and discovery in FrPhl (pp. 38 f.) helped Bartholomae to solve a series of words much used in Middle Persian legal lore, all exhibiting -?mdr, but with three preformatives other than our pat-, namely, pa-, pas-, and ham- (ZSasR, I, 21, n. 1, and II, 49 f.). P8amdr is the first charge or deposition in court, the complaint, presently used for the plaintiff in person; pasamdr is the succeeding or aftercharge, the countercharge, and then the defendant who makes it; hanmmdr is the charge together, the entire courtaction or lawsuit, charge and countercharge, with interesting developments in the personal direction. With this in mind we see that pdtemrr, with a qualitative or adjectival flavor in most words in this inscription introduced by pati- (for whose form see H Vb, pp. 228-30), represented by Aramaic PQDWN, must mean the solemn, legally binding charge, deposition, injunction, instruction, direction in general, and here specifically a testamentary instruction or direction. Such testamentary charges or instructions from a dying or departed monarch to the son who succeeds him are not uncommon and not limited to Asia; some are of essay or even of small-book length. Nor is it rare to find such an instruction favoring the man who quotes it or in whose interest it is quoted. Rarely do we find father, son, recipient of favor, quoter, and quotation in an actually contemporary document as here. If one should balk at pdtemor, as here ex- pounded, the only other alternative known to this writer would be to read instead framdn, used of a similar testamentary instruction in MhD, 105, 5-10, as read, transliterated, translated, and annotated by Bartholomae (ZSasR, V, 17 f.). This would be less good for various reasons, among others, because with it the verb "give" would seem to be more usual, whereas in our inscription we find "made." Shapur's instruction to his crown prince is:

"To you (QYKt) within the house (BYT ) this one (ZNH) should be (ayv YH.IWWN)." Kft, introducing direct speech, is, of course, simply a colon in our usage. BYT, is khanak, probably the royal palace or residence; the summer residence at any rate seems in this early Sasanian time to have been at Istakhr, not at Ctesiphon. "This one," ?n, can hardly refer to anything or anyone else than Kartir. Ayv is evidently the preverbal optative particle, in Turfan for the most part hyb (cf. H Vb, ? 30, b, pp. 247 f.; Ghilain, Essai, p. 111); neither Henning nor Ghilain mention the form found here nor the verb form found with it. Nyberg (MO, XVII [1923], 227) mentions our Sasa- nian form briefly. Herzfeld lists it without any reference in Paikuli, I, Glossary, page 131, No. 57; it is found a number of times in Kartir, NiRj, as published in Paikuli, I, 91, lines 15-17. Bartholomae (ZairWb, p. 86) lists the form as "Dialekt" from Miiller's publications; in Henning's MBBb it is listed only in the Soghdian glossary, and there with a question. It is perfectly


clear here; v brWt, in fact, is almost a command: "Let him be!" GdirPh, I, 1, page 315, ? 117, is inadequate at this point.

"and as (v'ygvn) you may perceive (YDW=cYTNay) that ()YK) was done (kl=rt-y) (by or for) the gods and us (WLNH) well (SPYR), thus (avgvn) let be done (W= cBYDWN)!" This is the end of the instruction. The last verb, the bare Semitic form, as at the end of the foregoing phrase, is manifestly governed by the ?v, which is not repeated. Most interesting in this section is the subjunctive second-person singular of the verb "to know, perceive, recog- nize." The Semitic mask is the correct reading of Book Pahlavi, as shown above; what looks like the BP mask in the inscriptions is peculiar, as has been noted above in line 1, and as Herzfeld notes (Paikuli, I, Glossary, Nos. 356/7, p. 184, bottom of col. 1). The first-person singular of our verb and mood occurs in the Pahlavi Psalter, read by Henning (Vb, 235, 8) ddndn. The third-person singular, probably subjunctive, is found in our inscription, line 17, and in NiRj (Paikuli, I, 92, 1. 27). The optative, third-person singular, occurs in NiRj (ibid., p. 91, 1. 17). The third-person plural subjunctive is found in the Sasanian of Narseh (Paikuli, I, 100) at the beginning of line 14. The Parthian has a different Semitic mask (Paikuli, Glossary, Nos. 466/7). It is found in the Parthian of Narseh at Paikuli four times: (1) near the end of line 9 (p. 98) in what is probably a first-person plural subjunctive; (2) in about the middle of line 12 (p. 100) in a place questioned in both translitera- tion and translation, which seems to be the Parthian version of Sasanian line

14; (3) in the middle of line 27 (p. 108), third-person singular subjunctive; and

(4) in line 40 (p. 116), in the first-person plural subjunctive (Herzfeld is

probably wrong in reading the singular); the reference to B', 11, 4, in Herzfeld's Glossary, which would have to be line 11, is unintelligible to me, since no such form is found there. Herzfeld's guess that this Semitic mask stands for the alternative Persian derivative from an old root, meaning "to know," namely, 'ndkhtan, is most attractive, but now unnecessary, and Henning, as quoted above, does not seem to accept, or, perhaps, know it. On the other hand, Herzfeld has completely overlooked the fact that this word is used in the inscriptions and the Psalter apparently only in subordinate moods, subjunctive and optative. The Semitic form of the Sasanian is particularly curious. Herzfeld's sketchy analysis both in the Glossary and in the treatment of the verbal forms does not do it justice; his treatment apparently misled Schaeder, who seems to consider only the Parthian, when he places this mask under his imperfects (Iran. Beitr., I, 236 [38]). Actually it is very simply the plural of the present participle with the addition of the personal pronoun of the second-person plural enclytically. It is the form recognized by Nyberg for the forms of final weak verbs (MO, XVII [1923], 225, and in the glossary and elsewhere in his Handbuch) after Andreas (ZDMG, XLIII, 34 ff.). How "re- cent" it is, is something of a question. It does not seem to occur in the Aramaic of the papyri and the older inscriptions. Kautzsch (Gram. des Bibl.-

KARTIR 213

Aram., p. 140, ? 76, 2, c) sees its beginnings in biblical Aramaic. Almost perfect replicas of our form may be found in Margolis, Babylonian Talmud Grammar, Glossary, page 120, and ? 28, note 2 (p. 36); ? 31 (p. 40); Dalman, Gram. des jiid.-paldst. Aram. (2d ed., pp. 290/1; 1st ed., p. 236), in ? 65. For similar forms see also N6ldeke, Syr. Gram., ? 64; Mand. Gram., ? 175, a. The omission of -W-, -5-, in the final syllable in this and other forms in this and other inscriptions and in BP deserves a bit of further study, which cannot be undertaken here. The "let be done" at the end of the instruction harks back to the end of line 2. What interests Kartir particularly is what is done for him, what opportunity he is given for doing what he thinks right and good. Perhaps with the optatival ?v we should carry over also "this one" and read: "let this one do," or "let be done for" or "by this one."

What now follows in regard to records, etc., refers back to Shapur's reign as a thing of the past, thus closing definitely this early account of that reign. With this we come to what used to be Herzfeld's "mint" (a most attractive guess in the early, imperfect stages of his readings), now his "letters close" and "letters patent." We are truly sorry, but we really cannot find anything quite so redolent of oddities in antiquated British administrative technique and terminology. We read more simply and directly:

"And (in?) imperial documents and records, which (MH; or "of that which," or "that which") at (W=cLH=5) the time (W=cDN•) under (MDM) Shahpuhr, king of kings, at court and throughout the empire (ham'tr- y) in place upon place were made (krt-y; or "was done"), for (W=cLH; or ?W="and," LH= "him, for him, he"?) this one (HN'; or "this") thus (5g3n) stands written down (MDM YKTYBWN YKWYMWNt) (QYK=): Kartir, the (ZY) &hrpat, and then (WHIV=R) (DYK=): Shahpuhr, king of kings, to (W=cL) the Varahran [LINE 4] throne (gas-y) passed on (W= c= eZLWN)." The opening phrase of this little section is much and variously discussed by Herzfeld. Its reading here is: WGT-y

pah.'tr-y Wmatgdan. The

pah.atr is a mere mis-writing; in nine other places in our inscription, five

of them closely related to our phrase, it is written path.'tr-y;

for the other phrase in which it is found regularly, one may see the discussion on the "imperial alimonies and endowments" or "imperial fires and magi" in line 2, where, also, its adjectival character has been brought out. Lest unhappy criticism and useless debate ensue, warning is here given that this writing in line 3 is in no sense a real variant, as is the Turfan pa hikh'ar and padikhsar (H Vb, pp. 228-30), a word, similar in sound, but of quite different origin and meaning. GT is a word for all sorts of documents, used in that region from Sumerian to talmudic times. Matgdan, clearly related to the mdtak and mdtak- var of Sasanian and later legal language, is, on the other hand, the parent form of later mdtiydn, "account, story, history." The two nouns must be over a large area of their connotation synonymous, as are a number of others of these words in pairs which Kartir loves. If it pleases Herr Herzfeld to think


so, we may, perhaps, consider the GT as a document or letter of investiture and call that a "letter close," though that is not certain, nor even likely. What "letter patent" must then mean is pretty clear from what KartIr says is written in it: a record of Shapur's reign, in which he is listed as "Kartir, the Mhrpat." Such a "letter patent" is right above Kartir's inscription on the Kaabah of Zoroaster. The impression one gets distinctly from Kartir's statement is that he had in mind a number of such inscriptions all over the empire. If one wishes to play further with mdtigddn and compare it in some wise with the Arabic umm al-kitdb, there is no great harm in that, provided one recog- nizes such comparison as a little playful and not to be overpressed. Another question is to what extent such records or chronicles were at that time kept on material other than stone. We are not far from a more or less official Khwatdyndmak or Shahndmah in these words; exactly how near is difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine. Kartir manifestly thinks of the record of Shapur's death as included in these "documentary records," as, of course, it is not on any inscription of Shapur's own. The euphemistic, theological ex-

pression used for death in the case of Shapur and Hormizd I, and with a slight variance in terms for Varahran I, is new and interesting. Herzfeld, with the fragmentary state of apparently all his material, sought other meanings and occasions. There can be no doubt of the real meaning, though the picture conjured up by the phrase may be variously interpreted. MDM, "under, in the reign of," occurs also in the Shapur inscription. WLH is the preposition 5 at least once, probably both times, unless the not very likely variant reading suggested be acceptable. HND most probably refers to Kartir, as did ZNH before. MDM YKTYBWN again a compound, aufschreiben.

We pass on to the next reign, brief and not very glorious, but eminently satisfactory to Kartir, who has this to say about it:

"And Ohrmazd, king of kings, over (PWN) the empire stood (YKWYM- WNt; we say, "occupied the imperial throne" or something like that), and to me (apm, often!) Ohrmazd, king of kings, cap (kvlap-y; Herzfeld prints this as a foreign and unknown word, Paikuli, I, 93, 1. 9, and does not list it at all in the Glossary; West's fully emended reading [Indian Antiquary, 1881, p. 31] is

involuntarily funny) and girdle (kmr-y) gave (YHBWA t) and for me a higher (apil=rtl= r-y) rank (gas-y) and dignity

(pth.l= r-y; the Turfan word quoted

from Henning above in the note on pah.tr-y)

he made, and me at court and

(in) kingdom upon kingdom, region upon region, over (PWN) the works of the gods more absolute (kamkal=rtl=r-y) and more sovereign

(path.adtl= r-y; cf. the word and form quoted from the Pahlavi Psalter, H Vb, 229, 27) he made." A most important statement, when compared with the statement for

Shapur's time, in which Shapur himself in these matters is declared in the

positive form of these selfsame adjectives to have been absolutely sovereign over the magus-estate. Beginning here, and increasingly throughout these

inscriptions, Ardashir's Tansar as a historical figure vanishes into thin air.

KARTIR 215

Right here we are witnessing the founding of Sasanian Zoroastrianism and the rise to power of the magus class in early Sasanian times. For such things, as will appear in increasing measure with the further publication of the Shapur KZ inscriptions, Ardashir and his men had little time and opportunity; as we go on with Kartir, it will become increasingly apparent that such things as Kartir here tells about did not happen before that time. It will appear also that the extent of the empire in Ardashir's time, as envisaged by the so-called Tansar and by modern historians, by him in part misled, is exaggerated, and that, in so far as it is true at all, it refers, on the one hand, to a much later time and, on the other, especially to Shapur's time. What there is of reality for early Sasanian times in the Tansar romance, that is, indeed, Kartir, and it is much more probable that the odd "Tansar" is a mere misreading of Kar- tir than that Kartir's real name was Tansar. As we proceed, it will appear more and more clearly that here, despite a measure of boastfulness, is actual reality, against which we must measure the romance, not vice versa.

"and for me he made the name (=title) Kartir, Ohrmazd's magupat, Ohrmazd

WWHY. (= LHY =bagh; or possibly bag?) upon (PWN) name."

This may mean one of two things. It may mean that the Ohrmazd in this title is to be understood not as the king of that name but as the god (bagh) Ohr- mazd, as we might say "after the name of Ohrmazd-bagh," which latter combination or compound occurs frequently in a similar form in the Manichean material from Turfan, since this figure occupies a prominent place in the Persian form of the Manichean pantheon. Because Kartir retains this title long after the death of Ohrmazd I, this appears to be the most reasonable interpretation. On the other hand, it might also mean that an epithet (pat- nam), not otherwise known, but like those mentioned, e.g., in Christensen's L'Iran (pp. 404 ff.), "King Ohrmazd's portion," or "fortune" (bag, Horn, GdnpPh, No. 44, p. 269) was conferred on Kartir, similar to one conferred on him later. If this is the meaning, it is odd that Kartir, who loved his titles and epithets and all honors conferred upon him, should allow such an honor- ary by-name to drop completely from view thereafter, although some reasons for discarding this particular epithet might be found. It is noteworthy that, as an actual title, Kartir never received a higher than "Ohrmazd's magupat." The specifying limitation suggests that there were other magupat's. Since Kartir seems never to have sought or obtained the rank of magupatdn magupat, it is most probable, that this rank and title did not then exist, unless, as has been suggested above, and, on partly faulty grounds, in ZDMG, XLI, 654 f., the king himself bore this among his titles. The tale of great accomplishments proceeds:

"and then also (W'DYN0) at that time (in) country upon country, region upon [LINE 5] region, many works of the gods in abundance (or "of gods' increase") and many fires of Varahran were established, and many magimen happy and prosperous became, and many imperial fires and magi were insti-


tuted, and (in) imperial documents and records, which for the time of Ohr- mazd, king of kings, at court and throughout the whole empire (in) place upon place were made, for this one thus stood written down: Kartir, Ohrmazd's magupat, and then: Ohrmazd, king of kings, to the Varahran throne passed on."

The next reign is likewise a short one, though somewhat longer than that of Ohrmazd. For Kartir it is so uneventful that his story of it is simply a clich6 of the previous one with slight variations, one of which deserves special attention, because it rescues a much-abused word from its fate. This means, that Kartir seems not to have been in Ctesiphon for any length of time and had little or no power or influence there. If it had been otherwise, he must have taken part in Mani's arrest, inquisition, and captivity, which led to a painful death, or, at least, known of these things and mentioned them; for he does know the Manicheans among other heretics, and with all of them he has but little sympathy and rejoices in their discomfiture. The colorless story, with its own little difficulties of syntax, etc., which will be taken up later in a fuller edition, goes thus on its way:

[LINE 6] "And Varahran, king of kings, king of kings Shahpuhr's son and king of kings Ohrmazd's brother, stood (arose?) over the empire, and me Varahran, also (vl = rhl= rant), king of kings, in prominency and dignity held (PWN agl= radyhy

Wptyh.l=r-y YHISNN)." The

agraddh, in this little phrase

has given rise to much high-flying theorizing in the books of Herzfeld and of the Andreas school. The case is really very clear and simple with a continuous reading of a complete, connected text. Kartir is not worrying about deep problems in high and heavenly ethics, as Herr Herzfeld imagines. He is telling the world what a man he was and what honors, titles, dignities, and positions of influence he had. He is really quite a snob and is most concerned to appear in the papers according to his due place in the "social register." To express that, agrd- is the fitting word, with a perfectly clear and honorable history of its own, not to be mixed up with arg-, as the Andreas school does, nor with a new root gar-, "collect," discovered by Herr Herzfeld, APIns, pages 61 ff. It is Avestan ayra-, correctly translated into Pahlavi sar, "head, top, first, etc." (AirWb, cols. 49 f., 114 f.); Vedic dcgra (Grassmann, WbzRV, cols. 10 f.). Agrddih, pseudo-learned archaism or "inverse writing" for agrdah (cf. Turfan MP, Andreas-Henning, MirMan, I, 33= 205; II, 44=335; Henning, MBBb, p. 107), not aglaDDhe (Herzfeld, loc. cit.), is simply the abstract noun "firstness, topness, upper-crustness, prominence," or better, with just the right touch of snobbishness, "prominency." It is neither "beauty, worthness" (Andreas-Henning and Henning, loc. cit.), nor "Edelsinn, Ehre" (Henning, MirMan, III, 49= 894, for Parthian argawift), in the sense of "high-mindedness, sense of noblesse oblige, true honor," but that external, surface gloss, much prized by some in all times and places, which is expressed by the British ruling caste and Anglo-American Gold Coast plural "honours." There can be

KARTIR 217

no doubt of the identity of MP agra- and Parthian argaw, as Herzfeld hints (p. 62, top), and there is no need whatever of further research for this, though there may be need for research on fusion and conflation of meanings in Parthian and Armenian. There is, indeed, a metathesis, but in this not Bthl., MirM, VI, 13 f., is wrong, as is summarily stated, H Vb, 199, 30 f., but Andreas, solemnly registered in the footnote of a student or admirer, as often (Waldschmidt-Lenz, Stellung Jesu, p. 41, Anm. 1)-or rather Hfibschmann (PSt, p. 60, No. 547; cf. Arm. Gr., p. 477, No. 306; p. 92, No. 5), whose "firstness" is pretty clear, but not acknowledged. For our word, though he does not mention it, Bartholomae is clearly right, as Herzfeld (loc. cit.) ad- mits with quite unnecessary equivocation. But Herzfeld's own marshaling of "evidence" from NiRst and SM on the lower half of the same page is mysti- fyingly impressive only by the massing of fragmentary quotations from unpublished texts. In the first place, one is never quite clear whether he is quoting chiefly from the one or from the other, or in very truth from both. The double numbers separated by commas probably mean the same thing as those separated by equals symbols previously. If that is the case, the very careful copy of NiRst, made by Westergaard nearly a hundred years ago, when it was much less weathered than now, clearly shows that Herzfeld, assuming absolute identity with SM, supplements NiRst from his readings of SM with as much abandon as West supplemented it from the blue sky. If the readings presented by Herzfeld are the true readings of SM, then his assumption of the identity of the two inscriptions is wrong. A comparison of our KKZ inscription with Westergaard's text of NiRst will show beyond a doubt that these two are true duplicates with slight and relatively unimportant variants, some of which have been pointed out. Our inscription has not a single one of the mantically mystic lines, which Herzfeld presents both here and on pages 212-15. Moreover, Herzfeld inextricably intermingles his patax'ale with anba'tan and his ideas about sealing, though

pth.r-y never has

a between p and t, nor t between ' and r, while the word that occurs adjec- tivally in phrases that sometimes have the verb IfTYMWN and, quite as often not, is in our text, except for one mis-writing noted above, always spelled out in full

path.tr-y, and the two are not the same or, even in meaning, similar,

but totally different words. This fact goes far to destroy confidence in Herz- feld's disjointed quotations, and we abide by our simple, everyday reading, until a better is produced with real proofs. The mask for d&dt here is interesting and important; it means that the BPhl form, FrPhl, XXI, 2, is not to be read YIHSNW, but YHSA N; -NN for -nfin, defectively written? The meaning of pat, abstract noun, ddatan is not at all dubious or difficult, rather perfectly clear. It does not always mean "dafiir halten," as Herzfeld says (APIns, p. 212), though he presently translates differently-which is merely one example of the mystifications which fill pages 211-16. It means exactly the same thing, as does adjective with dd~tan in the Kdrnamak, I, 22, and


II, 1; the whole matter is treated with clarity, insight, straightforwardness, and sufficient fulness by Nyberg (Hb, Glossar, pp. 51 f.). After this the clich6 goes on its merry way:

"And I at court and in country upon country, place upon place, over the works of the gods of all kinds

(.mygwnk-y) absolutely sovereign was made

(WBYDWN) (this indicates an increase and extension of his power and authority) and then also (WD YNe) at that time (in) country upon country, place upon place, many works of gods' increase and many fires of Varahran were established, and many a magusman happy [LINE 7] and prosperous became, and many imperial fires and magi were instituted, and (in) documents and (! Here for the first time W, "and," appears before the adjective, splitting the pair of terms to make an apparent trio. It is, of course, possible that that was intentional and that our adjective is here used as a noun, synonymous or

partly synonymous with the other two. Until that is proved, however, we prefer to consider this an accidental mis-writing by scribe or stonecutter and the more frequent use the correct one.) imperial and records, which (MH) for (WLH) the time under Varahran, king of kings, were made (kl= rt-y), for this (one?) also (WLH'

H.IN) thus stood written down: Kartir, (ZY) Ohrmazd's

magupat, and then: Varahran, king of kings, (ZY) Sahpuhrson (h pvhv= rkn), to (WL) the god-holding (? The word is written bgdan!) throne (gas-y) passed on."

Herewith the somewhat colorless but, for Kartir, not unimportant reign of Varahran I is brought to an end. It is evident that under him the power of Kartir and his Vidivdddic church was considerably enhanced, as the recently recovered story of Mani's end indicated. The contest between Manicheism and the Zoroastrianism of that day on Persian soil was therewith definitely decided, and the magi became a power in the land. These early Varahrans are the makers of the fortune of Kartir and his church and are, therefore, his

especial favorites. The next one is the last king mentioned in Kartir's own

inscriptions. He is the very special favorite of the energetic, scheming, old

priest. In Narseh's Paikuli, so far as can be seen from what is published, he seems to be no longer in favor, but rather associated with the opposition, which was defeated. It would seem altogether probable that he should have been among those, perhaps the very soul of those, who wanted to put a third Varahran on the throne. This was foiled by Narseh, who was probably strong enough to put the magus-estate and its leaders into a more reasonable place as over against royalty, but who just as probably had neither the intention nor the power to check or set back the development of that Zoroastrian state church which Kartir had reared and fostered and set on its way. The heyday of Kartir's glory is the reign of Varahran II, which he now sets out to describe in glowing colors:

"And Varahran, king of kings, who (is) Varahranson, who within the em-

pire ('tr-y) (is) generous (1 = rat-y) and true (1= rast-y) and covenant-guarding

KARTIR 219

(mtl= rpan; the writer knows that this is a superliteral translation) and well- doing (hvkl= r-y) and good-deed-doing (krpkl= r-y), over the empire stood (arose?), and by (PWN) the grace (dvual=rmyh-y; cf. Nyberg, Hb, Glossar, p. 58) of Ohrmazd and the gods and for his own (WNPSH) [LINE 8] spirit's (l=rvban) sake (l=rad-y) that of mine (ZKm) within the empire a higher (apl=rtl=r-y; not "dglatare," which is not found in this inscription!) rank (gas-y) and dignity

(Wpth.l=r-y) he made (WBYDWN), and to me the rank

and dignity of (ZY) the great nobles (vel=rkan) he gave (YHIBWNt), and me at court and (in) country upon country, place upon place, for the whole empire

(.amstl=r-y) over the works of the gods more powerful

(path.'adtl=r-y) and more absolute (kamkal= rytl=r-y; thus written!) he made, than ( YK) as (yn- or t-, mis-written for 6ygvn) formerly (KZY= has) I had been

(YH.WWN YWHm; so far as can be judged from his publications, this is one of Herzfeld's deep religious mysteries), and me for the whole empire magupat and judge (datvbl = r) he made, and me (of) Stakhr-tfiir (sth l= r-y atvl = r-y) (for a name, whose first element is Stakhr see Htibschmann, Arm. Gr., p. 75, No. 174, cf. p. 508; for names, whose second element is "fire," Justi, Namenbuch, p. 486), who (is) Anahit (anahyt-, the n is Parthian, the next word is joined closely) Artakhshatr and Anahit, who (is) the lady (ML=RWTD), master of cere- monies (advynpt) and steward with power

(path.a-y, here evidently in some-

thing like the later meaning of katkhuday, general manager, manager plenipo- tentiary) he made (These may not be forms of the well-known goddess, but elderly women, a queen dowager and a dowager duchess, of exactly the same kind as those, the management of whose estates and incomes honored and en- riched clever and favored secretaries in Abbasid times. It may, of course, mean "the Istakhr fire of Ardashir's Anahit and Lady Anahit," both referring to the goddess.) and for me was made (WBYDWNd) the title (SM), Kartir, who (is) [LINE 9] B khtravinvarahran (written all in one piece: bvhtl=rvbanvl= rhl=ran, "He has saved, Savior of, the soul, the fair name and fame, of Varahran," a sizable title, which may indicate that he was the kingmaker of the Varahrans), who (is) Ohrmazd's magupat."

This first part of our inscription, very nearly one-half of it, is, in the guise of a brief record of the reigns of four kings, really a record of Kartir's climb up the ladder of social standing and power, aside from one secular(?) sinecure wholly in the ecclesiastical sphere. With this all his titles, official positions, and honors are exhausted; he has reached the acme and very zenith of his career; but nowhere do we find him satrap of Fdrs or anything else as secular as that, though he surely was not the man to omit the mention of such an honorable burden if it had ever been laid upon him. From this point on, though it is not signalized in any way in the script, we enter upon a new type of account, which sketches and sums up in a different way the deeds and accomplishments of Kartir for his church and religion and no longer in the main simply the accretion of his "honours." It starts off as though we were going to follow


the well-beaten path. But there is no real summary of the reign of Varahran II; at least there is no mention of his death, because this inscription was evidently written and incised before that happened. Then presently we find our- selves in an entirely different area and atmosphere, and we must not be too greatly surprised to be back, after a bit, in Shapur's reign, though we certainly do not start out there. This section is arranged not chronologically but, after a fashion, topically. Kartir appears as a man consumed with zeal for his Father's house, acting at times harshly and violently, at others, at least to his own kind, humanely and graciously, in the interest of his God and gods, his

religion, and his church. He acts to purify and improve according to his own

light his church and religion and to establish it firmly and widely and at the same time to check and set back definitely the establishment and spread of

any other religion and church in his domain. In a manner and to an extent not hitherto suspected we find him setting his Mazdayasnian church on the path of foreign as well as internal missions. Naturally we find him active, also, as a benefactor and donor in his own right. All this redounds, of course, to the glory of Kartir, but it is a different glory-the glory of deeds accom-

plished rather than that of "honours" received. Both are once more briefly summed up together in a little concluding paragraph, in which Kartir, the

successful, ecclesiastical businessman making a speech, sets himself up as an

example, upon which coming generations should pattern themselves. In all this activity, described by a contemporary eyewitness, Nyberg's picture of this age is brilliantly justified. There is an Avestan tinge in the language, chiefly Vidivdddic phraseology and priestly patter recognizable in Pahlavi

dress; but there is neither mention nor hint of the existence of "The Avesta" as a written, sacred, revealed book. There is not the slightest indication as

yet of any feeling for the need of such a document, though other documents are there in plenty. That feeling came and grew only with growing opposition to such activity as Kartir founded and fostered, until it issued in the sacred book in sacred writing under Narseh's grandson, the redoubtable Mazdayas- nian and heretic-baiter, the warrior-king Shapur II, from whose time on in some measure to the present day some sort of activity, with ups and downs, has persisted in the Parsee community in the attempt to produce, to delimit, and to refine for themselves and the world a canonized book of sacred revela- tion. Though much else is there, some of it surprisingly new to our knowledge, for this one looks in vain in the succinct but full account of the ecclesiastical and religious activity of himself and his times, to which Kartir now devotes himself, as he proceeds:

"And in country upon country and (!) place upon place throughout the whole empire the works of (ZY) Ohrmazd and the gods superior (apl=rtl= r-y) became, and (to) the Mazdayasnian religion (Wdyn-y mzdysn) and magimen (no sign of plural) great (L=RB>) dignity (pth~ll=r-y, "honor, respect, reverence"; it looks as if either ptyhv-y, used in 1. 2 and further on for the

KARTIR 221

magimen, had been intended and, after being slightly mis-written, altered to what we have, or, vice versa, our word was -written by mistake, and a poor attempt to alter it was made; the usual adjective fits much better with the verb) there was (YUjWWNt, "greatly prosperous became"), and the gods and water (MY:) and fire (atvv = r-y; just possibly ats-y) and small cattle (gvspnd- y) great contentment (snvtyh-y; H Vb, 219, 14 f., Horn, GdnpEt, No. 509, cf. Hiibschmann, PSt.) befell (MDMYH.MTWN, modern Persian bar-rasid), and Ahriman and the devs (SDYan) great beating (? snah-y; AirWb, cols. 1627 f., GdirPh, I, 1, ? 33, 1, n. 1, p. 14; ? 175, a, p. 95; p. 261, ? 22, b; 1, 2, top of p. 183; Horn GdnpPh, No. 179, p. 291) and hostile treatment (? bityh-y; cf. H Vb, 180, 34-181, 3; AirWb, cols. 814 ff.?) befell, and the teaching (kyF-y) of (ZY) Ahriman and the devs from (MN) the empire departed (WDYTN; W=c or R; cf. Paikuli, Glossary, p. 228. A devic word, "ran away" or "was cast out," would fit the context. In Semitic either of the alternatives would be possible, the first more probable, the Videvdadic word being, perhaps, davarist, AirWb, col. 765; Nyberg, Hb, Glossar, p. 63, or, less probably, bU sp5kht.), and avag- (or avba)pl= ri(?)akyl =ryd-y (this is the first word designating some sort of heretics; no guess or combination for its meaning, which I have yet found, is to me satisfactory) and Jews (YHIWD-y) and Buddhist monks (SMN-y? The -y and the possibility of another letter following it, the latter especially, are somewhat doubtful; for the rest the reading is certain; for the meaning see Henning, List, BSOS, IX, 88; wrong, Herzfeld, Arch. Hist. Iran, p. 101; the correct interpretation was known for some time before the appearance of Henning's article, Enc. Isl., IV, 324 f.; Gauthiot, Gr. Sogd., p. 169, end of ? 177.) [LINE 10] and Brahmins (BRMN-y. Is the defective writing due to connection by popular etymology with bram-, "rove," or is it merely phonet- ic?) and Nazarenes (N C= SL= R -y) and Christians (KL=RSTYDAN; d, as usual, incorrectly archaizing; -AN may be the plural ending -an, -y, which so often merely marks the end of a word in this script, being absent; how Kartir distinguishes Nazarenes from Christians is not clear; perhaps the one are Bardaisanites, who pretty certainly preceded Mani even to Kandahar and Sind, and the other some type at that time accepted as orthodox) and MKTK- y (Who or what are they? It is hardly possible that they are again from India, Jains who seek mukti. It is possible here, as often, to read yn for t, but that does not help much, unless, perhaps, one considers the first k an error, easy to make in Parsik, for n, in which case one might find here an acceptable term for Manicheans with the d in Mani reduced in the derivative.) and Zandik (ZNDYK-y, almost certainly Manicheans. Perhaps, after all, under the guidance of Kartir this second Varahran was as crown prince the real instigator of the persecution of heretics which began under his father and to which Mani fell a victim. The part assigned to Khusrau Anashirviin as crown prince in the action against the Mazdakites by some authors comes to mind in this connection.) within the empire were driven out (MH YTN

222 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SEMITIc LANGUAGES

YH.WWNd; the translation is a use of the word not unknown to the Vidivddt;

the meaning here can hardly be merely "beaten." There is purpose in the smiting, which may be well expressed by "persecuted.")."

There follows here a series of phrases, practically all easily legible, so far as the writing is concerned, but clumsily strung together, or, at least, in part not

easy to interpret and to construe. There seems to be no verb, in any case none which fits the entire series. It is here set down, as best we can for this preliminary present:

"And idol ( vzdys-y) destruction (gvkanyh-y) and dwelling (glst-y; thus with

Bthl., ZairWb, p. 29, n. 2, where note especially the gristak i d van from the Bahman Yasht, and MirM, III, ? 18c, pp. 22/3.) of (ZY) the devs and (!) burn-

ing down (bytpyh-y; the reading is not absolutely certain, but very nearly so.

B6-, "out, down," -tap-, "heat, burn," -ih, "-ing." I have no better solution. It looks like a very bad hendiadyoin, unless the one "and," apparently super- fluous, as indicated, is a not unusual error.) and the gods' throne (gas-y, the

g not quite certain; a defect in the stone makes it look like an imperfect b) and

nsdm-y (The writing is perfectly clear; reading and meaning in connection with the preceding "throne" must be the Parthian form of Persian nsym, listed in Henning, MBBb, p. 112, col. 2, "seat, resting-place, nest." This is

preceded and paired with a preceding gdh, "throne," as here, in the text of the confessional and prayerbook on p. 27 [MS, p. 21], 11. 335/6. Herzfeld, AMI, VIII, 75, speaks of "the Middle Persian expression niam uzdas~r~rh, nests of idol worship, in the story of Kai Khusrau's destruction of the temples on Lake C'aeEast." If one could be sure that this expression really occurs in a Middle Persian text, that would show that the Zoroastrians used the word

["nest," not "nests"] in a derogatory sense, while the Manicheans evidently give it no such connotation. The writer spent several days looking for it in his

copies of Bundahishn, Main2 i Khrat, and Madan's Dinkard, but did not find it. It may be another "Tomb of Zoroaster." Burhan i Qdticu [p. 1403] lists "nest of devs" as an epithet for this world. With the foregoing idols and devic dwellings these probably belong to those paraphernalia of worship, which in the eyes of Kartir were heretical and condemned. These may be, as

suggested in the "Tansar" romance [? 9, ed. Minovi, p. 22], old, local shrines, antiquated and become irregular and illegal by the institution of new, officially recognized, and therefore orthodox "works of the gods." They may be plural in meaning "god-thrones and -seats.") were undone (? akyl=ryd-y; a- privative with kirid, H Vb, 205, 34-206, 10, cf. 202, 21 f. The meaning thus might be "were left uncultivated, out of commission, declared void." Or may one connect this form with Avestan karet-, AirWb, cols. 452-54, cf. top of col.

467, and translate "were destroyed, cut down"?)." Whatever difficulties may remain unsolved, the mild, humane, and unnaturally tolerant colors of Herr Herzfeld's palette herewith fade out and evaporate pretty thoroughly, and

Nyberg's saner and sounder picture of the early Sasanian age stands out in

KARTIR 223

brilliant and in part lurid outlines and hues. From here on to the point at which the description of the reign of Varahran II breaks off before his death, we return to a bit of clich6, and once more we have for a while pretty plain sailing, as the old gentleman goes on at a more leisurely pace:

"And (in) country upon country, place upon place, many works of gods' increase and many fires of Varahran were established (YTYBWNd), and

many magimen happy and prosperous became, and many imperial fires and magi were instituted, and (in) documents and (!) imperial and records, which under Varahran, king of kings, who (is) Varahranson, [LINE 11] were made, this (WLH) down (MDM) thus (KN) stands written (the variation on the usual mode of expression does not appear very successful!): Kartir, who (is) Bukht-ravan-Varahran, who (is) Ohrmazd's magupat." Now the chronologi- cal scheme is definitely behind us, and we are due for a few more surprises, as we learn that:

"And by me (WLY), Kartir, from the very beginning onward (MN KZY wvrvn, ha6 has 5rdn; cf. Nyberg, Hb, Glossar, pp. 105 f.; Andreas-Henning,

MirMan, III, 55, hs, 1c hs.) for gods and lords (MV=RWH.YN)

and for my own spirit's (fame's!) sake much (KBYV=R) trouble (l=rn'-y) and toil (av=rdam) was seen (QZYTN), and by me (apm) many fires and magi (atvl= ran Wmgwn-y; no doubt about the meaning here. This fixes the correct understanding of this oft-recurring phrase.) within the empire (country) of Iran prosperous were made, and by me (apm) also for (PWN6) Non-Iranian country (tv = r-y, as before) fires and magimen (atvv = r-y WmgvGBRD), which (MH) for the country of (ZY) Non-Iran were (YIjWWN), wherever ( YK) the horses (SWSYP) and men (GBR ) of (ZY) the king of kings (Shapur's name is very probably omitted by mere inadvertence, as will presently appear) arrived (YfIMTWN; it looks as though immediately after the -N a fainter -dy were traced, which might also, in spite of the close, even crowded proximity to the verb, be intended for ZY. The stone, however, is defective at this point, and these may be mere deluding cracks, as not infrequently elsewhere.); for Antioch, city, (ANDYVK-y 8tv=rdstn) and Syria, country, (SVL= RYA-y itv= r-y), [LINE 12] and what (MH; those which?) (was or were) over (MDM, "over the surface of" or "for") Syria (were?) few (nsng-y; cf. FrPhl, XXV, 6, with p. 75, and Nyberg, Hb, Glossar, pp. 244 f. and 265. The late Avestan nisang, "downward," from Iran "seaward," then loosely for "beyond," like our "downtown," down the line," with MDM used in the sense of "following upon," has been weighed and, in the last reading for this preliminary publication, discarded.); Tarsus (TYRSYST or TYRSSYT), city, and Cilicia (KLKYA-y), country, and those which were over Cilicia were few; Caesarea (KYSL=RYA-y), city, Cappadocia (KPVTKYA-y), country, and those which were over Cappadocia were few; (then) forward (WD praY; this is a new start from Iran, northwest by north, as will presently appear) to (WL) GL= RADKYDA-y (One is at first greatly tempted to read here


Galatia. The text which follows forbids that. This is a country or kingdom im- mediatelysouth or southeast of Armenia. It must be either Gordyene-Carduene itself, which we shall find under another name in the Shapur inscription, perhaps here with a name contaminated with the curious Kordrikh-Kordikh- Kodrikh, which may be just eastward of Gordyene and is in any case somewhere between Armenia and genuinely Iranian territory, or it may be that Kordikh itself [cf. Hiibschmann, Die altarmenischen Ortsnamen, IF, XVII =

1904, pp. 334 f.; Marquart, fEran'ahr, pp. 169 f., 178]. The word "country," here often used for 'tr-y, may not be the best; alone or in composition it is sometimes "the empire," in adjectival composition "imperial," i.e., current, or officially recognized, or valid for the empire; again these countries, within and without Iran, are those "kingdoms" which gave to the Persian kings the title "King of kings of Iran and Non-Iran." If we remember this, it will not be unpardonable to find this preliminary translation not altogether consistent in this matter. The Greek of Shapur will be found extremely interesting.), country, and Armenia (AL=RMN-y), country, and Iberia (WL=RWCAN), and Albania (AL=RAN-y), and Balasakan (BLASKAN), forward to (WD prao WL) the Alans' (ALANAN) pass (BB:) Shahpuhr, king of kings, with (PWN) horses and men of his own (ZY NP9H), pillage (vl=rtk-y) and fire-

setting (atvl=rsvht-y) and laying waste (avdyl= ran; aviran, awiran, Horn, GdnpPh, No. 1087, cf. Hilbschmann, PSt, p. 105; Arm. Gr., p. 112, No. 81; Bthl., ZairWb, p. 110, n. 1, with "inverse" d) made. There also by me (TMHCm) by command of the king of [LINE 13] kings one (yk; may be curiously written ZK, "that, those") magusman and fire, which for (WLH) the country was, that by me was put (made) in order (vnal= rsn-y; so written, instead of vyn-, in Turfan and the Pahlavi Psalter, H Vb, 193, 22 f.), and by me not (LD) was permitted (SBKWN; robbery (? The first letter in this word

may be a foreshortened b, in which case this writer can do nothing with it in Middle Persian. It may be a slightly exaggerated z, with which we would have

zydan-y, i.e., probably ziydn, "damage," with "inverse" d. Or it may be a curious g, which might be a clue for the reading of some of the curious writings of Pahlavi equivalents for Avestan gaba-, "robber," and related words [Air- Wb, cols. 488 f., cf. gyyg, "robber," Andreas-Henning, MirMan, II, 49= 340, text, p. 14, 1. 23]. "Robbery" fits the context best, but "damage" will do.) and pillage to be made (kl= rtn-y; reading -tn not quite certain), and what-

(ever) thus (KN) (by) anyone (:Y8) (as a) deed (kl=rtk-y) had been com- mitted (kl = rt-y-the -y odd with a defect in the stone-YItWWN), that also

by me away (BV = R) was taken (YNSBWN) and by me again (LWHfL= R) to its own country (WL NPSH8tv=r-y; so written!) was left (SBKWN lfWHnd)." This completes for the nonce Kartir's activity outside of Iran.

Here is foreign mission work, and here is a bit of ethics for Herr Herzfeld. We

observe, that practically all this activity follows the tracks of Shapur's raids and conquests northward and westward. This is not altogether surprising,

KARTIR 225

since it is known that in these regions Zoroastrianism, Zervanism, and Mith- raism had gained ground ere this. Moreover, these are all lands which by con- quest were held for a longer or shorter time by Iran's early Sasanian rulers, the time in all cases being longer than we had hitherto believed, as will become clear with the further publication of Shapur's great inscription. Mani, who also is claimed to have been with Shapur on these campaigns, sent his missions southwest, to Egypt and beyond, and, in lands under Shapur held by Iran, to the northeast and southeast, for all of which Kartir registers no activity at all. Just how significant this observation is, may be left for others to decide. We return with the priestly judge to Iran, as he proceeds:

"Then by me (apm) the Mazdayasnian religion and magimen, who (were) good (hvp-y), within the empire upperclass (agl= rav-y) and reverend

(pth.l= rand-y; closely joined; hardly "many") were made, and arsvmvk-y (r written 1. What form or compound is this? Can it mean "worthy," or "right thinking" or "right speaking"? Something else seems to be suggested by the following word.) and appointed men (gvml= ryak GBV= R; perhaps a compound like "magimen"), who (MNW) (were) within the magus-estate, for (PWN) the Mazdayasnian religion and the works of the gods, not for trade (? vcal=r-y), were kept (phl=rst-y); they by me (WLHinm) (with) corporal punishment (pvbl-y; Bthl., ZairWb, pp. 9, 37, and 193, cf. AirWb, cols. 892 and 329.) [LINE 14] were chastised (MHIYTN; the T odd from a defect in the stone), and by me reprimanded (nhl=rvst-y; exactly our "called down"!) were they

(H. WHnd), and of better odor (dm SPYR) made were they." To judge from the

American scene, as an American builder of a political machine, in ecclesiastical or other spheres, would proceed, these might be men who had reached the age of discretion, if we can connect our arsvmvk with Avestan arazuid-, AirWb, col. 354, and who were given little jobs, gvmrcak with this interpretation being a diminutive with diminished d between m and r, i.e., a minor official or em- ployee; arsvmvk may, on the other hand, perhaps be connected with Avestan aamaooya-, in Turfdn

a.lam3gdn, "heretics, heretical teachers" (Jackson,

Res. in Manicheism, p. 122, cf. 83 and 85), in which case the gvmrtak might be derivable from the root mrz, marz (Ghilain, Essai, p. 53), meaning, as in Parthian, "cleansed," perhaps "set apart" (Henning, List, BSOS, IX, 85, nmrz-; MirMad, III, 18= 863 and 58= 903). "Also by me (apm) (for) many fires and magi imperial documents were made (for "documents" here "deeds," of gift or endowment, comes easily upon the tongue), and by the provision (pv= rvv= rt-y) of the gods and the king of kings, and on my part (WMN LY) were they made. Within the country of Iran many fires of Varahran were established (YTYBWNd), and many kin-marriages

(hvytvtda.-y, thus! Evi-

dently a Pahlavi writing of the then current pronunciation of Avestan xvadtuvada0a, AirWb, col. 1860. Note -t- in the place of later -k- [how to be explained?] and final -h on the way to -s!) were made, and many people ('NSWT'-y), who to their vows unfaithful (anastvan; cf. Nyberg, Hb, Glossar,


p. 24, and note privative an- before initial vowel, and regular -v- instead of BP -p- here!) had become (YHWWN), those (ZK) faithful became (YHIWWN), and many were

(YRI.WWN) those, who (MNW) the teaching (kys-y)

of the devs held (davt-y), and it (aps) by me (MN LY) was made (kl=rt-y, "brought about"): those the teaching of the devs left (SBKWN) and they (ap') the teaching of [LINE 15] the gods accepted (WHIDWN), and many rtpsak (r written 1. This word is troublesome. Two further occurrences show that it is something given by rich and influential men in great quantities, probably to fire-temples or other places of worship. Nyberg had it before him, but, not having our inscriptional writing, misread and misinterpreted it in his Texte zum mazdayasnischen Kalender ["Uppsala Universitets Arsskrift, 1934," Program 2], pp. 40 and 41. It is certainly not a human being, as

Nyberg, laboring over the text of Dankart [ed. Madan], p. 275, 11. 9/10, inter- prets it with evident difficulty. In that Dinkart text it means things with which a religious act is performed, exactly like the two phrases which follow with "and-and." Certain calendar weeks are favored for certain activities, ... "and, in general, furthering the world's foundation and, also, advising ???ik of rtpsak and worship <and) offering of myazd for that purpose." It is, perhaps, even better for the fixing of the meaning of our word if we omit the "and," supplied by Nyberg, and thus limit the acts, to which the people are exhorted as being useful for the furtherance of the world's elements, to two: first, rtpsak ...., and second, offering [izixn sdiCn, "offering-making"] of myazd. Myazd are the solid foods, that are offered [AirWb, col. 1191]. The

liquid offering in Avestan is a ra•6wi -, "mixture, mixed drink" [AirWb, cols. 1483 f.]. In the Pahlavi of the Nirangistdn this is written l= rtpi- [fol. 156, 1. 13] and l= rtpys- [fol. 157, 1. 17]; 160,1. 3, it is l= rytpy8-; cf. also Nyberg, Hb, Glossar, p. 194, near the bottom. The mixing-bowl or bumper is Avestan

-bajina- [AirWb, col. 1484], for which the Pahlavi has b&l, which can be read bazk, a form attested by both Armenian and Jewish Hebrew and Aramaic [Hilbschmann, Arm. Gr., p. 115, No. 92]. From these data our word cannot, so far as I can see, with certainty be derived; but it is certainly possible that we have here a writing of Kartir's pronunciation of a word that can well mean

"mixing-bowl," a vessel, which would suit our context and that of the Dlnkart

passage well. The following word in the Dankart might then be a derivative of da-, "give," or des-, "form," or sa&, "prepare," and we would have the

people admonished to give or prepare mixing-bowls or mixed drinks for liquid offering and offerings of solid foods. It is not necessary at this point to distinguish these two from the partly synonymous haoma- and zaoora-, on the one hand, and draonah-, on the other. Dr3n was too well known to posit for it a hypothetically possible Semitic LeTaFSdQ. Here "many mixing bowls") were received (WYDWN), and much (KBYR) Mazdayasnian (mis-written; d omitted) religion in various ways (gvnk-y gvnk-y) and also other (WDHV

=

RNE) works of the gods much (KBYR) increased (apzvt-y) and superior

KARTIR 227

(apl=rtl=r-y) became, which (ZY) upon (MDM) this inscription (namk-y) are not written, because (MH), if (4it) it had been written (YKTYBWN ZIWH), then ()DYN) too much (KBYR) would it have been (YH.IWWN

.IWH). By me also (apm) for my own house also (PWN NPSHI BYTD) in

place upon place many fires of Varahran were established (nsast-y), and by me (apm) offering was made (YDBHWN) for (PWN) those (ZK) many (and- y) fires, which by me (ZYm) for my own house were established (nsast-y), (for) each (KL'; thus!) throne (gas-y; "altar"?), throne upon throne, mixing- bowls (?) MCXXXIII, [LINE 16] and they were (WYHWWN) for one (I) year (SNT) MMMMMM DCC XC VIII. And by me for my own house other works also of the gods of various kinds (gvnk-y gvnk-y) many were done, which by me if (h4t) upon this inscription they had been written, too many (KBYR stands here as before for "too many," just as elsewhere the same word stands simply for "many, much.") then would they have been. But by me (BV= R'm) this inscription for this (WLH l= rad-y) was written, that (:YK) whoever in future (pl= rastl = r-y) time imperial records or documents or other [LINE 171 inscriptions sees (H.IZYTNt), that one (ZK) may know (YDWYTNt) that I am that Kartir (WNH ZK Kl=rtyl=r-y H.IWHm), who under Shahpuhr, king of kings, Kartir, the Mhrpat, was called (KV=RYTN IWHm), and under Ohrmazd, king of kings, and Varahran, [LINE 18] king of

kings, Kartir, who (is) Ohrmazd's magupat I was called, and under Varahran, king of kings, who (is) Varahranson, Kartir, who (is) B kht-ravin-Varahrin, who (is) Ohrmazd's magupat, I was called, and whoever this inscription sees

(H.IZYTNt) and may read (Wptpvl= rsat), that one (ZK) to the gods and lords (M V= RW.I YN) and his own spirit (fame and good name) straight (1= rat-y) and true (l= rast-y) may be (ayv or 3YK YUIWWN), that one (ZK) thus ('vgvn), as (cygvn) I [LINE 19] have been (YH.IWWN H.IWHm), so that ( YK') he for this (LZNH, im; notice use for oblique case!) bone-endowed (astvnd-y) body (tn-y. This is the nearest we come to "Tansar" in this inscription!) good fame (hvsl=

rvbyh.-y) and fortune (apaty h-y) attain (YH.IMTWNt) and he

(ap') for (WLH; no such other preposition with preceding LZNH) the bone- endowed spirit salvation (al= rtadyhi-y) may attain to (MDM YH.MTWNt)."

This inscription clearly sets at rest many problems and draws for us a new and reliable eyewitness picture of what was called the Mazdayasnian religion and what became of it in the early times of the Sasanian empire in Iran. It also opens new problems and plenty of work other than "war work" for willing and able heads and hands. With the new Shapur finds above and about it, it opens a new era for the reading and publication of Pahlavi inscriptions. This should be of the greatest interest to the wealthy, able, and honored Parsee community in India and elsewhere and furnish them a marvelous opportunity to do a great piece of work for the enhancement of the glory of their story.

We show here in a preliminary, but sufficient publication, what these new inscriptions are, and what they contain and mean. This is done in the best


and cheapest possible way through publication in a periodical. To do more than this at the present juncture with our material alone would be distinctly unwise, a waste of effort and money. This is the time to start a Corpus of Pahlavi inscriptions, some of which are published in places widely scattered and in part difficult of access, others in prohibitively expensive tomes; still others lie unpublished, though copied by hand, in photographs, and in

squeezes, in single copies inaccessible to the commonwealth of scholars. Pub- lication in a great corpus is called for, but this cannot any longer be a one-man job. There must, of course, be an editor-in-chief, but for the rest there must be a committee, and this must be world-wide. With interest in America re- stricted to relatively few people and with the shattered state of American finance in general and of private wealth in particular, it can scarcely be ex-

pected that such an undertaking would be started, financed, and managed in America. This is a great opportunity for the Parsee community to institute a fine piece of work in clarifying and establishing the great truths of their past history, which with expanding knowledge is becoming an ever greater and more important part of universal human history.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

February 29, 1940

sprengling, m. “kartir, founder of sassanian zoroastrism”

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