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Dr. Lassen considers that three paths | suspect that still more probably it was a are necessary to this field of investigation: more polished and classical form of the palæography; the records of languages; latter. That these inscriptions are to open and history. But we would say that the to us a new language of which we have no two latter inust be more closely studied, with specimens extant, seems to us, therefore, this object in view than appears to have both gratuitous and chimerical. been the case hitherto; and we must be allowed to suggest, that till the more ample grounds he is expecting from Asiatic research shall be discovered and examined, it will not be amiss to look closely, during the interval, into the authorities and sources of information which we actually possess; and which, though familiariz d to us under one impression, (we mean the classic-historical) may and will afford us much of novelty as regards mooted points; provided that, in opening the volumes for this end, we also open our own minds to a wider range of impressions than the classical references themselves have supplied to us.

The tract of land lying between the Euphrates and the great Persian desert, and reaching from the gulf of Ormuz to the Caucasian range, was the seat of the early monarchies of Assyria and Babylon, of the Medes and their conquerors; it contains consequently the remains of that unknown species of writing to which, for want of a better, has been given the appellation of the cuneiform, or arrow-headed characters. They are found on ancient monuments from the lake Van, near Hamadan and Ee batana, at Babylon, and amongst the ruins of Persepolis; but sometimes as forms of single letters, sometimes syllabic. They accompany everywhere the progress of that conquering race, the Achæmenides; and their proper geographical position is between the Semitic alphabets of the West and the Indian characters of Eastern Asia. No other alphabetic character appears to have been known to ancient Asia, according to Dr. Lassen: an assertion we must be permitted to question hereafter. It is probable, however, as he states, that the inscriptions left by Darius after his Scythian campaign, were in this form-as seen by Herodotus, and by him called Assyrian; but this with modifications: for as we know that the Assyrians used the Syriac language, unless Dr. Lassen can show that the inscriptions he introduces to us are Syriac also, we can only admit his inference so far as the form, or character, is concerned, and not necessarily the language: that of the inscriptions being, according to him as to Rask, in all probability, old Persian, and not Median -a hazardous conjecture, which we doubt entirely, and which we think requires good proof to support it. We consider that the Zend was probably the old Median; but |

Professor Grotefend had proceeded so far as to frame almost an alphabet of these characters, and had actually made out the names of Xerxes and Darius at Persepolis. This first important and satisfactory discovery led naturally to others; and with the names of Xerxes, and Darius Hystaspes, we find, says Lassen, two words, one of which must mean king, the other, countries, though the grammatical form differs from the Zend and Sanscrit. The errors of copyists, too, increase the difficulties of the undertaking. Dr. Lassen's system, improving on the former professor's, offers great facility; but we think some of his conjectural arguments in deduction incorrect.

Dr. Lavoen concedes the accuracy of the names discovered as regards the general value of the characters at least though not always as to the precise sound of the character, and in this last he follows the system of MM. Rask, Bopp, and Burnouf. We think, however, that the difference is not so great as it appears to be, and are satisfied that, in some points referring to the Zend, Rask and his followers are at least as much in error as Anquetil du Perron, whose alphabet they condemned. Rask, indeed, accuses Du Perron of imitating too closely the modern Persian sounds; but he himself derives his own information, as he tells us, from Parsi priests in India. Now it does surely seem more natural that the modern Persian descendants of the Fireworshippers should retain the correct sounds of their ancient tongue in its native land, than that it should exist and be found in a purer state amongst their fugitive descendants abroad; the earlier portion, too, of whom had lost the sacred sources of their language. The temporary conquest of the Arabs, with whom the conquered and broken but still unbending Guebres sternly refused to mix at home, (as history and their known mutual abhorrence show,*) could not affect the native pronunciation so much as residence for ages in a different country: and that the new system resembles the Sanscrit, its assumed derivative the Greek, and the Armenian, with all its corruptions of foreign wars and intercourse, is little evidence, in our opinion, in favour of the system, but, on the contrary, very much against it. The cloth worn by

*See No. XXXV.

the priests over the mouth, as he relates, the notice of these laborious and accomwould operate equally against the hearer plished scholars. We take but one instance in either case. It is certain, however, that, out of many: the word maogho, or Mongul. in some sounds, the system of Du Perron The n, like the faint French m, is here altoapproaches nearer the ancient as well as gether dropped, or else supplied by the very modern derivatives; and also that our im- form objected to both by Rask and Lassen, perfect knowledge of that ancient tongue and which, by an odd coincidence, very far, and its sister, the Pazend, prevents us from we are convinced, from accidental, finds a deciding with accuracy whether one letter perfect modern parallel in both Indian and might not sometimes have had two approxi- Portuguese; as nao used indifferently for mate sounds. We shall recur to this here- nam. In fact, by the rapid pronunciation after. of ao it becomes the nasal m or n, by a kind of physical necessity. There is a little extravagance, too, in the last illustration where we observe that various words of the Spanish Peninsula are pure Zend; nearer than the Latin forms to which they have been attributed, and consequently as old as the Goths, AT LEAST -probably very much older.

Dr. Lassen contends that, though some portion of Grote fend's discoveries are correct, yet he had not hit upon the true medium for prosecuting them. He considers the means to be, the shape of the character; the language; and the rejection of doubtful inferences.

As to the shape, we must ourselves premise, for the satisfaction of the general We must also observe upon the second reader, that the characters in question may head above quoted, of language, that since be divided into two classes: the arrow- Strabo found that Ariana, Media, and Perheaded, and the wedge: the former is sia, spoke dialects of the same language, as angular, or like the second part of the capi- Bactria, and Sogdiana -a passage which tal K: the wedge is narrowed to a single in a former paper we held slight authority stroke: this last is either perpendicular, horizontal, or aslant; and is also large, small, and minute, according as it is used in combination.

1st. SHAPE. If the angular, says our author, represents an aspiration, or the perpendicular wedge a sibilant, their application would be obvious: but they both become sibilants in the name of Hystas pes, as s, &c. The cuneiform, in the shape of its letters, approaches no alphabet but the Zend; and this one so very slightly that no assistance is derivable thence.

2nd. LANGUAGE. This is the old Persian; it is unknown, and the modern Persian gives us little aid here. The Zend was the old East-Persian, or Sogdio-Bactrian; the old Persian, the Medo Persic; and probably one of these two tongues was a dialect of the other.

3. OF DOUBTFUL FORMS. Dr. Lassen, following Rask, points out an instance where the mistake of the character itself produces the mistake of a grammatical termination, which they affirm is certainly not Zend. We would ourselves point attention to this error, if such it be; for the ao of Grotefend is the am of Lassen; and this nasal form and suppression is less, we think, an error, than an indication of the equivalence and interchange of certain signs and their respective sounds in the ancient Persian. It is singular that an illustration of this kind, though not certainly in a genitive case, though this, we conceive, makes no difference whatever,-should have escaped

for the very ancient period we then referred to, but to which we freely grant all the weight it fairly deserves as an authority for the time when it was written when we further consider that Nearchus* identified the Persian and Median tongues of his day with the Karmanian, as only a dialectical variety-it is clear that but one language prevailed throughout Persia at the time when these two writers flourished. But the Zend, as we have formerly shown by reasoning, history, and analogy, existed early in Aderbijian, and therefore we cannot understand why Dr. Lassen should restrict this, the sacred tongue, to Sogdiana and Bactria, and the ancient Persic to Media and Persia. We prefer Rask and Wahl and common sense on this head. Again, as far as our own inquiries have gone we are satisfied that the most ancient form of the Persian differed widely from the Zend of Media.

He

Dr. Lassen seems generally ignorant of, or indifferent to, English laborers. refers to St. Martin as making the first serious progress in deciphering, though confused by the vowels; and mentions Rask with deserved praise, though, from the reason assigned, we consider it slightly overrated. To him, however, the discovery of two characters is due. Of Chardin and Kämpfer

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he makes little account as copyists. Porter, termination, would suffice; but we our Le Brun, and Niebuhr fare better, espe- selves can hardly consent to this. Herodocially the last, who receives a merited iritus supports our opinion, for he illustrates bute, in the following lively picture, from the name, not by ɛožɛins, as Dr. Lassen obfrom his hands:-"Nothing that he saw in serves, but by años, a fact we consider deciAsia," he observes, " struck Niebuhr so sive: but here we must make some remarks much as these inscriptions; he could not on that historian. rest till he had reached Persepolis: and he Dr. Lassen holds the correctness of the staid above three weeks in the desert, inces- passage he has quoted, (Bk. vi. 98 ) and we santly copying and measuring the frag- cannot concei73 why commentators, like ments. The height of the inscriptions, en- Beloe, should attempt to alter it. Herodograved on walls of old, black, and polished tus affirms, that the name of Xerxes signimarble, legible only when the sun was fies in Greek a Werior, that of Artaxerxes shining, brought on a dangerous inflamma- a Greek Warrior: and some critics would tion of the eyes, and this, and the death of fain persuade us that by Greek he meant his Armenian servant, compelled him re- Persian! It is just possible that Herodotus luctantly to quit the Persian holy ground, knew his own meaning and language as before he had drained its archæological well as even his commentators: aperos, is simsources the last night of his stay found ply the name of Mars, whom no one doubts the enthusiastic traveller sleepless; and to to be a warrior, we imagine; and αρτί, is, in his latest day the forms of these ruins re- composition, sufficiently near to Excelling mained ineffacably impressed upon his or Great for the Greeks and their historian mind, as the gem of all he had ever beheld." to use it in this sense. The MSS. thereWe now remark on two or three points fore, may well contain the obnoxious word, of Dr. Lassen's researches, which appear as Dr. Lassen observes they do: but we to us erroneous, and illustrative of how far differ in toto from his assumption that Hethe exercise of learned ingenuity, on some rodotus understood the Persian sense also. questions, blinds the eye and the mind of So far as it appears from the succeeding even the ablest scholars to obvious facts sentence it is clear, indeed, that he did not; and conclusions. Dr. Lassen tells us that, and we affirm that arta is, like the Armefrom what Herodotus states, the name of nian varta, in the ancient Persian but Xerxes and of the warrior caste, Ksatra, another form of atar, fire; and that the must have begun with the same letter. compound Arta-Xerxes, or Art-Ashirashe, This (first) he takes from the old Persian is an epithet of pre-excellence, applied only form of shah (k,sah), and he tries the latter to the Great King,-the Pure or Glorious, portion by the Zend arsan, or eye, making as Fire. the compound term Lord eye (!) an epithet, we hope, intelligible in China at least. But we do not mean our readers to go so far for an elucidation. Why Dr. Lassen should have rejected what he admits to be the most probable equivalent of the name, as furnished by Gesenius, namely Ahasuerus for Xerxes, we cannot imagine. The Thesaurus of the latter writer referred to perhaps does not give a solution; and, as it is not at hand, we offer our own. We suggest, that the aspirations strongly sounded become sibilant, and that the name Xerxes, or Ashirashe (Ahasuerus), is only a different orthography of Ahoeroe, the Zend epithet of Oromuzd. The ahoeroe, with its final aspirate, would supply the sibilant sâ, which Dr. Lassen finds in his way: or, if it is required, to r dace this word to its components, ahuro, hence arah, the ancient royal name, being merely Aur, Ur, or Fire, and signifying its attribute bright or pure, (this word is a remarkable derivation of up, or rather its Zend precursor peor,) and not in the first instance holy, as Rask infers; and sa, the adjectival-possessive or attributive

In the word Darius, "I lay aside," says the Doctor, "the idea of Darhawus being a patronymic, since neither in the ZendAvosta, nor in these inscriptions, can I find a patronymic." He might have recollected, we submit, that throughout the East patronymics are unknown and therefore it was needless to seek them. We should be inclined to derive it from the Zend nevertheless; as an epithet or title of the Preserver, or the Preserved. And when we recollect that he was the restorer or introducer of the preservation of fire, according to Persian writers, we may find thence one source of the title; while the strange preservation of his descendant Darius, as told also by Ferdousi, would help us to a second, passive meaning.

Of the word wairyo conjoined with Qshahro, or king, the Persian Shahrivar, Rask confessed his ignorance. That great scholar overlooked its synonym, the Scythian oiro, the Tartar oira, the Latin var; MAN par excellence, as Great or important. It is probably, if Dr. Lassen will permit us, the cognate of his wazrak; the form of y and

of ç, being in the Zend character expressed by a double sign in both cases, and not more dissimular than u and cc in our writ

ten hand, which, in truth, when reversed towards the left, they resemble. This word may not impossibly be the ouro of Egypt, and the wuzeer of Turkey, as the y or the predominates.

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Darius, rex magnus, rex regum, rex terrarum, Vistaspis filius, Achæmenius. Is hanc portam construendam curavit."p. 141.

NIEBUHR'S INSCRIPTION, (I.)

"Posui Darius, rex magnus, rex regum, rex populorum horum bonorum, Vistaspis filius, Achæmenius nobili genere. Darius rex voluntate Auramazdis. Hi populi illi."."—p. 146.

We are by no means satisfied with the learned Doctor's reasons for preferring the Sancrit form of Hystaspes, as master of the horse. The difficulty between g, h, and v in the modern Persian Gustasp, the Greek Hystaspes, and the Vistaçpa, is simply re- [Line 1 to 7.]—“âdam. dârhawus. kaâhsolvable by recalling the use of the digam- 2iah. wazark. ksâhgiah. ksâhgihânâm. ksâhma. And since the Zend name, which is 2iah. dañghunâm. tesâm. psunâm. vistacmost likely the correct one, goes absolutely panghà put. âkâm nisiah. Zatiah. dârhawus. to confirm, and still more by its genitive ksâhgiah. wasnâ auramazdañga. imâ. danform, the well known story of a kingdom ghawa, thâ. gained through a horse, it seems a strange mixture of scepticism and credulity to reject an etymon from its native term and tradition, and to imagine an Indian language supplying the first, and thus overthrowing the latter. We do not, in fact, see that Dr. Lassen has anywhere gained much assistance from the Sanscrit in these researches; and though he notices, and it is a singular circumstance, that the aforesaid alphabetic system resembles the Devanagari, this is by no means a conclusive evidence, or even indication; for this last resembles at least as closely other alphabets hitherto unnoticed. Is it," the Doctor asks, "that the Devanagari is a completion or perfected state of other ancient defective alphabets?" We answer distinctly in the affirmative for we conceive the proofs are before us, though we cannot go at length into the questions in this place. Nor does the Doctor himself find room in his present work for replying to two other questions, which he puts, and which he accordingly leaves to time to answer. We offer the questions themselves nevertheless to our readers :

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"How is it that no traces of these alphabets (previous to the Sanscrit) are found to the eastward of the great Persian desert, in lands which Ormuzd first

ana. a. paraca. kara. tha. ayam. atarç. manâ. [Lines 7 to 10.]-"âdam. ádarsiah. ada. bagiam. abar.

"Posui debellator. Heic hi Persæ ministri. Isti (popui) adorationem igni, mihi tributa attulerunt."-p. 150.

[Lines 10 to 18.]-" Choana, Media, Babylon, Arbela, Assyria, Gudraha, Armenia, Cappadocia, Capardia, Hunæ; tum hi Uscanga; porro hi Drangæ; porro regiones hæ; Parutes, Acarartia, Parthæ, Zarangæ, Areiæ, Bactria, Cugdia, Chorazmia, Zatagadus, Arachosia, India, Gadar, Cacæ, Ma. ci."—p. 152.

[Lines 18, 19.1" Zatiah. dârh3wus. ksah21h. hakiah.

"Nobilis Darius rex domitor."—p. 153. NIEHBUHR'S INSCRIPTION, (H).

[Lines 1 to 5.1-" Aur"m"zda. wzrk.

created? And will time bring us an ex-ah. m ist. baganam. aqa darhawum. planation soon?”

"Is this cuneiform alphabet simplified from other and more complicated sources, or are they deduced from it?"

We cannot answer these difficulties here. We must content ourselves with giving the reader the result of the learned profes sor's investigations, in the inscriptions whose meanings he has unravelled-though some portions are, as will be seen, still unexplained.

ksahiham. adado. aus dah. kst m. frabr wasna. auramazdañgha. darhawus. ksahZiah. Zatiah.

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iha. dahaus.par*g. thâm. m nâu. Aurm&z

da. frabar.

"Xerxes, rex magnus, ille [ego] mihi palatium posui. Tum hoc ibi alterum palatium meridiem spectans. ex voluntate

Darius, rex hujus terræ Pericae. Eam Auramazdis."—p. 170. per me evexit Auramazdes."—p. 159.

[Lines 7 to 11.]—“añgha. niba. upaçta. umartiha. wasnâ. aur ̧ ̧zd ñgâ. manya. darha waus. ksahihangha. ayà, annihanaâ.

"Ei sit cultus propitio. Ex voluntate Auramazdis ex mente Darii regis, (sint preces)."-p. 160.

[Lines 13 to 16]“m*na. aur mazda. upac âm. bartaya. âda. viibis. bagibis. uta. imam. danghâum, aur"mazda. pâtaqa.

"A me accipe, o Auramazdes, cultum heic felicibus palatiis: et tuere, o Auramazdes, hanc terram.”—p. 152.

“aonwam. mam. auramamzda. pataqa. ada. bagibis. utamiha, kstam. uta. 1ahmiha, kuriam.

"Conditorem me, o Auramazdes, tuere heic felicitate, tum hoc regnum, tum hoc palatium."-p. 171.

LE BRUN'S INSCRIPTION.

[Lines 1 to 5.-"baga, wazark. aur amazda. ah. imam. buvam. ada. ah. awaza, açmanam. ada. ah. martiham. ada. ah. sihatim. ada. martihangha- ah. ksharsam. naham. àônus. aiwam. psunam. naham. aiwam. psunam. fiamataram.

"Felicitate magnus Auramazdes.

Is

Note-Lines 11, 12, 16 to 18, &c. of this hanc terram creavit, is cœlum excelsum inscription are not explainable.

XERXES.

NIEBUHR'S INSCRIPTION, (G.)

creavit, is mortales creavit, is fata mortalium creavit. Is Xerxem regem constituit, felicem bonorum regem, felicem bonorum rectorem."-p. 172.

[Lines 6 to 10.]-"adam. ksharsa. n h wazark. nah nahanam. nah. daññbunam. [suwaznanam. nah. aanghaha. bumiha. wazarkaha. duriah. apyah. darhawaus. nahan"ksharsa. ksahgiah. wzrk. ksah2iha-gha. put. akam"nisih. Zatiah. ksharsa. na. nam. darhawaus. ksahihañgha. put. akama. wazark. wasna. aurangha. mazdanga.

nisiah.

"Xerxes, rex magnus, rex regum, rii regis filius Achæmenius."-p. 165.

NIEBUHR'S INSCRIPTION, (A.)

[Lines 1 to 5 imperfect.]

"Posui Xerxes, rex magnus, rex reDa-gum, rex populorum, benè parentium, rex existentis orbis terrarum magni sustentator, auctor, Darii regis filius, Achæmenia progenies. Xerxes, rex magnus, ex voluntate Auramazdis.”—p. 174.

[Lines 5 and 6.]"ah. ksahrsam. ksahZiham. aonus. aiwam. psunam. ksahiham. aiwam. psunam. framataram.

"Is (Ormuzdes) Xerxes (Xerxem?) regem constituit, felicem bonorum regem, felicem bonorium rectorem."-p. 166.

"adam. ksharsa. ksah siah. wazark. ksah

2iah. ksah2thanam, ksahgiah, dan hunam psuwaznanam. ksahgiah. aaihaha, bumiha. wazarkaha. duriah. apyah. darhawaus, ksah Zih ngha. put. akamisiah. Zatih.

"Posui Xerxes, rex magnum, rex regum, rex populorum, benè parentium, rex existentis orbis terrarum magni sustentator, auctor, Darii regis filius, Achæmenia progenies."-167.

"ksharsa. ksah2iah. wazark. th. mana kartam dada. uta. tamiha. aptaran. kartam, awa, dicam. wasna. auramazdañgh(â).

[Dines 11 to 15.]—"m. akis. darhawus. nu. âônus, ah, mana. pita mam. anıamazda. pataqa ada. bagibis. uta. tamiha. kartam, uta. iamih. pit. darhawaus. nahangha. karıam. awasiyah. auramazda. pataqa. ada. bagibis.

[Palatium] domitor Darius rex constituit. Is meus pat r. Memet tuere, Au ramazdes, heic felicitate; tum hoc ibi pa

latium, tum hoc patris Darii regis palati

um, excelse Auramazdes, tuere heic felicitate."

For the age that has found the key of Egyptian hieroglyphics and cuneiform characters one point at least is gained; namely, that the Zend is now, even more than after the triumphant arguments of the Rask, proved to have existed in its widest pretended extension, against the opinion of some of the most learned of sceptics.

We have noticed lately in the proceed

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