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0358 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 358 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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532   SING-IRANICA

may justly be inferred that there was a Middle-Persian form *magutan or *magudan, from which the Chinese transcription was exactly made.

98. Vg   ni-hu-han, *ni-hwut-yan. Officials of Persia who have
charge of the Treasury (Wei §u, Ch. IO2, p. 6). The word, in fact, is a family-name or title written by the Greek authors Naxo pay Ca, , Naxo€pyety, Mapvaxopyâv"s (prefixed by the word sar, "head, upper "). Firdausi mentions repeatedly under the reign of Khosrau II a Naxwara, and the treasurer of this king is styled "son of Naxwara."' The treasury is named for him al-Naxirajan. The Chinese transcription is made after the Pahlavi model *Nixuryan or Nexuryan; and, indeed, the form Nixorakan is also found.'

99• A   1 ti-pei-yo, *di-pi-bwiS(bir, wir). Officials of Persia
who have charge of official documents and all affairs (Cou §u, Ch. 5o, p. 5b) . In the parallel passage of the Wei ht (Ch. 1022 p. 6), the second character is misprinted V- tsao,3 *tsaw; *di-tsaw would not correspond to any Iranian word. From the definition of the term it becomes obvious that the above transcription *di-pi answers to di pi ("writing, inscription"),4 Middle Persian dipir or dapir, New Persian dibir or dabir (Armenian d pir) ; and that *di-pi-bwi« corresponds to Middle Persian dipivar, from *dipi-tiara, the suffix -var (anciently bara) meaning "carrying, bearing."5 The forms dipir and dibir are contractions from dipivar. This word, as follows from the definition, appears to have comprised also what was understood by dévdn, the administrative chanceries of the Sasanian empire.

zoo.   A no-lo-ho-ti, *at(ar)-la-ha-di. Officials of Persia
who superintended the inner affairs of the king (or the affairs of the royal household — Wei §u, Ch. 102) p. 6). Theophylactus Simocatta6 gives the following information on the hereditary functions among the seven high families in the Sasanian empire: "The family called Artabides possesses the royal dignity, and has also the office of placing

1 NOLDEKE, Tabari, pp. 152-153, 439.

2 JUSTI, Iran. Namenbuch, p. 219. In Naxuragan or Naxirajan q and j represent Pahlavi g. The reconstructions attempted by MODI (Spiegel Memorial Volume, p. LIX) of this and other Sino-Iranian words on the basis of the modern Chinese pronunciation do not call for any discussion.

3 This misprint is not peculiar to the modern editions, but occurs in an edition of this work printed in 1596, so that in all probability it was extant in the original issue. It is easy to see how the two characters were confounded.

4 In the Old-Persian inscriptions, where it occurs in the accusative form dipim and in the locative dipiyd (A. MEILLET, Grammaire du vieux perse, pp. 147, 183).

5 C. SALEMAN, Grundriss iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. I, pp. 272, 282.

6 III, 8.