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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1874.
able contribution to the literature of the subject, and to Pehlvi palaeography, for the medals de- scribed "exhibit in their serial order," as the author remarks, "an almost unchanged system of writing extending over a period of more than three centuries. The early sources of the alphabet have already been traced to the Phoenician,t and its latter adaptations may be followed through the sacred rituals of the Parsis to the modern type, founded on the surviving texts of the Fire-Wor- shippers of Bombay." The Kaullah and Dinnah was translated from the Indian Panchatantra into Pehlvi in the first half of the sixth century, and from th. Pehlvi into Arabic by Ibn al Mukaffa two centuries later. And, as remarked by Prof. Cowell, I "Benfey has shown that with regard to the cycle of stories in the Panchatantra and other similar collections, there are three distinct 'mo. ments in the history of their transmission. Their origin is generally Buddhist, and it is in Buddhist books that we are in most cases to look for their oldest forms; they were thence adapted by the Brahmans, and incorporated in their Sanskrit: literature; and it is from these Indian adaptations that they have spread westward over Europe." Then the revenue system of the Sassaniang was translated into Arabic from its original Pehlvi, in the reign of the Khalif Abdalmalik & (A.D. 684-705), and the Arabs continued to translate Pehlvi books up to the tenth century : ll whilst Hamdal Mustafi, the author of the Nuzhat-alKuldb, who died in 1349 A.D., expressly states that the current speech of the people of Shirwán, in his time, was Pehlvi.
Owing to the entire absence of exclusively Zand letters throughout the whole array of the national and popular monuments of the period up to 641 A.D., Mr. Thomas holds, with M. Oppert, that it was fabricated by the priests. The results of his investigation on the derivation of the Åryan
alphabets are thus briefly summed up:-"The Aryaus invented 'no alphabet of their own for their special form of human speech, but were, in all their migrations, indebted to the nationality amid whom they settled for their instruction in the science of writing : (1) The Persian Cuneiform owed its origin to the Assyrian, and the Assyrian Cuneiform emanated from an antecedent Túranian symbolic character; (2) the Greek and Latin alphabats were manifestly derived from the Phænician; (3) the Baktrian was adapted to its more precise functions by a reconstruction and amplification of Phoenician models; (4) the Devanagari was appropriated to the expression of the Sanskrit language from the pre-existing Páli or Låt alphabet, which was obviously originated to meet the requirements of Turanian (Dravidian) dialects; (5) the Pehlvi was the offspring of later and already modified Phoenician letters; and (6) the Zend was elaborated out of the limited elements of the Pehlvi writing, but by a totally different method to that followed in the adaptation of the Baktrian. Mr. Thomas holds that the Aryan immigration into India, on the establishment of the cultivated Brahmanic institutions on the banks of the Saras. vati and the elaboration of Sanskrit grammar at Taxils, employed the simplified but extended alphabet they constructed in the Arianian provinces out of a very archaic type of Phoenician, whose graphic efficiency was so singularly aided by the free use of birch bark." This alphabet continued in use as the official writing under the Greek and Indo-Skythian rulers of Northern India, until it was superseded by the superior fitness and capabilities of the local Pali, which is proved by Asoka's scattered inscriptions on rocks and monoliths (Lêts) to have constituted the current writing of the continent of India in B.C. 200, while a similar, if not identical, character is seen to have furnished the prototype of all the varying
The principal notices of Sassanian coins are to be found in Hyde, Historia Religionis Vet. Persarum (Ed. Costard) (Oxford, 1760): Do Sacy, Mémoires sur diverses Antiquités de la Perse (Paris, 1793); Sir W. Ouaeley, Observations on some Medals and Gems (Lond. 1801), and Travels in Persia (Lond. 1823), Visconti, Iconographie des Rois perses: T. .Tychsen, Commentationes IV. de Numis veterum Per. sarum in comment. Soc. Reg. (Gött. 1808-18) Sir R. Ker Porter, Travels in Georgia, c. (Lond. 1821); M. Adrien de Longpérier, Essai sur les Médailles des Rois perses de la Dynastie Sasranide (Paris, 1840); Dr. Dorn, Bulletin de V'Acad. Imp. d St. Petersbourg, Classe Historique, 1843, with numerous detached 6588ys of later date; Dr. Justus Olshausen, Die Pehlvi-Legenden auf d. Men der letzt. Sas. saniden (Kopenhagen, 1843), translated in Num. Chron. O.S. vol. XI. (1848) p. 68; Wilson, Ariana Antiqua (Lond. 1841), p. 396; A. Krafft, Ueber Olshausens, Entwifferung, in den Wiener Jahrbüchern der Literatur, Bd. 106 Anzeigeblatt; Dr. Mordtmann's papers in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 1848, P. u2; 1854, p. 1; 1864, p. 1; 1865, p.373. Mr. Thomas's articles in the Jour 1. As. Soc. vol. XII. (1849) p. 358, vol. XIII. (1852) p. 878 and Num. Chron. 0.$. vol. XII. (1819) p. 68 and yol. XV. (1862) p. 180; and also casual references
in his edition of Prinsep's Indian Antiquities (Lond. 1858); M. Bartholomei's Letters to Dr. Dorn in the Bulletin de l'Académie de St. Petersbourg, vol. XIV. (1857) p. 371, and elsewhere ; also M. N. de Khanikoff to Dr. Dorn, 1857.
Num. Chron. vol. VII. N.S. p. 216, and XI. p. 202. I The Academy, Apr. 1, 1872, p. 139; also Colebrooke, Hitopadesa; H. H. Wilson, Trons. R.As. Soc. vol. I. p. 155; Reinand, Mém. sur l'Inde, p. 128, Mas'audi, Meadows of Gold, Fr. ed. vol. I. p. 159.
Tarikh Guxidah, Jou.. R. As. Socy. vol. XII. p. 257.
M. Reinaud, Abulfeda's Geogr. p. lxvi.quoting Mas'andi. See also Mas'audi, vol. JI. p. 146, and vol. III. p. 252.
M. de Khanikoff in Buli. Hist. Phil. St. Petersbourg, vol. IX. p. 266. See Jour. Asiatique, 1862, p. 64, and Oaseley's Travels, vol. III. p. 357.
* Jour. Asiatique, Fev.--Mars 1851, p. 281. See also E. Burnouf, Comment. sur le Yacna, pp. cxxxix. cxli. cxlv. cli. &c.; Westergaard, Letter from Yazd (1813), Jour. R. As. Socy. vol. VIII. p. 850, and his Zend Avesta (Kopen. 1862-4), pp. 3, 9, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22; Dr. W. D. Whitney, The Avesta, in Jour. Amer. Or. Socy. vol. V. pp. 352. 855-6, 860 . and Dr. Haus. The Sacred Language of the Parsis. pp. 88. 122, 129, 162.
