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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1878.
Let me take Mr. Khambata's criticisms in order, attended me on both occasions of my visit to the He says I have been wrongly informed that the
Towers. priestly race among the Pârsis is divided into With regard to the bread with which the funethree classes of Dasturs, Mobeds, and Her- ral dog is fed, I owe the rational explanation I ba ds. But, according to his own showing: have given of this remarkable custom to a well"Some Herbads are neither Dasturs nor Mobeds, known scholar and distinguished living authority, for they do not choose to enter the holy order." Mr. K. R. Kâm. Let others judge if Mr. KhamIs not this tantamount to a division of the priestly båtå's explanation is preferable. race into three classes ?
Again, Mr. Khambât& calls in question my In the next place Mr. Khambåtå says that I am assertion that the soul of the deceased man is wrong in calling the Nasas & lårs "corpse- supposed to hover about in a restless state for the bearers." Yet again, according to his own show- three days immediately succeeding death, in the ing, they are quite as much corpse-bearers as the neighbourhood of the dakhmas. Mr. Khambâtå Khånd hias: "The Nasas&lârs," he writes, informs us that the souls of only sinful men are
take up the body from the slab and place it in supposed to do so. Will he tell us what becomes on the bier" ..... "The Nasasklárs again of the souls of the righteous during these three receive the bier and carry it into the inner days ? part of the Tower." It appears that I ought L As to the initiatory ceremonies, I must remind to have distinguished more clearly between the Mr. Khambata that my description had reference Nasasálars and the Khåndhiâs or bier-bearers. to the highest form of these ceremonies. This is But I must here observe that my description of a what I meant by their "due celebration." Parsi funeral in my letter to the Times of 28th I quite admit that I ought to have mentioned January 1876 was reprinted with alterations by the white colour of the bull. the Pârst Panchayat, yet no corrections in regard In conclusion I must express my surprise that to that point were made. The following sentence Mr. Khambåtå should not have divined from the was also allowed to stand :-"As the bearers are context that 'second' was a mere misprint for supposed to contract impurity in the discharge of sacred'; still I do not excuse myself for having their duty, they are forced to live quite apart from overlooked this error in the proofs. the rest of the community."
MONIER WILLIAMS. Mr. Khambâtâ says: “Professor Williams con- Oxford, 28th July 1878. siders feeding the dog with bread a part of the ceremony called Sag-did. In this also he is mis
THE PHRYGIAN INSCRIPTIONS AT taken." No, my only mistake has been in ex
DOGANLU. pressing myself too loosely. It should be ob- SIR, -The question of the geographical course, served that the hyphen in Sag:did was mine. I advance, and development of the Aryan languages knew I was writing for Oriental scholars, and the will have so much interest for your Indian readers hyphen seemed to me quite sufficient to indicate that I venture to ask for a small space, in your that Sag-did meant dog-gaze.' In my Times close columns, to originate a new line of inquiry, letter I said: "The corpse is exposed to the which has lately presented itself to me, in the gaze of a dog, regarded by the Parsis as a interpretation of the Phrygian inscriptions at sacred animal. This latter ceremony is called Doganlu, near the old Nacoleia. The site Sag-did."
of Doganlu lies SE. of the prominent town of Again Mr. Khatabâtê takes exception to my Kutaiya : it is more immediately associated with words, “The fire sanctuary of the sagri has a the traditional Metropolis, which is identified, in window or aperture so arranged that when the Smith and Grove's Atlas, with Gurdjaro Kaleh sacred fire is fed with sandal-wood fuel by the (Lat. 39° 18 N., Long. 30° 36' E.), Doganlu being veiled priest, just before the corpse-bearers enter placed in the same map, under the designation of the Tower, a ray from the flame may be projected Castellam et sepulcra regia, in about Lat. 39° 8 over the dead body at the moment of its ex- N., Long. 30° 53'. posure." Mr. Khambat says "this is not cor- H. Kiepert's map, attached to the valuable work of rect. With no such design is the sagri built." | P. de Tchihatcheff,-- Asie Mineure (Paris, 1860),But what I stated was that the aperture (not the gives the emplacement of the three sites of Kumbuilding of the sagri) was arranged with that bet, Yapouldak, and Doganly, the posidesign. This, however, was not my statement, tion of the latter being defined as Lat. 39° 16' N., but that of the Secretary to the Panchayat, who | Long. 30° 37 E.
The proximity of these historical remains to the ancient Synnada (Afiam-Kara-higsar), Lat. 38° 43' N., Long. 30° 31'- E., is also noteworthy.
