Indian Antiquary Vol 20

Author(s): John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 53

JANUARY, 1891.]
BOOK-NOTICE.
45
Sanskrit language" (p. 351). Being so, he can- all the difficulties under which Warren must have not have had a direct knowledge of the Hindu laboured, the work is creditable to him, though to astronomy, and must have been obliged to depend those who are ignorant of practical astronomy, on second-hand and oral information; the results it is not in itself a safe guide for Hindu astromay be taken as an example by those who may nomy. wish to work in the same direction. Considering
SHANKAR BALKRISHNA DIKSHIT.
NOTES AND QUERIES. A NOTE ON A CERTAIN PERSIAN MILITARY for a body of armed men in the phrase to.. EXPRESSION.
mu'tabar ba ham bastand, -"(the authorities) The word sertip, now used in Persia, with got together a considerable body of men," - and three different classes, for Colonel' and General,' another time for a crowd come to the scene of an has by some writers been wrongly derived from explosion at Tehran, tip-i-'asimi jam shud - the Greek word satrapês, which means governor "a great crowd collected." Sar meaning "head,' of a province. The word satrap is either the sartip, generally pronounced sertip, is thus 'a comold Pers. kshathra-pati (Zend. shofthra-paiti) mander of a body of men.' In the same way we * master, or lord, of the country, or province,' or, have sarjag, sarjagi (now 'a corporal') .a com. legs probably, the old Pers. kshathra-pavan,mander of a jug,' a small body of men ; sarhang,
protector or lord of the country. The word pati generally pronounced serhang, correctly sar. is preserved in later Persian, shahr-bdd (same as ahang, head (leader) of (an army in) battle kshathra-pati) and ispeh-bed, lord of the army, array, leader of a line or series of soldiers);' and commander-in-chief,' and in the modern Persian sarkar, 'head of the work, a lord, a Government' pddish ih (Zend. paiti-kshathrya) lord of the (as in India). Sardár is the man who has the kingdom. The word púvan is the later Persian head or lead and is a leader.' Sertip for general ban, as in shahriban, marzban, 'lord of the or leader of troops' seems to be quite a modern province, lord of the march.'
word; I do not recollect having met with it in But sertip is sar + tip, tip meaning an assem
Persian histories written before the end of the last bly of men, a body of men, troops. I do not know
century; sarhang was in use several centuries
before that. whether it is Turkish or Persian; my Persian dictionaries do not give it. I heard it used once Tehran.'
A. HOUTUM-SCHINDLER.
- BOOK-NOTICE. THE GOLDEN BOUGH, a Study in Comparative Religion, was more widely known as the Arician Grove,
by J. G. FRAZER. Two vols, London: Macmillan & and its priests as the Arician prieste, though the Co. 1890.
town of Aricia, the modern La Riccia, is three FIRST NOTICE.
miles distant. The rule of succession to the priestThese goodly volumes are a notable addition hood was that each priest was by craft or force to the knowledge of folklore and the meaning to murder his predecessor and to hold the sucof its phenomena. Mr. Frazer has been for some
cession till he himself was in the same way, time engaged in preparing a general work on
murdered. It is to explain this unparalleled primitive superstition and religion, and the pre
custom in classical antiquity, that Mr. Frazer sent book is an excursus on a particular point of has compiled these two laborious and intensely great interest.
interesting volumes. The object of the book is to explain the "rule
· Mr. Frazer's method is best explained in his of the Arician priesthood," and in order to
own worde: "if we can shew that a barbarous propound a theory regarding it, Mr. Frazer has found it necessary to minutely examine the
custom, like that of the priesthood of Nemi; lias
existed elsewhere; if we can detect the motives popular festivals observed by European and other
which led to its institution; if we can prove that peasants in spring, at midsummer and at harvest. Hence the absorbing interest of this work to
these motives have operated widely, perhapd
universally in human society, producing in varied students of folklore.
circumstances a variety of institutions specifically Near the village of Nemi, in Italy, stood in different but generically alike-; if we man shew ancient times the grove and enctuary of lastly that these very motives, with some of their Diana Nemorensis or Diana of the Wood. It derivative institutions were actually at work in