530 Sino-Iranica 



tained in the Sui Annals, belongs to the latter part of the sixth century. 

 According to Salemann, 1 Iranian initial xS- develops into Middle- 

 Persian £-; solely the most ancient Armenian loan-words show a$x- for 

 x$-, otherwise £ appears regularly save that $% takes the place of inter- 

 vocalic xL 2 In view of our Sino-Iranian form, this rule should perhaps 

 be reconsidered, but this must remain for the discussion of Iranian 

 scholars. 



94. ^ !£? $a-ye, *sat(sa5)-ya. Title of the sons of the king of 

 Persia (Wei iw, Ch. 102, p. 6; T'ai p K ih hwan yil ki, Ch. 185, p. 17). 

 It corresponds to Avestan xlaBrya ("lord, ruler"). 3 The princes of 

 the Sasanian empire were styled sa0ra5aran. 4 According to Sasanian 

 custom, the sons of kings ruled provinces as "kings." 5 Regarding ix 

 in transcriptions of Iranian names, cf. the name of the river Yaxartes 

 HI i$t (Sui S» f Ch. 83, p. 4b) Yao-sa, that is *Yak-sa5(sar). As the 

 Middle-Persian name is Xsart or Asart (Pazend A sard), 6 we are bound 

 to assume that the prototype of the Chinese transcription was *Axsart 

 or *Yaxsart. 



95. HI p ff i-tsan, but, as the fan-tsHe of the last character is indicated 

 by ~Jf tfll, the proper reading is i-ts*at, *i-dza5, i-dza5, designation of the 

 king of Parsa (^ A ^ or II £ W % Wei $u, Ch. 102, p. 6; Tai 

 p'in hwan yil ki, Ch. 185, p. 17). The Chinese name apparently repre- 

 sents a transcription of IxseS, the Ixsldh of al-Beruni, title of the 

 kings of Sogd and Fergana, a dialectic form of Old Persian xlayaQiya? 

 IxseS is the Avestan xSaeta ("brilliant"), a later form being Sedah. 

 It must be borne in mind that Sogdian was the lingua franca and 

 international language of Central Asia, and even the vehicle of civiliza- 



1 Grundriss der iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. I, p. 262. 



2 Cf. also Gauthiot, op. cit., p. 54, § 6tv 



3 K. Hori's identification with New Persian $dh (Spiegel Memorial Volume, 

 p. 248) must be rejected. The time of the Wei su plainly refers to Sasanian Persia; 

 that is, to the Middle- Persian language. 



4 A. Christensen, op. cit., p. 20. Cf. Old Persian x$cm, xSacam ("royalty, 

 kingdom"), Avestan xSaOrem, Sanskrit ksatram (A. Meillet, Grammaire du vieux 

 perse, p. 143) ; xsaOrya corresponds to Sanskrit ksatriya. 



6 Noldeke, Tabari, p. 49; Grundriss, Vol. II, p. 171. I think that H. Pognon 

 (Journal asiatique, 1917, I, p. 397) is right in assuming that "satrap" was a purely 

 honorific title granted by the king not only to the governors of the provinces, but 

 also to many high functionaries. 



6 West, Pahlavi Texts, Vol. I, p. 80. 



7 See Sachau, Chronology of Ancient Nations, p. 109; F. Justi, Iranisches 

 Namenbuch, p. 141; A. Meillet, Grammaire du vieux perse, pp. 77, 167 (xsayadiya 

 parsaiy, "king in Persia"); F. W. K. Muller, Ein Doppelblatt aus einem mani- 

 chaischen Hymnenbuch, p. 31. 



