532 Sino-Iranica 



may justly be inferred that there was a Middle-Persian form *ma- 

 gutan or *magudan, from which the Chinese transcription was exactly 

 made. 



98. tJ2 i£ ft ni-hu-han, *ni-hwut-7an. Officials of Persia who have 

 charge of the Treasury (Wei £w, Ch. 102, p. 6). The word, in fact, is a 

 family-name or title written by the Greek authors Naxopayav, Naxoepyav, 

 Xapvaxopyavrjs (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." 1 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. 2 



99. iiil J^. Wi ti-pei-p'o, *di-pi-bwi5(bir, wir). Officials of Persia 

 who have charge of official documents and all affairs (Cou i«, Ch. 50, 

 p. 5b). In the parallel passage of the Wei iw (Ch. 102, p. 6), the second 

 character is misprinted «F 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 dipi ("writing, 

 inscription"), 4 Middle Persian dipnr or dapir, New Persian dibir or datnr 

 (Armenian dpir); and that *di-pi-bwi5 corresponds to Middle Persian 

 dipivar, from *dipi-bara, the suffix -var (anciently bar a) meaning "carry- 

 ing, bearing." 5 The forms diptr and diinr are contractions from diptvar. 

 This word, as follows from the definition, appears to have comprised 

 also what was understood by devdn, the administrative chanceries of 

 the Sasanian empire. N 



100. t§l J$t ffl i& 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 iw, Ch. 102, p. 6). Theophylactus Simocatta 6 

 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 Naxuraqan or Naxlrajan 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. 



s 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 dipiya (A. Meillet, Grammaire du vieux perse, pp. 147, 183). 



6 C. Saleman, Grundriss iran. Phil., Vol. I, pt. I, pp. 272, 282. 



6 in, 8. 



