Assyrian Personal Names. XXI 
clusion from the name MVasattiza, in the Boghazköi texts referred to, not appearing in its Iranian 
form Nähapya*, but in its Indo-Aryan shape with s. It thus constitutes the first original proof 
of the common Aryan period reconstructed by scholars, when Hindu and Iranian were not yet 
separated. MEYER now explained that the sound-phenomenon mentioned appears also in the 
name Suvardäta inasmuch as it contains the Skr. word svar, "sun", as SCHEFTELOWITZ had 
already indicated. He also put forward his modified view in his essay "Das älteste Auftreten 
der Arier im der Geschichte'!. Generally speaking, MEYER's opinion seems to have been em- 
braced also by Professor OLDENBERG?, Mr. KEITH? and Mr. KENNEDY. Professor JACOBI5, on 
the other hand, continued to speak of the language in question as Iranian, supposing that the 
Vedic deities had come to Mitanni from Eastern Iran where they must have been borrowed 
from India about the sixteenth century. A totally different view was put forward by Professor 
SAYCE, who, in a short contribution? expressed the opinion: "that the names of the Mitannian 
kings are either Indo-European or lranian is very unlikely". This opinion appears to be 
shared by Prof. CLAY, to judge from the fact that he has registered the elements contained 
in these names among such of Hittite-Mitannian origin? On the other hand, Professor 
WINCKLER$, in 1910, expressly maintained that in the Tell el Amarna and Boghazköi texts we 
have to do with real Aryans before their division into Indians and Persians. He shows that 
the ruling class in Mitanni was called Harri, a name which survives in the second column of 
the Behistün inscription, where it denotes the Aryans, and, further, that the persons in closest 
touch with the Mitanni kings, namely, the nobility, are named warianni, which seems to be 
identical with the Vedic word marya, “man, hero". The Aryan theory, which at first was 
received with so much distrust, seemed thus to have won a decisive victory. 
Nevertheless, this theory must be somewhat modified. The fact that the Aryan s? 
has not with the Mitannians been changed to Z4 — a fact which is confirmed by the names 
Nasattiia and Suvardata and further by several names given below — does not itself justify 
the supposition that the Mitannian chiefs spoke Aryan. In a notable article entitled Notes on 
the Classification of Bashgali!* Professor STEN KONOW pointed out that also the Iranian Bash- 
gali language which forms part of a group of dialects spoken on the North-Western frontier 
of India has retained the old Aryan s. KONOW draws the conclusion that the change of s to Z 
is not so old as the other Iranian characteristics and therefore gives his adhesion to BLoow- 
FIELD's theory that in Mitanni was spoken “a dialect closely allied to Iranian but not yet 
exactly Iranian" The names in question from Mitanni and Palestine, indeed, show a peculiar 
mixture of Indo-Aryan and Iranian forms. Apart from the already mentioned names Nasattila 
and Suvardata, the following also appear to me to be purely Indian in type: Artassumara 
(Ind. Artasmara* "remembering the law"), Biridasva (Ind. prd-acva*!95, Jasdata (Ind. n. p. aço- 
datta), Ruzmania (Ind. rucimanya*), Satia (Ind. n. p. Satya "the faithful one”; Av. haipya, 
I) Sitzungsberichte der Berl. Akad., 1908. 2) JRAS, 1909, p. 1095 ff. 
3) Ibid., p. 1100 ff. 4) Ibid., p. 1100 ff. 5) Ibid., p. 721 ff. 
6) Ibid., p. 1106 ff. 7) CLay, Personal Names, p. 28 fl. 
8) Die Arier und die Urkunden von Boghazköi, in OLZ, 1910, col. 289 fl. 
9) As in the Tell el Amarna letters the Babylonian characters are used, one would expect to find Aryan s 
rendered by s. Instead, it appears everywhere as X, which perhaps renders a transition sound between the Arian s and 
the Iranian Z. 
IO) Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1911, p. I ff. 
II) Suggestion of Prof. REUTER. The etymology given by BönL, Kanaanäer und Hebräer, p. 17, n. I, according 
to whom Biridasva would — Skr. Brhad-acva, can hardly be correct. For if the name Zirdamjasda, as appears, con- 
tains the Iranian wosd zarad “heart” (= Ind. hrd), it proves that Ind. % in Mitanni was changed into z, and accordingly 
4 also in Brhadacva ought to be written as z. 
No. 1. 
