SOME LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE REGARDING ITS DATE. 



215 



have existed in Old Persian too^ probably in both dialects, in the 

 form niddna or nidhdna. We find in Pali also yiidhdna, receptacle, 

 treasury, store, and in modern Persian the Avestic word becomes 

 nihdn, hidden, secret. It must therefore have existed in the old 

 language of the country. In Sanskrit the term for the sheath of a 

 sword was pi-dhdna, from the same root dhd, with another prefix. 

 pi' (for api-, Greek eVt). 



15. Appeden : Achsemenian Apa-ddna (root a castle, palace, 

 literally a place set apart. In Sanskrit apa-dJid (Skt. apa = 

 Gk. aTTo) means to set apart. It is noteworthy that the sam.e 

 Persian word has been taken into Armenian, only with the d 

 changed into r and the Armenian plural termination k'h added, 

 thus becoming aparanFh, palace. Appaddn occurs in Babylonian 

 too (Muss. Am., p. 79). 



16. Nebizbdh occurs in the Aramaic of Dan. ii, 6 ; v, 14. 

 As the Massoretic Text is generally so correct in the consonants 

 of the Hebrew and Aramaic words, I hesitate to suggest any 

 change. But the word as it stands does not seem at all explicable. 

 I venture, therefore, to conjecture that the second b here may have 

 originally been n. The word in the alphabet used in the Eg.- 

 Aram. papyri would then be 7\ f\i/j instead of ;iy | From 

 the context the meaning required is " reward " or " gift." A. ben 

 Ezra says the word means gift, as it stands in the Massoretic 

 Text ; but its etymology is not clear. If written as I suggest, 

 i^^^^?, and read nibdzendh, there is no difficulty. The 

 first element in the word is the prepositional tii, which occurs 

 so often in Persian words and equals Greek eV/, Russian Na, 

 etc. Then follows the root bag- {baz-), to take part in, to share ; 

 hence in the Gathas, the oldest part of the Avesta, baga means 

 share, lot, which in later Avestic poems becomes bagha. In 

 Achsemenian inscriptions Baga [later Bagha] means God, a 

 God (c/. Russian Bog, pronounced BoMi). In Sanskrit the root 

 is bhaj and bJianj. It is found in Armenian also, in the form 

 baz, an impost, a tax ; bazel, to tax ; bazin, part, share ; bazanel, 

 to divide. If to ni-baz- we add the Avestic noun-ending -ana 

 or -and, we get nibdzand, a gift, which in Aramaic would be 



written n:n:. 



* The n { y ) of the Siloam inscription alphabet {circa 700 B.C.) is identi- 

 cal with the b oi the Eg. -Aram, papyri. 



