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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
In his Dictionary of Khotan Saka (p. 377), Bailey has the following entry: ‘vara- “door?”’ with the following comment: ‘possibly vara- “door” from var- “to close, shut”; or a dialectal v- < dv- would permit connexion with dvar-, Av dvar∂m, dvar∂ “gate” (…) Note Tumshuq Saka vitana “a second time” with vi- < dvi-.' Bailey's suggestion that this vara- means door, is certainly correct. The Passage in question (KT, III, 124) is quoted below.
2 Old Iranian *dwar- was an athematic noun. Such nouns were regularly thematized in Khotanese, see SGS 250, § 4. That thematization took place late is suggested by the fact that OIr. *zrd- ‘heart’ (a neuter noun, cf. Avestan zered-) had time to lose its final -d before rechiving the thematic vowel and produce Khotanese ys00E4;ra-. A proto-Khot. form *zṘda- or *zṘdaya- would have resulted in Khot. *ysäla-
3 Bailey, Dict., 54 has Karāna- ‘enclosure, ward, quarter of a town’. In this passage, however, kärānu could also be the gen,-dat. p1. of karā- (Dict., 53b) which Emmerick has shown to mean ‘boundary line’ (in an article to be published in Studies II), and which here could mean the boundary or wall of a coty
4 Kṣārmńi ‘in shame’ is an adverb formed like abustańi ‘in ignorance’ and pva'stańä ‘in fear’, see Leumann, E 476 s.v. bud- (at the end). Emmerick translated kṣārmańi īste as ‘he withdraws From the shame’, but there are no instr.-abl. forms in -ańi (see SGS, 257–60). The ending -ańi is probably from OIr. -ani, loc. sg. of n-stem nouns (Avestan, e.g. čašmainĪ), in Khotanese specialized in the function of adverbs
5 Cf. Bailey, Dict., 53a. The nominalization of the prepositional phrase karä vĪrä (z 2.79, cf. karä väti z 5.33 ‘in the circle’) > karvĪra- adjective, is reminiscent of the nominal form hamdärväto (loc. sg.) ‘in the in-between’ from hamdŗ väte ‘between’, prepositional phrase (see Skjærvo, BSOAS, XLIV, 3, 1981, 461 top)
6 For ‘palace gate’ > ‘royal court’ cf. Middle Persian BBA (= dar), Parthian TROA (= bar) e.g. in the Paikuli inscription; OL BBA ZY LNE = OLYN TROA ‘to Our court’. Note also from Aramaic (A. Cowley, Aramaic papyri of the fifth century B.C., 212 f.) Ahiqar 23 w.haymt b.bb hyki’ ‘and I set him at the gate of the palace’ (not in the courtyard), and 44 zy hqymi b.tr'‘ hyki’ ‘whom you set at the gate of the palace’. Note also Old Persian DB 2.75 duvarayāmaiy basta adāriya ‘he was held bound at My (the king's)gate’, and Sogdian, Vessantara Jātaka 80 k'w šykn δβrw '‘ ys'nt ‘they shall come to the palace gate’
7 Sims-Williams points out that the 3 sg. present (injunctive) form vāśda (see below) implies verb class Vd (-ājya-), not Ve (-ājaya-), see SGS 177 and 184 f
8 Sims-Williams tells me that the MS C2 has the spelling θfyž- several times. (This MS was edited in parts by O. Hansen as Berliner sogdische Texte II, Wiesbaden 1954. A complete edition by N. Sims- Williams is now in press.)
9 Possibly related to this verb is Sogd. *θvaxš-, attested by the past participle BSo. δβγšt in Vessantara Jātaka 241, 243, which seems to mean ‘acquired’: ‘he should not give away (βγš'$y)that which he has not acquired (ZK w LA δβ’γšt)’, and in the MSo. bilingual word-list edited by Henning, Sogdica, 16, a(5): 'ndwcyhyynd δβxštyy βwt (MP' ndwcyhyynd 'they are accumulated, stored’). With this *θvaxš- Henning further connected New Persian alfaydan (alfaxtan), also = anduxtan, which attests to a Sogdian *aδβaγd (see Henning, BSOAS, X, l, 1939, 105) and derived δβ‘yz- etc. from an OIr. *θwā ajya-. Recently, G. Lazard showed that Sogd. (‘)δβ'nk in the Mug documents is connected with this word family and mens ‘food reserve, Provision’ (Studia Iranica, XI, 1982, 229–32 =Mélanges offerts à Raoul Curiel).Khwarezmian has the imperfect mθfnc- (mθfnj-) ‘to gain, acquire’, translating Arabic kasaba, iktasaba, jaraḥa, ijtaraḥa (Persian kasb kardan). Note especially Muq. 301 5–6 araḥa 'I-xayra wa 'š-šarra ‘he acquiredgained the good and the bad’, Khwar. mθfn 
d'n 'y xyr 'wd šr (Persian kasb kard niki o badirā), and araḥati 'I-jawārihu 'ṣ-ṣayda 'the birds of prey caught the prey’, Khwar. xf'r'h 'yf 'w 'mγ y' f 'wny-δ'r’ (Persian be-gereftand moryān-e sekārĪ šekārrā). Here we have Arabic araḥa = (1) Khwar. mθfn d, Persian kasb kard ‘acquired, gained’, (2) Khwar.xf‚r-, Persian be-gereftand ‘seized, caught’. Thus Arabicaraḥa combines the meanings of Khot. vāj and Sogd. θvēž-
10 As for intervocalic -fr- etc., note that -fr- became Khot. -ur- (e.g.baurā- ‘snow’, Avestan vafra-), θr become r- (e.g. vara ‘there’, Avestan auuaθra), xr became r(e.g. tcĪrau ‘duck’, Pahlavi čcxr(a)wāg); -fw-, however, became -h- if Khot. ahva- is from *afuā- ‘fear’ (Old Persian afuvā-; note that Bailey's meaning ‘belly’ for ahva- as ‘seat of fear’ is rejected by K.Koffmann, Aufsätze zur Indoiranistik, I, Wiesbaden, 1975, p. 210, n.2, who interprets Khot. ahva-rĪysa- as ‘Angst-Zittern’). As for the development of -θw- in Khotanese, note that Khot. tcahaura ‘4’ does not speak against the assumption of initial θw- *dw-in proto-Khotanese, not only because it contains intervocalic OIr. -θw-, but also because this form obviously derives from a form with metathesis: *čaθwāra- *čaθāwra-tcahaura-.OIr. intervocalic θ regularly becomes h in Khotanese, cf. Av. raθa ‘chariot’, Khot. raha OIr. -x- appears to have become Khot. h in muhu ‘us’ cf. OP amāxam ‘our. OIr. -f- may have become Khot. v in Khot. khava- ‘foam’ < *xafa-, Av. kafa-, but Pamir dialect forms *xafa-, unless Khot. khava- represents a third OIr. form *xapa-, For the forms see KT, VI, 59. Note that Ossetic xäf, xäfä can also be from *xapa-, cf. Oss. fid ‘father’ OIr. pitā. More probably khava is just another example of the spirantization of an initial p, t, k before a following spirant in Khotanese, cf. i.e.kho/u*kaθam, thu < *tayu (Sogd. tyw), thatau < *taxtakam (rather than *θatakam *θan- ‘to stretch’, Dict., 148b). [On these matters see now also N. Sims-Williams, BSOAS, XLVI, l, 1983, 48 f.]Two possible examples of θw -> u- in Khotanese are the following:Z 22.239 vūlstāndi sta ‘you have (⃛) cast aside (the burden of birth)’ (emmerick). The Buddbist Sanskrit and Pail Parallels (KT, VI, 332) have ‘to throw/let fall/unload/put down the burden’, but if the Khotanese instead said ‘to cut down the burden’, then vūlsta- could be from *awaθwŗšta- from Av. θβares- ‘to cut’.Z 3.12 21.32 24.387 (KT, VI, 203 f.) pūlsta- ‘covered’ (with kleśas, a garment, and like the tathāgatagarbha). This word could be compared with Av. paiti.θβaršta- ‘inlaid’ (with gold)
11 These Passages were discussed by Sundermann in Altorientalische Forschungen, III, 1975, 56–70 (reference kindly supplied by Sims-Williams). The interpretation of the forms δβ”n and db'ny is complicated by the occurrence of a past participle δyβtyy: šyštyy δyβtyy ‘scattered and dispersed’ (Henning, J RAS, 1944, p. 144n. 3). Sundermann suggests that δβ”n, db'ny may be a nomen actionis belonging to a verb *δβ(')y ‘to extend, scatter’ (cf. GMS, §§ 293 and 1026). That would seem to exclude a connexion with *dwānaya-, although Sundermann still compares Khwarezmian mδβ'n, presumably regarding it as a denominative from *dwāna-? Sims Williams on the other hand suggests that δyβtyy could be a secondary past participle, with metathesis for *δβytyy, from a passive stem *δβy- *dwaya- (with a ṇ?). At any rate, a Sogdian representative of Old Iranian * dwānaya- has not yet been found
12 MacKenzie in his review of this book (Kratylos, XIX, 1974 [1975], 62) rightly points out the improbability of this development taking place in this word only in so many different Iranian languages
13 dirye from dara- ‘whole entire’, also found with JaṃbvĪ ‘JambudvĪpa’, bĪsaṃga ‘bhikṣusaṅgha’, and ysamaśaṃdai ‘world’, see Dict., 153a dara- ‘continuous’
14 The paralled phonetical development of Khot. vāna- and Sogd. δβ'n is, however, not histori cally one and the same, as Sims-Williams points out. In Sogdian, δβ- dm is due to the dissimilation of m - m β - m in *δmām-ban- (cf. GMS, § 466), whereas proto-Khot. *dwāna- is due to the simplification of the uncommon initial cluster dm-. In Avestan, Old-Avestan demāna- became Young-Avestam nmāna-
15 Sims-Williams draws my attention to Emmerick's etymology of Khot. baysga- ‘thick’ in Monumentum Georg Morgenstierne, I, 204. He compares it with Avestan baza, but this is appa rently related to Sogd. δβ'nz- ‘thick’, which indicates OIr. *dwanza-. Sims-Williams suggests a rently to Mayrhofer's etymology: from *bazuka, OInd. bahủḥ (Kurzgefaβtes etymologisches Wōrterbuch des Altindischen, II, 424). Bailey's attempt to combine these words by assuming a preverb d- is not believable (Dict., 270)
16 Leumann, Zur nordarischen Sprache und Literatur, Straβburg, 1912, 134; Konow, Saka Studies, Oslo, 1932, 193
17 Note also that vāra- ‘excellent’ in KT, II (Dict., 384a), is read as vā.rä (i.e. Khot. uvāra-from Skt. udāra) in Dict., 315b s.v. brūna (end)
