There is nothing novel in equating Skt. ā and Lat. ā; the suggestion was made in 1883 independently by Froehde and Johannes Schmidt. Nine years later Von Planta noted that Oscan ā- in aamanaffed ‘mandavit’ strongly supports this view; for, while Lat. ā might result from abs before a voiced consonant and Umbrian aha-, ā- might come from ap- before t-, Oscan s remains before voiced consonants (fíísnu, posmom) and in Oscan inherited p before t appears as f (scriftas).

When you first learn Greek, you are naturally surprised when you come to the principal parts of γíγνομαι and find γ∈νήσομαι, νόμην and then apparently a perfect active: , and finally . This paper has to do with the true interpretation of this phenomenon and similar anomalies which occur in Indo-Iranian and also, in one or two isolated instances, in Latin.

Darius the Great of Persia died in 486 B.C. and was buried in a tomb cut in the south face of a steep rocky ridge about nine or ten miles northwest of Persepolis. His tomb is the third in a row of four, if we start counting from the west. The rocky ridge is called Husain Kūh or the ‘Mountain of Husain’, but Occidentals more commonly call it Nakš-i Rustam ‘Portrait of Rustam’, a name properly belonging to the tomb of Darius and its sculptured reliefs.