376 REVIEWS
singles out the rise in population as an import-
ant factor in that development and as evidence
of increased activity. Although the topic is not
central to his theme he takes the opportunity to
set out some arguments against the common
view that the period 1500-1800 saw a decline in
the population of Palestine. The major dynamic
factor in the nineteenth century Gerber declares
to be the rise in foreign trade and he argues that
the effects of the increase in trade were by no
means as harmful to Palestinian industry as is
often supposed to have been the case. He rejects
Chevallier's theory of the effects of a drain in
bullion and emphasizes the role of invisible
exports, remittances, imports of Jewish capital
and dehoarding, which resulted in a consider-
able increase in the velocity of the circulation of
money. He shows that prices increased
throughout the period whereas the corollary of
Chevallier's theory is deflation.
The main theme of Gerber's work forms the
subject of chs. iv-x, which deal with aspects of
the administrative system, legal reform, the tax-
ation system, waqf reform and land problems.
There are so many interesting points in these
chapters that it is possible to single out only a
few for mention. On the land question Gerber
takes issue with the view that the operation of
the Ottoman land law of 1858 favoured big
landlords at the expense of cultivators. In the
hilly areas of Palestine, at least, land did not go
to the big landowners, whatever may have been
the situation in the plains. On legal reform he
shows how widely accepted were the new
Tanzimat courts and how surprisingly efficient
and honest they seem to have been. On taxation
he shows how tax farming, which persisted until
the end of the Empire, underwent a substantial
change in its character after c. 1850 to the
advantage of the cultivator whose effective rate
of tax fell to c. 12% of his produce, a figure
much lower than the total of his payments in
1800. It has to be said, however, that the
evidence on this last point is poor.
Gerber sums up his arguments in a chapter
which deals with the relationship between
government policy and economic change. One
may question whether he does not go too far in
his optimistic picture of Palestinian develop-
ment. His calculations of tax burden rest on
little evidence and relate only to land taxes. His
estimates of the economic effects of the
appropriation of taxes by local officials at the
beginning of the nineteenth century and by
government at the end have a discouraging
number of ' ifs' about them. Nevertheless, he
has good ground for his argument that
expenditures on security represented important
contributions to economic development, not to
mention those on education, agriculture, com-
munications and health. He concludes that the
Ottoman state did promote economic develop-
ment to a much greater extent than usually
supposed, although to a much lesser extent than
did contemporary European states. Even at the
end of his period, he claims, there was no real
state commitment to economic development in
the Ottoman Empire.
M. E. YAPP
Papers in honour of Professor Mary
Boyce. 2 vols. (Acta Iranica, 24, 25.
Deuxieme serie. Hommages et
Opera Minora, Vols. x, xi.) xxvi,
363 pp., 13 plates, front.; [viii],
364-745 pp., 25 plates. [Liege]:
Centre International d'Etudes
Indo-iraniennes, 1985. (Distributed
by E. J. Brill, Leiden.)
This two-volume Festschrift opens with a
biography of Professor Mary Boyce by
A. D. H. Bivar and J. R. Hinnells and an exten-
sive bibliography of her writings, compiled by
D. M. Johnson. To the list of books in press, a
Russian translation of Zoroastrians, due to
appear in Moscow this year, may now be added.
Some 50 scholars have contributed articles to
the present volumes. The broad spread of sub-
ject matter discussed clearly reflects the great
range of problems Professor Boyce has dealt
with in her works, and indeed, how much others
have been inspired by her substantial achieve-
ments in various fields of Iranian studies and
connected disciplines, especially Zoroastrian-
ism, Manichaeism, and Middle Iranian langu-
ages and literatures.
To take first the essential field of text publica-
tion, these volumes include editions with
translations and commentaries of various
Middle Iranian texts, fragments, inscriptions
and documents.
Ph. Gignoux publishes his decipherment of
more than a hundred Sasanian bullae from
Qasr-i Abu Nasr (Collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, previously edited
by R. N. Frye) in the form of a catalogue with
glossary (consisting mainly of masculine proper
names). Four editions of Pahlavi texts in tran-
scription are published by K. M. Jamasp-Asa
(' On the Dron in Zoroastrianism'), M. F.
Kanga (' Epistle I, chapter IX, of Manuscihr
Yudanyiman'), F. M. Kotwal (' An ancient
Irani ritual for tending the fire') and A. Wil-
liams (' A strange account of the world's origin:
Pahlavi Rivayat accompanying the Dadestan I
Denig, XLVI'). D. N. MacKenzie has edited
two important Sogdian Manichaean texts from
the Turfan collection. N. Sims-Williams
publishes a Manichaean Sogdian fragment in
Sogdian script (previously partly edited by
W. B. Henning) containing the Ten Command-
ments for Hearers, and also gives a useful
analysis of the two categories of Manichaean
Commandments. W. Sundermann attempts to
reconstruct the Pahlavi verse cycle, ' Gowisn T
gnw zlndag'.
Several articles deal with Sasanian inscrip-
tions. Kartir's inscription at Sar Mashad is
treated by P. Calmeyer and H. Gaube, and also
in one of the' Two Iranian notes by R. N. Frye.
P. O. Skjaerva discusses a number of thematic
and linguistic parallels between the
Achaemenian and Sasanian inscriptions going
back probably to ritual recitations or even to
the remains of royal chronicles.
Many contributors deal with problems of
Iranian etymology and more general aspects of
Iranian studies in the light of suggested
etymologies and comparisons. In the first article
of the collection under review, J. P. Asmussen
presents several examples of Judeo-Persian
translations of difficult words and passages
from the Hebrew Bible which show the
 REVIEWS
endeavours of medieval interpreters to grasp
precise meanings and bear witness to the textual
tradition.
H. W. Bailey offers a new etymology of the
much discussed name of the Zoroastrian Holy
Scriptures—' Apastak'. The first component he
derives from apa- in the sense ' separated, dis-
tinguished '; the second allows of various ori-
gins, but the base stau- ' to make solemn state-
ment' best suits the context and also finds
remarkable confirmation in the Pahlavi gloss to
Apastak—abezag stayisn ' pure solemn instruc-
tion'.
A. D. H. Bivar analyses the name of a class of
female beings designated as Av. pairikd and
Pers. pan and concludes that the legend of these
beings was influenced by Persian traditions con-
cerning the historical tribe of Parikanioi (who
lived to the east of Pars). I. Gershevitch pro-
poses a new etymology for the Persian phrase
fan u aurang < farnah uta abifarnangam.
H. Humbach examines gopatsdh, a most
important term for the historical and religious
tradition, incidentally correcting the reading of
some Pahlavi passages and showing that the
hypothesis of a Khwarezmian origin of
Zarathustra and the A vesta should be rejected.
J. R. Russell draws attention to two old Iranian
words probably borrowed by Armenian as
place-names.
A new interpretation of the famous passage
Yasna 48.10 (on the ' filth or urine of intoxica-
tion') is suggested by M. Schwartz. He reads
magahyd instead ofmadahyd and translates it as
'payment to karpans'. A. Tafazzoli finds
Middle Iranian equivalents for several classical
Persian words. An explanation of Khot. dsana-
and Toch. dsdm ' worthy' as loanwords from
some Iranian dialect is put forward by
D. Weber.
Quite a number of pages are given to the
highly controversial problem of Haoma (Ind.
Soma). In Vol. I R. E. Emmerick convincingly
proves that the original answer to the popular
German riddle, ' Ein Mannlein steht im
Walde...' (enlisted by R. G. Wasson among
the evidence for his hypothesis that Indo-
Iranian *sauma- was Amanita muscaria) was not
fly agaric but the rose hip. However, the identi-
fication of Haoma with Peganum harmala
(p. 478, n. 16), i.e. Pers. esfand, sipand,
hazdrispand, going back to Olr. spanta-
' sacred' (a derivation approved by W. B. Hen-
ning, v. ' A grain of mustard', AION-L, vi,
1965, 11) remains very doubtful. The use of
harmala is widely attested in Central Asia
among Iranian peoples, but mostly for fumiga-
tion, and Haoma was pounded, not burnt.
Unconvincing also to my mind is the identifica-
tion of Haoma/Soma by G. L. Windfuhr as the
ginseng plant (Panax ginseng, pp. 669-726).
This identification fits only the description of
the god Haoma, not that of the plant itself, nor
that of the drink prepared from it, whose deifi-
cation the god is. Attempts to find an equivalent
not for the plant producing the stimulant but
for its deification resembling a human figure
have already been made (for example,
mandrake—Mandragora Turcomanica, v. I. N.
Khlopin, Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica, 11,
1980, 223-31). But the effects are more import-
ant and the plant fitting fairly well as to its
effects remains Ephedra (cf. p. 719). It seems
377
that Ephedra was (and still is, although the
exact rules of treatment are lost) the haoma
plant of at least the ancient Iranians, as can be
proved beyond doubt by one purely linguistic
argument. The denominations of Ephedra in
various Iranian languages go back to Olr.
hauma- in full accordance with historical
phonology of each language, so that the com-
mon source and the reconstructed meaning at
the Old Iranian stage can only be hauma-
' Ephedra '; thus, Munji yumana < hauma(nd)-
(as in Munji yuya < hausa-, Pers. xosa ' ear of
corn'), Pashto (w)umtn < haumdina)- (Pashto
oma derived from hauma- by W. Geiger is in
fact' mango' and a loanword from Indo-Aryan
to OInd. dmra), Wakhi (y)imbik < haumd(ka)-,
Shughni, Roshani amojak < haumd(ka)-, Pers.,
Tajiki xoma, xiima, etc., all go back to hauma
and mean ' Ephedra' (cf. at length my notice in
Etimologija 1972, Moscow, 1974, 138-9). There
is no need for a new pretender to the role of
Iranian Haoma at least, especially one so exotic
and growing so far from Iranian countries as
ginseng.
Diverse problems of Iranian morphology are
discussed in the articles of A. V. Rossi and
E. Yarshater. The first is a commentary on
Mary Boyce's work on Middle Iranian relative
particles. In the second, a more widespread
gender distinction in Kashan dialects than that
reflected in the published materials is
demonstrated.
The purpose of the paper of J. Elfenbein is to
rehabilitate the corrupt texts of two Balochi
poems from ' popular poetry of the Baloches',
by M. Longworth Dames—the largest collec-
tion of Balochi classical poetry to date. A short
biography of Longworth Dames and notes on
grammar, metrics and rhyme are also given,
together with corrected texts and translations.
H. K. Mirza in his article points out poetic lines
in the Vllth Book of the Denkart. G. Lazard in
' La metrique de la poesie parthe' makes a
remarkable step towards understanding the
principles of Parthian metrics and their con-
nexion with classical Persian metres.
Classical Persian literature, the poetical
works of FirdausT, Hafiz, GurganI and others
served as a basis for the articles of
W. Skalmowski (on resemblances between the
ghazals of Hafiz and the sonnets of
Shakespeare), F. Vahman (on the image of
beauty in pre-Islamic and Classical poetry), and
the almost one-hundred-page treatise by O. M.
Davidson on Rustam entitled ' The crown-
bestower in the Iranian Book of Kings'
(pp. 61-148). In the latter some grandiose
theories are propagated, but the treatment of
some Old Iranian materials seems inauthentic.
Vanuhi Dditlh not mentioned in Yast 19 at all
and Airydnam vaejo is by no means equal to the
Greek province name Ariana (that is Ana,
OPers. Haraiva, both examples, at the foot of
p. 93). The identification of Haelumant = Hel-
mand with Vanuhi Dditi is very unlikely (p. 93).
Zardthushlhdma was composed A.D. 1278 (not
978, p. 118) and so on. The author does not
hestiate to declare Daqiql a devout Zoroastrian
(p. 107), which he surely was not, as A. Sh.
Shahba^i points out in the last of his six
' Iranian notes' (p. 505: ' Daqiqfs religion').
A number of these articles naturally deal with
the problems of religions, primarily Zoro-
378 REVIEWS
astrianism. Those of G. Gnoli, J. Hansman and
Sh. Shaked concern the ancient history of the
Zoroastrian faith and its relationship with other
religions and beliefs. The treatise of one of the
editors of the volumes under review, J. R. Hin-
nells, is a detailed and richly documented
account of Parsi charities during the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries (' The flowering of
Zoroastrian benevolence...', pp. 261-326).
U. Bianchi and S. N. C. Lieu in their articles
discuss the history of Manichaeism. M. Shaki
writes on Mazdak's cosmogonical and cosmo-
logical teachings and B. Utas draws parallels
between the Manichaean manisldndn and the
Muslim xdnaqdh. J. Duchesne-Guillemin traces
the story of the adoration of the Magi in
Western tradition and explains various
representations of the appearance before Jesus
of three Wise Men from the East in three
different forms. According to H. Sancisi-
Weerdenburg, Xenophon's version of the death
of Cyrus in the ' Cyropaedia ' when compared
with other sources can be traced back to oral
tradition.
Finally, three articles, concern Iranian art,
archaeology and architecture. P. O. Harper
considers the so-called ox-headed maces of Pre-
Islamic Iran surviving from the Iron Age.
M. Shokoohy offers a description with plans of
two mosques in Central Iran converted from
fire temples during the fifteenth century or
earlier. The article of D. Stronach gives a clear
view of the present state of studies on the
earliest stages of evolution of Iranian fire
temples.
I. STEBLIN-KAMENSK1J
ILYA GERSHEVITCH: Philologia Iranica:
selected and edited by Nicholas
Sims- Williams. (Beitrage zur
Iranistik, Bd. 12.) xv, 303 pp.,
front. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig
Reichert Verlag, 1985.
What can a scholar who is approaching the
once so venerable age of three score years and
ten wish for? Naturally, in purely academic
terms. Most likely it will be one of two things:
either an impressive Festschrift—where,
however, the danger is great that the con-
tributors will stray far and wide from his
favourite pastures; or else, and here this danger
is eliminated by definition, a collection of his
own minor works. Ilya Gershevitch, the
renowned Iranianist of Cambridge, is fortunate
in being paid homage of the second kind. His
pupil, Nicholas Sims-Williams, has taken upon
himself the task of selecting and editing a num-
ber of his master's studies, thus to mark the
completion of his seventh decade on 24 October
1984. The published works of Ilya Gershevitch
(listed on pp. xi-xv) comprise 84 items, namely,
four books—two his own, and two, i.e. the
Henning Memorial and the Studies I. M.
Diakonoff (co-)edited by him—58 articles and
22 reviews. Of these 25 have been chosen to
represent four principal fields in which I.G. has
worked so notably; for reasons of space, works
dealing with Iranian religion, history, and
onomastics have been omitted. Perhaps towards
the end of a further decade circumstances will
allow the publication of a second volume.
The papers now selected cover the period
1942 to 1972, but two later papers (of 1973 and
1977 respectively) have been, quite rightly,
included because of the inaccessibility of the
original publications. Apart from the correction
of a few misprints, the text has not been
changed, but the Addenda at pp. 278-81 bring
corrections and additions, which are indicated
by an asterisk in the margin of the text.
Sqgdian, which can truly be regarded as Ger-
shevitch's very own field, is represented by six
items. Four illustrate his expertise in dealing
with, and in particular reading texts; they con-
cern the Vessantara Jataka, the St. George
Passion, the Muy documents, and the Sutra of
Causes. The linguist comes into his own in the
paper on Sogdian compounds, which many
users of GMS have sorely missed in that price-
less book. Sogdian (and Ossetic) accent, dis-
tributive A:-suffixes, and a passage from the
second Naqs-i Rustam inscription (DNb 34-40)
form the subject matter of the last paper.
The Bactrian section presents in its three
specimens practically everything that is worth
knowing about the Surkh Kotal inscription(s).
The review of Humbach's booklet deals with
that author's infelicitous idea that the text is a
Mithraic document. The review of Gobi's slim
volume shows up the shortcomings of a purely
formal epigraphic study. The third paper gives a
masterly survey of all that can be stated with
confidence of the Bactrian inscriptions and
manuscripts; cf. now also Gershevitch's con-
tribution to The Cambridge history of Iran,
Vol. in, Part 2, 1983, 1256-8.
In the Ossetic section three items deal with a
considerable number of lexical problems while
the fourth briefly reviews the unexpected dis-
covery of an Iranian word-list which was prob-
ably jotted down in the Hungarian village Csev
between Esztergom and Budapest on the back
of a document dated 1422. As was recognized
by the first editor, the Hungarian Turkologist
Julius Nemeth, the 41 words of the list represent
the language of the Yas (Hung. Jasz, Russian
Jasy), a branch of the Alans, forebears of the
Ossetes, who probably migrated to Hungary in
company with the Kumans. Their first wave,
fleeing before the Mongolian invaders from the
East, possibly arrived as early as 1239; the
Mongolians devastated Hungary in 1241. Ger-
shevitch agrees with Nemeth that the dialect
mostly agrees with Digoron, i.e. West Ossetic.
Western Iranian studies, at roughly 130 pages
the most voluminous section of the book, are
represented by a dozen papers. Among them are
such welcome pieces as that unforgettable gem
on the OP tree name yakd which, as I. G.
showed, survives in modern Baskardi as jag,
and denotes the botanist's Dalbergia Sissoo, the
sissoo tree; or the extraction of a number of OP
lexemes from the Elamite tablets of the Per-
sepolis Treasury published by Cameron in 1948;
or the important paper on ' Dialect variation in
Early Persian ', under which innocuous title the
fascinating and vexatious problem of Medic
elements in Achaemenid (and later) Persian is
investigated in great detail. The results of this
lengthy and complex disquisition are summed
up by the author as follows (p. 221):