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PAHLAVI PSALTER, name given to a fragment, consisting of
twelve pages written on both sides, of a Mid. Pers. translation of the
Syriac Psalter. It was discovered, with a mass of other documents, at
Bulayiq (q.v.), near Turfan, in eastern Turkistan (present-day Xinjiang Uigur
Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China) by one of the four
German expeditions to Central Asia (see TURFAN). The twelve pages (11 x
9.6 cm), many of which are deteriorated in the center and have gaps,
contain psalms 94.18 to the end, 95.2-7, 95.7 to 96.10, 97.12 to 99.6,
118. 124-142, 121.4 to 132.2, 133.2 to 134.2, 134.9-11, 134.11 to
135.9, 135.9 to 136.3. This fragment is the oldest linguistic testimony
of Pahlavi literature, the manuscript probably having been written in
the 6th or 7th century C.E. It is in a more archaic script than that of
Book Pahlavi (see below), and several characters have been borrowed
from the Psalter script to devise the Avestan signs for γ, j, and d (Comp. Linguarum Iranicarum, pp. 32-33).
In his brief preliminary presentation (1910), F. C. Andreas
dated the somewhat archaic writing of the Pahlavi Psalter to the first
quarter of the 5th century (410-20). In this period of religious
tolerance, during the reign of Yazdagerd I (q.v.), Nestorian Christian
communities flourished, and translations appeared for the use of
converted Mazdeans. Andreas pointed out the importance of the Psalter
translation for the history of the Syriac text of the Pešittā; but he also held that the insertion of the ecclesiastical Canons of Mar Abā (patriarch, 540-552) marked a terminus post quem for the definitive compilation of the present manuscript. He died before publishing his edition of the Psalter. From his Nachlass
(see ANDREAS ii), K. Barr (1933) proceeded to complete it. He checked
Andreas’s transliteration with the photographs and provided a Syriac
interlinear text in Hebrew characters; this was based on Barnes’s
edition, and the Canons were taken from the Breviarium Chaldaicum
(1887). The bilingual text is accompanied by a German translation. The
glossary (pp. 117-50) contains all the words and all their forms,
including the verbs with their phonetic complements.
Andreas thought that the translator may have been a non-Persian who had to use a Frahang.
Likewise Gignoux (1969) noticed the use in the text of many a hapax in
Iranian, as well as calques on Syriac, words which could hardly be
considered as Aramaic ideograms. These may testify to perplexities on
the translator’s part, indicating that he was more expert in Syriac
than in Iranian and hence might have been one of the Nestorian
missionaries whose mother tongue was not Iranian. However, Skjærvø
(1983) argued that the perfectly correct language of the Pahlavi
Psalter indicates that its translator was so familiar with Middle
Persian that it had to be his mother tongue. He showed that the Psalter
was written as early as the 4th century, because it follows the same
orthographic and grammatical rules which apply to the Sasanian
inscriptions of the 3rd century. In both sources the distinction
between the direct and oblique cases is well attested in family names,
personal pronouns, plural nouns and adjectives, and plural pronouns.
The only important difference between the inscriptions and the Psalter
is the spelling of phonetic complements with the verbal ideograms.
There is no coherent system in the inscriptions—a consequence of the
archaizing script; the Psalter, however, shows a regular system with
few variants. Even so, this feature does not lead one to suppose a
considerable lapse of time after the inscriptions. It appears, then,
the text of the Psalter was recopied several times in the course of a
period of 300 years.
Since the publication of Andreas-Barr (1933), only few
philological studies have been devoted to the Pahlavi Psalter.
MacKenzie (1966) used it to explain the ideograms for “sheep” and for
the verb nimūdan “to show” (ideogram MḤWḤYT, Syr. ḥawwī). More recently, Sims-Williams (2001) pointed out that the meaning of MP padisāy had been clearly established on the basis of the Psalter, where this preposition translates the Syr. mṭl.
The alphabet of the Psalter contains a greater number
of distinct characters than does Book Pahlavi (i.e., 18, compared with
13). Thus d is different from g and from y;
ḥ is different from ʾ; w is different from n
; and ṣ has a special shape. Recently, this same type of writing has
been found on a bronze processional cross inscribed in Pahlavi on both
sides (Gignoux, 2001). While in this instance the d and k
have special shapes, ḥ
and ṣ
are exactly the same as the corresponding signs in the Psalter.
There is no doubt that we have here another, eloquent example of this
type of writing, which enables us to date this remarkable object to ca.
8th century, hardly later. The upper branch of the cross is
unfortunately missing, making it difficult to interpret the text, which
contains several words that have not yet been successfully analyzed.
But the main interest of the text resides in its Oriental origin. On
the front side of the cross is mentioned a certain Mārē from the church
of Herāt, who in the year 507 or 517 (of a non-specified era) entrusted
the community, which was no doubt Nestorian (though this is not
stated), to a saint with a Syriac name of Greco-Latin origin, Karisisē.
The back of the object presents a theological formula (an affirmation
that there are not three gods) and a wish for prosperity for this
church. Certain Pahlavi words relate this text to that of the Psalter,
for example ram “flock, people,” which translates the Syr. ʾmʾ in the Psalter, and Mid. Pers, pāk “pure, saintly,” which corresponds to Syr. qdyšʾ. The formula concerning the three gods also shows a curious correspondence with a passage of the Actes of Mār Mārī
(Gignoux, p. 297). This remarkable document constitutes a considerable
source for the very poorly documented Christian history of Herāt.
Bibliography : F. C. Andreas, “Bruchstücke einer Pehlevi-Übersetzung der Psalmen aus der Sassanidenzeit,” Sb. d. Berliner Akad. d. Wissenschaften 1910, pp. 869-72. F. C. Andreas and Kaj Barr, “Bruchstücke einer Pehlevi-Übersetzung der Psalmen, mit 11 Tafeln,” Sb. d. Preussischen Akad. d. Wissenschaften 1933, pp. 91-152. J. P. Asmussen, “The Pahlavi psalm 122 in English,” Dr. Unvala Memorial Volume, Bombay, 1964, pp. 123-26. Barnes, The Peshitta Psalter according to the West Syrian Text , Cambridge, 1904. Breviarium Chaldaicum, Pt. 3, Paris, 1887. Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, ed. by R. Schmitt, Wiesbaden, 1989. P. P. Essabalian, “Armenisch-persische Lehnwörter im Pahlavi-Psalter,” Handes Amsorya 56, 1942, pp. 61-69. R. N. Frye, “A Brief Note on the Pahlavi Psalter and Bare Ideogramms,” Sir J. J. Zarthoshti Madressa Centenary Volume, Bombay, 1967, pp. 70-74. Ph. Gignoux, “L’auteur de la version pehlevie du psautier serait-il nestorien?” Mémorial Mgr Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis (1898-1968), Louvain, 1969, pp. 233-44. Idem, “Une croix de procession de Hérat inscrite en pehlevi,” Le Muséon 114, fasc. 3-4, 2001, pp. 291-304. Idem, “Prozessionskreuz aus Herat,” Byzanz. Das Licht aus dem Osten (Katalog der Ausstellung im Erzbischöflichen Diözesanmuseum Paderborn), Paderborn, 2001, pp. 150-51. O. Hansen, Mittelpersisches Lesebuch, Berlin, 1963, pp. 94-95. W. Lentz, “Die nordiranischen Elemente in der neu-persischen Literatursprache bei Firdosi,” ZII 4, 1926, pp. 251-316. D. N. MacKenzie, “ ‘Sheep’ and ‘show’: Two Pahlavi Ideograms,” Acta Orientalia 30, 1966, pp. 151-57. Nyberg, Manual I p. 128. N. Sims-Williams, “Middle Persian padisāy and Old Persian vašnā,” in Tafazzoli Memorial Volume,
ed. ʿAli Ašraf Ṣādeqi, Tehran, 2001, pp. 59-65. P. O. Skjærvø, “Case
in Inscriptional Middle Persian, Inscriptional Parthian and the Pahlavi
Psalter,” Studia Iranica 12, 1983, pp. 47-62 and 151-81.
(Philippe Gignoux)
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