AVESTAN MAZDA6y

F. B. J. KUIPER

Leiden

1. The use of the adjective mazda- as an epithet of God in the Avesta (resp. as part of the name of the highest God in Old Persian) has given rise to some theories concerning the development of religious concepts in Iran. Sten Konow equated it to the Vedic abstract noun rnedhd"wisdom" (which had already been envisaged as a possibility by Jackson, Grundr. iran. Phil., II, 632), and suggested that Zarathustra, on the lines of his divinizing such abstract concepts as "proper thought", "good mind", had proclaimed "wisdom" as the highest principle, the proper meaning of ahur6 rnazd~ being " L o r d Wisdom"? In Konow's opinion,. accordingly, the Old Iranian ending -6h of the nominative singular must be secondary for older -~ (p. 220). It may be noted in passing that Konow's theory disregarded an observation made many years earlier by B. Geiger, who in his important work Die Amdga Spantas, p. 213, concluded from the parallelism between 6surah. pr6cet6.h (vidvdved~.h, etc.) in the Rigveda and Ahurg mazdh in the Avesta that the concept of the "Wise Lord" has belonged already to the religion of the common Indo-Iranian period. Kaj Barr further developed Konow's theory in Ost og Vest (Copenhagen, 1945), p. 136, whereas Duchesne-Guillemin, Zoroastre, p. 293, objected that the Old Persian genitive (-)mazdaha in his opinion proved that a nominative in -6h must have existed already in the oldest (pre-Zoroastrian) stage of Old Iranian. Seeing that such far-reaching theories as to the origin and development of the Iranian religious concept of the Highest God have been based on a single word, there is some reason to consider this more closely from a linguistic point of view. 1 Sten Konow, "Medha and Mazda", Jha Commemoration Volume (Poona, 1937; article written in 1932-33), pp. 217-222, esp. p. 221. This view differed from that held by Maria Wilkins Smith, Studies in the Syntax of the Gathas of Zarathushtra (Philadelphia, 1929), pp. 26 f., 44 f., who distinguished between an adjective mazdg~h- "wise'" and a noun mazdah- "'wisdom", the former of which she held to represent the original word.

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2.

There can be no doubt as to the stem of mazdd- being in -a-. A stem mazdah-, posited by Bartholomae has not, indeed, the slightest support

of evidence. It owes its origin to a long-forgotten theory. In 1871 Aurel. Mayr had shown in a brilliant study published in the Sitzungsberichte der kais. Akademie der Wissensch. zu Wien, vol. 68, pp. 751-780, that the genitive-ablative mazdh, the dative mazdai, and the accusative mazdqm are prosodically trisyllabic in the Ghthgs, whereas the nominative mazdh and the vocative mazda are disyllables (op. eit., p. 774). For the genitive and the dative this statement was confirmed by some passages in the later Avesta (see Geldner, ~)ber die Metrik des jiingeren Avesta (1877), pp. 9 f.). When Bartholomae in 1879 published his critical edition of the G~th~s he accordingly read ~- *mazd~tjham for mazdqm (28.3b, 29.5b, 30.5c, 45.8d), *mazclhJjh~ for mazdai (28.5b 3, 31.1c, 6c, 33.14b), and *mazdhtjhd for mazda, mazdhs(?a) (28.4b, 30.I0c, 32.1b, 4c, 33.2c, 51.19c, '~53.2b, 3c). In one passage he even assumed a trisyllabic form for the nominative. ~ Bartholomae's chief reason for adopting these emendations was no doubt the existence of a genitive (-)mazdaha in Old Persian. Besides, Roth and Grassmann recorded a Rigvedic adjective sumedhas-, which led some scholars to equate Av. mazdah- (sic!) with Ved. medhas- (Jackson, Grundr. h'an. Phil., I[, 632). In later publications Bartholomae abandoned this idea (as well as other bold theories of his early studies), but continued nevertheless to quote the stem as mazdah-. The Avestan case-forms mazd~, mazdai, and mazdqm he now explained as secondary formations due to the analogy of root-nouns in -a-; cf. Grundr. iran. Phil., I, paras 382 fin., 414, Altiran. Warterb., 1162 f.G As usual in Bartholomae's later scientific work, this explanation totally disregarded the prosodical facts. In this respect, one feels, the hazardous theories of his juvenile studies were superior to the resignation of his later publications. 3. Other scholars, however, while accepting without further inquiry the stem mazdah- in spite of its obviously weak foundations, made new efforts to account for the trisyllabic character of most of its case-forms.
2 Die Gd~d's unddie heiligen GebetedesaltiranischenVolkes(1879),pp. 7,8,97, 171. 3 But savigtai srao~am mazd6i is probably a mistake for [savigtahya sratdam mazda'ah], see Lommel, Festschr. Andreas (1916), pp. 105 f. Cf. Yt. 10, 89 (Similarly Lesn3~, Festschr. Winternitz (1933), p. 14). See, however, Lommel, Gb'tt. Nachr., 1935, p. 160. In Y. 51.20c should be read (against Bartholomae, 1879, p. 62): [yazamndhah namahd mazddh raf& ram (agdah], cf. Andreas-Wackernagel, GOtt. Nachr., 1931, p. 310. Similarly, e.g., Reichelt, Awest. Elementarb., p. 474; Meillet-Benveniste, Grammah'e du vieux-perse, p. 162; Kent, OMPersian Grammar, pp. 64, 165.

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Andreas' theory about the graphical tradition of the Avesta, and Lommel's subsequent discovery of traces of graphical confusion of h and a in the vulgate text, opened a prospect of explaining the Gfithic forms as graphical errors. Thus Meillet, J. As. (1920), p. 198, proposed to read the G~thic genitive mazclh as [mazdahah], and Lolnmel, who in 1916 (Festschrift Andreas, pp. 105, 106) still followed Andreas (e.g. G6tt. Nachr. (1909), p. 47) in writing muzd6 for it, later also declared [mazddho] to be the genuine G~thic form meant by the reading mazdh of the MSS. ; see W6rter und Sachen, N.F. 4 (1939), pp. 238, 240, 247. The explicit graphical explanation of the inftexion of mazddh-- was given by Tedesco, ZII, 2 (1923), pp. 50-53 (but cf. Tavadia, Indo-h'. Studies, II (1952), p. 10). 4. These explanations, however, disregarded the simple fact that the whole evidence of Avestan points unanimously to a stem mazda-; cf. especially the vocative mazda and the compound mazda-vara- Y. 37.3. (To some extent, therefore, Morgenstierne was right in taking mazdOi to represent phonetically mazdOi, but phonologically mazdaai, cf. NTS., 12 (1942), p. 76.) As for Ved. sumedhdsam X, 65.10c and the voc. plur. sumedhasah. X. 62.1d-4d, they are clearly new formations created to the nom. sing. sumedhd.h on the analogy of, e.g., sumdna.h: sum6nasam (Wackernagel-Debrunner, Altind. Gramm., III, pp. 284 f.). If similar analogical forms had existed in the Gfithic dialect, the genitive would certainly have been written *mazda~h6 (like, e.g., humana~h6, gen. of human~). As for the graphical confusion between h and ~ in the Avestan text tradition, it has given rise to incidental misreadings only (e.g. agdi for agahya) but not to consistent errors. The existence of a stem mazdahwas therefore rightly refuted by Holger Pedersen, La cinquibme d~clinaison latine (Copenhagen, 1926), p. 72, Konow, Jha Commemoration Volume, p. 219, and Pisani, Riv. Stud. Or., 19 (1940), p. 81 (who also refers to CoUitz, BB, 7, p. 180). They all assume a stem mazda-, which was also given already by Kanga, A practical Grammar of the Avesta Language (Bombay, 1891), p. 75. 5. The stem mazda-, however, does not account for the trisyllabic forms of the Ghthic dialect. The G~thic words with a disyllabic ~ mostly belong to special morphological classes, e.g. yah-, which must be read as [yaah-] in yO~h6Y. 30.2c, ydh~46.14c, 49.9d. r Whatever its exact meaning may be, 8
7 But el. Gershevitch, JRAS, 1952, p. 178. 8 Cf. Schaeder, ZD3~rG., 94 (1940), p. 403 n. 2; Humbach, Miinch. Stud. Spraehw., 2, pp. 13 f., 17.

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it is no doubt an -ah-derivative of the root ya-. Similarly hud~oh6 and du~.d~h6, e.g., in Y. 30.3c ~s(~ h u d ~ h 6 ara~ vi~y~t~ ngi! du~_d~ljh6 [ayas 6a hudaahah !'g vi Eyata, nait du-~daahah] are compounds of a noun [daah-], which is a similar derivative of the root da- 9 as manah- is of man-. While these cases, and their Vedic parallels bhds-, bhdsvant-, ddsvant-, ~~ concern the word-formation, others show the same phenomenon in inflectional endings, e.g.L. Av. pantqm [pantaam], Ved. p6ntham. It is a well-known fact that two theories have been advanced to explain these "vowels with disyllabic value", a~ According to the older view they reflect an " a b n o r m a l intonation" (Sehleifton) of proto-Indo-European, traces of which are also found in final syllables of Greek, Germanic, and Balto-Slavonic? ~ The curious restriction of this Schleifton to final syllables in the other branches of I.E. x3 might be attributed to the particular development of their phonological systems. Yet the theory of extralong ("trimoric") vowels failed to explain satisfactorily the Vedic (and Avestan) evidence, which, as Oldenberg (Prolegomena, pp. I80-184) emphasized, allows no other conclusion but that ~ was really pronounced as ~6. On the other hand, this double vowel was perfectly explained by the second ("laryngeal") theory, which by referring, e.g, Av. d8- Ved. da-) to proto-I.E. *dell- made it possible to account for [daah-] as reflecting a still uncontracted P.I.E. *dkH-es-? ~ Since, however, this theory did not apparently apply to such cases as the ending of the genitive plural -am (Greek -~v, Lith. -zT), it had the disadvantage of not covering the total mass of facts (as the older theory claimed to do). 6. The laryngeal theory (if we may comprise under this general term the rather divergent attempts at an elaboration of what essentially is still a theory in statu nascendi) has not met with general acceptance. This makes it necessary for us briefly to resume the main facts upon which the assumption of a consonantal laryngeal for proto-Indo-Iranian is based. Some distinguished scholars, indeed, though not rejecting the laryngeal theory in itself, think that the laryngeals may at best have 9 It is not necessary for our purpose to enter on a discussion of these words. 10 Oldenberg, Die Hymnen des Rigveda, I (Prolegomena),pp. 172 f., Noten ad VII. I. 28, 23. 11, X. 37. 8, etc. n Oldenberg, Prolegomena, pp. 163 ft.: "Vocale mit zweisylbiger Geltung". z2 Cf. e.g., Brugmann, Grundriss der vergL Gramm. der idg. Sprachen, 1-~,p. 948; Streitberg, Urgerman. Grammatik, p. 159 f. 13 Cf., e.g., A. Campbell, Trans. PhiloL Soc. (1936), pp. I1, 13, 37. 14 See Kurytowicz, Prace Filologiczne, 11 (1927), p. 221, etc.; Rocznik Otjentalistyczny, 4 (1926-28), p. 200; Etudes indo-europ~enes, I, p. 35, 42.

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belonged to an early stage of the proto-I.E, phonemic system, which would exclude the possibility that they can explain any particular detail in the historical languages. This view is obviously incompatible with that expressed by Holger Pedersen, according to which numerous historically attested facts in the various I.E. languages cannot be traced back to an identical prehistoric formula unless one assumes the laryngeals to have continued unchanged far into the period in which the separate tongues developed. 15 The choice between such fundamentally opposed views cannot be determined by any a priori reasoning but only by concrete observations. As far as Indo-Iranian is concerned, these seem to point to the following conclusions: the existence of a consonantal laryngeal in proto-Indoh'anian seems warranted by 1) the development of the aspirate surds as a new class of phonemes (with the restrictions mentioned in India Antiqua, p. 202, Lingua, 5, p. 320 n. 1); 2) the absence of lengthening of a in syllables which must originally have been closed owing to a following laryngeal (e.g., ist pers. cakdra < *k"elc"or/He against the 3d pers. cakdra < *k"ek"o/re); 3) the disappearance of a sound in cases where vowel elision is excluded (e.g., Av. draonah-,fo&- against Ved. drdvin,as-, pitr-, etc.)2 ~ That a consonantal laryngeal still existed in the separate hTdian branch may be inferred from the phenomenon of laryngeal umlaut in Sanskrit, 17 whereas the shortening in pausa of -& -?, -~7 in the Rigveda would seem to allow no other conclusion but that in certain sandhi positions the consonantal laryngeal had continued to be spoken till (or till shortly before) the historical Vedic period. ~s For these reasons it seems unjustified, as far as the Vedic language is concerned~ to look upon the assumption of a laryngeal consonant as a nebulous theory. The same is true of the archaic Ghthic dialect, which differs essentially from the Rigvedic idiom in that it apparently represents the language of one man, whereas the Vedic hymns belong to widely different ages.
1.~ H. Pedersen, Hittitisch und die anderen indoeuropiiischen Sprachen (Copenhagen, 1938), pp. 179, 185. 16 For the Indo-Iranian evidence see the resum6 "Traces of karyngeals in Vedic Sanskrit", India Antiqua (Leyden, 1947), pp. 198 IT. (with detailed references), and for the last point especially Notes on Vedic Noun-Ii~exion, pp. 24 ft. (Mededeelingen NederL Akad. Wetenseh., N. R., 5, 1942, pp. t84 ft.). A useful account of the laryngeal theory generally will be found in W. P. Lehmann's Proto-Indo-European Phonology (Austin 1952), pp. 30ft. See further L. Zgusta, Archly Orientdlni, 19 (1951), pp. 428-472. a7 See Acta Orientalia, 19 (1946), p. 29 ft. as See Shortening of final Vowels in the Rigreda (Mededelingen tier Kon. NederL Akademie v. Wetensch., Afd. Letterk., N.R. 18, pp. 253 ft.). Note especially the gerunds in -yd, -tyd, where the shortening of final -d must be due to the operation of the law of shortening in the popular speech of the Rigvedic period (p. 262).

AVESTAN MAZD.~.-

9]

While the inconsistencies in the disyllabic pronunciation of a in the Rigveda show it to be a mere archaism of the hieratic language, the G~thic prosody points consistently to a hiatus in all the eases where two identical vowels may be supposed to have been originally separated by a laryngeal. As far as I can see, indeed, nothing would prevent us from assuming that Zarathustra still pronounced some laryngeal sound in these positions? 9 We shall here transcribe such double vowels with hiatus as [a'a], etc. 7. In 4 out of its 31 Rigvedic occurrences the accusative singular pantham must be read as [pdnthaam]. 2~ In two of the oldest Yagts the metre also points to a trisyllabic pronunciation [pantaam], ~ which is indirectly confirmed by the G~thic [paOa'am] 31.9b (with the weak stem paO- substituted for pant-, Meillet, J. As., 1917, II, p. 188). The inflexion of this word has been elucidated by Holger Pedersen, KZ, 32 (1891), p. 269, La cinquibme d~clinaison latine (1926), pp. 54, 64 n. I (cf. also Wackernagel, KZ, 55 (1928), 108, Kurytowicz, Etudes indoeuropkennes, I, p. 47, Konow, Jha Commemoration Volume, p. 220). It represents an antique type of inflexion (still extant in Eat. vat~-s, gen. vat-is) and continues proto-I.E. *p6nteH-s, gem *pnotH-6s. 2~ The trisyUabic character of the accusative singular in the Veda and the Avesta shows that *p6nteH-m must have become *pantaH-am in proto-Indo-Iranian, with regular -am from *-t!~ after the consonantal H (although this H mav here be due to a specific Indo-Iranian innovation). Similarly the nora. plur. ':"p6nteH-es became Ved. [panthaah] (with analogical th from the weak cases) in sugd !'t6sya pdnthaO VIII. 31.13c. The comparatively rare occurrence of disyllabic a in the Veda proves that it was already an archaism. In the normal speech of the Rigvedic period aa had been contracted to 6, which caused the nora. plur. panthaO to fall together with the nora. sing. An indirect indication of it is the new formation panthasa].~ I. 100.3b (and from the Ath. S. downwards panthanaO, see Wackernagel, l.c., 105, 107 = Kleine Schriften, I, pp. 332, 334). An analogous explanation applies to the oblique cases of mazda-.

19 mazddsaa ahura'~h6 [mazdas 6a ahur#hah] 30.9b, 31.4a means "Mazda und die Herren" (as Justi already translated it in Handbuch der Zendspraehe, 1864, p. 223). z0 I. 27. 6 bis, V. 10. ld, VIII. 68. 13b (Kuhn, Grassmann, see Oldenberg, Prolegomena, p. 187, Noten ad VIII. 68. 13). 21 Yt. 8. 7, 10. 86, see Geldner, L?berdie Metrik desjiingeren Avesta, p. 17. ~ Since Ved. pathibhih corresponds to Ghthic padabig 51.16b it cannot represent IE. i (Meillet, Indian Studies in honor of Charles Rockwell Lanman. Cambridge Mass., 1929, pp. 3-6; Benveniste, Origines de Information des noms ell i.e., I, p. 62).

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This represents an antique nomen agent& *n~z-dhdHl-, ~3 which bears the same relation to the abstract noun Ved. medhd- "wisdom" as G~thic zraz-da- "faithful" does to Ved. grad-dhd- "faith". Both types of nouns were originally inflected as root nouns (cf. Wackernagel-Debrunner, Altind. Gramm., II, 2, p. 35 f. ; III, p. 127 f.). As such they showed the same opposition of strong and weak stems as, e.g., Lat. vat~-s, gen. vat-is and Ved. pdntha-t3, gen. path-all.7. The old dative of ~raddhd- is still preserved in graddh-~ (abhicfk.se draddh~ kam I. 102.2d), and the corresponding adjective occurs both in draddhd it VII. 32.14c (for Jraddhd.h "der Gl~iubige", Oldenberg, Wackernagel-Debrunner III, 128) and, as a nominative plural, in Y.31. lc at_~ita~iby6 vahi~ta j,ai zrazd~ aljhan mazd~i, which must evidently be read [at ~it aibyah vahigt6 yai zrazdd'ah ahan mazdd'ai] "but the best (words) for those who are faithful to the Wise One". 8. This allows us to reconstruct the original inflexion of mazda- as follows: P.I.E. Avestan nora. *mnz-dh ~Hl-s [mazd~h] acc. *rn~oz z-dhd Hl-m [mazdaCam] gen. *mn~z-dhH1-6s [*mazd-ah] dat. *mnz-dh Hl-ki [*mazd-ai] As for the accusative, the general tendency in Indo-Iranian to generalize the long a of the nominative in all the strong cases (except in a few words, such as sumdnasam, vrtrahdn.am, pitaram) makes it possible that the accusative had become [*mazdaCam]. This original type of inflexion, which is still faithfully preserved in L. Av. [pantdh, pantaam, pa~ah], instr, plur. [padbig] and in G~thic maze, mazai (genitive and dative of mazd-), has been abandoned in the weak cases of mazda-. The trisyllabic forms mazdh (gen.) and mazdai (dat.) cannot represent anything else than [mazddCah] and [mazdgi'ai]. As in some other words (to be discussed in w 9), the stem of the accusative has accordingly been extended to the weak cases, on the analogy of such root words as, e.g., sar- (acc. sardm, gen. sara, dat. sarai). In Later Avestan these forms were regularly contracted to [mazdah], [mazdai]; their incidental pronunciation as trisyllables (Geldner, Metrik, pp. 9 f.) must obviously be regarded as an archaism. In passing it may be noted that the gen. sing. mazdh [mazdd'ah] ~3 Cf. *mens-dheHx- in Av. mqz-dd- "to be mindful", Ved. mandhat~.-(from *mansdhat.~-) "devout man" (see Wackernagel-Debrunner, Altind. Gramm., II, 1, pp. 54 IT., II, 2, p. 37). The ratio of the ablaut *mns-: *mens- (from the noun *m~n-es-?)is not quite dear.

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and the nora. plur. zrazd~ [zrazd~'ah] indirectly preserve the true endings -ah, for which the Vulgate text mostly reads -6. As a result of the contraction [mazd~'ah] > [mazdah] the genitive, which in the G~thic dialect was clearly distinct from the nominative [mazdah], became formally identical with it both in Later Avestan and in Old Persian. While in the liturgical language of the Avesta the old form, sanctioned by sacred tradition, was maintained, it was again differentiated from the nominative in the living speech of Old Persian by the addition of a fresh genitive suffix -ah (mazdah-a). This correct interpretation of the Old Persian form as the result of an accumulation of endings we owe to Pisani, Riv. Stud. Or., 19 (1940), p. 82. Kent, who stigmatized it as "very improbable" (Grammar of Old Persian, p. 64 n. 3), failed to understand the problem owing to his total neglect of the Avestan evidence. 9. Whereas this analysis leads us to reject the theory of mazda- having been an abstract noun in origin, it confronts us with the general problem of Zarathustra's poetical idiom. Little has been written about it from a linguistic point of view except for the fundamental study by Meillet, J.A., 1917, II, pp. 183-195. Generally it may be stated that this idiom, though mainly based on a single dialect, was a Kunstsprache inasmuch as it made use of dialectally different forms. This is most clearly illustrated by the use ofpiOr~ 44.7c besidefa~r6i 53.4a. Since the G~thic dialect has generalized the weak stem ptar- (ptara-, faOr-), e.g., nominative [pt6] 44.3b, accusative [ptaram] 31.8b, the form pi~r~ must have been taken from a different dialect, which had inversely generalized the stem pitarof the strong cases. ~ It is tempting to explain in the same way the anomalous neuter plural forms vara?ah~32.14b, afgman~46.17a (beside anaf~mqm in b!), and saxVOnf53.5a, as there are no indications to show that the ending with -i has been a sandhi variant in Zarathustra's idiom. However, incidental forms with -i are also met with in the later dialect. .Apart from these few traces of dialectal variation, however, the Ghth~s reflect a homogeneous dialect which, in spite of its very antique character, shows a much stronger tendency towards simplification of the nouninflexion than is found in Later Avestan. Cf., besides G~thic ptar-/faOr(as against L. Av. pitar-/fa6r-), the genitive forms xratOuL pas~uY (new formations for xraSw6, pasv6, which are still extant in Later Avestan), 25 and G~thic v?sph~jhO, vTspanqm, dative sing. vTspai as against L. Av.
~ See Notes on Vedie Nolm-Inflexion, pp. 21 f. Cf. [tan6m] 33.10 c: [tarot'am] 46.8 d. -~ See Meillet, ar. A., 1917, II, pp. 187 ft., and m y Notes on Vedic Noun-Inflexion, pp. 44, 51 f.

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vispe, vt-spae-s'qm, vfspamdi Yt. 10.5 etc. ~6 (The Vedic forms krdtva.h, pa~vdl.7, vi~ve, vtJve.sarn, vigvasmai correspond to those of the later dialect). The G~thic accusative singular [paaa~am] has been explained as a new formation (based on the stem of the weak cases) for [panta'am], which again survives in Later Avestan (see above p. 91). In some cases the older inflexion has been simplified by the extension of a strong stem (mostly, of course, that of the accusative singular) to the weak cases. A clear instance is the genitive singular marat6n6 30.6c (also accusative plural in 32.12a), for which the later Avesta still uses maraOn6 (Y. 23.2, etc.): [martan-] was a common word in Old Iranian for "(primeval) m a n " and the generalization of the stem [martdn-] of the accusative is evidently an innovation of the Ggthic dialect alone, z7 Less clear is the accusative plural asOn6 [asanah] "heavens" 30.5b as against the genitive singular agn6 Yt. 13.42, 86 ( = Ved. d~na.h). The weak stem of asman- may be expected to be either a~n- (from *asmn-) or asman- (with a representing a reduced vowel grade). Although the analogical stem asan- must be rather old (cf. Ved. a~dni-, f. "thunderbolt"), its use in the accusative plural is likely to be due to an innovation of the Gathic dialect. The later dialect uses the nominative plural asdn6 for the accusative. Among the designations of priests in -an- (which may be comparatively recent formations) mq~ran- deserves notice, because the G~thic idiom substitutes mqOr~n6, mq~rdn~ for *mantaran6, *mantaranY, whereas the later dialect preserves karqlh- as the weak stem of karapan-. Fully parallel to the normalized paradigm of mazda- is the inftexion of add- "accounting". The metre requires trisyllabic forms in sp9nigtd mainyf~ mazdd vaohuyd zav6 ~dd [spani~tft many~, mazda, vahuvi'd zavah dd~'d] 33.12b "As (?) the most beneficent spirit, O Wise One, (grant me) strength through (?) the good accounting", and in sraotd.m6i maras mOi dddi kahyd(?! paitf 33.1 lc "hear me, pity me, at the accounting to each". Since addi must be a locative (as in dhf~ at_ paiti 6dahft 40.1 "at these accountings"), we must probably read [add'i], which presupposes

56 See Meillet, J. A., 1917, II, p. 190; Wackernagel-Debrunner, Altind. Gr., 11I, p. 581 ; and for vispam~iTedesco, ZI1, 2, p. 42. 27 The context of 30.6 leaves no doubt as to maratanO being a genitive sing. (For the interpretation of this passage see, e.g., Schaeder in Reitzenstein-Schaeder, Studien zum antiken Synkretismus aus Iran trod Grieehenland (1926), p. 213, n. 2.) The grammatical objections which must have induced Andreas, G6tt. Nachr., 1909, p. 48 (like Humbach, Miineh. Stud. Sprachw., 2, p. 9) to take it as a nominative plural disregard the dialectal peculiarities of the G~thie idiom.

AVESTAN MAZD,~-

95

an accusative *[Odd'am] with analogical d. 2s On the other hand, in va~utff ddO gaidi rnai, O.mai "i'rapd 49.1c "As (?) the good accounting come to me (and) give me support", where the prosody demands a disyllabic form, all the modern translators (Bartholomae, M. W. Smith, Andreas-Lommel, Duchesne-Guillemin) take OdD as an instrumental singular (cf. Bartholomae, BB. 17, p. 347 n.). Since older forms sometimes occur in the G~thic dialect alongside of new formations (e.g., mraot: mravat, d~bdvaya_t: ddbayeitf, Meillet, J.A., 1917, II, p. 191), the existence of ddd (fi'om *6-dH-O, cf. Ved. pratidh-d, Bartholomae, Grulldr. h'an. Phil., Ia, p. 123) beside [dd#'6} is in itself possible. However, an instrumental vat.?uM [yah vii for vaIjhto'O [vah(u)vi'O] 33.12b, 51.10c would also be quite isolated in the G~thic dialect (cf., e.g., K. Lichterbeck, KZ, 33, pp. 189 f.). A single instance in the later dialect occurring in a rather corrupt text (ao~wjuhaiti ... tanva Aog. 48) cannot support this interpretation of Y. 49. lc, which accordingly involves two anomalies. Therefore the possibility of taking odd va~3uM as a vocative (cf. mazdO) should be considered. Geldner, BB, 15, p. 259, Religionsgesch. Lesebuch, p. 12, interpreted it as a nominative. In the light of these facts the inflexion of Av. mazdd- would have some importance for the history of the Iranian religions, if we were to assume that this normalized inflexion formed part of the specific innovations of the G~thic dialect. In that case the Old Persian genitive *mazddh (presupposed by mazddh-a) might be taken as a reflex of religious propaganda expanding from East Iran. However, the extension of the strong stem in -0- to the weak cases has rather been a c o m m o n tendency of the Old Iranian d~alects, which could manifest itself at different periods and in different regions. Cf. in Later Avestan the genitive ra~a~#th and the dative ra~aYgtOi-(a beside a single occurrence of the old locative form ra~ai~ti. ~9 The accordance between Old Persian mazdOh- and Ghthic [mazda'oh], therefore, rather points to the conclusion that the name of the Highest God had already lost its weak case-forms in a pre-Zoroastrian period.

-,8 Short a + i is regularly contracted to a~ [a/J, cL *raHi-van(O- in Ved. revfnt(always disyllabic), L. Av. ra~van- (disyllabic, except for Yr. 14.20; see Geldner, Metrilc, p. 8). -,9 Bartholomae, Grundr. iron. Phil Ia, pp. 121,235, Altiran. Wb., 1506 f.