Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T00:39:38.684Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Sogdian thieves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

Sogdian has two words for ‘thief, robber’, both of good Old Iranian pedigree. From Av. gaδ- there is B. γδ- /γaδ-/, attested in the pl. γδ'yšt, P 6, 14, SCE 312, and in γδ'wny ‘theft’, SCE 331, 426. More common, from SKr., Av. tāyu-, is B. t'y(h), VJ 239, P 2, 1113; 7, 138;24, 2, Chr. ty, C 2 51R.31, pl. S. t'yt (Man.) T i α 2 (Tales, 478), also L 61, 3; 103 R 2, and B. t'y'wny, P 9, 15, L 98a 1, Man. ṯ'ywnyy, BBB e 6‘theft’, B. t'y'yck', VJ 339 ‘stealthily’. But there are more Buddhist thieves, not recognized by the editor of the Paris text P 2, E. Benveniste. Where t'y there occurs, in 1043, 1091 (t'yt)-95, 1100, he adopted R. Gauthiot's earlier interpretation ‘āyatana’, ignoring the difficulty that these—whether ‘abodes’ or ‘senses’ —can hardly 'škr- ‘pursue’, and justifying it by a paper etymology: ‘Le sens est proprement “entrée” (cf. t'ys- “entrer” t'y < t-'y- comme tγ'm “guè” VJ 64e <t-γ'm); ce doit être un calque de chinois jou “entrée”. La preuve [sic] en est que dans Vim. 15, tys “entrée” signifie āyatana d'après le chinois (Weller, As.Maj. X, p. 323).— Différent est naturellement t'y “voleur” 1113’. An *ᾱy- ‘to come’, linked with gam forms, is not found in Sogdian, however, nor for that matter in any other East Iranian language. ‘Āyatana’ is only (once) tys in Sogdian, and *t'y ‘entry’ is a ghost word.

Type
Notes and Communications
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For standard abbreviations see GMS= Gershevitch, I., A grammar of Manichean Sogdian, Oxford, 1954, xi.Google Scholar

2 V. N. Sims-Williams's forthcoming edition, to be published in the series Berliner Turfantexte

3 Sims-Williams, V. N., BSOAS, XLIV, 2, 1981, 236–7Google Scholar

4 Benveniste, E., Textes sogdiens, Paris, 1940, 183 on 1093 sqGoogle Scholar

5 Surprisingly not noted by Henning, W. B. in his detailed review article ‘The Sogdian texts of Paris’, BSOAS, XI, 3, 1946, 713–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It was given a further lease of life by A. N. Ragoza, Sogdijskie fragmenty central' no-aziatskogo sobranija Instituta Vostokovedenija, Moscow, 1980, 71, 89, 110, although the matter was first mentioned briefly in my edition in my edition of The Buddhist Sogdian texts of the Vritish Library (Acta Iranica, 10), Teheran—Liège, 1976, III, 15 (Vim. 15), 47 (Dhu. 253)

6 I bow to Dr.Sims-Williams's logic and follow the transliteration system advocated by him apud Sundermann, W., Mitteliranische manichäische Texte kirchengeschtlichen Inhalts Berliner Turfantexte, XI, Berlin, 1981, 194–8Google Scholar

7 Soothil, W. E. and Hodous, L., A dictionary of Chinese Buddhist terms, London, 1934Google Scholar

8 M. Schwartz (letter of Sept. 1975)suggests a derivation from *Warzauya-, cf. Vedic ūrjavya ‘Abounding in strength’, valid for Sogdian but not KHwarezmian (where -rz- > -ž-)

9 For the recent discovery of the numerative in Sogdian v, Sims-Williams, N., BSOAS, XLII, 2, 1979, 339 ffGoogle Scholar. and TPS, 1982, 67 ff

10 Sims-Williams, V. N., BSOAS, XLII, 2, 1979, 337, n. 4, 341, n. 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar