A Manual of Pahlavi

Book excerpt: The first volume of this "Manual of Pahlavi", containing a selection of Zoroastrian texts in Middle Iranian, appeared in the 1960s. The present volume, which has required extended preliminary research, gives a vocabulary of all the words found in these texts, with ample references to, and analyses of, the passages where they occur. Care has been taken to register all equivalents hitherto known in Old Iranian, in the Manichean texts, among the Armenian loanwords and in other West Iranian languages down to New Persian. Special attention has been paid to the traditions of the Zoroastrians themselves, both the linguistic tradition laid down in Pazand, neglected but authentic, and the interpretative tradition manifest in the Sanskrit versions. This Glossary comprises about 3,000 words.