'world,' and some others.1 The great improvement in translation that resulted will be best appreciated by a comparison. The text of the first paragraph in the Hamadan inscription, translated by Burnouf, is word for word the same as that of the Le Bruyn (No. 131) translated by Grotefend, except that Darius' in the former is Xerxes' in the latter. We have placed the translation of Burnouf opposite that of Grotefend.

Burnouf, Hamadan, Darius 03 L'être divin [est] Ormuzd

il le Homa excellent

a donné; il ce

ciel a donné; il l'homme
a donné; il la nourriture

a donné à l'homme;

il Darius roi

a engendré ce

des braves roi,

ce des braves

chef.

Correct Version of Inscr. O
Great God is Ormuzd
who this earth created,
who that heaven created,
who man created,
who happiness has created
for man who has made
Darius king,

the one king of many,
the one Lord

of many.

1 Mémoire, pp. 59-60, 89, 95, 100. In Grotefend these are represented by 'coelestem,' 'defunctum,' amplificet,' ' populorum.'

2 Heeren (ed. 1815), vol. i. p. 601.

4 Elsewhere 'fortis.'

3 Mémoire, Pl. 2 and 3.

5 Mémoire, p. 119. Burnouf suspected, as we have said, that the word he transliterated buiom' and translated'excellent' should be 'bumom' and mean 'earth': 'He has given this earth' (p. 149). The change of the i into m turned out afterwards to be correct, and the word 'bum'im' does signify 'earth,' the passage being 'who created this earth.'

6 See Spiegel, p. 47.

A comparison of the two translations with the final version will show at a glance how vastly superior Burnouf's rendering was to that of his predecessor. Not the least important of his contributions to the work of translation was the identification of the names of some of the provinces of Darius, which are contained in the I inscription. We have already observed that Grotefend had attempted a translation of this inscription in 1832;1 and in 1836 he again drew attention to the circumstance that it contained a series of geographical names. The list included no less than twenty-four proper names, some of which were entirely beyond Burnouf's power to decipher; but he made an attempt to read sixteen, and out of these eight were

1 Göttingen Anzeigen (1832), p. 122. Holtzman (A.), Beiträge, p. 16.

correct. He thus added Persia, Media, Babylon, Arabia, Cappadocia, Sarangia, Bactria and Sogdiana to the names deciphered from the cuneiform; and we have seen how nearly he arrived at four more-Athura (or Assyria), Armenia, Ionia 2 and Parthia.

Among his contributions to a knowledge of the grammar, he pointed out that the change of Grotefend's o into m brought the accusative singular into line with the Zend and Sanscrit; the genitive aha is also found in Zend, and both languages alike use it as a dative. A nominative ending in oh has also its counterpart in the Zend termination in o. He indicated the apparent barbarism that treats the nominative case as inherent in the word itself; so that the case-ending is appended to it without modification, as if we wrote 'dominus-um' for dominum,' or 'dominus-i' for domini.'3

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He inferred from the two words Aurmzda' and 'izrk' that cases occur in which both the vowels and the aspirate are suppressed; and he concluded that the system of cuneiform writing could not have been originally applied to express a Sanscrit or Zend language, in both of which the vowel is rigorously represented. He conjectured also that the cuneiform signs for the vowels might include an aspirate that rendered its separate expression unnecessary. There is therefore an evident disagreement between the language of the inscriptions and the characters in

1 Mémoire, pp. 133, 138, 146, 154, 155. Grotefend had already detected Persia.

2 Ib. p. 148. He considers Ionia the probable reading, but he cannot yet admit it decisively. Some writers add Aria to Burnouf's correct discoveries (J. R. A. S. x. 12, note, Rawlinson), but the word he translates 'Arion' and identifies with Arran, between the Caspian and Black Seas, occurs in line 12 and signifies Armenia. The word for Aria is in the sixteenth line, and he identifies it with Haroyu of the Parsees, the Indian Sarayu (p. 155). s Mémoire, pp. 40, 61, 65-6.

4 Ib. pp. 41-2, 55.

which they are written'; and this he ascribed to the influence of a system of transcription of Semitic origin.'1 The discovery that there was a marked discrepancy between the mode of writing and the characteristics of an Indo-European language, now announced for the first time, was soon to receive very ample confirmation, though it was no small surprise to most scholars when the origin of the writing was traced, not to Semitic, but to Turanian sources. In opposition to the opinion of Grotefend, Burnouf thought that the greater simplicity of the mode of writing in the first Persepolitan column indicated its later development, and he showed that the language was not identical with Zend, as Grotefend at first imagined, but a dialect less pure than Zend, and in actual process of developing into a later form.2 Indeed it already exhibited by its interchange of letters some of the peculiarities noticed in modern Persian. He has no doubt that it was the living language of the court of Darius; and it is peculiarly interesting, inasmuch as its existence fully establishes the greater antiquity of Zend, and removes for ever all the doubts that had arisen as to the authenticity of that sacred language.3

We have already said that Burnouf was connected by ties of friendship with Lassen from an early age. Lassen was a Norwegian, born at Bergen in 1800, and consequently a year older than his friend. He was educated at Christiania, and at the age of twenty-two he left Norway to continue his studies at Heidelberg. He obtained a travelling studentship from the Prussian Government, and visited London and Paris in the years. 1824-6. During his stay in the latter capital he made the acquaintance of Burnouf, and collaborated with him 2 Ib. p. 163.

1 Mémoire, pp. 87, 161.

3 Ib. pp. 57, 108, 163, 165.

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in the production of the Essai sur le Pali' (1826). On his return to Germany he settled at Bonn, whither he was attracted by the presence of Schlegel and Bopp. Like them, he was devoted to the study of Sanscrit and the literature of India; and in conjunction with Schlegel he became the founder of Sanscrit philology in Germany. In 1829, he assisted him in the publication of the Râmâyana, and subsequently edited other ancient texts. In 1830, he received a Professorship at the University with the munificent stipend of three hundred thalers, or about forty-five pounds, a year; and ten years later, when he had attained a wide celebrity, a chair of Indian Languages and Literature was created for him with a salary of seven hundred thalers. Here he spent his life, writing and lecturing on his favourite studies, which also included modern Persian and English literature. His chief works were the 'Prakrit Grammatik' (1837), the Vendidad (1852), and notably the Indische Alterthumskunde,' begun in 1847 and continued down to 1867.

Lassen was troubled during the greater portion of his life by a weakness of sight, which from 1840 became a serious impediment to his studies. His last lectures were delivered in the session 1868-9, but he lived on to 1876, when he died in the city which partly from his own labours had acquired the name of the second Benares, on the shore of a second Ganges.'

When he left Paris in 1826 he continued to correspond with Burnouf, and received letters from him subscribed with the cuneiform sign for B (). Burnouf had in fact long devoted himself to cuneiform studies, as is apparent from his edition of the Yaçna in 1833; but it is not stated when Lassen first directed his attention to the same subject. Both scholars published their essays upon it in 1836. When Burnouf com