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Avestan xvarənah-: the etymology and concept

1998, Sprache und Kultur. Akten der X. …

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This paper examines the etymology and conceptual implications of the Avestan term xvarənah-, exploring its significance in ancient Iranian culture and religion. It contrasts the Avestan form with related terms in other Iranian languages, questioning previous theories about its origins and discussing the inherent power associated with xvarənah- in the context of divine and royal authority.

Originally appeared in: Sprache und Kultur. Akten der X. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft Innsbruck, 22.-28. September 1996, ed. W. Meid, Innsbruck (IBS) 1998, 479-488. Avestan xvarənah-: the etymology and concept ALEXANDER LUBOTSKY 0. The etymology and concept of Avestan xvarənah- and its Iranian cognates have always been subject of debate.1 The problems have been reviewed several times2 and are well-known. 1. Let us start with a short outline of the major constructions involving Av. xvarənah-. The meaning of xvarənah- we will discuss later, but for the moment, I shall gloss xvarənah- by 'fortune', without pretending that this is the best rendering. 1.1. The most frequent formula with xvarənah- is the octosyllabic line ahe (mana / ham) raiia xvarənahaca 'on account of his (my/their) wealth and fortune', which occurs hundreds of times in the Yashts. A typical example is Yt 3.18 (et passim) ahe raiia xvarənahaca təm yazi surunuuata yasna 'On account of his wealth and fortune, I will worship him with audible veneration.' `Wealth and fortune' are attributes of a god, who can bestow them on a devotee. In Yt 10.108, for instance, Mithra asks (translation Gershevitch 1959: 127): kahmi raca xvarənasca kahmi tanuu druuattəm azəm baxni xaiiamn 'On whom may I bestow riches and fortune, on whom health of the body?' 'Wealth and fortune' appear together in other formulae, too, cf. raca xvarənasca (Y 68.11, 21, Yt 10.108), raiiamca xvarənahamca (Y 60.4), rauuant- xvarənavhant- (passim). 1.2. Another juxtaposition is formed by xvarənah- and sauuah- 'power', cf. sauuasca xvarənasca (Y 60.2); xvarənah sauuah mazdatahe (Y 1.14, 3.16, 4.19; Yt 17.0, 62); xvarən mazdatəm... sauu mazdatəm... (Y 2.14, 17.14), etc. 1.3. Our knowledge about xvarənah- primarily comes from the Yats. In Yt 19, two types of xvarənah- are distinguished: kauuam xvarənah- 'the fortune of the Kavi-dynasty' and axvarətəm 1 Due to circumstances, I was unable to prepare a full-fledged article for this volume. Here I present the unaltered text of my Innsbruck paper, to which I have only added some footnotes and the bibliography. 2 A good recent review of the xvarənah- problem can be found in Hintze 1994: 15ff. Cf. further Gnoli 1990, 1996, Jacobs 1987, Lecoq 1987, Skjrv 1983. 480 2 ALEXANDER LUBOTSKY xvarənah-3. The kauuam xvarənah- belongs to the gods. By its power they may create and preserve the world. It further accompanied the ancient kings and heroes and gave them extraordinary powers. The axvarətəm xvarənah-, on the other hand, is described as an object of desire for divinities and heroes, who permanently struggle for it. Ahura Mazd even prescribes to every mortal to fight for the axvarətəm xvarənah-. In Yt 18, the Aryan xvarənah- (airiianəm xvarənah-) is honoured. It was created by Ahura Mazd, is full of milk and pastures, and overcomes the Davas and the non-Aryan countries. 2. The major problem we encounter when dealing with the etymology of this word, is its anlaut. Whereas Avestan xvarənah-, Pahl. xwarrah, and MoPers. xorre point to initial *xv-, the other languages show initial *f-, cf. OP farnah- in PN (Vindafarnah-), MP (Man., Parthian) prh, frh /farrah, farroh/ 'fortune, glory', Sogd. (Buddh.) prn, (Man.) frn, (Chr.) fn /farn/ 'glory, high rank', Bactrian () on Kushn coins, Khot. phrra- 'splendour, rank (of Buddha)', MoPers. farr(e), Oss. farn/farn 'happiness, wealth, well-being'. For a long time it was held that the initial f- is due to a specific Median sound-law PIr. v *x - > Med. f-. The theory assumed that farnah- was borrowed by Old Persian from Median, and then disseminated all over the Iranian territory in the period of the Achaemenid empire. In 1983, however, P.O. Skjrv convincingly showed that the "Median" theory is untenable. His conclusions can be summarized as follows: 1). It is impossible to prove that farnah- is an originally Median word and that there was an exclusively Median development *xv- > f-. 2). Forms with f- are attested on the whole Iranian territory, whereas xv- is confined to Avestan. Pahl. xwarrah and MoP xorre can be considered loanwords from Avestan. 3). There is no evidence that farnah- was so important in the Achaemenid empire that this term was borrowed into all Iranian dialects of that time and replaced the local variants. The "Median" theory being discarded, what then is the reason for the difference in anlaut? Skjrv sees two possible answers: A. Since farnah- is the most frequent form, it may also be the original one. In other words, Av. xvarənah- may be an adaptation of *farnah- < *pharnas- (?) to the Avestan phonological system, which had no initial f- before a vowel.4 B. The development PIr. *huarnah- > farnah- is due to dissimilation hu – h > f – h (or h – h > f – h, followed by fua- > fa-). Avestan has escaped this dissimilation because the initial *huhad become xv- early enough. 3 The meaning of axvarətəm is disputed. In my opinion, the adjective axvarəta- means 'ungiven, undistributed' and is a loan from "Scythian" *afarta- < Proto-Iranian *a-parta- (probably reflected in Ossetic vrd/vard 'put apart, saved, preserved', vryn/vrun 'to place apart, to save') with substitution of -f- by -xv- (for the mechanism see  2.1 and  5). This is of no consequence for the present discussion, however. 4 The only example in Bartholomae's dictionary is the hapax Yt 19.3 fnkauu 'top of the mountain', but this word must probably be corrected to xfrnkauu, cf. Hintze 1994: 79. 481 Avestan xvarənah-: the etymology and concept 3 Skjrv considers the second option more probable,5 but the whole scenario seems very unlikely to me (cf. also the criticism by Lecoq 1987). A dissimilation of the type *huarnah- > farnah- can be a sporadic development at best, especially if we take into account that the newly arisen fa- is a unique sequence in most of the Iranian dialects. Therefore, we can safely rule out the possibility that this dissimilation could have occurred independently in Median, Persian, Sogdian, Khotanese, etc. The only other possibility would then be to assume that this development took place in Common Iranian when the speakers of Avestan had already left, but this is not very probable either: there is not a shred of evidence that Avestan separated from Common Iranian before other dialects. 2.1. Let us now take a closer look at Skjrv's solution A, which, in my view, is essentially correct. First of all, the original form *farnah- accounts better for the distribution: forms with fare attested on the whole Iranian territory, whereas xv- is confined to Avestan. As indicated by Skjrv, the initial xv- of Av. xvarənah- can be explained by substitution of fa- by xva-. This kind of substitution is not uncommon in loan words. For instance, in South Russian dialects, f(-) in loan words is regularly reflected as xw, cf. xwabr'ika 'factory' (Standard Russ. fabrika), xwanar' 'lantern' (Standard Russ. fonar', a borrowing from Gr. ), etc. (cf. Kuznecov 1960: 79; Avanesov 1949: 124).6 2.2. Secondly, there is an important linguistic argument against a Proto-Iranian reconstruction *huarnah-, which, as far as I know, has never been mentioned in the literature. Avestan compounds with second members in xv- normally appear with -(.)xv- after i, u, r, which is the result of the RUKI-rule,7 cf. huxvafa (Y 57.17) 3sg. pf. √xvap- 'to sleep'; paiti.xvana- (N 26) 'disturbing noise'; pairi.xvaxta- (Y 11.7) 'surrounded on all sides'; paiti(.)xvarəna- (V 3.14, 8.43,44, 9.16,40) 'jaws'; aiiah.paitixvarəna- (Yt 10.70) 'with iron jaws'; aii.xvarəʮa- (V 6.32,38,41) 'suitable for consumption'; anaii.xvarəʮa- (V 6.31,34-5,37) 'unsuitable for consumption'; mainiiu.xvarəʮa- (Y 55.22; Yt 10.125) 'reared on supernatural food' (Gershevitch 1959: 135); pasu.xvarəʮa- n. (V 19.41 Gl.) 'food for the cattle'. Apart from three compounded verbs,8 unchanged xv is only found in compounds with xvarənah-: tərə-xvarənah- (Yt 13.102) PN, aii-xvarənah- (Yt 13.117) PN; aii.xvarənah- (Yt 5 Also accepted by Gnoli 1990 and 1996. There are many other parallels for substitution of f by xv/hv in loan words. After the presentation of my paper, Stefan Schumacher mentioned to me Middle Welsh Chwefror 'February', a borrowing of Latin Februrius (cf. also Schrijver 1995: 160). In Finnish we find sohva 'sofa', kirahvi 'giraffe', etc. In Lithuanian, which had no phoneme /h/, f was substituted by kv, e.g. kvalbo~nas 'flounce', borrowed from Polish falbana, cf. also German Falbel (Mayrhofer, per litt.). 7 For more details on -h-/xv- in Avestan compounds I refer the reader to Lubotsky forthcoming [[= Lubotsky 1999]]. 8 V 18.16,24 ni-xvabdaiieiti 3sg. 'to put to sleep', Y 57.10 paiti xvahaiieiti 3sg. 'to thrash', ViD 10 aii xvarənti 3pl. 'to eat'. 6 482 4 ALEXANDER LUBOTSKY 15.48) 'full of xvarənah-'; pouru.xvarənah- (Yt 18.1; V 19.3; Ny 3.11, 5.6; S 1.9, 2.9; Vyt 7, 24 paouru.xvarənah-) 'with much xvarənah-'; vindi-xvarənah- (Yt 15.45) 'with the found xvarənah-'.9 Also in the position after -, the initial xv of xvarənah- remains unchanged (uta.xvarənah-, vsp.xvarənah-, bar.xvarənah-, haom.xvarənah-), whereas, for instance, the initial xv of xvarəna- 'eating' often appears as -vh- (vharəna- 'dish, bowl', havharəna- 'cheek'). This state of affairs shows that the initial xv- of Avestan xvarənah- can hardly reflect Proto-Iranian *hu- < PIE *su-. 2.3. Skjrv has probably rejected *farnah- as a proto-form because the PIr. reconstruction *pharnah- does not lead any further, but, as a matter of fact, there is no need to reconstruct this Proto-Iranian form. As already assumed by Bartholomae and many others, *farnah- is likely to be a dialectal word. The whole problem must accordingly be seen in a different light: if *farnahis a form of an Iranian dialect, which Proto-Iranian word can it reflect? In the following I shall argue that *farnah- goes back to PIr. *parnah-. The proof is Skt. parnas-, which is not only the same morphological formation, but, as we shall presently see, has the same range of meanings. 3. Skt. parnas- n. is traditionally glossed 'fullness, abundance' and derived from the PIE root *pelH1- 'to fill' (cf. Mayrhofer, EWAia s.v.). For Skt. parnas- we can reconstruct PIE *pelH1nos-, the expected Iranian reflex of which is *parnah- with loss of the laryngeal in inlaut. We shall return to the problem of the Iranian initial f- a little later. Let us first look at the actual occurrences of Ved. parnas-. This word is attested only in the RV (the other occurrences being RV-ic repetitions or variants). It occurs eleven times as a simplex and twice in the compound goparnas-. Finally, there is one attestation of the adjective or neuter parnasa-. 3.1. Among the eleven occurrences of parnas-, we find four times an asyndetic formula ry parnas10 at the end of the line, three times referring to Indra and once to Agni. A typical example is 8.97.6a-d (other passages are 1.129.9a; 4.31.12b; 5.10.1c): 9 Also in Middle Iranian there are, to my knowledge, no certain traces of -(xv)- in compounds with *xvarnah-. Klingenschmitt (1975: 149, fn. 1) assumed that Toch. A compounds puttisparm 'Buddhawrde', rntisparm 'Arhatwrde', etc. are borrowed from an Iranian language where these compounds sounded like *putiuarnah- being analogically formed to the old determinative compound *kaui-uarnah- 'Kavi-Wrde'. This hypothetical scenario has several weaknesses. First, all East Iranian languages show the reflexes of *farnah- and not *xvarnah-, and the Tocharian simplex A parm, B perne reflects *farnah- rather than *xvarnah-. Klingenschmitt sees the difficulty and assumes that Toch. p- may also reflect Iran. hu-, but his only parallel is Toch. B waipecce from Iran. huaipaia-, for which he has to resort to the peculiar Tocharian variation p : w. Secondly, compounds of this type are not attested in Middle Iranian. In Sogdian, for instance, the normal expression for 'Buddha's rank' is pwty'kh prn /putyk farn/, where pwty'kh is a denominal abstract (cf. Sims-Williams 1981: 12f.). It is therefore easier to assume that the unexplained element -is- of the Tocharian compounds goes back to a denominal suffix of the Iranian donor language (*-‰ ?). 10 The asyndetic character of ry parnas was recognized for the first time by Wackernagel – Debrunner 1954: 738. 483 Avestan xvarənah-: the etymology and concept 5 sa nah somesu somaph sutesu savasas pate / mdayasva rdhas snrtvat- -indra ry parnas // 'Get intoxicated with our pressed out Soma-juices, o Indra, Soma-drinker, Lord of power, with (your) bountiful gifts, with (your) wealth (and) parnas-.' Presumably parnas- was already moribund in the RV because the poet of 3.24 mistakenly made parnas- masculine when he transposed the formula into the accusative, cf. 3.24.5ab agne d dsuse rayim vravantam parnasam / 'O Agni, give to the devoted one wealth, consisting of valiant heroes, and parnas-!' It seems reasonable to identify the formula ry parnas with the Avestan formula (ahe/mana/ham) raiia xvarənahaca and its variants. This is without a doubt an example of a Proto-Indo-Iranian formula. 3.2. At the end of a hymn to the Maruts, 1.166.14, we read: yena drgham marutah ssavma yusmkena parnas tursah /  yat tatanan vrjane jansa ebhir yajn~ebhis tad abhstim asym // 'Your parnas-, o Maruts, through which we shall stay powerful for a long time, o strong ones, and which (other) people will try to draw into their surrounding, is what I seek to acquire with these sacrifices as a gift.' First of all, the passage shows that there is a direct connection between the parnas- and the power (root s-), which is reminiscent of the Avestan pair sauuasca xvarənasca, cf.  1.2.11 Furthermore, we may conclude from the passage that parnas- is not simply 'abundance', but also some kind of military superiority, sovereignty. The imagery is essentially the same as that of Avestan airiianəm xvarən 12. Just as Av. xvarənah-, Vedic parnas- is a quality possessed by the gods (especially Indra and his gang, the Maruts), which can be bestowed on the devotees. This also follows from 8.21.7-8ab: ntn id indra te vayam t abhma nahi n te adrivah / vidm pur parnasah // 'We, of the new generation, are dependent on your help, Indra. We have known your parnas-, not (only) now, but also before, o master of the pressing stones.'13 11 Compare also the same combination in 8.97.6, cited above, where Indra is, on the one hand, savasas pate, and ry parnas, on the other. 12 From Yt 10.27 it follows that xvarənah- can also be possessed by the 'bad guys': y daihu raxiiaiii para razit baraiti, paiti xvarən vraiieiti, apa vərəranəm baraiti '(Mira), who carries off the straightest (paths) of the defiant country, diverts its chances, removes its victoriousness' (Gershevitch). It is clear that one has to fight for the xvarənah- with the enemy. Cf. also Hintze 1994: 27. 13 This rendering seems more adequate than Geldner's 'Wir sind aufs neue deiner Hilfe gewrtig, Indra, denn noch haben wir frher deine volle Gre nicht kennen gelernt, o Herr des Presteins.' Cf. especially 8.75.16 vidm hi te pur vayam agne pitur yathvasah adh te sumnam mahe 'For we have known your help before, o Agni, as that of a father. Therefore we ask you for your good-will.' 484 6 ALEXANDER LUBOTSKY 3.3. From 8.77.9 we learn that parnas- is something through which Indra performs his heroic deeds: et cyautnni te krt varsisthni parnas / hrd vdv adhrayah // 'These highest deeds of yours, performed with parnas-, you kept firmly on your heart.' This point is reminiscent of Yt 19.10, where it is said that xvarənah- belongs to Ahura Mazd (asti ahurahe mazd), so that he creates the world. 3.4. A more profane aspect of parnas- follows from 1.133.7a: vanoti hi sunvan ksayam parnasah 'The presser (of Soma) wins indeed a house of parnas-.' The idea that xvarənah- is present in the house of a devoted man follows, for instance, from Y 60.7 m yauue ima nmnəm xvrauua xvarən frazah 'May the comfort-bringing xvarənahnever leave this house'.14 A similar meaning has been preserved to this very day in Ossetic farn 'happiness, peace, prosperity'. 3.5. The remaining two RV-ic passages containing parnas- and the one containing parnasa- are less diagnostic15, so that I shall skip them now. 3.6. Finally, let me shortly mention the compound goparnas-, which at least in 8.45.2416 means something like 'abundance of milk': iha tv goparnas mahe mandantu rdhase / saro gauro yath piba // 'May (the juices) with the abundance of milk intoxicate you here for a great gift! Drink a lake as a bull!' Compare this compound with Avestan Yt 18.1: mrao ahur mazd spitami zarautri: azəm daam airiianəm xvarən gaomauuaitm pouru.vaəm 14 The same image is probably alluded to in a difficult passage Yt 14.41, for which see Kellens 1974: 78ff.: vərəran auui ima nmnəm gaosurbii xvarən pairi.vərənauuaiti... 'Vərəraɣna entoure cette maison de xvarənah en me^me temps que de richesse en vaches...' 15 The passages are: 1.56.2a-b: tam grtayo nemannisah parnasah samudram na samcarane sanisyavah / `The praises of (his) parnas-, seeking for the guidance, (fill) him, like (rivers filling) the ocean, competing in the joint movement.' 8.84.7a-c: kasya nnam parnaso dhiyo jinvasi dampate | gost yasya te girah || `Whose poetic thoughts concerning parnas- do you incite now, O master of the house (Agni), so that his praises of you will be cattle-winning?' 9.97.9c-d: parnasam krnute tigmasrngo div harir dadrse naktam rjrah || `He with pointed horns (Soma) becomes parnasa-. In the day-time he looks bay, at night he looks white.' 16 The passage 10.62.10a-c is less clear: uta ds parivise smaddisṭ goparnas | yadus turvas ca mmahe || `And two slaves for serving, equally trained, together with abundance of milk (?), gave (me) Yadu and Turva(sa).' 485 Avestan xvarənah-: the etymology and concept 7 'Says Ahura Mazd to Spitama Zarautra: I have created the Aryan xvarənah, full of milk, full of pastures.' 4. What can be said about the original meaning of parnas-? As is well known, the IndoEuropean words with the suffix *-nos- often have the meaning of some property (Wackernagel – Debrunner 1954: 737f.), cf. Skt. apnas-, Av. afnah- 'property'; Skt. dravinas-, Av. draonah'share, divided property' (Hoffmann 1957: 70f. = 1976: 420f.); Skt. reknas- 'wealth', Av. raxənah- 'heritage'. Therefore, parnas- may have originally meant 'full property, omnipossession, sovereignty', then also 'abundance'. 'Sovereignty, dominion, control over a territory' seems to be an essential element of Av. xvarənah-17 and its Iranian cognates.18 It should be borne in mind that control of a vast territory is absolutely vital for a nomadic society: it has been calculated that in order to raise 6-7 cows or horses one needs 1 square km of pasture in the Eurasian steppes (Kuz'mina 1994: 205). 5. And now the last intriguing question: how to account for the initial f- of Iranian farnahinstead of the expected *p-? Since farnah- is most probably a dialectal Iranian form, we must look for an Iranian language, where *p regularly yields f. I know of only one such language: Ossetic. The date of the Ossetic sound change *p > f has been disputed. The Sarmatian names on Greek inscriptions in Southern Russia (1st c. B.C. – 3rd c. A.D.) show both  and :  (Olbia) /  (Tanais) (< *pura-, Oss. fyrt/furt);  (Berezan') /  (Tanais, Panticapaeum) (< *pit, Oss. fyd/fid). Abaev (1949: 212f., 1979: 332) interpreted the / alternation diachronically, but, as indicated by Bielmeier (1989: 240), the different reflexes may belong to different dialects: forms with  are attested in the West (Olbia)19, whereas forms with  are found in the East. Therefore we may assume that the sound change *p > f took place in some of the Scythian dialects early enough to be found in various Iranian names. The first attestation of the element farnah- in Median onomastics can be dated around 714 B.C. (the reign of Sargon II, 721-705 B.C., Lecoq 1987: 678). We know that at that time Media was invaded by Scythian tribes, and it is only natural to assume that the Median princes and high military officials were of Scythian descent. On the Persepolis reliefs, Median chieftains are 17 Hintze 1994: 26ff. argues that xvarənah- is considered by the authors of the Yashts as something visible. Even if this view be correct – the relevant passages allow of more than one interpretation –, the image of the visible xvarənah- can be ascribed to the influence of the Middle-Eastern idea of visible sovereignty. 18 This rendering is very close to the meaning which was posited for Av. xvarənah- by Bailey 1943 on the basis of careful analysis of the Avestan texts. He gives the following rendering of xvarənah-: "'a thing obtained or desired', thence 'a good thing, a desirable thing, possessions, good things'" (1943: 2). It is on the basis of this meaning that Bailey tried to etymologize the word, first as *huar-nah- from the root huar- 'to grasp', later as *hu-arnah-. His etymologies are not very appealing, but his semantic analysis is excellent. 19 Justi 1895: 94 mentions the name  found in Olbia, who was the father of , a strategos in Olbia! 486 ALEXANDER LUBOTSKY 8 dressed like Scythians and wear the same weapons as Scythians (Sak Tigraxaud) (Vogelsang 1992: esp. 173ff.). 6. Let us sum up: Iranian farnah- is of Scythian origin, cognate with Vedic parnas-, as shown by Avestan and Vedic formulae. The original meaning of Indo-Iranian *parHnas- was 'sovereignty, control', then 'abundance'. Avestan xvarənah- is a borrowing from Scythian with substitution of the initial fa- by xva-. The genuine Avestan word related to Scythian farnah- and Skt. parnas- is Av. *parənah-, preserved in the adjective parənahuntəm (Yt 5.130), meaning something like `abundant'20. Bibliography Abaev, V.I. 1949. Osetinskij jazyk i fol'klor. Moskva – Leningrad. Abaev, V.I. 1979. Skifo-sarmatskie nare‰ija. Osnovy iranskogo jazykoznanija – drevneiranskie jazyki. Moskva, 272-364. Bartholomae – Wolff: Avesta, die heiligen Bcher der Parsen, bersetzt auf der Grundlage von Chr. Bartholomae's altiranischem Wrterbuch von Fritz Wolff. Strassburg 1910. Avanesov, R.I. 1949. O‰erki russkoj dialektologii I. Moskva. Bailey, H.W. 1943. Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books. Ratanbai Katrak Lectures. Oxford 1943, repr. with Introduction 1971. Bielmeier, R. 1989. Sarmatisch, Alanisch, Jassisch und Altossetisch. Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, herausg. von R. Schmitt. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Geldner, K.F. Der Rig-veda, aus dem Sanskrit ins Deutsche bersetzt..., 4 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 19511957. Gershevitch, I. 1959. The Avestan hymn to Mithra. Cambridge. Gnoli, G. 1990. On Old Persian farnah-. Iranica Varia: Papers in honor of Professor Ehsan Yarshater (Acta Iranica 30. Troisieme serie. Textes et memoires, vol. XVI), Leiden: Brill, 83-92. Gnoli, G. 1996. Uber das iranische *huarnah-: lautliche, morphologische und etymologische Probleme. Zum Stand der Forschung. Altorientalische Forschungen 23, 171-180. Hintze, A. 1994. Der Zamyd-Yat: Edition, Ubersetzung, Kommentar. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Hoffmann, K. 1957. Zwei vedische Wortsippen: 1. kava-, 2. dr. MSS 10, 59-71. Hoffmann, K. 1976. Aufstze zur Indoiranistik II. Wiesbaden. Jacobs, B. 1987. Das Chvarnah – Zum Stand der Forschung. MDOG 119, 215-248. Justi, F. 1895. Iranisches Namenbuch. Marburg. (Reprint: 1963, Hildesheim) Kellens, J. 1974. Les noms-racines de l'Avesta. Wiesbaden: Reichert. 20 The difficult passage reads upa stərəmau vrəma daie parənahuntəm vspam hujiiitm iriəntəm xarəm zaziti. Bartholomae – Wolff leave the last three words untranslated and render the rest as 'In (seinen) Lagerrumen bringt er nach Belieben in reicher Flle alles unter, was zum Wohlleben dient.' Oettinger (1983: 126) translates: 'In den Lagerrumen bringe ich mir nach Wunsch Flle bietenden und alles Wohlleben mit sich fhrenden (Reichtum) unter. Erst den Sterbenden verlt das Besitztum.' 487 Avestan xvarənah-: the etymology and concept 9 Klingenschmitt, G. 1975. Tocharisch und Urindogermanisch. Flexion und Wortbildung. Akten der V. Fachtagung der indogermanischen Gesellschaft, Regensburg, 9. –14. September 1973, ed. H. Rix. Wiesbaden, 148-163. Kuz'mina, E.E. 1994. Otkuda prili indoarii? – Material'naja kul'tura plemen andronovskoj ob‰nosti i proisxodenie indoirancev. Moskva. Kuznecov, P.S. 1960. Russkaja dialektologija. Moskva3. Lecoq, P. 1987. Le mot farnah- et les Scythes. Comptes-Rendus d'Academie des Inscriptions  BellesLettres 1987, 671-682. Lubotsky, A. forthcoming [[= 1999]]. Avestan compounds and the RUKI-rule. Compositiones indogermanicae in memoriam Jochem Schindler, hrsg. von H. Eichner und H.C. Luschtzky unter redaktioneller Mitwirkung von V. Sadovski. Praha, 299-322. Mayrhofer, M. EWAia. Etymologisches Wrterbuch des Altindoarischen. Heidelberg, 1986-. Oettinger, N. 1983. Untersuchungen zur avestischer Sprache am Beispiel des Ardvsur-Yat. Habilschrift. Schrijver, P. 1995. Studies in British Celtic historical phonology. Amsterdam – Atlanta. Sims-Williams, N. 1981. Some Sogdian denominal abstract suffixes. AO 42, 11-19. Skjrv, P.O. 1983. Farnah-: mot mede en vieux-perse? Bulletin de la Societe de Linguistique de Paris 78, 241-259. Vogelsang, W.J. 1992. The Rise & Organisation of the Achaemenid Empire: The Eastern Iranian Evidence. Leiden – New York – Kln. Wackernagel, J. – A. Debrunner, 1954. Altindische Grammatik, Band II,2: Die Nominalsuffixe. Gttingen. 488