against the Amir Abdur Rahman, he gave himself up to the British consul-general at Meshed in the beginning of November, and was sent under escort to the Turkish frontier and thence via Bagdad to India. Yahya Khan, Mushir-ad-daulah, the Persian minister for foreign affairs (died 1892), who was supposed to have connived at Ayub Khan's escape in order to please his Russian friends, was dismissed from office. In December 1887 Sir Henry Drummond Wolff was appointed minister to Persia. The appointment greatly pleased the Persian court, and the shah lent a willing ear to his advocacy for the development of trade and commerce, construction of roads, abolition of various restrictions hampering Persian merchants, &c. The shah soon afterwards (May 26, 1888) issued a proclamation assuring freedom of life and property to all his subjects, and (Oct. 30) declared the Karun river open to international navigation up to Ahvaz. At about the same time he appointed Amin-es-Sultan, who had been prime-minister since 1884, Grand Vizier (Sadr ‘azim). In the same year (June 25) the first railway in Persia, a small line of 5 miles from Teheran to Shah-abdul-Azim, was opened under the auspices of a Belgian company. A few months later (Jan. 30, 1889) Baron Julius de Reuter-in consideration of giving up the rights which he held by his concession obtained in 1873-became the owner of a concession for the formation of a Persian State Bank, with exclusive rights of issuing bank-notes and working the mines of iron, copper, lead, mercury, coal, petroleum, manganese, borax, and asbestos in Persia. Russia now insisted upon what she considered a corresponding advantage; and Prince Dolgoruki, the Russian minister. obtained in February 1889 a document from the shah which gave to Russia the refusal of any railway concession in Persia for a period of five years. The Persian State Bank was established by British royal charter, dated the 2nd of September 1889, and started business in Persia (Oct. 23) as the Imperial Bank of Persia." The railway agreement with Russia was changed in November 1890 into one interdicting all railways whatsoever in Persia. In April 1889 the shah set out upon his third voyage to Europe. After a visit to the principal courts, including a stay of a month in England, where he was accompanied by Sir Henry Shah's Drummond Wolff, he returned to his capital (Oct. 20). Visit to Sir Henry returned to Persia soon afterwards, and in Europe, March of the following year the Persian government 1889. granted another important concession, that of a tobacco monopoly, to British capitalists. In the autumn bad health obliged the British minister to leave Persia. It was during his stay in England that the shah, for two or three days without his grand vizier, who was mourning for the death of his brother, listened to bad advice and granted a concession for the monopoly of lotteries in Persia to a Persian subject. The latter ceded the concession to a British syndicate for £40,000. Very soon afterwards the shah was made aware of the evil results of this monopoly, and withdrew the concession, but the syndicate did not get the money paid for it returned. This unfortunate affair had the effect of greatly discrediting Persia on the London Stock Exchange for a long time. The concession for the tobacco monopoly was taken up by the Imperial Tobacco Corporation (1891). The corporation encountered opposition fostered by the clergy and after a serious riot at Teheran (Jan. 4, 1892) the Persian government withdrew the concession and agreed to pay an indemnity of £500,000 (April 5, 1892). In order to pay this amount Persia contracted the 6% Ican of £500,000 through the Imperial Bank of Persia, which was redeemed in 1900 out of the proceeds of the Russian 5% loan of that year. (For details of the tobacco concession and an account of the events which led to its withdrawal, see E. Lorini, La Persia economica, Rome, 1900, pp. 164–169; and Dr Feuvrier, Trois ans à la cour de Perse, Paris, 1899, ch. v., the latter ascribing the failure of the tobacco monopoly to Russian intrigue.) In November 1889 Malcolm Khan, Nizam-ul-Mulk, who had been Persian representative to the court of Great Britain since October 1872, was recalled, and Mirza Mahommed 'Ali Khan, consulgeneral at Tiflis, was appointed in his stead, arriving in London the following March. In 1890 the scheme of a carriageable road from Teheran to Ahvaz was taken up again; the Imperial Bank of Persia obtained a concession, and work of construction was begun in the same year, and continued until 1893. In this year, too, the mining rights of the Imperial Bank of Persia were ceded to the Persian Bank Mining Rights Corporation, and a number of engineers were sent out to Persia. The total absence of easy means of communication, the high rates of transport, and the scarcity of fuel and water in the mineral districts made profitable operations impossible, and the corporation liquidated in 1894, after having expended a large sum of money. Kate Greenfield Case. Great excitement was caused in the summer of 1891 by the report that an English girl, Kate Greenfield, had been forcibly carried away from her mother's house at Tabriz by a Kurd. The British authorities demanded the girl's restitution from the Persian government. The Kurd, a Turkish subject, refused to give up the girl, and took her to Saujbulagh. The Turkish authorities protected him, and serious complications were imminent; but finally an interview between the girl and the British agent was arranged, and the matter was promptly settled by her declaring that she had left her mother's house of her own accord, and was the wife of the Kurd. It also became known that she was the daughter of a British-protected Hungarian named Grünfeld, who had died some years since, and an American lady of Tabriz. Archaeo Concession. Sir Frank Lascelles, who had been appointed minister to Persia in July, arrived at Teheran in the late autumn of 1891. In the following year Persia had a visitation of cholera. In Teheran and surrounding villages the number of fatal cases exceeded 28,000, or about 8% of the population. In 1893 the epidemic appeared again, but in a milder form. In June 1893 Persia ceded to Russia the small but very fertile and strategically important district of Firuza and the adjacent lands between Baba Durmaz and Lutfabad on the northern frontier of Khorasan, and received in exchange the important village of Hissar and a strip of desert ground near Abbasabad on the frontier of Azerbaijan, which had become Russian territory in 1828, according to the Treaty of Turkmanchai. Sir Frank Lascelles left Persia in the early part of 1894, and was succeeded by Sir Mortimer Durand, who was appointed in July and arrived in Teheran in November. In the following year the shah, by a firman dated the 12th of French May gave the exclusive right of exploring ancient sites logical in Persia to the French government, with the stipulation that one-half of the discovered antiquities, excepting those of gold and silver and precious stones, should belong to the French government, which also had the preferential right of acquiring by purchase the other half and any of the other antiquities which the Persian government might wish to dispose of. In 1897 M. J. de Morgan, who had been on a scientific mission in Persia some years before and later in Egypt, was appointed chief of a mission to Persia, and began work at Susa in December. On the 1st of May 1896 Nasur 'd-Din Shah was assassinated while paying his devotions at the holy shrine of Shah-abdul-Azim. Five days later he would have entered the fiftieth (lunar) year of his reign, and great preparations for duly cele- Assassina brating the jubilee had been made throughout the country. The assassin was a small tradesman of Shah, 1896. Kerman named Mirza Reza, who had resided a short time in Constantinople and there acquired revolutionary and anarchist ideas from Kemalu 'd-Din, the so-called Afghan sheikh, who, after being very kindly treated by the shah, preached revolution and anarchy at Teheran, fled to Europe, visited London, and finally took up his residence in Constantinople. Kemalu 'd-Din was a native of Hamadan and a Persian subject, and as the assassin repeatedly stated that he was the sheikh's emissary and had acted by his orders, the Persian government demanded the extradition of Kemal from the Porte; but during the protracted negotiations which followed he died. Mirza Reza was hanged on the 12th of August 1896. There were few troubles in the country when the news of the shah's death became known. Serious rioting arose only in Shiraz and Fars, where some persons lost their lives and a number of caravans were looted. European firms who had lost goods during these troubles were afterwards indemnified by the Persian government. The new shah, Muzaffarud-Din (born March 25, 1853), then governor-general of Azerbaijan, residing at Tabriz, was enthroned there on the day of his father's death, and proceeded a few days later accompanied by the British and Russian consuls, to Teheran, where he arrived on the 8th of June. tion of the Difficulties. An excessive copper coinage during the past three or four years had caused much distress among the poorer classes since the beginning of the year, and the small trade was almost paralysed. Immediately after his accession the shah Currency decreed that the coining of copper money should cease and the excess of the copper coinage be withdrawn from circulation. In order to reduce the price of meat, the meat tax, which had existed since ancient times was abolished. The Imperial Bank of Persia, which had already advanced a large sum of money, and thereby greatly facilitated the shah's early departure from Tabriz and enabled the grand vizier at Teheran to carry on the government, started buying up the copper coinage at all its branches and agencies. The nominal value of the copper money was 20 shahis equal to 1 kran, but in some places the copper money circulated at the rate of 80 shahis to the kran, less than its intrinsic value; at other places the rates varied between 70 and 25 shahis, and the average circulating value in all Persia was over 40. If government had been able to buy up the excess at 40 and reissue it gradually after a time at its nominal value when the people required it, the loss would have been small. But although the transport of copper money from place to place had been strictly prohibited, dishonest officials found means to traffic in copper money on their own account, and by buying it where it was cheap and forwarding it to cities where it was dear, the bank bought it at high rates, thus rendering the arrangement for a speedy withdrawal of the excess at small cost to government futile. It was only in 1899 that the distress caused by the excessive copper coinage ceased, and then only at very great loss to government. The well-intentioned abolition of the tax on meat also had not the desired result, for by a system of cornering" the price of meat rose to more than it was before. Ministerial In the autumn of 1896 the grand vizier (Amin-es-Sultan) encountered much hostility from some members of the shah's entourage and various high personages. Amin-addaulah was appointed chief administrator (vizier) of Azerbaijan and sent to Tabriz. Shortly afterwards 1896-1898. the grand vizier found it impossible to carry on his work, resigned, and retired to Kum (Nov. 24), and the shah formed a cabinet composed for the greater part of the leading members of the opposition to the grand vizier. After three months of the new régime affairs of state fell into arrears, and the most important department, that of the interior, was completely disorganized. The shah accordingly recalled Amin-ad-daulah from Tabriz (Feb. 1897), and appointed him minister president (raïs-i-vuzara) and minister of the interior. In June Amin-ad-daulah was made prime minister (vizir 'azim) and given more extended powers, and in August raised to the dignity of grand vizier (sadr azim), Nasru l-Mulk was appointed minister of finance (Feb. 1898), and made an attempt to introduce a simple system of accounts, establish a budget, reorganize the revenue department, made a new assessment of the land-tax, &c.; but resistance on the part of the officials rendered it abortive. In the latter part of 1897 E. Graves, the inspector of the English telegraph line from Jask eastwards, was brutally murdered by Baluchis, and the agents of the Persian government sent to seize the murderers were resisted by the tribes. A considerable district breaking out into open revolt, troops under the command of the governor-general of Kerman were despatched into Baluchistan. The port of Fannoch was taken in March 1898, and order was restored. One of the murderers was hanged at Jask (May 31). Loan in 1898. Various attempts to obtain a foreign loan had been made during the previous year, but with the sole result of discrediting the Persian government in Europe. In the beginning of Abortive 1898 the shah's medical advisers strongly recommended Negotiations a cure of mineral waters in Germany or France, and for British as his departure from Persia without paying the arrears to the army and to thousands of functionaries, or providing a sufficient sum for carrying on the government during his absence, would have created grave discontent, serious negotiations for a loan were entered upon. It was estimated that £1,000,000 would be required to pay all debts, including the balance of the 1892 loan, and leave a surplus sufficient for carrying on the government until the shah's return. London capitalists offered to float a loan for £1,250,000 at 5% and on the guarantee of the customs of Fars and the Persian Gulf ports, and to give £1,025,000, or 82% to the Persian government. They stipulated for a kind of control over the custom-houses by placing their own agents as cashiers in them. This stipulation was agreed to in principle by the grand vizier, Amin ad-daulah, who in March, in order to meet some pressing demands on the treasury borrowed £50,000 on the customs receipts of Kermanshah and Bushire, and agreed to the lenders, the Imperial Bank of Persia's agents, being placed as cashiers in the custom-houses of both cities. He encountered, however, much opposition from the other ministers. Further negotiations ensued, and the shah's visit to Europe was abandoned. The assistance of the British government not being forthcoming, the grand vizier's position became more and more difficult, and on the 5th of June he had to resign. Muhsin Khan, Mushir-addaulah, minister for foreign affairs, then became president of the cabinet, and continued the negotiations, but could not bring hem to a successful issue. Moreover, the Persian government, finding that the previous estimate of the money required for paying its debts was about 50% below the mark, now asked for double the amount offered by the London capitalists, without, however, proportionately increasing the guarantee. This disorganized all previous arrangements, and the negotiations for a London loan came to an end for a time at the end of July, leaving in the minds of the Persians the unfortunate impression that the British government had done nothing to aid them. On the 9th of July the former grand vizier, Amin-es-Sultan, was recalled from Kum, where he had resided since November 1896, arrived at Teheran three days later, and was reinstated as grand vizier on the 10th of August. His immense popularity, his friendly relations with the clergy, and some temporary advances from the banks, tided over difficulties for some time. The reform of the customs department was now (Sept. 1898) taken up seriously, and the three Belgian custom-house officials who had been engaged by Amin-ad-daulah in the beginning of the year were instructed to collect information and devise a scheme for the reorganization of the department and the abolition of the farm system. In March 1899 the custom-houses of the provinces of Azerbaijan and Kermanshah were given over to the Belgians. The results of this step were so satisfactory that government was induced to abolish the farm system and set up the new régime in the other provinces in March 1900, and a number of other Belgian custom-houses officials were engaged. In September, when renewed negotiations for a loan from London were not appearing to progress favourably, and the long-thoughtof visit to Europe was considered to be absolutely necessary in the following year, the shah issued a firman authorizing the Russian Banque des Prêts de Perse to float a loan. Shortly after this it was said that the London capitalists were willing to lend £1,250,000 After a residence of a month at Contrexéville, the shah proceeded (July 14) to St Petersburg, and thence to Paris (July 29), intending to go to London on the 8th of August. But on account of the mourning in which several courts were thrown through the death of the king of Italy (July 29) and the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (July 30), the visits to England, Germany and Italy were abandoned. On the 2nd of August an anarchist made an attempt upon the shah's | life in Paris. F.—Russo-British Rivalry (1902-1907) and the Persian In 1902 Muzaffar-ud-Din Shah revisited the principal European capitals, and was received by King Edward VII. at Portsmouth in August. A mission headed by Viscount Downe was afterwards despatched to Persia, to invest the shah with the order of the Garter, a ceremony which took place in Teheran on the 2nd of February 1903. A week later, a new commercial treaty was concluded between Great Britain and Persia, which instituted various reforms in the customs service, secured to both countries the "most-favoured-nation " treatment, and substituted specific import and export duties for the charge of 5% ad valorem provided for in the treaty of 1857. These provisions to some extent counterbalanced the losses inflicted on British trade by the Russo-Persian commercial treaty signed in 1902, which had seriously damaged the Indian tea trade, and had led to a rapid extension of Russian influence. Between 1899 and 1903 the Russian Bank had lent Persia £4,000,000, of which fully half was paid to the shah for his personal requirements. Russian concessionnaires were given the right to build roads from Tabriz to Teheran (1902) and from Tabriz to Kazvin (1903); and the Russian Bank opened new branches in Seistan-an example followed in 1903 by the Bank of Persia. It was, however, in the Persian Gulf that the rivalry between Great Britain and Russia threatened to become dangerous. Great Britain had almost a monopoly of maritime commerce in the Gulf, and was alone responsible for buoying, lighting and policing its waters. The British claim to political supremacy in this region had thus a solid economic basis; it had been emphasized by the British action at Kuwet (q.v.) in 1899, and by the declaration made in the House of Lords by Lord Lansdowne, as secretary of state for foreign affairs, to the effect that Great Britain would resist by all means in its power the attempt of any other nation to establish itself in force on the shores of the Gulf. On the 16th of November 1903, Lord Curzon, the viceroy of India, sailed from Karachi for the Persian Gulf. His ship, the "Hardinge," was escorted by four cruisers, and the voyage was regarded as a political demonstration, to be interpreted in connexion with Lord Lansdowne's declaration. At Bushire, on the 1st of December, the Persian governor of Fars, Ala ad-daula, committed a breach of diplomatic etiquette which induced Lord Curzon to sail away without landing. This incident was considered by some British observers to have been brought about by Russian intrigue, and the fact that Ala ad-daula was dismissed in 1904, after the Japanese had achieved several initial successes in the Russo-Japanese war, was held to confirm this opinion. But Russian financial and commercial influence ir Persia continued to increase; in December 1904 a special mission | and was opened by the shah in person on the 7th of October under Mirza Riza Khan was received in audience by the tsar; and in May 1905 Muzaffar-ud-Din Shah himself left Persia to visit the courts of Vienna and St Petersburg. The Seistan Mission of 1902–1905.-A dispute as to the frontier between Afghanistan and Seistan arose in 1902. The boundary delimited by the Seistan mission of 1870-1872, and known as the "Goldsmid line," was drawn along the course of the river Helmund. Between 1872 and 1902 the Helmund took a more westerly direction; no boundary marks had been erected, and a wide strip of territory remained in dispute. The Persians claimed that the boundary was the old bed of the river, the Afghans that it was the new bed; and in accordance with the treaty of 1857 both parties asked the British government to arbitrate. In January 1903, Colonel Arthur Henry MacMahon, who had previously delimited the frontier between Afghanistan and British India, was despatched from Quetta. The Persian officials were at first hostile, but their opposition, which was attributed to Russian influence at Teheran, was eventually overcome, and Colonel MacMahon (who was knighted in 1906) delivered his final award, sustaining the Persian contention, in February 1905. British Commercial Missions. Owing to the success of the Maclean mission, which visited and reported upon the markets and trade-routes of north-western Persia in 1903, under the direction of the Board of Trade, a similar mission was sent to southern Persia in 1904, under the auspices of the Upper India Chamber of Commerce, the Bengal Chamber and the Indian Tea Cess Company. The report of this mission (by GleadoweNewcomen) was published in 1906. After showing that civilized government was practically non-existent in the regions visited, it suggested as the chief remedy the conclusion of a RussoBritish convention, and the division of Persia into "spheres of influence.' Russo-British Convention of 1907.-The political situation created by the Russo-Japanese War and by an internal crisis in Persia itself rendered possible such an agreement between the two rival powers, and a Russo-British convention was signed on the 31st of August 1907. Its chief provisions, in regard to Persia, are as follows: (1) north of a line drawn from Kasr-iShirin, Isfahan, Yezd and Kakh to the junction of the Russian, Persian and Afghan frontiers Great Britain undertook to seek no political or commercial concession, and to refrain from opposing the acquisition of any such concession by Russia or Russian subjects; (2) Russia gave to Great Britain a like undertaking in respect of the territory south of a line extending from the Afghan frontier to Gazik, Birjend, Kermān and Bander Abbasi; (3) the territory between the lines above-mentioned was to be regarded as a neutral zone in which either country might obtain concessions; (4) all existing concessions in any part of Persia were to be respected; (5) should Persia fail to meet its liabilities in respect of loans contracted, before the signature of the convention, with the Persian Banque d'Escompte and de| Prêts, or with the Imperial Bank of Persia, Great Britain and Russia reserved the right to assume control over the Persian revenues payable within their respective spheres of influence. With this convention was published a letter from the British secretary of state for foreign affairs (Sir E. Grey), stating (1) that the Persian Gulf lay outside the scope of the convention, (2) that Russia admitted the special interests of Great Britain in the Gulf, and (3) that these interests were to be maintained by Great Britain as before. The Persian Constitution.-The misgovernment and disorder which were revealed to Europe by the Gleadowe-Newcomen report, and by such sporadic outbreaks as the massacre of the Babis in Yezd (1903), had caused widespread discontent in Persia. In 1905, partly owing to the example shown by the revolutionary parties in Russia, this discontent took the form of a demand for representative institutions. On the 5th of August 1906, Muzaffar-ud-Din Shah issued a rescript in which he undertook to form a national council (Majlis) representing the whole people (see above, Constitution). The Majlis was duly elected, 1906. In January 1907 the shah died, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Mahommed 'Ali Mirza, who on the 11th of February published a message to his people, pledging himself to adhere to the new constitution. Early in The Revolution.-On the 12th of November the shah visited the Majlis, and repeated his pledge, but during December a riot in Teheran developed into a political crisis, in which the shah's troops were employed against the civil population. The Majlis issued a manifesto to the powers, declaring that the shah intended to overthrow the constitution, and demanding intervention. The Russian and British ministers in Teheran urged Mahommed Ali to maintain the constitution, and he sent a message to the Majlis, promising compliance with its demands and agreeing to place the whole army under the control of the ministry of war. These concessions allayed the prevailing unrest for a time, but the Royalist and Nationalist parties continued secretly to intrigue against one another, and in February 1908, while the shah was driving in Teheran, two bombs were exploded under his motor-car. Two persons were killed, but the shah was unhurt, and the Majlis formally congratulated him on his escape. A prolonged ministerial crisis, in April and May, was attributed by the Nationalists to the influence of reactionary courtiers, and by the Royalists to the influence of the Anjumans, or political clubs, which were alleged to control the Nationalist majority in the Majlis. June the Majlis urged the shah to dismiss the courtiers under suspicion. Mahommed Ali consented, but withdrew from Teheran; and on his departure the royal bodyguard of so-called "Cossacks "-Persian soldiers officered by Russians in the shah's service at once came into conflict with the Nationalists. The house of parliament was bombarded, and when the Majlis appointed commissioners to discuss terms, the shah issued a manifesto dissolving the Majlis, and entrusted the restoration of order in Teheran to military administrators. He also proposed to substitute for the elected Majlis a council of forty members, nominated by himself; but under pressure from Great Britain and Russia he promised to abandon this scheme and to order another general election. Meanwhile, civil war had broken out in the provinces; Kurdish raiders had sacked many villages near Tabriz; Persian brigands had attacked the Russian frontier-guards on the borders of Transcaucasia, and the indemnity demanded by the tsar's government was not paid until several Persian villages had been burned by Russian troops. This incident, combined with the employment of the so-called Cossacks, evoked a protest from the Nationalists, who asserted that Russia was aiding the Royalists; the accusation was true only in so far as it referred to the conduct of certain Russian officials who acted without the consent of the Russian government. Early in 1909, indeed, a Russian force of 2600 men was sent to watch events near Tabriz, and if necessary to intervene in favour of the Nationalists who held the town, and had for some months been besieged by the shah's troops. The presence of the Russians ultimately induced the Royalists to | abandon the siege. In January of the same year the revolution spread to Isfahan, where the Bakhtiari chiefs made common cause with the Nationalists, deposed the Royalist governor and marched on the capital. In May and June the shah issued proclamations declaring his fidelity to the constitution, and promising an amnesty to all political offenders; but he was powerless to stay the advance of the combined Bakhtiari and Nationalist troops, who entered Teheran on the 13th of July. After severe street fighting the Cossacks deserted to the rebels, and the shah took refuge in the Russian legation (July 15). This was interpreted as an act of abdication; on the same day the national council met, and chose Mahommed 'Ali's son, Sultan Ahmad Mirza, aged thirteen, as his successor. Asad ul-Mulk, head of the Kajar tribe, was appointed regent. On the 9th of September 1909, the ex-shah departed for his place of exile in the Crimea, escorted by Russian Cossacks and Indian sowars. On the 15th of November a newly elected Majlis was formally opened by the shah. BIBLIOGRAPHY.-I. General: Lord Curzon of Kedleston, Persia and the Persian Question (London, 1892), contains an account of European literature relating to Persia (A.D. 900-1901) and numerous bibliographical notes. See also Lady [M. L.] Shiel, Life and Manners in Persia (London, 1856); Sir A. H. Layard, Early Adventures in Persia (London, 1887); S. G. W. Benjamin, Persia and the Persians (3rd ed., London, 1891); C. E. Yate, Khurasan and Sistan (Edinburgh, 1900); H. S. Landor, Across Coveted Lands (London, 1902); J de Morgan, Mission scientifique (vols. i.-v., 1897-1904); N. Malcolm, Five Years in a Persian Town (Yezd) (London, 1905); A. V. W. Jackson, Persia, Past and Present (London, 1906); É. C. Williams, Across Persia (London, 1907). The works of James Morier (q.v.), especially his Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, throw much light on Persian society in the early years of the 19th century. 2. History: Sir J. Malcolm, History of Persia (2nd ed., London, 1829); R. G. Watson, A History of Persia from the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1873); Sir C. R. Markham, A General Sketch of the History of Persia (London, 1874), and Curzon, as quoted above, are the standard authorities on modern Persian history. The Travels of Pedro Teixeira (London, 1902) and other publications of the Hakluyt Society relating to Persia are also of great historical value. For more recent events see the reports of the GleadoweNewcomen and MacMahon missions: E. G. Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905-09 (London, 1910); A. Hamilton, Problems of the Middle East (London, 1909); V. Chirol, The Middle Eastern Question (London, 1904); E. C. Williams, Across Persia (London, 1997). The commercial convention of 1903 is given in Treaty series, No. 10 (London, 1903), the Russo-British convention in Treaty series, No. 34 (London, 1907). Other official publications of historical importance are the annual British F. Ó. reports, and the U.S. Consular Reports. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE I. Persian (Iranian) Languages.-Under the name of Persian is included the whole of that great family of languages occupying a field nearly coincident with the modern Iran, of which true Persian is simply the western division. It is therefore common and more correct to speak of the Iranian family. The original native name of the race which spoke these tongues was Aryan. King Darius is called on an inscription "a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan of Aryan race "; and the followers of the Zoroastrian religion in their earliest records never give themselves any other title but Airyavō danghavō, that is to say, "Aryan races." The province of the Iranian language is bounded on the west by the Semitic, on the north and north-east by the Ural-altaic or Turanian, and on the south-east by the kindred language of India. Languages. The Iranian languages form one of the great branches of the Indo-European stem, first recognized as such by Sir William Jones and Friedrich Schlegel. The Indo-European Iranian or Indo-Germanic languages are divided by Brugmann into (1) Aryan, with sub-branches (a) Indian, (b) Iranian; (2) Armenian; (3) Greek; (4) Albanian; (5) Italic; (6) Celtic; (7) Germanic, with sub-branches (a) Gothic, (b) Scandinavian, (c) West Germanic; and (8) Balto-Slavonic. (See INDO-EUROPEAN.) The Aryan family (called by Professor Sievers the "Asiatic base-language ") is subdivided into (1) Iranian (Eranian, or Erano-Aryan) languages, (2) Pisacha, or non-Sanskritic Indo-Aryan languages, (3) Indo-Aryan, or Sanskritic Indo-Aryan languages (for the last two see INDO-ARYAN); Iranian being also grouped into Persian and non-Persian. The common characteristics of all Iranian languages, which distinguish them especially from Sanskrit, are as follows:1. Changes of the original s into the spirant h. ThusSanskrit. Old Persian. Zend. New Persian. hind har ham hend. hima (hiems) zima Ormuzd bāzū zim. fragmentary to allow of our giving a complete account of this family Our knowledge of the Iranian languages in older periods is too and of its special historical development. It will be sufficient here to distinguish the main types of the older and the more recent periods. From antiquity we have sufficient knowledge of two dialects, the first belonging to eastern Iran, the second to western. 1. Zend or Old Bactrian.-Neither of these two titles is well chosen. The name Old Bactrian suggests that the language was limited to the small district of Bactria, or at least that as failures. " or Zend. it was spoken there which is, at the most, only an hypothesis. Zend, again (originally āzaintish), is not the name of a language, as Anquetil Duperron supposed, but means "' intermedieval Pahlavi translation of the Avesta. Our pretation explanation," and is specially applied to the "Zend-Avesta does not mean the Avesta in the Zend language, but is an incorrect "Avistāk va zand," i.e. transcription of the original expression "the holy text (Avesta) together with the translation." But, since we still lack sure data to fix the home of this language with any certainty, the convenient name of Zend has become generally home of the Zend language was certainly in eastern Iran; all established in Europe, and may be provisionally retained. But the attempts to seek it farther west-e.g. in Media 2-must be regarded Zend is the language of the so-called Avesta, the holy book of the Persians, containing the oldest documents of the religion of Zoroaster. Besides this important monument, which is about twice as large as the Iliad and Odyssey put together, we only possess very scanty relics of the Zend language in medieval glosses and scattered quotations in Pahlavi books. These remains, however, suffice to give a complete insight into the structure of the language. Not only amongst Iranian languages, but amongst all the languages of the Indo-European group, Zend takes one of the very highest places in importance for the comparative philologist. În age it almost rivals Sanskrit; in primitiveness it surpasses that language in many points; it is inferior only in respect of its less extensive literature, and because it has not been made the subject of systematic grammatical treatment. The age of Zend must be examined Avesta is not the work of a single author or of any one age, but in connexion with the age of the Avesta. In its present form the embraces collections produced during a long period. The view which became current through Anquetil Duperron, that the Avesta is throughout the work of Zoroaster (in Zend, Zarathushtra), the But the opposite view, that not a single word in the book can lay founder of the religion, has long been abandoned as untenable. claim to the authorship of Zoroaster, also appears on closer study too sweeping. In the Avesta two stages of the language are plainly distinguishable. The older is represented in but a small part of the whole work, the so-called Gāthās or songs. These songs form the true kernel of the book Yasna; they must have been in existence long before all the other parts of the Avesta, throughout the whole of which allusions to them occur. These gathās are what they claim to be, and what they are honoured in the whole Avesta time. They bear in themselves irrefutable proofs of their authenas being the actual productions of the prophet himself or of his ticity, bringing us face to face not with the Zoroaster of the legends but with a real person, announcing a new doctrine and way of salvation, no supernatural Being assured of victory, but a mere man, struggling with human conflicts of every sort, in the midst of a society of fellow-believers yet in its earliest infancy. It is almost impossible that a much later period could have produced such unpretentious and almost depreciatory representations of the deeds and personality of the prophet. If, then, the gathās reach back to the time of Zoroaster, and he himself, according to the most probable estimate, lived as early as the 14th century B.C., the oldest component parts of the Avesta are hardly inferior in age to the oldest Vedic hymns. The gathās are still extremely rough in style and expression; the language is richer in forms than the more recent Zend; and the vocabulary shows important differences. The predominance of the long vowels is a marked characteristic, the constant appearance of a long final vowel contrasting with the preference for a final short in the later speech. 1 Name of the supreme god of the Persians. 2 Cf. I. Darmesteter, Etudes iraniennes, i. 10 (Paris, 1883). This, and not Zend-Avesta, is the correct title for the original text of the Persian Bible. The origin of the word is doubtful, and we cannot point to it before the time of the Sassanians. Perhaps it means announcement,' "revelation." 4 The Avesta is divided into three parts: (1) Yasna, with an appendix, Visparad, a collection of prayers and forms for divine service; (2) Vendidad, containing directions for purification and the penal code of the ancient Persians; (3) Khordah-Avesta, or the Small Avesta, containing the Yasht, the contents of which are for the most part mythological, with shorter prayers for private devotion. Sanskrit. abhi (near) ihā (work) The clearest evidence of the extreme age of the language of the gāthās is its striking resemblance to the oldest Sanskrit, the language of the Vedic poems. The gathā language (much more than the later Zend) and the language of the Vedas have a close resemblance, exceeding that of any two Romanic languages; they seem hardly more than two dialects of one tongue. Whole strophes of the gāthās can be turned into good old Sanskrit by the application of certain phonetic laws; for example “mat vão padāish yā frasrūtā īzhayāo aṭ vão ashā aredrahyācā nemanghā The language of the other parts of the Avesta is more modern, but not all of one date, so that we can follow the gradual decline of Zend in the Avesta itself. The later the date of a text, the simpler is the grammar, the more lax the use of the cases. We have no chronological points by which to fix the date when Zend ceased to be a living language; no part of the Avesta can well be put later than the 5th or 4th century B.C. Before Alexander's time it is said to have been already written out on dressed cowhides and preserved in the state archives at Persepolis. The followers of Zoroaster soon ceased to understand Zend. For this reason all that time had spared of the Avesta was translated into Middle Persian or PAHLAVĪ (q.v.) under the Sassanians. This translation, though still regarded as canonical by the Parsees, shows a very imperfect knowledge of the original language. Its value for modern philology has been the subject of much needless controversy amongst European scholars. It is only a secondary means towards the comprehension of the ancient text, and must be used with discrimination. A logical system of comparative exegesis, aided by constant reference to Sanskrit, its nearest ally, and to the other Iranian dialects, is the best means of recovering the lost sense of the Zend texts. The phonetic system of Zend consists of simple signs which express the different shades of sound in the language with great precision. In the vowel-system a notable feature is the presence of the short vowels e and o, which are not found in Sanskrit and Old Persian; thus the Sanskrit santi, Old Persian hantiy, becomes henti in Zend. The use of the vowels is complicated by a tendency to combinations of vowels and to epenthesis, i.e. the transposition of weak vowels into the next syllable; e.g. Sanskrit bharati, Zend baraiti (he carries); Old Persian margu, Zend mourva (Merv); Sanskrit rinaktī, Zend irinakhti. Triphthongs are not uncommon, e.g. Sanskrit açvebhyas (dative plural of açva, a horse) is in Zend aspacibyo; Sanskrit kṛnoti (he does), Zend kerenaoiti. Zend has also a great tendency to insert irrational vowels, especially near liquids; owing to this the words seem rather inflated; e.g. savya (on the left) becomes in Zend hāvaya; bhrājati (it glitters), Zend barāzaiti; gnā (yvvý), Zend genā. In the consonantal system we are struck by the abundance of sibilants (s and sh, in three forms of modification, z and zh) and nasals (five in number), and by the complete absence of 1. A characteristic phonetic change is that of rt into sh; e.g. Zend asha for Sanskrit rta, Old Persian arta (in Artaxerxes); fravashi for Pahlavi fravardin, New Persian ferver (the spirits of the dead). The verb displays a like abundance of primary forms with Sanskrit, but the conjugation by periphrasis is only slightly developed. The noun has the same eight cases as in Sanskrit. In the gathas there is a special ablative, limited, as in Sanskrit, to the a stems, whilst in later Zend the ablative is extended to all the stems indifferently. We do not know in what character Zend was written before the time of Alexander. From the Sassanian period we find an alphabetic and very legible character in use, derived from Sassanian Pahlavi, and closely resembling the younger Pahlavi found in books. The oldest known manuscripts are of the 14th century A.D.2 Although the existence of the Zend language was known to the Oxford scholar Thomas Hyde, the Frenchman Anquetil Duperron, who went to the East Indies in 1755 to visit the Parsee priests, was the first to draw the attention of the learned world to the subject. Scientific study of Zend texts began with E. Burnouf, and has 1"With verses of my making, which are now heard, and with prayerful hands, I come before thee, Mazda, and with the sincere humility of the upright man and with the believer's song of praise." 2 Grammars by F. Spiegel (Leipzig, 1867) and A. V. W. Jackson (Stuttgart, 1892); Dictionary by F. Justi (Leipzig, 1864); editions of the Avesta by N. L. Westergaard (Copenhagen, 1852) and C. F. Geldner (Stuttgart, 1886–1895; also in English); translation into German by Spiegel (Leipzig, 1852), and into English by Darmesteter (Oxford, 1880) in Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East. since then made rapid strides, especially since the Vedas have opened to us a knowledge of the oldest Sanskrit. 2. Old Persian.-This is the language of the ancient Persians properly so-called, in all probability the mother-tongue of Middle Persian of the Pahlavi texts, and of New Persian. We Old Persian. know Old Persian from the rock-inscriptions of the Achaemenians, now fully deciphered. Most of them, and these the longest, date from the time of Darius, but we have specimens as late as Artaxerxes Ochus. In the latest inscriptions the language is already much degraded; but on the whole it is almost as antique as Zend, with which it has many points in common. For instance, if we take a sentence from an inscription of Darius Auramazdā hya imam bumim adā hya avam asmānam adā hya martiyam ada hya siyātim ada martiyahya hya Dārayavaum khshayathiyam akunaush aivam paruvnẩm khshāyathiyam," it would be in Zend "Ahurō mazdāo yō imām būmim adāt yō aom asmanem adāt yō mashim adat yō shāitim adāṭ mashyahe yō dārayaṭvohūm khshaêtem akerenaot ōyūm pourunām khshaětem."4 The phonetic system in Old Persian is much simpler than in The short vowels e, Zend; we reckon twenty-four letters in all. o are wanting; in their place the old a sound still appears as in Sanskrit, e.g. Zend bagem, Old Persian bagam, Sanskrit bhagam; As Old Persian hamarana, Zend hamerena, Sanskrit samarana. regards consonants, it is noticeable that the older z (soft s) still preserved in Zend passes into d-a rule that still holds in New Persian; compare— Sanskrit. New Persian. hasta (hand) jrayas (sea) aham (I) Zend. Old Persian. zasta zrayō azem dasta daraya adam dast darya Also Old Persian has no special . Final consonants are almost entirely wanting. In this respect Old Persian goes much farther than the kindred idioms, e.g. Old Persian abara, Sanskrit abharat, Zend abarat, pepe: nominative baga, root-form baga-s, Sanskrit bhagas. The differences in declension between Old Persian and Zend are unimportant. Old Persian inscriptions are written in the cuneiform character of the simplest form, known as the "first class." Most of the inscriptions have besides two translations into the more complicated kinds of cuneiform character of two other languages of the Persian Empire. One of these is the Assyrian; the real nature of the second is still a mystery. The interpretation of the Persian cuneiform, the character and dialect of which were equally unknown, was begun by G. F. Grotefend, who was followed by E. Burnouf, Sir Henry Rawlinson and J. Oppert. The ancient Persian inscriptions have been collected in a Latin translation with grammar and glossaries by F. Spiegel (Leipzig, 1862; new and enlarged ed., 1881). The other ancient tongues and dialects of this family are known only by name; we read of peculiar idioms in Sogdiana, Zabulistan, Herat, &c. It is doubtful whether the languages of the Scythians, the Lycians and the Lydians, of which hardly anything remains, were Iranian or not. After the fall of the Achaemenians there is a period of five centuries, from which no document of the Persian language has come down to us. Under the Arsacids Persian nationality rapidly declined; all that remains to us from that period-namely, the inscriptions on coins is in the Greek tongue. Only towards the end of the Parthian dynasty and after the rise of the Sassanians, under whom the national traditions were again cultivated in Persia, do we recover the lost traces of the Persian language in the Pahlavi inscriptions and literature. Middle Persian, 3. Middle Persian.-The singular phenomena presented by Pahlavi writing have been discussed in a separate article (see PAHLAVI). The languages which it disguises rather than expresses-Middle Persian, as we may call itpresents many changes as compared with the Old Persian of the Achaemenians. The abundant grammatical forms of the ancient language are much reduced in number; the case-ending is lost; the noun has only two inflexions, the singular and the plural; the cases are expressed by prepositions-e.g. rūbān (the soul), nom. and acc. sing., plur. rūbānān; dat. val or avo rūbāṇ, abl. min or az rūbān. Even distinctive forms for gender are entirely abandoned, e.g. the pronoun avo signifies "he," "she," "it." In the verb compound forms predominate. In this respect Middle Persian is almost exactly, similar to New Persian. 3 And perhaps of the Medes. Although we have no record of the Median language we cannot regard it as differing to any great extent from the Persian. The Medes and Persians were two closely-connected races. There is nothing to justify us in looking for the true Median language either in the cuneiform writings of the second class or in Zend. 4" Ormuzd, who created this earth and that heaven, who created man and man's dwelling-place, who made Darius king, the one and only king of many." |