Introduction
In spite of extensive research on various aspects of Middle Persian, many subjects regarding this language remain insufficiently studied, with many ambiguities and disagreements surrounding them. These disagreements include disputes over the grammatical category and the meaning of some words in Middle Persian. Words known as hapax legomenon, or words used only rarely in the extant texts of this language, are particularly mired in uncertainty. Some words are not found in other Iranian or Indo-European languages, making inference by comparison difficult or impossible. Sometimes scholars have not paid enough attention to the semantic and syntactic developments a certain word has undergone on the path from Old to Middle and Modern Persian, or during its occurrence in Middle Persian itself. Other ambiguities arise from lack of sufficient understanding of the exact context in which words are used. For example, distinguishing between specific and proprietary usage of some of the common words in religious, jurisprudential, philosophical, and theological texts demands careful study.
When considering researchers’ interpretations of meaning and grammatical category, a word that may raise doubts is dastan. In this article, after reviewing the few appearances of this word in Middle Persian texts and summarizing scholars’ views of the term, I will analyze it again in light of its occurrence with another word, tuwān. These two words are coordinated with each other in one example. This example has led researchers to the generalization that the grammatical category that they have assigned to tuwān applies to dastan as well. Since their analysis of tuwān was not consistent with Middle Persian linguistic contexts, their determination of its meaning and grammatical category was mistaken. The same error was made in the analysis of dastan. After carefully examining the most significant and reliable examples of the word tuwān and following its process of evolution into a modal verb, a different meaning and category for these two words will be proposed.
Background
dastan is used only three times in all surviving Middle Persian texts; twice in the Sassanian inscriptions and once in the Manichaean texts. The first instances are in Kirdīr's inscriptions at Sarmašhad and Naqš-e Rostam. This word is used twice in each of these inscriptions, but one of the examples at Naqš-e Rostam is completely erased due to erosion. Interestingly, the scribe of Sarmašhad, assuming that the first part of the word was dast “hand,” has carved it with the half-ideogram YDHn.
ḤT LKWM yzdʾn YDHn ḤWH . . . (KSM 26; the parallel text of KNRm 51 is not legible).
(ḤT LKWM yzdʾn) [Y]DHn ḤWH . . . (KSM 28) = [. . . . . . . . .] d[st]ny ḤWH (KNRm 53)
Gignoux recognized the word dastan as an adjective with the meaning “capable” and translated the sentence as: “. . . (vous) êtes capables.”Footnote 1 He later changed his view and modified the translation to “S'il vous êtes possible, ô dieux. . . .”Footnote 2 Brunner's translation is similar to Gignoux's first translation: “. . . may you be able. . . .”Footnote 3 Humbach and Skjærvø again classified it as an adjective, but with the meaning “possible.”Footnote 4 Back translated it as: “Wenn es, o ihr Götter, möglich sei. . . .”Footnote 5 He accepted both the meanings “mächtig” and “möglich” and derived it from the Old Persian root daθ.Footnote 6 This etymology, as he pointed out, was based on Gershevitch's view about the uncertain Old Persian word utava.Footnote 7 According to the transcript received from Cameron, and considering its equivalent, taumā (nominative singular of tauman-) in DB iv, 74, Gershevitch reconstructed it as daθa(n)s. He considered it the nominative singular of the stem daθa(n)t-, meaning “strong” or “vigorous” and connected it to the Avestan dasuuar- and dāsmanī-, which Bartholomae, according to their Zand, drustīh, had translated to “health.” Gershevitch suggested the meaning “physical vigor” for the two Avestan words.Footnote 8 Skjærvø and Schmitt doubted this reconstruction.Footnote 9 The other instance of dastan is in Abnūn's inscription. Skjærvø transcribed and translated it as follows:
ud ahīy framāyēn kū-m agar dastan hād ēg ēdar ādur-ēw nišāyān
and at first, I gave an order (saying): if it becomes possible for me, then I shall found a fire here.Footnote 10
The third case is in the Manichaean texts:
anāy-um pidarān tuwān ud dastan / kū-tān yak pad čand išnōhr izwārānd Footnote 11
Following Andreas and Henning and assuming dastan as an adjective meaning “capable” or “powerful,” Boyce translated it as follows: “Yet my Fathers (are) mighty and powerful, so that they shall show you manifold (yak pad čand) gratitude.”Footnote 12 When analyzing Kirdīr's statement, with the assumption that [yzdʾn] was in the oblique case (as opposed to the direct form [yzdty]), Humbach and Skjærvø concluded that the structure of the sentence was impersonal and translated it as follows: “but for my fathers (it is) possible and possible that they should show you. . . .”Footnote 13 Skjærvø later endorsed this idea and repeated it.Footnote 14
dastan and tuwān
As mentioned, in M 95 r 4 the word dastan is joined to another challenging word, tuwān, with the conjunctive ud. Tuwān also is ambiguous, and there is disagreement among scholars about its meaning and grammatical category. I will consider the various views about this word and consider examples of its use in Middle Persian. I will then determine the meaning and category of tuwān, and afterward return to dastan.
Some scholars identify tuwān as meaning “able” or “capable.”Footnote 15 Some call it “power” or “might.”Footnote 16 Some call it an adjective meaning “possible.”Footnote 17 Some believe in the existence of two versions of tuwān: one an adjective meaning “mighty” or “powerful” and one a noun meaning “might” or “power.”Footnote 18 Boyce and Durkin-Meisterernst explained that the second version is used for impersonal structures. It also seems that Henning believed in the existence of two uses of tuwān, one a noun meaning “possibility” and the other an adjective meaning “mighty” or “powerful.”Footnote 19 Sundermann also defined it as “possibility.”Footnote 20 Similarly Nyberg identified two forms of the word: one an adjective meaning “mighty,” powerful,” or “energetic” and the other an impersonal verb.Footnote 21
From the available examples, it appears that before developing into a modal verb in the Middle Persian texts tuwān belonged solely to the noun category, and it was this noun that became a modal verb in Middle and New Persian. The following examples illustrate the use of this word as a noun:
In all of these examples it is undeniable that tuwān is a noun.
The derivatives and compounds made using tuwān also prove that it is a noun: twāngarīh “richness” or “wealth”; bowandag-tuwānīh “omnipotence”; tuwān-sāmānīhā “to the extent of one's ability”; tuwān-tuxšāgīh “striving to the extent of power”; xwāstag-tuwānīh “richness.” It seems that the interpretations of this word as an adjective, whether as “able,” “mighty,” or “possible” are merely derived from the use of this word in a nominal structure meaning “to have power” or “can,” from which the modal verb has been derived. Although Darmesteter and Salemann suggested that tuwān was derived from the middle present participle of the root tu, there is no reliable evidence in the extant Middle Persian texts that this word is used as an adjective, except for the structures that result in the emergence of the modal verb tuwān.Footnote 26 Interpreting tuwān as an adjective meaning “mighty” or “able” leads to many contradictions:
ohrmazd guft kū ōyšān dāmān ka-šān nē būd hēnd ā-m brehēnīd tuwān būd Footnote 27
Defining tuwān as “able” or “capable,” Gignoux and Tafazzoli translated this sentence as follows: “Ohrmazd dit: ces créature, alors qu'elles n'existaient pas, j'ai été capable de les créer.”Footnote 28 But assuming that tuwān is the adjective of the enclitic personal pronoun -m makes it impossible to explain why this pronoun is an enclitic one, which is inevitably in oblique case. Furthermore, why is the copula (= būd) not inflected in accordance with this personal pronoun which, according to their translation, is the subject of the sentence?
The following example, according to this analysis, runs into the same problems:
čand tuwān hād mardōm pad saxwan ma āzār Footnote 29
The addressee of the sentence is the singular second person, therefore the copula (= hād) is not in accordance with it; tuwān cannot be the adjective of the singular second person. The meaning “possible” does not face the paradoxes of “able” or “capable” and accepting it facilitates analysis of the roles of the other components of the sentence. Yet, as mentioned, the forms outside this structure do not support this interpretation.
The first scholar who studied tuwān in detail was Bartholomae. He rejected the view of Darmesteter and Salemann. Upon analysis of some examples of this word in the Zand and other Pahlavi and Pazand texts, he considered this word to be a noun and compared its etymology with zyān. Footnote 30 Brunner is the other scholar who analyzed the structures created with tuwān. He sketched one group of nominal sentences with complementary phrases in the following way:
In this table the infinitival clause is assumed to be the subject phrase, and the substantives in this structure are the noun tuwān “power” and the adjective niyābag “fitting or proper”These sentences differ from all other nominal types, in that the copula is not a variable element but an optional one. The copula, however, is usually present to indicate past tense. Some of Brunner's examples and translations are as follows:
L wcʾltn′ Lʾ twbʾn′ YḤWWNyt (MYF 1.27) It will not be possible for me to explain.
zʾḥr . . . Lʾ twbʾn′ YḤWWNt wtʾhtn′ (MYF 3.15) It was not possible to dissolve the poison.
L ZNH kʾl PWN ḥdybʾlyh Y LKWM twbʾn krtn′ (KAP 12.18) (It is) possible for me to perform this deed with your help.
nwn hrw cy ʿyn zn qyrd ʾwd wyrʾst mnc hʾmgwng nyʾbg kyrdn (M 45 R 5-7) Now all that This woman has done and performed (it is) fitting for me to do likewise.Footnote 31
In this analysis, Brunner put two different types in one group. The first problem is that niyābag and tuwān do not, at least in his view, belong to the same category. Second, contrary to his point of view, niyābag is the predicate in the sentences in which it is used, and the infinitive is the subject, but in the sentences containing tuwān the role of the infinitive remains ambiguous. In other words, it is impossible in Middle Persian for the role of the infinitive to be the same in these two structures using words that belong to two different categories. Third, despite regarding tuwān as a noun, Brunner translated it as “possible” in all instances.
The solution to these contradictions is to analyze these sentences using a different nominal sentence structure. Brunner named another set of nominal sentences “sentences of possession” and drew their structure as follows:
If the elimination of the copula does not cause ambiguity in the tense of the sentence, it can be deleted from the structure. In later texts, under the influence of New Persian, the indirect object is identified by the postposition rāy. Some of the examples and translations provided by Brunner are as follows:
rwc dwʾzdẖ zmʾn bwyd (M 798 II R ii 23–24) The day has 12 hours.
ʾrdʾw cy swd ky gwyd (BBB 652–53) What profit (has) the righteous man who says:
pʾpk lʾd ʾyc prznd . . . Lʾ bwt (KAP 1.5) Pāpak had no children.Footnote 32
Now, in this structure, if the noun tuwān is in the subject position, it will convey the meaning of “having power” and consequently “being able” or “can”:
hamē ka-šān tuwān anāgīh pad kasān kunēnd
As long as they have power/they can, they always do bad things to people.Footnote 33
ud ka-tān tuwān pēš az xwarišn ō ān wināhgār ud mihrōdruz dahēd
Whenever you can, give it to that sinner and traitor before a meal.Footnote 34
The following example will make the similarity between this structure and the sentences of possession more apparent:
asp *ōy kas nifrīn kunēd kē-š abar nišīnēd kū-t abar man nišast ma tuwān bawād . . . ud hōm yazad *ōy kas rāy nifrīn kunēd gōwēd kū-t frazand ma bawād
The horse curses that person who sits upon him (saying): “May you not be able to sit upon me” . . . And the yazad Hōm curses that person, he says: “May you not have children.”Footnote 35
In these two sentences, following the possession structure, the copulas are inflected in accordance with the subjects (possessees), which are tuwān (in the first sentence) and frazand (in the second).
Unfortunately, in the surviving Sassanian inscriptions, the word tuwān is recorded neither as a simple word nor in the structure under discussion. Had such an example existed in the early Sassanian documents, it would have been helpful to see the older form of this structure. Based on the available instances in the existing texts, it can be assumed that the original structure of the impersonal verb tuwān was a nominal structure meaning “to have power [or ability].”
In the Middle Persian texts the use of the possession structure with the noun tuwān demonstrates a variety of ways of expressing “to have power” or “to be able” and also delineates the process of conversion of this noun into an impersonal modal verb in Middle as well as New Persian:
A) In harmony with its original form, which is the possession structure, the copula in this construction is inflected according to the subject, tuwān. But it can be omitted if its elimination does not obscure the tense and the modality of the sentence.
A1) with copula:
u-š pad kāmag ōwōn kū-m kāč wēš tuwān hē Footnote 36
And his desire is thus: “Would that I had more power!Footnote 37
ōwōn čiyōn ka mard-ē(w) pad būm ī hindūgān karg-ē(w) ēk-srū dīd u-š griftan ō ērānšahr nīdan nē tuwān būd
Just as a man saw in the country of India a rhinoceros with a horn and could not seize it and bring it to Iran.Footnote 38
A2) without copula:
hamē ka-šān tuwān ā-š xwāstag be stānēnd
Whenever they have power/they can, they take his property.Footnote 39
ka kār-ēw ayāb dādestān-ēw frāz rasēd, nē dānēd kū wināh ayāb kirbag ka-š tuwān, ā-š bē hilišn, nē kunišn
When an affair or judgment comes forth, and one does not know whether it is a sin or a good work: when it is possible for him (= when he can) then it is to be left out by him.Footnote 40
B) In most cases, the action—which the logical subject has the power of doing—appears as an infinitive. In such cases, it can appear as a short (= past participle) or a long (= past participle + -an) infinitive. These infinitives are the complements of tuwān, namely “the power (or ability) to do something”:
u-š abāz āmad tuwān ayāb nē
Can he return or not?Footnote 41
pas ān and dušman az šahr abāz dāšt kē tuwān
Who can deter so many enemies from the country?Footnote 42
u-š guft ohrmazd . . . kū-t man nē tuwān murnjēnīdan
Ohrmazd spoke: . . . thou canst-not destroy Me.Footnote 43
C) Most of the instances of this structure are negative. This negation is not formed by negating the copula, which is often omitted, but by putting the negative or prohibitive particle before tuwān. This is true even when the copula is present in the sentence. Transforming this structure to a modal verb, even in the earliest surviving texts, led the Middle Persian speakers to negate tuwān, which, in their view, was the verb of the sentence:
pad ēn abēr-tar tuxšišn kū-š pad man zyān kardan ma tuwān bawād
He should rather strive in the following manner: “May he not be able to do me harm.”Footnote 44
pas-iz čiš-ew kunēm ō dēwšarm frēstēm ī-š wizārdan nē tuwān
Then I make something and send it to Dēwšarm, which he is not able to explain.Footnote 45
awē kē pid ud mād nēst ōwōn homānāg čiyōn zan ī wēwag kē čiš-iz az-iš be stānēnd u-š čiš-iz kardan nē tuwān Footnote 46
He, who has no parents, is like a widow, who is deprived of something and is not able to do anything.
D) When the indirect object (the possessor/subject of the modal verb) is distinguishable from the other components of the sentence, it is deleted:
agar az asp bē nišīnēm ud tō pidar sar andar kanār gīrēm u-t xāk az grīw bē gīrēm }ud{ pas sabukīhā abāz ō asp nišastan nē tuwān
If I dismount from the horse and hold your head, O father, and clear the soil from your body, then [I] will not be able to sit on the horse easily again.Footnote 47
čand tuwān hād mardōm pad saxwan ma āzār Footnote 48
To the extent that [you] can, do not bother people with speech!
E) Since the possession structure has been interpreted as a modal expression, it has turned into an impersonal one as well:
ohrmazd guft kū man mēnōg ī a-griftār ham dast ī man griftan nē tuwān
Ohrmazd said: “I am an intangible spirit; it is not possible to take hold of My hand.Footnote 49
agar tā se rōz griftan nē šāyēd pas az ān nē tuwān griftan Footnote 50
if you cannot catch him in three days, it will not be possible to catch him afterwards.Footnote 51
kadām ān hamēmāl dānāgān pad-iš abēr-tar tuwān šnāxtan Footnote 52
Which is that enemy, through whom one can know more the wise ones?
ka tuwān ud wizīrēd nē xwāhišn čiš az kasān
When a person has power and can help it, he ought not to desire anything from other people.Footnote 53
F) The verb tuwānistan, tuwān- is the final stage of the evolution of the possession structure to a complete personal verb:
sar abar kardan nē tuwānist tā ka ǰeh ī druwand mad pad bowandagīh <ī> sē hazār sāl Footnote 54
He could not lift his head, until at the end of the third millennium the evil Jeh came.
pas az ān ka ohrmazd ō xwadāyīh rasīd hāmōyēn ērān-šahr abāz ō ēw-xwadāyīh tuwānist āwurdan
Later, when Ohrmazd became king, he was able to bring again the whole of Iran under one sovereignty.Footnote 55
u-šān kōf-ēw pad pušt hamē kešīd ud kešīdan nē tuwānist
And they were carrying a mountain (of those stones), and they were not able to support such punishment.Footnote 56
By accepting tuwān as a noun in Middle Persian, and by acknowledging that the process of forming the modal/impersonal verb with it does not violate this view, we can now propose that dastan also has been a noun and synonymous with tuwān due to the coordination of dastan with tuwān in the Manichaean example. The accord of the sentences containing dastan in Kirdīr's and Abnūn's inscriptions with the common Middle Persian possession structure provides an additional supportive reason for this assumption.
Conclusion
Based on the above argument, it can be confidently stated that tuwān was originally a noun in Dari and Modern Persian. As explained in this article, a particular noun structure with the meaning “to have power” underwent a process of transformation, eventually becoming an impersonal verb. It passed through this stage too, and finally it took the form of a complete verb in late Middle Persian, as well as New Persian. Despite this evolutionary process, traces of the use of this noun in the possession structure can be seen in the later Middle Persian texts, just as the transformed form can be seen in the earlier texts.Footnote 57 Accordingly, Proto–Middle Persian should be considered the starting point of the transformation process of the possession structure into the later structures.
The similarity of the use of tuwān and dastan in the possession structure indicates that dastan also could be transformed into an impersonal verb alongside tuwān. But, probably because of their synonymy, the less commonly used word was replaced by the other and was finally totally removed from the lexical list of the language.
Mohammad Hasan Jalalian Chaleshtari is Associate Professor of Ancient Iranian Languages of the Department of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages at the University of Tabriz, Iran. In 2009 he received his doctorate in Ancient Iranian Languages with the subject “Sogdian Compounds”. He has published articles on Middle and New Iranian languages, especially, Sogdian and Middle and New Persian. He is more interested in the grammatical issues of the mentioned languages and has recently been working on a dictionary of verb valency of Early New Persian.
Abbreviations
- AW:
Ayādgār ī Wuzurg-Mihr, quoted from Jamasp-Asana, Pahlavi Texts.
- AWN:
Ardā Wīrāz Nāmag, quoted from Vahman, Ardā Wirāz Nāmag.
- AZ:
Ayādgār ī Zarērān, quoted from Jamasp-Asana, Pahlavi Texts.
- BBB:
Ein manichäisches Bet-und Beichtbuch, quoted from Brunner, Syntax of Western Middle Iranian.
- Bd:
Bundahišn, quoted from Anklesaria, Zand-Ākāsīh.
- DB:
Darius's inscription at Bīstūn, quoted from Kent, Old Persian.
- Dk:
Dēnkard, quoted from Amouzgar and Tafazzoli, Kitāb-i panjum-i dīnkard; Shaked, Wisdom; Rāshid Muḥaṣṣil, Dīnkard-i haftum.
- HĀM:
Handarz ī Ādurbād ī Mahraspandān, quoted from Jamasp-Asana, Pahlavi Texts.
- KAP:
Kārnāmag ī Ardaxšīr ī Pābagān, quoted from Antia, Kārnāmak-i Artakhshīr Pāpakān.
- KNRm:
Kirdīr's inscription at Naqš-e Rostam, quoted from Gignoux, Les quatre inscriptions du Mage Kirdīr.
- KSM:
Kirdīr's inscription at Sarmašhad, quoted from Gignoux, Les quatre inscriptions du Mage Kirdīr.
- MYF:
Mādayān ī Yōšt ī Friyān, quoted from Brunner, Syntax of Western Middle Iranian.
- PR:
Pahlavi Rivāyat, quoted from Williams, Pahlavi Rivāyat.
- ŠGW:
Škand Gumānīk Wizār, quoted from de Menasce, Škand Gumānīk Vičār.
- ŠnŠ:
Šāyist nē-Šāyist, quoted from Tavadia, Šāyast-nē-šāyast.
- WČ:
Wizārišn ī Čatrang, quoted from Jamasp-Asana, Pahlavi Texts.
- WZ:
Wizīdagīhā ī Zādspram, quoted from Gignoux and Tafazzoli, Anthologie de Zādspram.
Mohammad Hasan Jalalian Chaleshtari is Associate Professor of Ancient Iranian Languages of the Department of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages at the University of Tabriz, Iran. In 2009 he received his doctorate in Ancient Iranian Languages with the subject “Sogdian Compounds”. He has published articles on Middle and New Iranian languages, especially, Sogdian and Middle and New Persian. He is more interested in the grammatical issues of the mentioned languages and has recently been working on a dictionary of verb valency of Early New Persian.
