BOOK REVIEWS Schmitt Ru ¨ diger, The Old Persian Ins crip tio ns of Naq sh-i Rus tam and Persepo lis [Co rpus Inscr ipti onum Iranicarum. Part I Inscri p- tions of Anc ien t Iran. Vol. I The Old Persian Inscri pti ons. Te xts II]. London: School of Oriental and African Studies 2000, pp. 122, plates 68. ISBN 0-7286-0314-4. This volume has been published as part of the well-known long-term series entitled ‘Corpus Inscriptio num Iranicaru m’, the purpo se ofwhich is to collect and edit all written Old Iranian documents. The conten t of thi s par t enc omp asses app roximate ly 30 Old Persian ins cri pti ons fro m the Dar ius -tomb at Naq sh-i Rustam and from Persepolis. Schmitt follows the good practice of including translitera- tion, transcription and translation. Notes and commentaries comple- ment this work. Pl ates most ly we ll -known from the secondar y literature and some from the CII-archive are included for reference. Despite the critical comments to follow this work is a useful step for- ward and a helpful tool in the discipline of Indo-Iranian studies. It dedicates considerable space to the discussion of linguistic problems. The pre sen tly ext ist ing cor pus of the Achae men id Cun eif orm inscriptions is rather limited. However, due to the exclusively writ- ten tradition of this language, which is often only fragmentary, the texts must be reconstructed in many cases. Fortunately the majority of the texts treated in this volume have suffered less damage than the Susa or the Bi sutun inscri pt ions. The cont ents do not pose much di ffic ul ty for re ading and inte rpretati on. The only major damage mak ing und ers tan din g somewh at difficul t app ear s in the Dari us inscr ipti on of Naqs h-i Rusta m (DNb ). With the disc overy of a stone tablet XPl a near Persepolis in 1967 new impulses stimu- lated the reinterpretation of DNb. A few remarks on the mentio ned ins cri pti ons may be allowed. Thereb y I apply the establish ed tra nsc rip tion used by Ken t, Hinz and Mayrhofer, slightly modified by K. Hoffmann who adds a dot Indo-Iranian Journal48: 133–166, 2005. CSpringer 2006 DOI: 10.1007/s10783-005-8885-6
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8/12/2019 Flood Review. Worshipping S´iva in Medieval India. Ritual in an Oscillating Universe
