A literary history of Persia

DECIPHERMENT OF INSCRIPTIONS 63Yet, though Grotefend failed to accomplish all he attempted,few would have ventured even to attempt what he accomplishedand his ; method, and the discoveries toEstimation of .it/- r iGrotetend's which it led, formed the starting-pointor the*~achievement. . ., .. .,, ,further researches which ultimately resulted in thecomplete solution of this difficult enigma. De Sacy, whosediscoveries had prepared the way for those of Grotefend, wasthe first to recognise the immense value of his results, and tomake them more widely known, while the rival system ofinterpretation proposed byacceptance. 1The next great advances in deciphermentSaint-Martin met with but littlewere made almostsimultaneously in the years 1836-1837 by Lassen, Burnouf,and Rawlinson, the last of whom, working indepcndentlyinPersia, without knowledge of what hadbeen effected by Grotefend, succeeded in readingthe names of Arshdma, Ariyaramna, Chaishpish,and Hakhimanish in the first paragraph of the great Behistuninscription of Darius. Burnouf had already made use of hisknowledge of Sanskrit to elucidate the Avesta, both by thecomparative method and by the use of Neriosengh's Sanskrittranslation ;and he now turned from the completion of his greatwork on the Yasna 2 to an examination of the Persian cuneiforminscriptions, for the study of which the labours of the unfortunatetraveller Schultz had furnished him with fresh materialsfrom Alvand and Van.3His work was to some extent thrown1For further details and references as to the progress of the decipherment, see Spiegel's Kurze Geschichte der Entziffemng ( at pp. 119-132, ofthe already-cited edition of his Keilinschriftcn ; also Geiger and Kuhn'sGrundriss der Iranischen Philologie, vol. ii, pp. 64-74, Geschichte d.Entzifferung und Erklarung d. Inschriften.3 Commentairc sur le Yafna, I'un des livres rcligieux des Parses : ouvragecontenant le texte zend explique POUT la premiere fats, les variantes des qualremanuscrits dc la Bibliotheque royale et la version sanscrite intdite deNeriosengh (Paris, 1833-1835).3Mfmoirc sur deux Inscriptions cuneijormts (Paris, 1836.)