A New Reading of the Bactrian Part of the Dašt-i Nāwur Trilingual (DN I)

Abstract

The trilingual Kushan royal inscription of Dašt-i Nāwur has been the subject of scholarly controversies since the time of its first scientific publication (Fussman 1974), with different authors defending opposing views and mutually incompatible readings, in particular of the Bactrian part of the inscription (e.g. Davary & Humbach 1976; Sims-Williams & Cribb 1996; Fussman 1998). Progress in the understanding of the inscription has been hampered by inadequate photographic documentation, but also by the comparatively small amount of information on the Bactrian language that was available at the time of its first publication. A color photograph of the Bactrian inscription probably taken in 1969, which was unavailable to earlier editors, has now been made publicly accessible by the Collège de France as part of the estate of the late Gérard Fussman. This article presents a new reading of the inscription based on this photograph, diverging in many respects from earlier interpretations. It includes a response to the recent re-edition of Palunčić et al. (2023), who have also taken the new photograph into account but reached different conclusions.