properly the Vitae) of Kings."_ History of the Kings, _Siyar-ul Muluk_, is the title of the Arabic rendering of the Book of Kings in Pahlavi. Compare likewise Hamza's remarks on the works on Persian history. I have laboured to show the partiality of the Persian tradition in the footnotes. The narrative is conceived in a monarchical and legitimistic spirit, but equally all along from the view point of the superior nobility and the clergy. Add to this the exertions to cry up as much as possible the glory of Persia which sometimes produces a strange effect. Moreover, there must have been no lack of contradictions as to facts as well as respecting estimates of personal character which was inevitable owing to the employment of varying sources. Nevertheless a work like this written under the Sasanides and familiar with the state of things obtaining in the empire and more or less of an official nature, must have been an admirable fount of history. There was hardly ever a better presentment of the story of this house than the _Khoday-Nameh_. [I have translated the entire passage from the since printed text. See p. 170.--G.K.N.] Since, barring the small book treating of Ardeshir's adventures, no original Pahlavi document in the domain of historical or romantic literature has descended to us and even the Arabic recensions made directly from the original general history in Pahlavi have perished, we are altogether left in uncertainty touching many most important points. We cannot, for instance, ascertain whether alongside of the _Khoday-Nameh_ there existed also other general continuous narrations or whether the deviations, which are for the most part trifling, in some cases of great moment, already existed in the Pahlavi work or are traceable to various recensions of that book. It would not be rash, to assume that some copies of the work contained additional matter taken from other Pahlavi books like the Romance of Bahram. Bahram the high priest of the city of Shapur collected, according to Hamza, more than 20 manuscripts of the _Khoday-Nameh_ and from their divergence made out another independent recension. Musa Ibn Isa Kesravi complains of the variants in the copies of the work; the latter author who speaks of defects in translation has in view only the Arabic redactions. The text, however, of Tabari, at all events and more so a comparison of Tabari and other Arabs with one another and with Firdausi exhibits that entire sections of the History of Kings were already in the Pahlavi original in essentially different shapes. Otherwise, it would not be possible, for instance, that where Tabari offers two different versions, one should harmonise with Eutychius and Ibn Kotaiba (derived from the translation of Ibn Mukaffa) and the other should agree with the Arab Yakubi and often with Firdausi, who goes back to the Pahlavi text not directly but mediately through compositions in modern Persian. It is very important