story of Arabia he supplied minuter details
touching contemporary Persia. An amanuensis of his, Jabala bin Salim, is
noticed in the _Fihrist_ as one of the translators from Persian. Ho
provided his master with material from Pahlavi books.

For the History of the Arabs of that period Tabari has used a variety of
other sources, most prominent among them being Muhammad Ibn Ishak who is
better known as the biographer of the prophet. In this section of
Tabari's great work mediately or immediately a large amount of diverse
information has been brought together.

It is certainly desirable and to be hoped that the criticism of the
sources in this domain would make substantial progress. But the point of
greatest moment even here is to test every incident or piece of
information according to its origin and credibility as I have
endeavoured to do in the footnotes.

APPENDIX VI

_LETTER OF TANSAR TO THE KING OF TABARISTAN._

Christensen, by the following reasoning, comes to the conclusion, that
it was written somewhere between 557 and 570.

Among the sources of our knowledge of the Sasanian institutions, one of
the most important is the letter of Tansar to the king of Tabaristan
published and translated by Darmesteter in the _Journal Asiatique_
(1894). The information which it gives on points where we can verify it
is so exact that we cannot doubt that the letter was composed in the
time of the Sasanians. On the other hand, on the first reading of the
epistle I formed the impression that it was a literary fiction dating
from the time of Khusro when the tradition made of Ardeshir the model of
political sagacity and the founder of the entire organisation of the
empire. The letter impressed me as a historical, theological, political
and moral dissertation which in the shape of a correspondence between
the grand Herbed Tansar and the king of Tabaristan, ill-informed
regarding the new state of affairs and hesitating to submit himself to
Ardeshir, was calculated to instruct contemporaries. It, therefore, fits
in with the entire literature of the _Andarz_ type, which was developed
under Khusro and the object of it was the moral instruction of the
people. A more minute examination has confirmed me in this view and now
I think I am able to affirm positively that the letter was composed
under Khusro I. Tansar relates that Ardeshir softened the penalties for
crimes against the religion. Formerly, "they used to put to death
with