nihang and āhang: Two Administrative Terms in Middle Persian and Bactrian

Middle Persian nahang (historically preferable: nihang ) is usually translated as ‘province’. The paper tries to demonstrate that the term most probably means ‘domain, orbit; region’. The two forms nihang and nahang also occur in Bactrian documents, translated by Sims-Williams as ‘adjacent’ and ‘environs’. Here it will be argued that this word is semantically narrowed down in Bactrian to a more technical term meaning ‘the land part of a property, simple land (not taking into account the accessories and facilities belonging to it)’. Furthermore, it is discussed that also the word āhang , which collocates with nihang in Bactrian documents, was a technical term, probably meaning ‘accessories and appurtenances; harvest, crop yield; usufruct (?).’ The same term is found in Pahlavi documents meaning “harvest, crop yield”.