rites in use at the time: we therefore cannot be certain of the exact wording preferred by Amram Gaon himself. Evidence for this is: The manuscripts differ widely among themselves The text of the prayers often differs from the surviving responsa of Natronai Gaon and other contemporary authorities, and occasionally even with the halachic commentary of the siddur itself There are many instances where a later authority, such as Abraham ben Nathan's Sefer ha-Manhig or David Abudirham, argues for text A "as prescribed by Amram Gaon" as against text B "found in popular usage", but the current version of Amram Gaon shows text B. Relation to current rites The Siddur Rav Amram was originally sent to the communities of Spain, in response to a request for guidance on the laws of prayer. However, it never seems to have been adopted by them as a package deal, though they respected the individual halachic rulings contained in it. On the contrary, they appear to have edited it to suit their own requirements, so that the wording of the manuscripts and the printed version often contains variants likely to be derived from early versions of the Spanish rite. None of these early versions survives, but secondary evidence such as the Sefer ha-Manhig and the Siddur Rav Amram itself indicates that in certain respects these were different from the Sephardic rite in use today and nearer to other old European rites such as the Provençal, Italian and Old French rites, which reflect varying degrees of Palestinian influence. The later Sephardic rite has been revised to bring it into closer conformity with the rulings of the halachic codes, which themselves often reflect the opinions of the Geonim, and is therefore of a more purely Babylonian character: thus, paradoxically, it has moved away from the current wording of the Siddur Rav Amram and towards what was presumably its original wording. Conversely, the Siddur Rav Amram was a major source used in the standardization of the nusach Ashkenaz, which was already akin to the old European family. For this reason, to a modern reader the wording of the Siddur Rav Amram appears far closer to an Ashkenazi than a Sephardi text, a fact which misled Moses Gaster into believing that the Ashkenazi rite was based on the Babylonian while the Sephardic rite was essentially Palestinian. Published texts of the Siddur Seder Rab Amram, ed. Coronel: Warsaw 1865