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If, then, in the Veda the people who spoke Sanskrit were still settled in the north of India, whereas at the time of Solomon their language had extended to Cutch and even the Malabar coast, this will show that at all events Sanskrit is not of yesterday, and that it is as old, at least, as the book of Job, in which the gold of Ophir is mentioned.1

It

Most closely allied to Sanskrit, more particularly to the Sanskrit of the Veda, is the ancient language of the Zend-avesta,2 the so-called Zend, or sacred language of the Zoroastrians or Fire-worshippers. was, in fact, chiefly through the Sanskrit, and with the help of comparative philology, that the ancient dialect of the Parsis or Fire-worshippers was deciphered. The MSS. had been preserved by the Parsi priests at Bombay, where a colony of fire-worshippers had fled in the tenth century, and where it has sive. The arguments derived from the names of the articles exported from Ophir were unknown to him. It is necessary to mention this, because Quatremère's name carries great weight, and his essay on Ophir has lately been republished in the Bibliothèque Classique des Célébrités Contemporaines. 1861.

1 Job xxii. 24.

2 Zend-avesta is the name used by Chaqâni and other Muhammedan writers. The Parsis use the name "Avesta and Zend," taking Avesta in the sense of text, and Zend as the title of the Pehlevi commentary. I doubt, however, whether this was the original meaning of the word Zend. Zend was more likely the same word as the Sanskrit chhandas (scandere) a name given to the Vedic hymns, and avesta, the Sanskrit avasthâna, a word which, though it does not occur in Sanskrit, would mean settled text. Avasthita, in Sanskrit, means laid down, settled. The Zend-avesta now consists of four books, Yasna, Vispered, Yashts, and Vendidad (Vendidad = vidaeva dâta; in Pehlevi, Juddivdad). Dr. Haug, in his interesting lecture on the "Origin of the Parsee Religion," Bombay, 1861, takes Avesta in the sense of the most ancient texts, Zend as commentary, and Pazend as explanatory notes, all equally written in what we shall continue to call the Zend language.

8 "According to the Kissah-i-Sanján, a tract almost worthless as a record of the early history of the Parsis, the fire-worshippers took refuge in Khorassan forty-nine years before the era of Yezdegerd (632 a. D.), or

risen since to considerable wealth and influence. Other settlements of Guebres are to be found in Yezd and parts of Kerman. A Frenchman, Anquetil Duperron, was the first to translate the Zend-avesta, but his translation was not from the original, but from a modern Persian translation. The first European who attempted to read the original words of Zoroaster was Rask, the Dane; and after his premature death, Burnouf, in France, achieved one of the greatest triumphs in modern scholarship by deciphering the language of the Zend-avesta, and establishing its close relationship with Sanskrit. The same doubts which were expressed about the age and the genuineness of the Veda, were repeated with regard to the Zendavesta, by men of high authority as oriental scholars, by Sir W. Jones himself, and even by the late Professor Wilson. But Burnouf's arguments, based at first on grammatical evidence only, were irresistible, and have of late been most signally confirmed by the discovery of the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes. That there was a Zoroaster, an ancient sage, was known long before Burnouf. Plato speaks of a teacher of Zoroaster's Magic (Mayeía), and calls Zoroaster the son of Oromazes.1

This name of Oromazes is important; for Oromazes

about 583. Here they stayed 100 years, to 683, then departed to the city of Hormaz (Ormus, in the Persian Gulf), and after staying fifteen years, proceeded in 698 to Diu, an island on the south-west coast of Katiawar. Here they remained nineteen years, to 717, and then proceeded to Sanján, a town about twenty-four miles south of Damaun. After 300 years they spread to the neighboring towns of Guzerat, and established the sacred fire successively at Barsadah, Nauśari, near Surat, and Bombay." — Bombay Quarterly Review, 1856, No. viii. p. 67.

1 Alc. i. p. 122, a. Ὁ μὲν μαγείαν διδάσκει τὴν Ζωροάστρου τοῦ 'Ωρο μάζου· ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο θεῶν θεραπεία.

ans.

is clearly meant for Ormuzd, the god of the ZoroastriThe name of this god, as read in the inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes, is Auramazda, which comes very near to Plato's Oromazes.1 Thus Darius says, in one passage: "Through the grace of Auramazda I am king; Auramazda gave me the kingdom." But what is the meaning of Auramazda? We receive a hint from one passage in the Achæmenian inscriptions, where Auramazda is divided into two words, both being declined. The genitive of Auramazda occurs there as Aurahya mazdâha. But even this is unintelligible, and is, in fact, nothing but a phonetic corruption of the name of the supreme Deity as it occurs on every page of the Zend-avesta, namely, Ahurô mazdao (nom.). Here, too, both words are declined; and instead of Ahuró mazdão, we also find Mazdão ahurô.2 Well, this Ahurô mazdão is represented in the Zend-avesta as the creator and ruler of the world; as good, holy, and true; and as doing battle against all that is evil, dark, and false. "The wicked perish through the wisdom and holiness of the living wise Spirit." In the oldest hymns, the power of darkness, which is opposed to Ahuró mazdao has not yet received its proper name, which is Angrô mainyus, the later Ahriman; but it is spoken of as a power, as Drukhs or deceit; and the principal doctrine which Zoroaster came to preach was that we must choose between these two powers, that we must be good, and not bad. These are his words:

"In the beginning there was a pair of twins, two

1 In the inscriptions we find, nom. Auramazdâ, gen. Auramazdâha, acc. Auramazdam.

2 Gen. Ahurahe mazdão, dat. mazdâi, acc. mazdam.

spirits, each of a peculiar activity. These are the Good and the Base in thought, word, and deed. Choose one of these two spirits. Be good, not base! "1

Or again :

"Ahuramazda is holy, true, to be honored through veracity, through holy deeds." "You cannot serve

both."

Now, if we wanted to prove that Anglo-Saxon was a real language, and more ancient than English, a mere comparison of a few words such as lord and hlafford, gospel and godspel would be sufficient. Hlafford has a meaning; lord has none; therefore we may safely say that without such a compound as hlafford, the word lord could never have arisen. The same, if we compare the language of the Zend-avesta with that of the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius. Auramazdâ is clearly a corruption of Ahuró mazdao, and if the language of the Mountain-records of Behistun is genuine, then, a fortiori, is the language of the Zend-avesta genuine, as deciphered by Burnouf, long before he had deciphered the language of Cyrus and Darius. But what is the meaning of Ahuró mazdão? Here Zend does not give us an answer; but we must look to Sanskrit, as the more primitive language, just as we looked from French to Italian, in order to discover the original form and meaning of feu. According to the rules which govern the changes of words, common to Zend and Sanskrit, Ahurô mazdão corresponds to the Sanskrit Asuro medhas; and this would mean the "Wise Spirit," neither more nor less.

We have editions, translations, and commentaries of 1 Haug, Lecture, p. 11; and in Bunsen's Egypt.

the Zend-avesta by Burnouf, Brockhaus, Spiegel, and Westergaard. Yet there still remains much to be done. Dr. Haug, now settled at Poona, has lately taken up the work which Burnouf left unfinished. He has pointed out that the text of the Zend-avesta, as we have it, comprises fragments of very different antiquity, and that the most ancient only, the so-called Gâthâs, can be ascribed to Zarathustra. "This portion," he writes in a lecture just received from India, " compared with the whole bulk of the Zend fragments is very small; but by the difference of dialect it is easily recognized. The most important pieces written in this peculiar dialect are called Gâthâs or songs, arranged in five small collections; they have different metres, which mostly agree with those of the Veda; their language is very near to the Vedic dialect." It is to be regretted that in the same lecture, which holds out the promise of so much that will be extremely valuable, Dr. Haug should have lent his authority to the opinion that Zoroaster or Zarathustra is mentioned in the Rig-Veda as Jaradashți. The meaning of jaradashti in the Rig-Veda may be seen in the Sanskrit Dictionary of the Russian Academy, and no Sanskrit scholar would seriously think of translating the word by Zoroaster.

At what time Zoroaster lived, is a more difficult question which we cannot discuss at present. It must

1 Berosus, as preserved in the Armenian translation of Eusebius, mentions a Median dynasty of Babylon, beginning with a king Zoroaster, long before Ninus; his date would be 2234 B. C.

Xanthus, the Lydian (470 B. C.), as quoted by Diogenes Laertius, places Zoroaster, the prophet, 600 before the Trojan war (1800 B. c.).

Aristotle and Eudoxus, according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxx. 1), placed Zoroaster 6000 before Plato; Hermippus 5000 before the Trojan war (Diog. Laert. procm.).

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