CHAPTER III - THE FORMATION OF THE ZEND-AVESTA. 
§ 1. The collection of Zend fragments, known as the Zend-Avesta[1], is
divided, in its usual form, into two parts.
The first part, or the Avesta properly so called, contains the Vendīdād,
the Vispźrad, and the Yasna. The Vendīdād is a compilation of religious laws
and of mythical tales; the Vispźrad is a collection of litanies for the
sacrifice; and the Yasna is composed of litanies of the same kind and of five
hymns or Gāthas written in a special dialect, older than the general language
of the Avesta.
These three books are found in manuscripts in two different forms: either
each by itself, in which case they are generally accompanied by a Pahlavi
translation; or the three mingled together according to the requirements of the
liturgy, as they are not each recited separately in their entirety, but the
chapters of the different books are intermingled; and in this case the
collection is called the Vendīdād Sādah or 'Vendīdād pure,' as it exhibits
the original text alone, without a translation.
The second part, generally known as the Khorda Avesta or 'Small Avesta,' is
composed of short prayers which are recited not only by the priests, but by all
the faithful, at certain moments of the day, month, or year, and in presence of
the different elements; these prayers are the five Gāh, the thirty formulas of
the Sīrōzah, the three Āfrigān, and the six Nyāyis. But it is also
usual to include in the Khorda Avesta, although forming no real part of it, the
Yasts or hymns of praise and glorification to the several and a number of fragments, the most important of which is the Hadhōkht
Nosk.
[1. A very improper designation, as Zend means 'a commentary or explanation,'
and was applied only to explanatory texts, to the translations of the Avesta.
Avesta (from the old Persian ābastā, 'the law;' see Oppert, Journal Asiatique,
1872, Mars) is the proper name of the original texts. What it is customary to
call, 'the Zend language' ought to be named, 'the Avesta language;' the Zend
being no language at all; and, if the word be used as the designation of one, it
can be rightly applied only to the Pahlavi. The expression 'Avesta and Zend' is
often used in the Pahlavi commentary to designate 'the law with its traditional
and revealed explanation.']
§ 2. That the extent of the sacred literature of Mazdeism was formerly much
greater than it is now, appears not only from internal evidence, that is, from
the fragmentary character of the book, but is also proved by historical
evidence. In the first, place, the Arab conquest proved fatal to the religious
literature of the Sassanian ages, a great part of which was either destroyed by
the fanaticism of the conquerors and the new converts, or lost during the long
exodus of the Parsis. Thus the Pahlavi translation of the Vendīdād, which was
not finished before the latter end of the Sassanian dynasty, contains not a few
Zend quotations from books which are no longer in existence; other quotations,
as remarkable in their importance as in. their contents, are to be found in
Pahlavi and Parsi tracts, like the Nīrangistān and the Aogemaidź. The
Bundahis contains much matter which is not spoken of in the existing Avesta, but
which is very likely to have been taken from Zend books which were still in the
hands of its compiler. It is a tradition with the Parsis, that the Yasts
were originally thirty in number, there having been one for each of the thirty
Izads who preside over the thirty days of the month; yet there are only eighteen
still extant.
The cause that preserved the Avesta is obvious; taken as a whole, it does not
profess to be a religious encyclopedia, but only a liturgical collection, and it
bears more to a Prayer Book than to the Bible. It can be readily conceived that
the Vendīdād Sādah, which had to be recited every day, would be more
carefully preserved than the Yasts, which are generally recited once a
month; and these again more carefully than other books, which, however sacred
they might be, were not used in the performance of worship. Many texts, no
doubt, were lost in consequence of the Arab conquest, but mostly such as would
have more importance in the eyes of the theologian than in those of the priest.
We have a fair specimen of what these lost texts may have been in the few
non-liturgical fragments which we still possess, such as the Vistāsp Yast
and the blessing of Zoroaster upon King Vistāsp, which belong to, the old
epic cycle of Iran, and the Hadhōkht Nosk, which treats of the fate of the soul
after death.
§ 3. But if we have lost much of the Sassanian sacred literature, Sassanian
Persia herself, if we may trust Parsi tradition, had lost still more of the
original books. The primitive Avesta, as revealed by Ormazd to Zoroaster and by
Zoroaster to Vistāsp, king of Bactria, was supposed to have been
composed of twenty-one Nosks or Books, the greater part of which was burnt by
Iskander the Rūmi (Alexander the Great). After his death the priests of the
Zoroastrian religion met together, and by collecting the various fragments that
had escaped the ravages of the war and others that they knew by heart, they
formed the present collection, which is a very small part of the original book,
as out of the twenty-one Nosks there was only one that was preserved in its
entirety, the Vendīdād[1].
This tradition is very old, and may be traced back from the present period
even to Sassanian times[2]. It involves the assumption that the Avesta is the
remnant of the sacred literature of Persia under the last Achęmenian kings. To
ascertain whether this inference is correct, and to what extent it may be so, we
must first try to define, as. accurately as we can, the exact time at which the
collection, now in existence, was formed.
§ 4. The Ravāet quoted above states that it was formed 'after the death of
Iskander,' which expression is rather vague, and may as well mean 'centuries
after his death' as 'immediately after his death.' It is, in fact, hardly to be
doubted that the latter was really what the writer meant; yet, as the date of
that Ravāet is very recent, we had better look for older and more precise
traditions. We find such a one in the Dīnkart, a Pahlavi book which
enjoys great authority with the Parsis of our days, and which, although it
contains many things of late origin[3], also comprises many
[1. Ravāet ap. Anquetil, Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres
XXXVIII, 216; Spiegel, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft
IX, 174.
2. J. Darmesteter, La légende d'Alexandre chez les Parses.
3. We find in it a description of the four classes, which strikingly reminds
{footnote p. xxxiii} one of the Brahmanical account of the origin of the castes
(Chap. XLII; cf. the first pages of the Shikan Gumānī), and which was
certainly borrowed from India; whether at the time of the last Sassanians, when
Persia learnt so much from India, or since the settlement of the Parsis in
India, we are unable to decide: yet the former seems more probable.]
old and valuable traditions. According to a proclamation, ascribed to Khosrav
Anōsharvān (531-579), the collection of the Avesta fragments was begun in the
reign of the last Arsacides, and was finished under Shapūr II (309-380). King
Valkash (Vologeses), it is said, first ordered all the fragments of the Avesta
which might have escaped the ravages of Iskander, or been preserved by oral
tradition, to be searched for and collected together. The first Sassanian king,
Ardeshīr Bābagān, made the Avesta the sacred book of Iran, and Mazdeism the
state religion: at last, Ādarbād under Shapūr II, purified the Avesta and
fixed the number of the Nasks, and Shapūr proclaimed to the heterodox[1]: 'Now
that we have recognised the law of the world here below, they shall not allow
the infidelity of any one whatever[2], as I shall strive that it may be so[3].'
§ 5. The authenticity of this record has been called in question, chiefly, I
think, on account of the part that it ascribes to an Arsacide prince, which
seems hardly to agree with the ideas generally entertained about the character
of the Sassanian revolution[4]. Most Parsi and Muhammedan writers agree that it
was the Sassanian dynasty which raised the Zoroastrian religion from the state
of humiliation into which the Greek invasion had made it sink, and, while it
gave the signal for a revival of the old national spirit, made Mazdeism one of
the corner stones of the new establishment[5]. Therefore it seems strange to
hear that the first step taken to make Mazdeism a state religion was taken by
one of those very Philhellenic Parthian princes, who were so imbued with Greek
ideas and manners. Yet this is the
[1. Gvźt rastakān. We are indebted to Mr. West for the right
translation this word.
2. Thus translated by West (Glossary of the Book of Ardā Vīrāf, p. 27).
3. Haug, Essay on Pahlavi p. 145 seq., 149 seq.
4. Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde III, 782, n. 1.
5. S. de Sacy, Mémoires sur quelques antiquités de la Perse. Cf. Masudi,
125. II, 125.]
very reason why we ought to feel some hesitation in rejecting this document,
and its being at variance with the general Parsi view speaks rather for its
authenticity; for as it was the general post-Sassanian tradition that the
restoration of Mazdeism was the work of the first Sassanian kings, no Parsi
would ever have thought of making them share what was in his eyes their first
and best title of honour with any of the despised princes of the Parthian
dynasty.
§ 6. It is difficult, of course, to prove directly the authenticity of this
record, the more so as we do not even know who was the king alluded to. There
were, in fact, four kings at least who bore the name of Valkhash: the most
celebrated and best known of the four was Vologeses[1], the contemporary of
Nero. Now that Zoroastrianism prevailed with him, or at least with members of
his family, we see from the conduct of his brother Tiridates, who was a Magian
(Magus)[2]; and by this term we must not understand a magician[3], but a priest,
and one of the Zoroastrian religion. That he was a priest appears from Tacitus'
testimony[4]; that he was a Zoroastrian is shown by his scruples about the
worship of the elements. When he came from Asia to Rome to receive the crown of
Armenia at the hands of Nero, he wanted not to come by sea, but rode along the
coasts,[5], because the Magi were forbidden to defile the sea[6]. This is quite
in the spirit of later Zoroastrianism, and savours much of Mazdeism. That
Vologeses himself shared the religious scruples of his brother appears from his
answer to Nero,
[1. Perhaps five (see de Longpérier, Mémoire sur la Numismatique des
Arsacides, p. 111).
2. 'Magus ad eum Tiridates venerat' (Pliny, Nat. Hist. XXX, 6).
3. Pliny very often confounds Magism and Magia, Magians and Magicians. We
know from Pliny, too, that Tiridates refused to initiate Nero into his art: but
the cause was not, as he assumes, that it was 'a detestable, frivolous, and vain
art,' but because Mazdean law forbids the holy knowledge to be revealed to
laymen, much more to foreigners (Yast IV, 10; cf. Philostrati Vita Soph. I, 10).
4. 'Nec recusaturum Tiridatem accipiendo diademati in urbem venire, nisi
sacerdotii religione attineretur' (Ann. XV, 24).
5. He crossed only the Hellespont.
6. 'Navigare noluerat quoniam inspuere in maria, aliisque mortalium
necessitatibus violare naturam eam fas non putant' (Pliny, 1. 1. Cf. Introd. V,
8 seq.).]
who insisted upon his coming to Rome also: 'Come yourself, it is easier for
you to cross such immensity of sea[1].'
§ 7. Thus we hear on one hand from the Parsis that the first collection of
the Avesta was made by an Arsacide named Vologeses; and we hear, on the other
hand, from a quite independent source, that an Arsacide named Vologeses behaved
himself as a follower of the Avesta might have done. In all this there is no
evidence that it is Vologeses I who is mentioned in the Dīnkart, much
less that he was really the first editor of the Avesta; but it shows at all
events that the first attempt to recover the sacred literature of Iran might
very well have been made by an Arsacide, and that we may trust, in this matter,
to a document which has been written perhaps by a Sassanian king, but, at any
rate, in a Sassanian spirit. In fact, in the struggle between Ardavan and Ardeshīr,
there was no religious interest at stake, but only a political one; and we are
expressly told by Hamza that between Ardeshīr and his adversaries there was
perfect accordance in religious matters[2]. It can, therefore, be fairly
admitted that even in the time and at the court of the Philhellenic Parthians a
Zoroastrian movement may have originated, and that there came a time when they
perceived that a national religion is a part of national life. It was the merit
of the Sassanides that they saw the drift of this idea which they had the good
fortune to carry out; and this would not be the only instance, in the history of
the world, of an idea being sown by one party and its advantages reaped by their
adversaries.
[1. Dio Cassius, LXIII, 4. The answer was mistaken for an insult by Nero,
and, as it seems, by Dio himself In fact Vologeses remained to the last faithful
to the memory of Nero (Suet. Nero, 57). What we know moreover of his personal
character qualifies him for taking the initiative in a religious work. He seems
to have been a man of contemplative mind rather than a man of action, which
often excited the anger or scorn of his people against him; and he had the glory
of breaking with the family policy of Parthian kings (Tacitus, Annales, XV, I,
2). It was under his reign that the first interference of religion with
politics, of which the history of Persia speaks, took place, as he was called by
the people of Adiabene against their king Izates, who had become a Jew
(Josephus, Antiq. XX, 4, 2).
2. Hamzae Ispahensis Annales, ed. Gottwaldt, p. 31 (in the translation).]
§ 8. Another presumptive evidence of the groundwork of the Avesta being
anterior to the age of the Sassanians is given by the language in which it is
written. That language not only was not, but had never been, the national
language of Persia. It is indeed closely connected with the ancient Persian, as
found in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achęmenian kings, from which modern
Persian is derived; but the relations between ancient Persian and Zend are of
such a kind that neither language can be conceived as being derived from the
other; they are not one and the same language in two different stages of its
development, but two independent dialects in nearly the same stage, which is a
proof that they did not belong to the same country, and, therefore, that Zend
was not the language of Persia. Now the language used in Persia after the death
of Alexander, under the Arsacides and Sassanides, that is, during the period in
which the Avesta must have been edited, was Pahlavi, which is not derived from
Zend, but from ancient Persian, being the middle dialect between ancient and
modern Persian. Therefore, if the Sassanian kings had conceived the project of
having religious books of their own written and composed, it is not likely that
they would have had them written in an old foreign dialect, but in the old
national language, the more so, because, owing both to their origin and their
policy, they were bound to be the representatives of the genuine old Persian
tradition. Therefore, if they adopted Zend as the language of religion, it must
have been because it was already so when they appeared, that is to say, because
the only remnants of sacred literature then extant were written in Zend, and the
editors of the Avesta had Zend writings before them.
This does not, of course, prove that all we find in the Avesta is
pre-Sassanian, and that the editors did not compose new Zend texts. Although
Zend was not only a dead language, but also a foreign one, it was. not an
unknown language: that it was well understood by the learned class, the priests,
appears from the Pahlavi translation, which was made by them, and which, the
deeper one enters into the meaning of the text, has the fuller justice done to its
merits. The earliest date that can be ascribed to that translation, in its
present form, is the last century of the Sassanian dynasty, as it contains an
allusion to the death of the heresiarch Mazdak, the son of Bāmdād[1], who was
put to death. in the beginning of the reign of Khosrav Anōsharvān (about 531).
Now the ability to translate a dead language is a good test of the ability to
write in it, and in the question of the age of the Zend texts the possibility of
new ones having been composed by the editors cannot be excluded ą priori. Nay,
we shall see further on that there are passages in these texts which look very
modern, and may have been written at the time when the book took its last and
definitive form. But whatever may be the proportion of the new texts to the old
ones (which I believe to be very small), it is quite certain that the bulk of
the Avesta is pre-Sassanian.
§ 9. The date assigned by the Dīnkart to the final edition of the
Avesta and to its promulgation as the sacred law of the nation, agrees with what
we know of the religious state of Iran in the times of Shapūr II. Mazdeism had
just been threatened with destruction by a new religion sprung from itself, the
religion of Mānī, which for a while numbered a king amongst its followers
(Shapūr I, 240-270). Mazdeism was shaken for a long time, and when Mānī was
put to death, his work did not perish with him. In the Kissah-i Sangāh,
Zoroaster is introduced prophesying that the holy religion will be overthrown
three times and restored three times; overthrown the first time by Iskander, it
will be restored by Ardeshīr; overthrown again, it will be restored by, Shapūr
II and Ādarbād Mahraspand; and, lastly, it will bc overthrown by the Arabs and
restored at the end of time by Soshyos. Thc Parsi traditions about Ādarbād,
although they are mixed with much fable, allow some historical truth to show
itself. He was a holy man under Shapūr II, who, as there were many religions
and heresies in Iran and the true religion
[1. Vide infra, p. xli, note 3.]
was falling into oblivion, restored it through a miracle, as he gave a sign
of its truth by allowing melted brass to be poured on his breast, without his
being injured. Setting aside the miracle, which is most probably borrowed from
the legend of Zoroaster, this account receives its true interpretation from the
passages in the Kissah-i Sangāh and the Dīnkart, which imply
that Ādarbād restored Mazdeism, which had been shaken by the Manichean heresy,
and that in order to settle it upon a solid and lasting base, he gave a
definitive form to the religious book of Iran and closed the Holy Writ. And even
nowadays the Parsi, while reciting the Patet, acknowledges Ādarbād as the
third founder of the Avesta; the first being Zoroaster, who received it from
Ormazd; the second Gāmāsp, who received it from Zoroaster; and the
third Ādarbād, who taught it and restored it to its purity.
Therefore, so far as we can trust to inferences that rest upon such scanty
and vague testimonies, it seems likely that the Avesta took its definitive form
from the hands of Ādarbād Mahraspand, under King Shapūr II, in consequence of
the dangers with which Mānī's heresy had threatened the national religion. As
the death of Mānī and the first persecution of his followers took place some
thirty years before Shapūr's accession to the throne, it may be presumed that
the last revision of the Avesta was made in the first years of the new reign,
when the agitation aroused by Mānī's doctrines and imperfectly allayed by the
persecution of his disciples had not yet subsided, and the old religion was
still shaking on its base[1].
§ 10. It follows hence that Zend texts may have been composed even as late
as the fourth century A.D. This is, of course, a mere theoretical possibility,
for although the liturgical parts of the Yasna, the Vispźrad, the Sīrōzah,
and
[1. Shapūr II ascended the throne about 309 (before being born, as the
tradition goes): and as he appears from the Dīnkart to have taken a
personal part in the work of Ādarbād, the promulgation of the Avesta can
hardly have taken place at an earlier date than 325-330. Ādarbād and the
Fathers at Nicaea lived and worked in the same age, and the Zoroastrian threats
of the king of Iran and the Catholic anathemas of the Kaisar of Rūm may have
been issued on the same day.]
the Khorda Avesta must be ascribed to a later time than the Gāthas, the Vendīdād,
and the Yasts, and may belong to some period of revision, they certainly
do not belong to the period of this last revision. Ādarbād was only the last
editor of the Avesta, and it is likely, nay, it is beyond all question, that the
doctors of the law, before his time, had tried to put the fragments in order, to
connect them, and to fill up the gaps as far as the practical purposes of
liturgy required it. Therefore instead of saying that there are parts of the
Avesta that may belong to so late a period as the fourth century, it is more
correct to say that no part of it can belong to a later date.
There are two passages in the Vendīdād which seem to contain internal
evidence of their date, and in both cases it points to Sassanian times, nay, the
second of them points to the age of Manicheism. The first is found in the
eighteenth Fargard (§ 10): Ahura Mazda, while cursing those who teach a wrong
law, exclaims:
'And he who would set that man at liberty, when bound in prison, does no
better deed than if he should flay a man alive and cut off his head.'
This anathema indicates a time when Mazdeism was a state religion and had to
fight against heresy; it must, therefore, belong to Sassanian times. These lines
are fully illustrated by a Parsi book of the same period[1], the Mainyō-i-Khard:
'Good government is that which maintains and orders the true law and custom
of the city people and poor untroubled, and thrusts out improper law and custom;
. . . and keeps in progress the worship of God, and duties, and good works; . .
. and will resign the body, and that also which [is] its own life, for the sake
of the good religion of the Mazdayasnians. And if [there] he any one who shall
stay [away] from the way of God, then it orders him to return thereto, and makes
him a prisoner, and brings [him] back to the way of God; and will bestow, from
the wealth that is his, the share of God, and the worthy, and good works, and the poor; and will deliver up the body on account of the soul. A good
king who [is] of that sort, is called like the Yazads and the Ameshāspeńds[1].'
[1. See the book of the Mainyō-i-Khard, ed. West; Introduction, p. x seq.]
What doctrines are alluded to by the Vendīdād is not explained: it appears
from the context that it had in view such sects as released the faithful from
the yoke of religious practices, as it anathematizes, at the same time, those
who have continued for three years without wearing the sacred girdle. We know
too little of the Manichean liturgy to guess if the Manicheans are here alluded
to: that Mānī should have rejected many Zoroastrian practices is not unlikely,
as his aim was to found a universal religion. While he pushed to extremes
several of the Zoroastrian tenets, especially those which had taken, or might
receive, a moral or metaphysical meaning, he must have been very regardless of
practices which could not be ennobled into moral symbolism. However it may be
with regard to the foregoing passage, it is difficult not to see a direct
allusion to Manicheism in lines like the following (IV, 47 seq.):
'Verily I say it unto thee, O Spitama Zarathustra! the man who has a
wife is far above him who begets no sons; he who keeps a house is far above him
who has none; he who has children is far above the childless man, he who has
riches is far above him who has none.
'And of two men, he who fills himself with meat is filled with the good
spirit much more than he who does not so; the latter is all but dead; the former
is above him by the worth of an Asperena, by the worth of a sheep, by the worth
of an ox, by the worth of a man.
'It is this man that can strive against the onsets of Astōvīdhōtu; that
can strive against the self-moving arrow; that can strive against the winter
fiend, with thinnest garment on; that can strive against the wicked tyrant and
smite him on the head; it is this man that can strive against the ungodly
Ashemaogha[2] who does not eat[3].'
[1. Chap. XV, 16 seq. as translated by West.
2. Ashemaogha, 'the confounder of Asha' (see IV, 37), is the name of the
fiends and of the heretics. The Parsis distinguish two sorts of Ashemaoghas, the
deceiver and the deceived; the deceiver, while alive, is margarzān, {footnote
p. xli} worthy of death,' and after death is a darvand (a fiend, or one
of the damned); the deceived one is only margarzān.
3. The Pahlavi translation illustrates the words 'who does not eat' by the
gloss, 'like Mazdak, son of Bāmdād,' which proves that this part of the
commentary is posterior to, or contemporary with the, crushing of the Mazdakian
sect (in the first years of Khosrav Anōsharvān, about 531). The words 'against
the wicked tyrant' are explained by the gloss, 'like Zarvāndād;' may it not be
Kobād, the heretic king, or 'Yazdgard the sinner,' the scorner of the Magi?]
That this is a bit of religious polemics, and that it refers to definite
doctrines and tenets which were held at the time when it was written, can hardly
be doubted. It may remind one of the Christian doctrines; and, in fact, it was
nearly in the same tone, and with the same expressions, that in the fifth
century King Yazdgard branded the Christians in Armenia[4]. But however eager
the Christian propaganda may have been for a time in Persia, they never
endangered the state religion. The real enemy was the heresy sprung from
Mazdeism itself; and Christianity, coming from abroad, was more of a political
than a religious foe. And, in point of fact, the description in the above
passage agrees better with the Manichean doctrines than with the Christian[5].
Like Mānī, Christian teachers held the single life holier than the state of
matrimony, yet they had not forbidden marriage, which Mānī did; they put poor
Lazarus above Dives, but they never forbade trade and husbandry, which Mānī
did; and, lastly, they never prohibited the eating of flesh, which was one of
the chief precepts of Mānī[6]. We find, therefore, in this passage, an
illustration, from the Avesta itself, of the celebrated doctrine of the three
seals with which Mānī had sealed the bosom, thc hand, and the mouth of his
disciples (signaculum sinus, manus, oris)[6].
[4. Elisaeus, pp. 29, 52. in the French translation by Garabed.
5. At least with orthodox Christianity, which seems to have alone prevailed
in Persia till the arrival of the Nestorians. The description would apply very
well to certain gnostic sects, especially that of Cerdo and Marcio, which is no
wonder as it was through that channel that Christianity became known to Mānī.
Masudi makes Mānī a disciple of Kardūn (ed. B. de Meynard, II, 167), and the
care which his biographer (ap. Flügel, Mānī, pp. 51, 85) takes to determine
the length of time which intervened between Marcio and Mānī seems to betray
some dim recollection of an historical connection between the two doctrines.
6. The patriarch of Alexandria, Timotheus, allowed the other patriarchs,
{footnote p. xlii} bishops, and monks to eat meat on Sundays, in order to
recognise those who belonged to the Manichean sect (Flügel, p. 279).]
§11. We must now go a step farther back, and try to solve the question
whence came the original texts out of which the editors of the Avesta formed
their collection. Setting aside the Dīnkart, we have no oriental
document to help us in tracing them through the age of the Arsacides, a complete
historical desert, and we are driven for information to the classical writers
who are, on this point, neither very clear nor always credible. The mention of
books ascribed to Zoroaster occurs not seldom during that period, but very often
it applies to Alexandrian and Gnostic apocrypha[1]. Yet there are a few passages
which make it pretty certain that there was a Mazdean literature in existence in
those times. Pausanias, travelling through Lydia in the second century of our
era, saw and heard Magian priests singing hymns from a book[2]; whether these
hymns were the same as the Gāthas, still extant, we cannot ascertain, but this
shows that there were Gāthas. The existence of a Zoroastrian literature might
be traced back as far as the third century before Christ, if Pliny could be
credited when he says that Hermippus" had given an analysis of the books of
Zoroaster, which are said to have amounted to 2,000,000 lines[4]. For want of
external evidence for ascertaining whether the original texts were already in
existence in the later years of the Achęmenian. dynasty, we must seek for
internal evidence. A comparison between the ideas expressed in our texts and
what we know of the ideas of Achęmenian Persia may perhaps lead to safer
inferences.
§ 12. That all the Avesta ideas were already fully developed in the time,
or, at least, at the end of the
[1. Those who follow the heresy of Prodicus boast of possessing secret books
of Zoroaster,' Clemens Alex. Stromata I. Cf. the {Greek a?pokalu'pseis
Zwroa'strou} forged by Adelphius or Aquilinus (ap. Porphyr. Vita Plotini, §
16).
2.{Greek ?Epa'jdei de` e?pilego'menos e?k bibli'ou} (V, 27, 3).
3. See Windischmann, Zoroastrische Studien, 288.
4. 'Hermippus, qui de tota arte ea (magia) diligentissime scripsit et viciens
centiens milia versuum a Zoroastre condita indicibus quoque voluminum ejus
positis explanavit.' . . . (Hist. Nat. XXX, I, 2). He had written a book {Greek
peri` magwn} (Diog. Laert. Prooem. 8).]
Achęmenian dynasty, appears from the perfect accordance of the account of
Mazdeism in Theopompos[1] with the data of the Zend books. All the main features
of Mazdean belief, namely, the existence of two principles, a good and an evil
one, Ormazd and Ahriman, the antithetical creations of the two supreme powers,
the division of all the beings in nature into two corresponding classes, the
limited duration of the world, the end of the struggle between Ormazd and
Ahriman by the defeat and destruction of the evil principle, the resurrection of
the dead, and the everlasting life, all these tenets of the Avesta had already
been established at the time of Philip and Aristotle. Therefore we must admit
that the religious literature then in existence, if there were any, must have
differed but little, so far as its contents were concerned, from the Avesta; its
extent was greater of course, and we have a proof of this in this very account
of Theopompos, which gives us details nowhere to be found in the present texts,
and yet the authenticity of which is made quite certain by comparative
mythology[2]. Therefore there is nothing that forbids us to believe, with the
Parsis, that the fragments of which the Avesta is composed were already in
existence before the Greek invasion[3].
§ 13. But it does not follow hence that the Achęmenian Avesta was the
sacred book of the Achęmenians and of Persia, and it must not be forgotten that
the account in Plutarch is not about the religion of Persia, but about the
belief of the Magi and the lore of Zoroaster. Now if we consider that the two
characteristic features of Avestean Magism are, so far as belief goes, the
admission of two principles, and so far as practice is concerned, the
prohibition of burying the dead, we find that there is no evidence
[1. In Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, §§46-47,
2 Men, when raised from the dead, shall have no shadow any longer ({Greek
mh'te skia`n poiou^ntas}) In India, gods have no shadows (Nalus); in Persia, Rāshidaddīn
was recognised to be a god from his producing no shadow (Guyard, Un grand
maitre, des Assassins, Journal Asiatique, 1877, I, 392); the plant of eternal
life, Haoma, has no shadow (Henry Lord).
3. Persian tradition cannot be much relied on, when it tries to go back
beyond Alexander, and on that special point it seems to be more an inference of
later ages, than a real tradition; but the inference happens to be right.]
that Achęmenian Persia admitted the former, and there is evidence that she
did not admit the latter. But, at the same time, it appears that both the belief
and the practice were already in existence, though peculiar to one class, the
sacerdotal class, the Magi.
The question whether the Achęmenian kings believed in dualism and knew of
Ahriman, is not yet settled. Much stress has often been laid on the absence of
the name of Ahriman in the religious formulae engraved by Darius and Xerxes on
the rocks at Persepolis and Naqs-i Rustam[1]. But it is never safe to
draw wide conclusions from negative facts: Darius and Xerxes speak of Aurāmazda
quite in the style of the Avesta, and their not speaking of Ahriman is no
sufficient proof of their not knowing him; they did not intend to publish a
complete creed, nor had they to inscribe articles of faith.
The account of the Persian religion in Herodotus also leaves, or seems to
leave, Ahriman unnoticed. But it must be borne in mind that he does not expound
the religious conceptions of the Persians, but only their religious customs; he
describes their worship more than their dogmas, and not a single tenet is
mentioned. He seems even not to know anything of Ormazd, who was, however, most
certainly the most supreme god of Persia in his days; yet, in fact, he clearly
alludes to Ormazd when he states that the Persians worship Zeus on the summits
of mountains, and call by the name of Zeus the whole circle of the heavens,
which exactly agrees with the character of Ormazd[2]. In the same way the
existence of Ahriman is indirectly pointed to by the duty enforced upon the
faithful to persecute and kill noxious animals, as it was only on account of
[1. Professor Oppert thinks he has found in Darius' inscriptions an express
mention of Ahriman (Le peuple et le langue des Mčdes, p. 199); yet the
philological interpretation of the passage seems to me still to obscure to allow
of any decisive opinion. Plutarch introduces Artaxerxes I speaking of {Greek
A?reima'nios}, but whether the king is made to speak the language of his own
time, or that of Plutarch's time, is left doubtful. As to the allusions in
Isaiah (xlv), they do not necessarily refer to dualism in particular, but to all
religions not monotheistic. (Cf. Ormazd et Ahriman, §241.)
2. Vide infra, IV, 5]
their being creatures of the evil principle and incarnations if of it, that
this custom was enjoined as a religious duty[1]. It appears, it is true, from
the words of Herodotus, that it was only a custom peculiar to the Magi[2]; but
is shows, at least, that the belief in Ahriman was already then in existence,
and that dualism was constituted, at least, as a Magian article of faith.
If we pass now from dogma to practice, we find that the most important
practice of the Avesta law was either disregarded by the Achęmenian kings, or
unknown to them. According to the Avesta burying corpses in the earth is one of
the most heinous sins that can be committed[3]; we know that under the
Sassanians a prime minister, Seoses, paid with his life for an infraction of
that law . Corpses were to be laid down on the summits of mountains, there to be
devoured by birds and dogs; the exposure of corpses, was the most striking
practice of Mazdean profession, and its adoption was the sign of conversion[5].
Now under the Achęmenian rule, not only the burial of the dead was not
forbidden, but it was the general practice. Persians, says Herodotus, bury their
dead in the earth, after having coated them with wax[6]. But Herodotus,
immediately after stating that the Persians inter their dead, adds that the Magi
do not follow the general practice, but lay the corpses down on the ground, to
be devoured by birds. So what became a law for all people, whether laymen or
priests, under the rule of the Sassanians, was only the custom of the Achęmenians.
The obvious conclusion is that the ideas and customs which are found in the
Avesta were already in existence under the Achęmenian kings; but that taken as
a whole, they were not the general ideas and customs of the whole of Persia, but
only of the sacerdotal caste[7]. There were
[1. Vide infra, IV, 35; cf. Fargard XIII, 5 seq.; XIV, 5.
2. Herod. I, 140.
3. Vide infra, V, 9.
4. Procopius, De Bello Persico, I, II.
5. Ibid. I, 12.
6. Herod. I. 140.
7. There are other features of the Avesta religion which appear to have been
foreign to Persia, but are attributed to the Magi. The hvaźtvōdatha,
the holiness of marriage between next of kin, even to incest, was unknown to
{footnote p. xlvi} Persia under Cambyses (Herod. III, 31), but it is highly
praised in the Avesta, and was practised under the Sassanians (Agathias II, 31);
in the times before the Sassanians it is mentioned only as a law of the Magi
(Diog. Laert. Prooem. 6; Catullus, Carm. XC).]
therefore, practically, two religions in Iran, the one for laymen and the
other for priests. The Avesta was originally the sacred book only of the Magi,
and the progress of the religious evolution was to extend to laymen what was the
custom of the priests.
§ 14. We are now able to understand how it was that the sacred book of
Persia was written in a non-Persian dialect: it had been written in the language
of its composers, the Magi, who were not Persians. Between the priests and the
people there was not only a difference of calling, but also a difference of
race, as the sacerdotal caste came from a non-Persian province. What that
province was we know both from Greek historians and from Parsi traditions.
All classical writers, from Herodotus down to Ammianus, agree in pointing to
Media as the seat and native place of the Magi. 'In Media,' says Marcellinus
(XXIII, 6), 'are the fertile fields of the Magi . . . (having been taught in the
magic science by King Hystaspes) they handed it down to their posterity, and
thus from Hystaspes to the present age an immense family was developed,
hereditarily devoted to the worship of the gods. . . . In former times their
number was very scanty . . . , but they grew up by and by into the number and
name of a nation, and inhabiting towns without walls they were allowed to live
according to their own laws, protected by religious awe.' Putting aside the
legendary account of their origin, one sees from this passage that in the time
of Marcellinus[1] (fourth cent. A.D.) there was in Media a tribe, called Magi,
which had the hereditary privilege of providing Iran with priests. Strabo,
writing three centuries before Marcellinus, considered the Magi as a sacerdotal
tribe spread over the land[2] . Lastly, we see in Herodotus (III, 65) that the
usurpation of the Magian Smerdis was interpreted
[1. Or of the historians from whom he copies. Still he seems to speak from
contemporary evidence. Sozomenus (Hist. Eccles. II, 9) states that the care of
worship belonged hereditarily to the Magi 'as to a sacerdotal race,' {Greek
w!'sper ti fu^lon i!eratiko'n}.
2. {Greek To` tw^n Ma'gwn fu^lon} (XV, 14).]
by Cambyses, as an attempt of the Medes to recover the hegemony they had
lost, and when we learn from Herodotus (I, 101) that the Medes were divided into
several tribes, Busae, Paraetakeni, Strouchates, Arizanti, Budii, and Magi,
without his making any remark on the last name, we can hardly have any doubt
that the priests known as Magi belonged to the tribe of the Magi, that they were
named after their origin, and that the account of Marcellinus may be correct
even for so early a period as that of Herodotus.
§ 15. Parsi traditions agree with Greek testimonies.
That the priesthood was hereditary, we see from the statement in the Bundahis,
that all the Maubeds are descendants from King Minochihr[1], and even nowadays
the priesthood cannot extend beyond the priestly families; the son of a Dastur
is not obliged to be a Dastur, but no one that is not the son of a Dastur can
become one[2].
That they came from Media, we see from the traditions about the native place
of Zoroaster, their chief and the founder of their religion. Although epic
legends place the cradle of Mazdean power in Bactria, at the court of King Vistāsp,
Bactria was only the first conquest of Zoroaster, it was neither his native
place, nor the cradle of his religion. Although there are two different
traditions on this point, both agree in pointing to Media; according to the one
be was born in Rai, that is in Media, properly so called; according to the other
he was born in Shīz, that is in Media Atropatene.
The former tradition seems to be the older; it is expressed directly in the
Pahlavi Commentary to Vendīdād I, 16[3]; and there is in the Avesta itself
(Yasna XIX, 18 (50)) a passage that either alludes to it or shows how it
originated.
'How many masters are there?'
[1. Bundahis 79, 13.
2. Dosabhoy Framjee, The Parsees, &c. p. 277.
3. 'Ragha of the three races,' that is to say, Atropatene (vide infra); some
say it is 'Rai.' It is 'of the three races' because the three classes, priests,
warriors, husbandmen, 'were well organized there. Some say that Zartust was born
there . . ., those three classes were born from him.' Cf. Bundahis 79, 15, and
Farg. II, 43, n. 2. Rai is the Greek {Greek R!agai'}.]
'There are the master of the house, the lord of the borough, the lord of the
town, the lord of the province, and the Zarathustra (the high-priest) as
the fifth. So is it in all lands, except in the Zarathustrian realm; for
there are there only four masters, in Ragha, the Zarathustrian city[1].'
'Who are they?'
'They are the master of the house, the lord of the borough, the lord of the
town, and Zarathustra is the fourth 2.'
This amounts to saying that the high-priest, the Maubedān Maubed, held in
Rai the position of the dahvyuma, or lord of the land, and was the chief
magistrate. It may be suspected that this was the independent sacerdotal state
which is spoken of in Marcellinus, and this suspicion is raised to a certain
degree of probability by the following lines in Yaqūt:
'Ustūnāwand, a celebrated fortress in the district of Danbawand, in the
province of Rai. It is very old, and was strongly fortified. It is said to have
been in existence more than 3000 years, and to have been the stronghold of the
Masmoghān of the land during the times of paganism. This word, which designates
the high-priest of Zoroastrian religion, is composed of mas, "great,"
and moghān, which means "magian." Khaled besieged it, and the power
of the last of them[3].'
According to another tradition Zarathustra was born in Atropatene. The
very same commentary which describes Ragha as being identical with Rai, and the
native place of Zartust, also informs us that Ragha was brought by others
[1. Or possibly, 'in the Zarathustrian Ragha.'
2. The Commentary has here: 'that is to say, he was the fourth master in his
own land.'
Their spreading and wandering over Mazdean lands appears from Yasna XLII, 6
(XII, 34): 'We bless the coming of the Āthravans, who come from afar to bring
holiness to countries;' cf. infra, p. lii, note I, and Farg. XIII., 22.
3. Dictionnaire géographique de la Perse, traduit par Barbier de Meynard, p.
33. Cf. Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde III, 565. A dim recollection of this
Magian dynasty seems to survive in the account ap. Diog. Laert. (Prooem. 2) that
Zoroaster was followed by a long series of Magi, Osthanae Astrampsychi, and
Pazatae, till the destruction of the Persian empire by Alexander.]
to be Atropatene. Traditions, of which unfortunately we have only late
records, make him a native of Shīz, the capital of Atropatene[1]: 'In Shīz is
the fire temple of Azerekhsh, the most celebrated of the Pyraea of the Magi; in
the days of the fire worship, the kings always came on foot, upon pilgrimage.
The temple of Azerekhsh is ascribed to Zeratusht, the founder of the Magian
religion, who went, it is said, from Shīz to the mountain of Sebīlān, and,
after remaining there some time in retirement, returned with the Zend-Avesta,
which, although written in the old Persian language, could not be understood
without a commentary. After this he declared himself to be a prophet[2].'
Now we read in the Bundahis that Zartust founded his religion by offering a
sacrifice in Irān Vźg (Airyanem Vaźgō)[3]. Although this
detail referred originally to the mythical character of Zoroaster, and Irān Vźg
was primitively no real country, yet as it was afterwards identified with the
basin of the Aras (Vanguhi Dāitya)[4], this identification is a proof that the
cradle of the new religion was looked for on the banks of the Aras. In the
Avesta itself we read that Zoroaster was born and received the law from Ormazd
on a mountain, by the river Darega[5], a name which strikingly reminds
one of the modern Darah river, which falls from the Sebīlān mount into the
Aras.
To decide which of the two places, Rai or Atropatene, had the better claim to
be called the native place of Zoroaster is of course impossible. The conflict of
the two traditions must be interpreted as an indication that both places were
important seats of the Magian worship. That both traditions may rely on the
Avesta is perhaps a sign that the Avesta contains two series of documents, the
one emanating from the Magi of Ragha, and the other from the
[1. The Persian Gazn, the Byzantine Gaza Ganzaka, the site of which was
identified by Sir Henry Rawlinson with Takht i Suleiman (Memoir on the Site of
the Atropatenian Ecbatana, in the journal of the Royal Geographical Society, X,
65).
2. Kazwini, and Rawlinson, l.c. p. 69.
3. Bund. 79, 12.
4. See Farg. I, p. 3.
5. See Farg. XIX, 4, 11.]
Magi of Atropatene[1]. Which of the two places had the older claim is also a
question hardly to be settled in the present state of our knowledge[2].
Whether Magism came from Ragha to Atropatene, or from Atropatene to Ragha, in
either case it had its origin in Media[3]. That Persia should have submitted in
religious matters to a foreign tribe will surprise no one who thinks of the
influence of the Etruscan augurs in Rome. The Magi might be hated as Medes, but
they were respected and feared as priests. When political revolutions gave vent
to national hate, the Persian might willingly indulge it, and revel in the blood
of the foreign priest[4]; yet whenever he had to invoke the favour of the gods,
he was obliged to acknowledge that he could not do without the detested tribe,
and that they alone knew how to make themselves beard by heaven[5]. When and how
the religious hegemony of Media arose we cannot say: it is but natural that
Media[6],
[1. This would be a principle of classification which unfortunately applies
only to a small part of the Avesta.
2. Still, if we follow the direction of the Zoroastrian legend, Magism must
have spread from west to east, from Atropatene to Ragha, from Ragha to Bactria;
and Atropatene must thus have been the first cradle of Mazdeism. Its very name
points to its sacred character; oriental writers, starting from the modern form
of the name, Adarbīgān, interpret it as 'the seed of fire,' with an
allusion to the numerous fire springs to be found there. Modern scholars have
generally followed the historical etymology . given by Strabo, who states that,
after the death of Alexander, the satrap Atropates made himself an independent
sovereign in his satrapy, which was named after him Atropatene. This looks like
a Greek etymology (scarcely more to be trusted than the etymology of {Greek
R!agai'} , from {Greek r!h'gnumi}), and it is hardly to be believed that the
land should have lost its former name to take a new one from its king;, it was
not a new-fangled geographical division, like Lotharingia, and had lived a life
of its own for a long time before. Its name Ātarpatakān seems to mean 'the
land of the descent of fire,' as it was there that fire came down front heaven
(cf. Ammianus 1. c.)
2. The Pahlavi names of the cardinal points show that Media was the centre of
orientation in Magian geography (Garrez, Journal Asiatique, 1869, II).
4. Magophonia (Herod. III, 79).
5. {Greek O!s a?utou`s mo'nous a?kouome'nous} (Diog. Laert. Prooem.); cf.
Herod. I, 132 Ammian. 1. 1.
6. An echo of the old political history of Media seems to linger in Yast
V, 29, which shows Azi Dahāka reigning in Babylon (Bawru); as Azi, in his
legendary character, represents the foreign invader, this passage can hardly be
anything but a far remote echo of the struggles between Media and the
Mesopotamian empires. The legend of Azi is localised only in Medic {footnote p.
li} lands: he addresses his prayers to Ahriman by the banks of the Sipīt rūt
(Bundahis 52, 11), his adversary Ferīdūn is born in Ghilān, he is bound to
Mount Damāvand (near Rai).]
having risen sooner to a high degree of civilisation, should have given to
religion and worship a more systematic and elaborate form, and in religion, as
in politics, the best organised power must sooner or later get the upper hand.
It is likely that it began with the conquest of Media by Cyrus: Media capta
ferum victorem cepit. . . . Cyrus is said to have introduced the Magian
priesthood into Persia (Xenophon, Cyrop. VIII, I, 23), which agrees with the
legend mentioned by Nikolaus that it was on the occasion of the miraculous
escape of Crsus that the Persians remembered the old {Greek logi'a} of
Zoroaster forbidding the dead to be burnt.
The Medic origin of the Magi accounts for a fact which perplexes at first
sight, namely, the absence of the name of the Magi from the book written by
themselves[1]; which is natural enough if the word Magu was not the name of the
priest as a priest, but as a member of the tribe of the Magi. The proper word
for a priest in the Avesta is Āthravan, literally, 'fire-man,' and that this
was his name with the Persians too appears from the statement in Strabo (XV,
733) that the Magi are also called {Greek Pu'raišoi}. It is easy to conceive
that the Persians, especially in ordinary parlance, would rather designate their
priests after their origin than after their functions[2]; but the Magi
themselves had no reason to follow the Persian custom, which was not always free
from an implication of spite or scorn. The only passage into which the word
found its way is just one that betrays the existence of this feeling: the enemy
of the priests is
[1. In their own language, the Zend; of which the modern representatives, if
there be any left, should therefore be looked for in Atropatene or on the banks
of the Caspian sea. The research is complicated by the growing intrusion of
Persian words into the modern dialects, but as far as I can see from a very
inadequate study of the matter, the dialect which exhibits most Zend features is
the Talis dialect, on the southern bank of the Aras.
2. The Pahlavi has 'one who hates the Magu-men.' In the passage LIII (LII),
7, magéus is not a Magian, and it is translated by magi, 'holiness, godliness,'
related to the Vedic magha. Afterwards the two words were confounded, whence
came the Greek statement that {Greek ma'gos} means sit the same time 'a priest'
and 'a god' (Apollon. Tyan. Ep. XVII).]
not called, as would be expected, an Āthrava-tbis, 'a hater of the Āthravans'
(cf. the Indian Brahma-dvish), but a Moghu-tbis, a hater of the Magi[1].'
The name, it is true, became current in Pahlavi and modern Persian, but it was
at a time when the old national quarrels between Media and Persia were quenched,
and the word could no longer carry any offensive idea with it.
§ 16. The results of the foregoing research may be summed up as follows:--
The original texts of the Avesta were not written by Persians, as they are in
a language which was not used in Persia, they prescribe certain customs which
were unknown to Persia, and proscribe others which were current in Persia. They
were written in Media, by the priests of Ragha and Atropatene, in the language
of Media, and they exhibit the ideas of the sacerdotal class under the Achęmenian
dynasty.
It does not necessarily follow from this, that the original fragments were
already written at the time of Herodotus[2].
[1. A further echo of the anti-Magian feelings may be heard in Yasna IX, 24
(75): 'Haoma overthrew Keresāni, who rose up to seize royalty, and he said,
"No longer shall henceforth the Āthravans go through the lands and teach
at their will."' This is a curious instance of how easily legendary history
may turn myths to its advantage, The struggle of Haoma against Keresāni is an
old Indo-European myth, Keresāni being the same as the Vedic Krisānu,
who wants to keep away Soma from the hands of men. His name becomes in the
Avesta the name of an anti-Magian king [it may be Darius, the usurper (?)], and
ten centuries later it was turned into an appellation of the Christian Kaisars
of Rūm (Kalasyāk = {Greek e?kklhsia[ko's] }; Tarsāka).
2. If the interpretation of the end of the Behistun inscription (preserved
only in the Scythian version) as given by Professor Oppert be correct, Darius
must have made a collection of religious texts known as Avesta, whence it would
follow, with great probability, that the present Avesta proceeded from Darius.
The translation of the celebrated scholar is as follows: 'J'ai fait une
collection de textes (dippimas) ailleurs en langue arienne qui autrefois
n'existait pas. Et j'aģ fait un texte de la Loi (de l'Avesta; Haduk ukku) et un
commentaire de la Loi, et Is Bénédiction (la pričre, le Zend) et les
Traductions.' (Le peuple et la langue des Mčdes, pp. 155, 186.) The authority
of Oppert is so great, and at the same time the passage is so obscure, that I
hardly know if there be more temerity in rejecting his interpretation or in
adopting it. Yet I beg to observe that the word dippimas is the usual Scythian
transliteration of the Persian dipi, 'an inscription,' and there is no apparent
reason for departing from that meaning in this passage; if the word translated
'la Loi,' ukku really represents here a Persian word Abasta, it need not
denote the Avesta, the religious book, as in that case the word would most
certainly not have been translated in the Scythian version, but only
transliterated; the ideogram for 'Bénédiction, pričre,' may refer to
religious inscriptions like Persepolis I; the import of the whole passage would
therefore be that Darius caused other inscriptions to be engraved, and wrote
other edicts and religious formulae (the word, 'traductions' is only a guess).]
But as the Magi of that time sang songs of their gods during sacrifice, it is
very likely that there was already a sacred literature in existence. The very
fact that no sacrifice could be performed without the assistance of the Magi
makes it highly probable that they were in possession of rites, prayers, and
hymns very well composed and arranged, and not unlike those of the Brahmans;
their authority can only be accounted for by the power of a strongly defined
ritual and liturgy. There must, therefore, have been a collection of formulae
and hymns, and it is quite possible that Herodotus may have heard the Magi sing,
in the fifth century B. C., the very same Gāthas which are sung nowadays by the
Mobeds in Bombay. A part of the Avesta, the liturgical part, would therefore
have been, in fact, a sacred book for the Persians. It had not been written by
them, but it was sung for their benefit. That Zend hymns should have been sung
before a Persian-speaking people is not stranger than Latin words being sung by
Frenchmen, Germans, and Italians; the only difference being that, owing to the
close affinity of Zend to Persian, the Persians may have been able to understand
the prayers of their priests.
§ 17. It may, therefore, be fairly admitted that, on the whole, the present
texts are derived from texts already existing under the Achęmenian kings. Some
parts of the collection are undoubtedly older than others; thus, the Gāthas are
certainly older than the rest of the Avesta, as they are often quoted and
praised in the Yasna and the Vendīdād; but it is scarcely possibly to go
farther than a logical chronology. One might feel inclined, at first sight, to
assign to a very recent date, perhaps to the last revision of the Avesta, those
long enumerations of gods so symmetrically elaborated in the Yasna, Vispźrad,
and Vendīdād. But the Account of Mazdeism given by Plutarch shows that the work of co-ordination was already terminated at the end of the Achęmenian
period, and there is no part of the Avesta which, so far as the matter is
concerned, may not have been written in those times. Nay, the Greek accounts of
that period present us, in some measure, with a later stage of thought, and are
pervaded with a stronger sense of symmetry, than the Avesta itself. Such
passages as the latter end of the Zamyād Yast and Vendīdād X, 9 seq. prove
that, when they were composed, the seven Arch-Dźvs were not yet pointedly
contrasted with the seven Amshaspands, and therefore those passages might have
been written long before the time of Philip. The theory of time and space as
first principles of the world, of which only the germs are found in the Avesta,
was fully developed in the time of Eudemos, a disciple of Aristotle.
§ 18. To what extent the Magian dogmatical conceptions were admitted by the
whole of the Iranian population, or how and by what process they spread among
it, we cannot ascertain for want of documentary evidence. As regards their
observances we are better instructed, and can form an idea of how far and in
what particulars they differed from the other Iranians. The new principle they
introduced, or, rather, developed into new consequences, was that of the purity
of the elements. Fire, earth, and water had always been considered sacred
things, and had received worship[1]: the Magi drew from that principle the
conclusion that burying the dead or burning the dead was defiling a god: as
early as Herodotus they had already succeeded in preserving fire from that
pollution, and cremation was a capital crime. The earth still continued to be
defiled, notwithstanding the example they set; and it was only under the
Sassanians, when Mazdeism became the religion of the state, that they won this
point also.
The religious difference between the Persians and their Medic priests was
therefore chiefly in observances. Out of the principles upon which the popular
religion rested, the sacerdotal class drew by dint of logic, in a puritan
spirit,
[1. Cf. V, 8.]
the necessity of strict observances, the yoke of which was not willingly
endured by the mass of the people. Many acts, insignificant in the eyes of the
people, became repugnant to their consciences and their more refined logic. The
people resisted, and for a time Magian observances were observed only by the
Magi. The slow triumph of Magism can be dimly traced through the Achęmenian
period. Introduced by Cyrus, it reigned supreme for a time with the
Pseudo-Smerdis, and was checked by Darius[1]. It seems to have resumed its
progress under Xerxes; at least, it was reported that it was to carry out Magian
principles that he destroyed the Greek temples, and that the first who wrote on
the Zoroastrian lore was a Magian, named Osthanes, who had accompanied him to
Greece[2]. New progress marked the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus. The epic
history of Iran, as preserved in the Shah Nāmah, passes suddenly from the field
of mythology to that of history with the reign of that king, which makes it
likely that it was in his time that the legends of Media became national in
Persia, and that his reign was an epoch in the political history of Magism[3].
But the real victory was not won till six centuries later, when national
interest required a national religion. Then, as happens in every revolution, the
ultra party, that had pushed to the extreme the principles common to all, took
the lead; the Magi ascended the throne with Ardeshīr, one of their pupils[4],
and the Magian
[1. Darius rebuilt the temples which the Magus Gaumata had destroyed
(Behistun I, 63). The Magi, it is said, wanted the gods not to be imprisoned
within four walls (Cic. de Legibus II, 10). Xerxes behaved himself as their
disciple, at least in Greece. Still the Magi seem to have at last given way on
that point to the Perso-Assyrian customs, and there were temples even under the
Sassanians.
2. Pliny, Hist. Nap., XXX, I, 8.
3. Cf. Westergaard, Preface to the Zend-Avesta, p. 17. This agrees with what
we know of the fondness of Artaxerxes for religious novelties, It was he who
blended the worship of the Assyrian Anat-Mylitta with that of the Iranian Anāhita
(the ascription of that innovation to Artaxerxes Mnemon by Clemens Alexandrinus
(Stromata 1) must rest on a clerical error, as in the time of Herodotus, who
wrote under Longimanus, the worship of Mylitta had already been introduced into
Persia (I, 131)).
4. Agathias II, 26.]
observances became the law of all Iran. But their triumph was not to be a
long one; their principles required an effort too continuous and too severe to
be ever made by any but priests, who might concentrate all their faculties in
watching whether they had not dropped a hair upon the ground. A working people
could not be imprisoned in such a religion, t |
