The History of Antiquity, Vol. 5 (of 6)

With the assistance of the Avesta we may go a step further. We saw that Kava Huçrava no less than Vistaçpa is represented as fighting against the Turas or Tuiryas. Who were these enemies? In Old-Bactrian the word means the enemy, the oppressor. Strabo speaks of a region of Turuia in the north of Parthia, towards the steppes of the Oxus.[75 - Strabo, p. 517. [Τοριούαν is a v. l. for Ταπυρίαν.]] In the later tradition of Iran the Turanians are the constant and most dangerous enemies of the kings of Bactria. The steppes of the Oxus and Jaxartes were inhabited by nations to whom the Persians gave the collective name of Sacæ, while the Greeks called them Scythians. They found but scanty pasture on the steppes, and it was natural that they should look with longing eyes on the more fertile regions of Bactria and Sogdiana. It has already been mentioned how careful Cyrus was to protect these countries, when he had conquered them, against the nations of the steppes. At a later time, from the middle of the second century B.C. downwards (p. 28), we have definite information of the pressure of these nations on Parthia, Margiana, and Bactria. When freed from the attacks of the Seleucids on the west, the Arsacids had to defend the east of the kingdom. Phraates II. and Artabanus II. fell in battle against the nomads; Mithridates II. succeeded in protecting Parthia, but about the year 100 B.C. the Sacæ were able to force a way through Bactria. They possessed themselves of the best land in the east of Iran, the valleys of the Hilmend (p. 7), bequeathed their name to the country (Sikashtan, Sejestan), and from the valley of the Cabul extended their dominion beyond the Indus. The white Huns, or Yuëchis, followed the Sacæ; and they also reached the Indus. Is there any reason to doubt the Avesta that even before the Medes and Cyrus the princes of Bactria and Sogdiana were occupied with beating back the tribes of the steppes?

In ancient times, as Strabo tells us, the Bactrians and Sogdiani were little removed from wandering shepherds. The Avesta exhibits them in close connection with horses. The names compounded with açpa (horse) are common; Kereçaçpa, Aurvataçpa, Vistaçpa, Haechataçpa, Jamaçpa, Pourushaçpa. Of Zariaçpa and the Zariaçpians we have already spoken. The most important source of wealth must have consisted in horses, for which the mountains supplied ample pasture. The horse-sacrifice is the chief sacrifice of the Avesta. One hundred horses were equal to 1000 oxen, and 10,000 head of small cattle. We found that Bactria could furnish the last Darius with 30,000 cavalry, and the horse was the symbol of Bactria on the coins of the Greek princes of the land (p. 27).

From all these indications we may assume that when the Arians had settled in Margiana, Bactria, and Sogdiana, and agriculture became of importance beside the breeding of cattle, the necessity of protection against the migratory tribes of the endless plains stretching to the north, created among the Arians a warlike nobility who took upon themselves the duty of defence. The valley of the Zarefshan (Sogdiana), the terrace of Bactria, the region of Merv, became in the hands of the Arians advanced posts of civilisation in the desert. If Western Iran was protected in the north by the Alps of Aderbeijan and the Caspian Sea against attacks from that quarter, Eastern Iran lay open to the nomads of the steppes, and had nothing but arms to defend its cultivated lands. We have already seen that Bactria even in the sixth century had passed beyond the earliest stages of civilisation (p. 24). But even a less degree of prosperity was sufficient to excite the sons of the desert to invasion. Hence we may assume that the incursions and raids of the nomads of the steppes began with the increase of the flocks and the prosperity of agriculture in the valleys of Merv, Bactria, and Sogdiana. The increasing severity of these attacks compelled the Bactrian soldiery to collect their forces for more successful resistance, and to place the best warriors at the head of the community. Thus it was not by spontaneous development, but rather by the opposition to the nations of the steppes, that the north-east of Iran first outgrew the tribal life, and became transformed into a larger state. Of this kingdom Aurvataçpa and Vistaçpa became the rulers; in the Avesta they are distinguished from the Paradhatas and from Kava Kavata, Kava Uça, and Kava Huçrava, by a new addition to the name and other peculiar traits, and form a third group. The progress of our investigation will show that the formation of this Bactrian kingdom cannot be placed later than 1100 B.C.; the date of Vistaçpa must be put about 1000 B.C., and it was the successors of Vistaçpa who sent to Shalmanesar II. the tribute of camels with two humps, and yaks (about 850 B.C.), who found themselves menaced once more by the advances of Tiglath Pilesar II. to Arachosia in the year 745 B.C., and at length succumbed to Cyrus. We shall find that this kingdom was not without its warlike races and priestly families, that Zariaçpa and Bactria were the centres of it, and that the sovereigns attained despotic power. Yet the old warlike families must have preserved a certain importance under the monarchy, unless they regained it when lost under the viceroys of the Achæmenids. It was the chieftains of the Bactrians whom Alexander summoned to Zariaçpa, and who with the Sogdiani at their side took the lead in resistance. The most powerful of them stubbornly defended their rocky citadels against the Macedonians.

CHAPTER III.

THE SCRIPTURES OF IRAN.[76 - [Cf. Darmesteter, "Zend-Avesta," Introduction, c. iii.]]

The statements of the Avesta concerning the ancient rulers of Eastern Iran were proved to be without historical value, yet we found in them an ancient and genuine tradition, the form of which allowed us to draw certain conclusions about the political condition of that region in a period for which we have no other records except the poetry of Western Iran. But what the Avesta tells us of the rulers of ancient days is of secondary importance for the book, which comprises the doctrines and ordinances of the faith proclaimed by Zarathrustra, and the rules of life which he is said to have laid down. May we assume that we possess these in a genuine and unaltered form in the Avesta, though they have only come down to us in fragments?

A book of the Parsees of India, which tells the story of their flight from their ancient home, relates that Iskander (Alexander of Macedon) burned the revealed scriptures, and the faithful were persecuted for 300 years. When Ardeshir (the first Sassanid) ascended the throne, the true faith was restored, under the superintendence of Arda Viraf. After this the true religion was again suspended till king Shapur (Shapur II.) rose and once more made the faith famous, and Aderbat Mahresfant girded his loins in the good cause. The same account is given in the Book of Arda Viraf, also a book of the Parsees of India. From this we learn that the religion received by the pious Zarathrustra lasted for 300 years in purity. Then the evil one stirred up Iskander Rumi, so that he spread war and devastation over Iran, and slew the rulers of the land. The Avesta which was preserved at Stakhar Papakan (Persepolis), written on cow-skins with golden ink, he burned, and put to death many priests and judges, pillars of the faith, and spread hatred, strife, and confusion among the people of Iran. They had now no lord, guide, and high priest, who knew their religion; they were full of doubts and had different modes of belief and worship of various kinds, and different laws prevailed in the world till the time when Ardeshir came to the throne and listened to the words of the holy Arda Viraf and believed him. But after Ardeshir's death a schism broke out, and more than 40,000 souls fell away from the true faith, till the day when the holy Aderbat Mahresfant arose.[77 - Haug, "The Book of Arda Viraf," p. 142 ff.] An older writing of the Parsees, the Dinkart (composed under the Sassanids), tells us, apparently on the ground of a proclamation of the Sassanid Chosru Parvez (590-627 A.D.) that king Vistaçpa of Bactria had commanded that all books which were written in the language of the Magians should be collected, in order that the faith of the worshippers of Auramazda might have some support, and all men were to go to Frashaostra (whom the Avesta mentions as a companion of Zarathrustra) to be instructed in the faith. And Darai, the son of Darai (Darius Hystaspis is meant), commanded that two copies of the entire Avesta, precisely as Zarathrustra had received it from Auramazda, should be preserved, the one in the treasury at Shapikan, and the other in the city of scriptures. Then Valkosh (Vologeses), the descendant of Ashkan (Arsaces), gave orders that so much of the Avesta as had escaped destruction and the ravages of Iskander and the warriors of Rum, and existed in fragments or in oral tradition, should be sought out and brought from every city. And king Artakshatr (Ardeshir) summoned the Herbedh (i. e. the priest)[78 - Herbedh is the old Bactrian athrapaiti.] Tosar with the holy scriptures, which were scattered, to his residence, and when Tosar came he gave command to the other priests that everything, which differed from that which was now considered to be knowledge and wisdom, should be suppressed. The son of Artakshatr, Shapuhar (241-272 A.D.), the king of kings, gave command that all writings on medicine or astronomy or other subjects in Hindostan, Rum, and other lands, should be collected, and again united with the Avesta, and that an exact copy should be deposited in the treasury of Shapikan. Lastly Atropat (Aderbat) in the reign of Shapuhar (Shapur II, 309-379 A.D.), the son of Auharmazdi, purified the sayings of Zarathrustra and enumerated the Nosks (chapters) of the sacred scriptures.[79 - Haug, "Pahlavi-Pazand Glossary," p. 144, 146.]

In the rivayats of the Parsees in India, i. e. in the collections of the sayings of the priests on their doctrine, we find an enumeration of these sections of the scriptures. At each book this list notes how many chapters were re-discovered "after Alexander." According to this enumeration the scriptures of Iran consisted of twenty-one books.[80 - It is found in the so-called "Great Rivayat."] The first book contained the songs of praise to the supreme spirits in 33 chapters; the second (22 chapters) treated of good works; the third (22 chapters) of the sacred word; the fourth (21 chapters) of the gods; the fifth (22 chapters) of the earth, of water, of trees, of wild animals; the sixth (35 chapters) of the heavens and the stars; the seventh (22 chapters) of pure and impure kinds of food, and of the celebration of the great festivals; the eighth (50 chapters) of the kings and priests, of pure and impure animals; the ninth (60 chapters) of the laws according to which the kings and judges were to give sentence; the tenth (60 chapters) of virtue and wisdom; the eleventh (60 chapters) of the reign and conversion of king Vistaçpa; the twelfth taught agriculture in 22 chapters, the planting of trees, the duty of the priests and laity, and treated of the orders; the thirteenth (60 chapters) was occupied with the sacred sciences, the teachers and pupils, and the miracles which Zarathrustra worked; the fourteenth book (22 chapters) spoke of the life of men from birth to death; the fifteenth (17 chapters) contained songs of praise; the sixteenth (54 chapters) laid down rules for what was permitted and what was not; the seventeenth (64 chapters) contained the doctrines of medicine and astronomy; the eighteenth (65 chapters) the doctrine respecting animals and their treatment; the nineteenth (52 chapters) contained the civil and criminal law; the twentieth (22 chapters) the rubrics for the removal of impurity; the twenty-first gave in 30 chapters the history of creation.[81 - Vullers, "Fragmente über die Religion Zoroasters," s. 15-42; Haug, "Essays," p. 125.]

According to this list the scriptures of Iran must have been of very considerable extent. The Arabian author Masudi, who lived about the middle of the tenth century A.D., also puts the number of books at twenty-one. "Zartusht," he says, "gave the Parsees the book which is called the Avesta. It consisted of twenty-one sections, of which each amounted to 200 pages. This book was written in the character which Zartusht invented and which the Magians call the religious character, on 12,000 cow-hides, and these were kept together by bands of gold. It was composed in the old Persian language, which no one now understands."[82 - Quatremère, "Journ. des Savants," 1840, p. 413.] From the list of the books and chapters it is clear that these writings comprised not only the religious doctrine and law, together with the rules for correct conversation, but also the rubrics for the liturgy and ritual. They were at the same time the code of criminal and civic law, and in them was deposited what was known of medicine and agriculture, and the sum total of the science of their authors.

Can we assume that writings of this importance, nature, and extent existed in Iran before Alexander of Macedon overthrew the kingdom of the Achæmenids? Herodotus tells us that the Magians or priests of the Persians recited the theogony, i. e. long poems, at their sacrifices. The disciples of the sophist Prodicus are said to have asserted that they were in possession of writings of Zoroaster, who taught the Persians their religion.[83 - Clemens Alex. "Strom." p. 598.] Hermippus of Smyrna, who wrote in the second half of the third century B.C., and devoted especial attention to the religions of the east, stated that the Magians maintained two principles, a good and an evil deity; the one they called Zeus and Oromasdes, the other Hades and Areimanius.[84 - Diogen. Laert. prooem. The corrupt passage in Athenæus (p. 478) is not a sufficient reason for refusing to accept Hermippus of Smyrna as the author of the treatise on the Magians. Pliny could not quote the Berytian Hermippus.] Zoroaster, who founded the doctrine of the Magians, had composed twenty books, each of 100,000 lines, and Hermippus gave the contents of the various books and quoted regulations from them. Pliny tells us: "The doctrine of the Magians prevails to this day among a great part of the nations, and in the East is supreme over the king of kings" (i. e. the Arsacids); and vouches for Hermippus that he had written with great care about the Magians,[85 - Plin. "H. N." 30, 2.] from whose work no doubt he quotes some particulars of the doctrine of Zoroaster. According to Zoroaster's rule the sowing of the fields should take place when the moon is in the sign of Taurus; and it was forbidden to expose the person before the sun or moon, or to defile a man's shadow. Pliny also mentions the precious stones, of which Zoroaster had extolled the brilliance; the herbs, used by the Magians; and enumerates a number of remedies, which they applied. Finally, he speaks of the Nyktegertos, a herb growing in Gedrosia, which the Magians used when making vows.[86 - "H. N." 37, 49, 55, 58; 26, 9; 27, 35; 28, 19, 27; 29, 38; 21, 36.] Philo of Byblus quotes a passage, apparently from "the sacred collection of Zoroaster," on the nature of the deity, and assures us that the Persian Osthanes maintained the same in the Octateuch.[87 - Philon. Bybl. fragm. 9, ed. Müller.] Plutarch gives us a short but accurate account of the system of Zoroaster; his contemporary Dio Chrysostom asserts that Zoroaster and the sons of the Magians had sung of the balance of Zeus and the constellation of the day in strains more sublime than those of Homer or Hesiod;[88 - Dio Chrysost, ed. Dind. 2, 60.] and Pausanias relates that at the kindling of the sacrificial fire the invocation was sung by the Magians from a book in a barbarous language wholly unintelligible to the Greeks.[89 - Pausan. 5, 27, 3.]

This evidence from the West confirms the existence of sacred writings in Iran after the time of Alexander, and also indicates that they existed previously to that date; it contradicts the story of their destruction by the Macedonians. The books must have been in existence when Hermippus could speak of their extent, and quote rules from them; and writings of the kind must have been known when, in the days of Pausanias, the Magians could sing their invocations from a book. From other sources we are sufficiently informed that Alexander's efforts were not directed towards destroying the national character and traditional religion of the Persians. Arrian tells us that Magians no less than Greek soothsayers took part in their festivals.[90 - "Anab." 7, 11, 8.] Nor were the Seleucids more desirous than Alexander to effect the destruction of the Iranian nationality; just as the Ptolemies never attempted to set aside the Egyptian religion and life. Even if they had cherished such views, they were far from being strong enough to carry them out, for the Greek empire over Iran lasted in its integrity only eighty years. The Arsacids also, who recovered Iran from the Seleucids, were not averse to the Greek nation. They called themselves friends of the Hellenes, and not only was Greek spoken, but even the tragedies of Euripides were acted at their courts. The scanty remains of the monuments present us with echoes of Greek;[91 - E. g. the bas-relief on Mount Behistun in the winged victory, which refers to the battle between Vardanes and Gotarzes, between 40 and 50 A.D. [Cf. Rawlinson, "Sixth Monarchy," p. 389, where a sketch of the relief is given.]] their coins, with few exceptions, bear Greek legends like those of the Bactrian princes whom they overcame. But though the influence of the Hellenic character continued under the Arsacids, and at the same time the Aramæan language and manners obtained even greater recognition than Hellenism during their dominion, the reign of the Arsacids was a restoration and revivification of the Iranian nationality. According to the evidence of western writers the Magians together with the members of the royal race formed the council of the Arsacids.[92 - Poseidonius in Strabo, p. 515; Justin, 42,1.] Pliny has already told us that these princes obeyed the rules of the Magians, and we also find that they invoked Mithra as the Achæmenids had done, and "saluted the sun."[93 - Herodian, 4, 30.] Like the Achæmenids, too, they would not permit their armies to fight by night, and we are told that in their time the greatest weight was given to the love of truth and fidelity, i. e. to the virtues which, according to Herodotus, the Persians of his time considered the most important, and on which the Avesta insists above all others.[94 - Plut. "Crassus," c. 29; "Anton." c. 47; Joseph. "Antiq." 18, 9, 3; Justin (12, 3), and Horace ("Ep." 1,2, 112), are of another opinion in regard to the latter point.] We also learn from western writers that the founder of the kingdom (Arsaces I.) was a descendant of Phriapites (Friyapaiti), and with his brother Tiridates and five others he slew the satrap of Antiochus Theos, and drove out the Macedonians;[95 - Above, p. 26. Arrian, "Parth." 2, ed. Müller; Eunap. p. 222.] just as Darius with the six Persian princes overthrew the dominion of Gaumata; and the Arabs relate that the Arsacids trace back their stock to Çyavarshana, the son of Kava Uça, a story which cannot have been invented in Arabia.[96 - Al Biruni in Droyson, "Hellenismus," 32, 372.] In the list of the Arsacids we also find the name Chosru (108-130 A.D.), the Kava Huçrava of the old legend (p. 37); on the coins we find a Vologeses and a Phraates before the fire-altar, the characteristic symbol of the ancient worship of Iran. Just as the old Arian character appears beside the Greek on the coins of the Greek princes of Bactria, the Greek character on the coins of the Arsacids gradually degenerates until at length it gives way to a new Iranian character and language. The tradition sketched in the Dinkart, as we have seen, represents the Arsacid Vologeses (which of the four princes of the name is meant is not clear)[97 - Vologeses I. reigned 50-80 A.D.; Vologeses II. 130-149 A.D.; Vologeses III. and IV. 149-208 A.D.; the son of the fourth, also Vologeses, reigned beside Artabanus IV.] as collecting what fragments remained of the holy scriptures in the memory of the priests. The burning of the scriptures by Alexander, as related in the books of the Parsees on their exodus and the Arda Viraf, is merely a transference to him of the conduct of the Moslems on their conquest of Iran. Of the continuance of the ancient religion of Iran under the Arsacids there can be no doubt, though it is true that along with it, in the Greek cities which Alexander and the Seleucids founded, and which were independent within their walls even under the Parthians, Hellenic rites were practised. In these cities Syrian modes of worship were also permitted, and the Aramaic language and culture found entrance into Iran.[98 - Joseph. "Ant." 18, 9, 1; "Bell. Jud." Prooem. 1, 2; Ammian. Marcell. 23, 6.]

In the land of Persia, among the Persians whom Mithridates I. subjugated to the dominion of the Arsacids, reminiscences of the ancient time, of the splendour and glory of the Achæmenids, were naturally more lively than in Parthia, which was formerly subject to the Persians, and now under the Arasacids stood at the head of Iran. In Persia, Artakshatr (Ardeshir), the son of Papaki, the grandson of Sassan, rebelled against king Artabanus IV. In three great battles the Persians contended with the Parthians; the latter were conquered, and Artabanus fell, and with him the kingdom of the Arsacids after a continuance of 476 years (225 A.D.). With the reign of Ardeshir began a more energetic restoration of Iran. He and his successors after him revered the memory of the Achæmenids, and strove to continue their achievements[99 - Ammian. Marcell. 17, 5.]. We again hear of seven houses, and seven princes who had the right to wear diadems beside the king, like the seven tribal princes of the old Persian kingdom;[100 - Nöldeke, "Tabari." s. 437.] we find the fire-altar before the tent of the Sassanids as well as the Achæmenids; and in the army of the Sassanids, no less than in that of Darius and Xerxes, was a troop of "immortals." Ardeshir, like the founder of the Persian empire, caused a portrait of himself on horseback to be cut in a rock-wall to the north-west of Persepolis (Naksh-i-Rustem) in remembrance of the achievements which established his kingdom – the rock on which 700 years before Darius had marked his tomb by a portrait and inscription. The inscription under this portrait (in the Pehlevi of East and West Iran, with a Greek translation) runs thus: "Portrait of the worshipper of Mazda, the god Artakshatr (Artaxares in the Greek), the king of kings of the Arians (of the kings of Airan, in the Pehlevi texts), the scion of the sky (minu chitri), the son of the god Papaki, the king."[101 - De Sacy, "Memoires de l'institut Cl. Hist." 2, 162-242. [Rawlinson, "Seventh Monarchy," p. 70, 606.]] Ardeshir's son, Shapur I. (241-272 A.D.), caused his victory over Valerian and his capture of the emperor to be recorded on the same rock; we see Shapur on horseback, and Valerian kneeling before him, a representation which recurs at the old Persian city of Darabgerd. At Naksh-i-Rejeb, between the rock-wall of Naksh-i-Rustem and Mount Nachmed, on which abutted Persepolis, the proud citadel of the Achæmenids, and in the grotto of Haiyabad, we find in the one case a portrait of Shapur, and in the other inscriptions which mention this ruler and king Varahran. At Kermanshah, on the western side of Mount Behistun, on the eastern side of which mountain Darius inscribed the proudest memorial of his achievements, we see king Ardeshir, and beneath him the corpse of Artabanus; behind the king is Mithra with the club which gave him victory, and before him Auramazda who presents the ring of empire to Ardeshir. Not far from this portrait Shapur II. (309-379 A.D.) caused a grotto to be excavated in the rock. In the sculpture of this cave we see the goddess Anahita, who presents to the king the ring of empire; at some distance are the hunting expeditions of the king; a second grotto close to this exhibits the pictures of king Auharmazdi II., the father of Shapur II., and of Shapur III. his second successor.[102 - Rawlinson, loc. cit. p. 602, 607, 92 ff.]

Though the Sassanids sought to restore the kingdom of the Achæmenids, and immortalise their own achievements beside those of the early kings, the religious revival which they undertook was far more thorough than the political. In this direction they went further than the Achæmenids; they caused the forms which the old faith of Iran had retained and forced on the East, to be current throughout the whole kingdom. Agathias assures us that Ardeshir was eagerly devoted to the study of the doctrine of the Magians, who since his accession had gained an importance such as they never enjoyed before. The business of the State was decided upon their advice and predictions; they assisted individual persons in their private matters and suits at law, and the Persians did not regard anything as legal and right which was not confirmed by a Magian.[103 - Agathias, 2, 26.] At the head of the Magians, we are told in another account coming from a western source, a Grand Magian was placed under the Sassanids,[104 - Sozomen, "H. Eccl." 2, 10, 12.] and as a fact the Magians now received a thorough organisation. At the head of their caste was the High Magian (Magupat, Mobedh); and over all the High Magians was the Grand Magian (Magupatan magupat); to the Magians belonged the judicial power; and the Grand Magian performed the coronation of the king. The Sassanids erected fire-temples in Persia no less than in Aderbeijan; their coins always exhibit the fire-altar, and as a rule two priests before it. They carried their genealogy beyond Sassan through Çpentodata (p. 38) to Vistaçpa of Bactria, who is now said to have established the seven princes; they call themselves by the names of the ancient heroes who met us in the Avesta; Kavadh (Kava Kavata) and Chosru (Kava Huçrava). While styling themselves the worshippers of Mazda (Auramazda) like the founders of their empire, they went so far as to assume the names of the gods of the Avesta; some even called themselves after Verethraghna (Varahran, Bahram), others Auharmazdi after Auramazda himself. The numerous Christians on the Euphrates and Tigris as well as in Armenia had to undergo severe persecutions; especially under Shapur II., Varahran V., and Yezdegerd II. (438-457 A.D.), whose viceroy declared to the Armenian Christians that the Daevas (Dews) of Ahriman had deceived them; it was not the good God who had created evil and death but the wicked spirit. Defection from the faith of Auramazda was punished with death. In the treaties of the years 422, 533, and 563 A.D. Theodosius II. and Justinian obtained the concession that the Christians in the kingdom of the Sassanids should not be compelled to conform to the rules of the Magians; they were to be at liberty to bury their dead,[105 - Menandri Protect. fragm. 11, ed. Müller.] whereas the doctrine of Zarathrustra required that the corpses should be exposed.

As such was the attitude of the house of the Sassanids, we may believe the books of the Parsees that Ardeshir eagerly took in hand the revival of the true faith, and that he was assisted in this by competent Magians; by Arda Viraf, according to the book of the Exodus and of Arda Viraf (p. 50); according to the Dinkart, by the Herbedh Tosar. The book of Arda Viraf relates at length how he fell asleep in the assembly of priests before Ardeshir, and his soul was carried by the god Çraosha through heaven and hell. And when the Dinkart represents a standard of true religion as being set up under Ardeshir, there is no reason to doubt the statement. After the reign of Ardeshir, we are told in the Book of the Exodus, the true religion was again suspended, or, as the Book of Arda Viraf tells us, a schism arose. The cause of this division is sufficiently known from other sources. In the reign of Shapur I. (241-272 A.D.) a native of Ctesiphon, of the name of Mani, came forward with a new doctrine which attempted to mingle Chaldæan, Jewish, and Christian elements in the faith of Iran, and to resolve it into abstractions. He found numerous adherents.[106 - [Cf. Rawlinson, "Seventh Monarchy," p. 96 ff.]] Varahran II. (276-293 A.D.) allowed him to dispute with the Magians, and then put him to death. Under Shapur II., who succeeded his father Auharmazdi II. as a posthumous child (309-379 A.D.), in order to check Manicheism and the advance of Christianity, it was necessary to go back to the principles of the old faith, and to invigorate these by the collection and establishment of the sacred scriptures. We may therefore have the fullest confidence in accepting from these three books of the Parsees the facts that Shapur "made the sacred faith to be famous;" that Aderbat, whose work under Shapur is confirmed by Hamza of Isfahan, collected the scriptures, purified the sayings of Zarathrustra, and enumerated the chapters. It is on this redaction of the canon by Aderbat Mahresfant under Shapur II. that the list of the books and chapters rests, distinguishing what were originally in existence and what were then preserved. What was not discovered "after Alexander" means what was not discovered or not accepted at this redaction. Instead of the 815 chapters which the Avesta is said to have previously contained, the new canon amounted to only 348 chapters. That Aderbat was the founder of this canon is clear not only from the epithet which the books of the Parsees give him (Mahresfant, Old Bactrian Manthraçpenta, meaning "the sacred word,") but also from the confession of faith still in use among the Parsees: "I abide in the law which Zarathrustra taught to Vistaçpa, to Frashaostra, to Jamaçpa, and Çpentodata, which came in the succession of generations to Aderbat, who duly corrected and purified it."[107 - Spiegel, Avesta, 3, 214, 218, 219, 227.] It was shown above that the language of the sacred books thus again collected was that of Eastern Iran (p. 30). When Aderbat revised the canon it had long ceased to be spoken. But there were already translations of the sacred books into the later forms which the language of Iran had received in the time of the Parthians, or at any rate such translations were made after the revision of the canon.[108 - Above, p. 17. On the date of these translations, Haug, "Pahlavi-Pazand Glossary," p. 147.] Masudi informed us that the Avesta was composed in the old Persian language, which at that time (tenth century A.D.) was no longer understood. Ibn Haukal, who travelled in Persia in the same century, tells us: "In Fars three languages are in use; the Farsi, in which the inhabitants converse with each other; the Pehlevi, which was the language of the ancient Persians, and in which the Magians wrote their historical books, but which in our time is no longer understood by the inhabitants of Fars without a translation; and the Arabian.[109 - Quatreinère, "Journal des Savants," 1840, p. 412.]" When Aderbat revised the Avesta in the middle of the fourth century B.C., the Parsi (Farsi), i. e. the later Middle Persian, was still in formation; the older Middle Persian or Pehlevi was still intelligible, but translations of the Avesta into this language did not make clear to every one the meaning of the ancient language in which the scriptures were composed. In the time of the Parthian empire the old mode of writing was given up in the West as well as in the East of Iran, and exchanged for new methods. In the West a cuneiform character derived from the writing of Babylon and Assyria had been adopted; the East used the Arian alphabet. Under the Arsacids the Pehlevi became common. Like the old Persian cuneiform this is borrowed from a Semitic pattern. The chief city of the Parthians lay on the Tigris in the midst of a Semitic population. The cursive character of the Aramæans, as we find it on the coins of the satraps of the Achæmenids of the fourth century B.C., with a few modifications, forms the base of the Pehlevi; and the earlier shapes of this character are seen in the coins of the Arsacids of the first century A.D. But it is not the character which forms the peculiar mark of Pehlevi. Along with the Aramaic letters the Parthians took the Aramaic vocabulary; they wrote the Aramaic word instead of the Persian, and to this they attached the termination or case-ending of the corresponding Persian word; the reader must understand Aramaic and substitute the Persian word for the Aramaic when reading.[110 - Haug, "Pahlavi-Pazand Glossary," p. 120 ff.; 128 ff. West, "Pahlavi Texts," part 1. Introd. § 2.] Hence Pehlevi was in reality a secret mode of writing, intended exclusively for the learned, i. e. for the priests. It is a proof of the close connection between the priests of the East and West that this character, which arose in the West out of the contact with the Aramaic population on the Euphrates and Tigris, spread to the East also and was adopted by the scholars there. Nor was this all. The variations in the Eastern dialect brought about certain modifications in the forms of the letters, and thus there arose an Eastern alphabet of Pehlevi beside the Western alphabet. When Ardeshir destroyed the empire of the Parthians in the year 226 A.D. these two alphabets were in existence. The Eastern alphabet finally triumphed over the Western. It became the royal mode of writing, and as such was used on the coins. The letters in the manuscripts of the Pehlevi translation of the Avesta in the possession of the Parsees agree throughout with the characters on the legends of the coins of the Sassanids about the year 600 A.D.[111 - Lepsius, "Zendalphabet, Abh. B. Akad." 1862, s. 338; Lenormant, "Sur l'alphabet Pehlevi Journ. Asiat. 1er." 6, 6, 180 ff.; Levy, "Beiträge Z. D. M. G.", 21, 459 ff. From Ardeshir down to Narses, i. e. from 226 to 302 A.D., the writing on the coins agrees with the West Pehlevi of the monuments of the Sassanids. From 302 to 600 A.D. the character on the coins is different. From 600 the writing on the coins agrees with the MSS. of the Parsees; Mordtmann, "Z. D. M. G." 8, 12 ff.] The characters also, in which the text of the Avesta is written in the manuscripts of the Parsees, belong to the later East-Pehlevi alphabet, which, owing to the greater wealth of the old Bactrian alphabet in sounds, especially in vowels, possesses a greater number of letters.[112 - Lepsius, loc. cit. s. 306.] The coincidence of the letters in the manuscripts of the Parsees with those on the coins of the later Sassanids, proves beyond contradiction that although the oldest existing manuscripts belong to the fourteenth century of our era,[113 - Westergaard, "Avesta," 1, 4 ff.] they are nevertheless true copies of the characters in which the Avesta was written in the last century of the empire of the Sassanids.

All that the Parsees of India now possess are some not very extensive remains of the revision of the sacred scriptures made in the reign of Shapur II. The existing part of the laws corresponds in the title, the divisions and their arrangements, with the twentieth book of the text (p. 52). It contains the rubrics for purification, for repelling and removing the evil spirits. The title is the Vendîdad, or, in the older form, the Vidaevodata, i. e. "given against the Daevas," or evil spirits. Obviously this book was regarded as the most important and valuable part of the law, and to this circumstance it owes its preservation. Besides this we have invocations and prayers, chiefly belonging to the liturgy. They form a considerable collection, known by the title of Yaçna, i. e. worship. The remainder of the 348 chapters was lost in the invasion of the Arabs into Iran, owing to their fanatical zeal for conversion.[114 - That the author or authors of the Bundehesh, – for the work consists of a collection of fragments of various character, – had before them larger remains of the Avesta, or a commentary which included more than our fragments, may be conceded. The composition of the work cannot be placed before the time of the Arabs, for the whole period of the Sassanid empire is given, and even on an extended scale (p. 82), mention is made of the empire of the Arabs, and Arabian words occur. Cf. Justi, "Bundehesh," p. ix. ff; cf. below, p. 73. [West, "Pahlavi Texts," 1, Introd. p. xci. ff].]

Though we were able to establish the fact that these fragments belonged in their language, their contents, and their written character to Eastern Iran, and the evidence of Western writers proved to us that at the time when Alexander of Macedon overthrew the kingdom of the Achæmenids, there were sacred scriptures of considerable extent in Iran – this does not enable us to decide the date of the origin of these scriptures. We have to inquire whether these writings were known in the West of Iran also, before the date of the Sassanids; whether the new collection and revision about the year 350 of our era was satisfied with faithfully representing the old condition of the scriptures, so far as it could be discovered, or whether it altered their contents; whether the influence exercised by Hellenic and Aramaic elements in the time of the Seleucids and Parthians – so obvious in the one case and so searching in the other – affected the contents of the Avesta.[115 - On the Aramean sketch of the dialectic of Aristotle which was written for Ohoeru, cf. Renan, "Journ. Asiat." 1852, p. 311.] This question cannot be set aside, because even under the Sassanids, in spite of their zeal for the Avesta and for Iran, these elements were not unknown. We are aware that Greek and Jewish schools flourished in Syria and Mesopotamia at the date of the Sassanids, that Chosru Nushirvan (531-578 A.D.) gave his protection to Damascius and the Platonists in his kingdom, and caused Greek works to be translated. However much other virtues, required in the Avesta, were extolled in this ruler, such as the foundation of fire-temples, and appointment of sacristans for them, the promotion of agriculture (no temple was to be without cultivated lands) and of marriages – nevertheless sects sprung up within the true religion. Even in official documents of the fifth century we find a certain deviation from the doctrine of the Avesta; under king Kavadh (488-453 A.D.), Mazdak, who proclaimed the community of goods and women, found adherents, and the Arabs speak of sects in Iran which opposed the teaching of the Magians.[116 - [Cf. Rawlinson, loc. cit. 448 ff.; 342 ff.]] They mention the Zarvanites, the Gayomarthians, and others, of whom the Zarvanites sought to derive the good and evil deity from some higher abstraction,[117 - "Sharastani," by Haarbrücker, 2, 284. The son of Mihr Narses is called Zarvandadh.] while the Gayomarthians represented the evil deity as proceeding from the thought of the good deity. Had conceptions of this kind, and other later views which we find in their doctrines, influence on the restoration of the canon? The fact that the sacred writings were composed in a language no longer current, when the canon was restored, is not a complete safeguard against changes and interpolations, for the priests at that time may have understood the language, and therefore may possibly have been able to compose in it.

CHAPTER IV.

ZARATHRUSTRA AND THE DATE OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE AVESTA.[118 - [Cf. Darmesteter, "Zend-Avesta," Introduct., c. iv. § 40, and c. iii.]]

The examination of the difficult questions, whether, from what period, and to what extent, the Avesta was known in Western Iran before the time of Alexander, when the book came into existence, whether its contents have come down uninjured from an ancient period, or whether it underwent alterations in the time of the Parthians and the Sassanids, will be best opened by collecting and testing the accounts which have been preserved in the West about Zarathrustra and his work. Herodotus does not mention him, but Xanthus the Lydian is said to have spoken of him, before the date of Herodotus. Plato describes Zoroaster as the founder of the doctrine of the Magians, and calls him a son of Oromazes.[119 - Plato. "Alcib. I." p. 122.] With Hermodorus, a pupil of Plato, Zoroaster is a Persian, the first Magian.[120 - Diog. Laert. prooem.] Deinon concludes from the name that he was a worshipper of the stars. Hermippus of Smyrna speaks of him as a Bactrian, and is said to have described him as a pupil of Azonakes (or Agonakes).[121 - Plin. "H. N." 80, 2.] Diodorus informs us that Zoroaster gave out among the Arians that the good spirit had revealed to him the laws which he published.[122 - 1, 94.] Trogus Pompeius relates that Ninus finally carried on war with Zoroaster the king of the Bactrians, who discovered the art of the Magians, and inquired accurately into the primal forces of the world, and the movements of the stars; he was slain by Ninus.[123 - Justin, 1, 1.] Pliny observes that Zoroaster, the founder of the doctrine of the Magians, smiled on the day of his birth, and beat his head vigorously as a symbol of his wisdom; for thirty years he lived in the desert on cheese. Plutarch's account is that Zoroaster took no other food or drink all his life but milk, and like Lycurgus and Numa, he associated with the Divine Being.[124 - "Numa," c. 4; "Quaest. Sympos." 4, 1. [The reading Ζωροάστρην is doubtful; cf. Wyttenbach.]] Dio Chrysostom tells us that Zoroaster from his love for wisdom and justice lived remote from men in solitude on a mountain, which had been kindled by fire from above, and burned continuously, and when the king approached the mountain with his leading men to offer prayer to the god, Zoroaster came unharmed out of the fire, and bade them offer sacrifice for the god had visited the place. After this Zoroaster did not associate with all men, but only with those who were most adapted to receive the truth and converse with the god, whom the Persians called Magians, i. e. those who have skill to serve the Divine Being.[125 - Dio Chrys. 2, 60, ed. Dind.] Kephalion asserted that Zoroaster the Magian, the king of the Bactrians, fought with Semiramis and was vanquished by her.[126 - Euseb. "Chron." ed. Auch. p. 43; cf. Georg. Syncell. p. 167. Βάτου after Zoroaster should here be changed into Βάκτρου rather than Μάγου.] Theon of Alexandria also speaks of the conflict between Semiramis and the Bactrian Zoroaster. Arnobius is aware of the battle of Ninus with Zoroaster and the Bactrians,[127 - Arnob. "Adv. Gent." 1, 5.] and in Eusebius Zoroaster, the Magian, the king of the Bactrians, fights against Ninus.[128 - Euseb. loc. cit. p. 35.] According to the treatise of Eubulus of Athens on Mithras, Porphyrius related that Zoroaster had consecrated a natural cave, in which were flowers and springs, in the neighbouring mountains of Persia, in honour of Mithra, the creator and father of all, and since that time the favour of the god had been sought in a cave.[129 - Porphyr. "De antro nymph." c. 6.] Ammianus Marcellinus calls Zoroaster a Bactrian, and tells us that Hystaspes, the father of Darius, spread abroad the doctrine of the Magians.[130 - Ammian. Marcell. 23, 6.] Agathias remarks that the Persians of his time asserted that Zoroaster, or Zaradus, as they called him, who gave them their religious doctrine and law, the son of Oromasdes, lived at the time of Hystaspes; but they made the assertion in such a manner that no man knew whether this Hystaspes was the father of Darius or some other of the name. But whatever the date of his life, he changed the earlier forms of worship, and was the discoverer of the doctrine of the Magians.[131 - Agathias, 2, 24.] Suidas distinguishes between the Perso-Mede Zoroaster, the chief of the Magians, and the astronomer of the same name, an Assyrian, who lived at the time of Ninus.[132 - Suidas, Μάγοι, Ζωροάστρης.] In Syncellus, Zoroaster is the first of the eight Median kings, who, according to the statement of Berosus, reigned over Babylonia from 2458 to 2224 B.C.[133 - Above, p. 17. Georg. Sync. p. 78, 79. Vol. I. p. 241, 247.]

These statements do not amount to much. Yet we find the tradition maintained from the pupils of Plato down to Agathias, that Zoroaster founded the doctrine of the Magians; Diodorus, Plutarch, and Dio mention the intercourse of Zoroaster with the good spirit or the deity. Diodorus calls him an Arian, i. e. an inhabitant of Eastern Iran. Hermippus, Trogus Pompeius, Kephalion, Theon, Arnobius, and Eusebius speak of him as a Bactrian, and the king of the Bactrians, and represent him as fighting with Ninus or Semiramis, which is also asserted by Moses of Khorene.[134 - Yet with Moses Zoroaster is a Mede, I. p. 87.] Hence in the last two centuries B.C. it must have been known in the West that Zoroaster belonged to the East of Iran, and thus he was brought into connection with the most prominent fact known in the history of Bactria, the contest of the Bactrians against Ninus and Semiramis. This story, as we said, comes from the Medo-Persian Epos, and moreover the Epos did not authorise this connection of Ninus and Zoroaster. The opponent of Ninus, who reigned over Bactria, was, according to Diodorus, Oxyartes or Exaortes (p. 20). The fact that Zoroaster was the most important name in the antiquity of Iran among western nations obviously induced Syncellus to put him at the head of the supposed ancient Median dynasty. If Zoroaster, as Pliny and Plutarch think, lived only on milk and cheese, and passed thirty years in the wilderness, these are merely traits taken from the lives of the Brahman ascetics. The story in Dio Chrysostom, that Zoroaster came unharmed from the fire, and the opposite statements of the Chronicle of Alexandria and of Suidas, that he brought down fire from heaven and was consumed by it, or struck by lightning, contain traits which have obviously sprung from the importance which the doctrine of Zoroaster and the Magians ascribe to the worship of fire, and from the division between the fire of lightning and earthly fire, of which we shall speak below. The narrative of Eubulus is founded on the mysteries of Mithra, which came into the West in the first century B.C.[135 - Plut. "Pomp." c. 24.] These mysteries are due to the confusion of the Mithra of the Iranians with the sun-god of the Syrians; the mystæ were consecrated in caves, or in places called caves, and there underwent their probation. As the god of light and the soul Mithra slays in the cave, that is in the world of gloom and matter, the bull which is the symbol of matter, as opposed to light, in its creative power, and conveys the soul, the side of man akin to light, out of the gloom of matter through the heaven of the fixed stars, and then through the heaven of the planets, to the light.[136 - Cf. Von Gutschmid, "Die Sage vom heiligen Georg;" Sächsische Gesellschaft d. W., 1861, s. 175.] Ammianus Marcellinus and Agathias have better information about Zoroaster. They are aware that he stands in some relation to Hystaspes. Ammianus, though he expressly describes Zoroaster as a Bactrian, puts Hystaspes the well-known father of Darius, as the supporter of the doctrine of the Magians, in the place of the Vistaçpa of the Avesta, who opens a wide path for the teaching of Zoroaster; Agathias, on the other hand, expresses himself with greater circumspectness; he cannot decide whether the father of Darius or some other Hystaspes is meant.

The result is this: Before the time of Alexander of Macedon, at the latest in the first half of the fourth century B.C., the Greeks were aware that Zoroaster had founded the doctrine of the Magians; in the last centuries B.C. and onwards it was known that he belonged to Bactria and Eastern Iran; but it was not till the fourth century A.D. that he was known to have lived under king Hystaspes; at any rate we have no older evidence on this point.

Much more recent in date, and of far less value, is the information derived from the East, with the exception of the Avesta, on Zarathrustra. It does not go back beyond the period of the Arabian empire over Iran. The Bundehesh, written in this period (p. 65, n. 3), contains a genealogy, which carries Zarathrustra's origin beyond Pourushaçpa and Haechataçpa, from whom, according to the Avesta, he was sprung (p. 38), through twelve generations to Manuschithra (Minocher). In the Avesta, the soul of the pure Manuschithra, the son of Airyu, is invoked;[137 - "Farvardin Yasht," 131.] it has been observed above that the national genealogy in Iran placed Thraetaona, and not Manu, at the head; Airyu, the son of Thraetaona, was the proper progenitor of the Airyas. With the name Manuschithra, i. e. scion of Manu, who is now the son of Airyu, this table passed back into the old Arian conception of the father Manu (p. 44). In the Avesta, Zarathrustra is connected by his father, the fourth sacrificer of the Haoma, with the old sacrificers; and by deriving his family from Manuschithra the Bundehesh places him in the closest relation to the progenitors of the Airyas. For the rest this book has little to say about the life of Zoroaster. It informs us that the house of Pourushaçpa lay on a hill on the river Daraja, a river which we cannot identify;[138 - C. 20 in Justi, [c. 20; § 32 West]; cf. "Vend." 19, 15.] the Bundehesh places it in Airyana Vaeja (Airanvij), in a district which we must place in the high region of the Hindu Kush, on the sources of the Oxus (p. 31, n. 2), though the Bundehesh informs us that "it lay by the side of Atropatene." According to another passage in the book, Airyana Vaeja lay near the garden of Yima and Cashmere. In a third passage the garden of Yima, which we are compelled by unmistakable indications in the Avesta, to seek on the divine mountain, lies in the centre of Iran, under Mount Damkan.[139 - C. 30, cf. above, p. 40. [C. 29, § 14, West.]] Atropatene, as a name for the Alpine land in the north-west of Iran (now Aderbeijan), came into use in the time of the Greek empire; at any rate we cannot trace it earlier.[140 - Strabo, p. 515, derives it from Atropates, whom Alexander made satrap there.]Athrapaiti means "lord of fire"; athrapata, "one protected by fire"; in the remote mountains of this district the old fire-worship was preserved with peculiar zeal under the Seleucids; from the time of Ardeshir the Sassanids venerated the fire-temple Adar Guçasp (near Takht-i-Soliman), which lay in this region, above all others, and this was the reason why in the time of the Arabs it was thought that Airyana Vaeja must be sought there.[141 - Still less important than the Bundehesh is the gloss on "Vend." 1, 60. "Many say that Zartusht was from Rak in Atropatan." Ragha is not in Atropatene.] In any case it is impossible, out of regard to the Bundehesh and even later statements of the Moslem period, to place Zarathrustra in the north-west of Iran in order to represent him as a foreigner, reforming the religion of the north-east, when the Avesta, which distinctly places him in the east and puts him among the sacrificers and heroes of the east and rulers of Bactria, together with the older and more important evidence of the West, is on the opposite side.

The "Book of Zartusht," one of the most recent books of the Parsees (it dates from the thirteenth century of our era), can only tell us of the marvellous preservation of Zarathrustra and the miracles which he wrought. The first miracle recorded in it is the fact that Zoroaster smiled at his birth. But the wicked king Duransarun sought to murder the newly-born child in his cradle. His arm is paralysed, and he cannot strike the blow home. Then the evil spirits steal the child, kindle a great fire in the desert, and throw him into it. But he sleeps peacefully in the fire, and his mother recovers him without injury. A herd of cattle are about to trample him on a narrow path, when the largest one stands over and protects him, till the herd have passed by. In a similar manner he is preserved when a pair of wild horses are driven over him. Even the wolves will not eat him. When he has reached his thirtieth year these trials are over, and Zarathrustra emigrates with his followers. On reaching Iran the good spirit Vohu mano appeared and conducted him to Auramazda. He had to pass over a fiery mountain, but the fire did not singe a hair; molten metal was poured on his breast, and he felt it not; his entrails were removed and then replaced without injury to him. Auramazda gave him the Avesta and commanded him to go to king Vistaçpa (now Kai Gushtaçp) to Balkh, and proclaim it to him. In Balkh Zoroaster overcame the sages of the king in argument, but they maligned him before their master as a wizard, and he was put in prison. Then the feet of the king's horse were drawn up into its belly, and the king bade Zarathrustra heal his horse. He required the king to believe in him and his doctrine; and when the king had acknowledged the new faith, one of the horse's feet was restored to it. Zarathrustra further demanded that Vistaçpa's son Çpentodata (Isfendyar) should consecrate himself to the defence of the new faith, that the king's consort should adopt the law, and those who maligned him should be punished. When these three requests had been complied with, the horse recovered all its four feet. After this Vistaçpa did nothing without the advice of Zarathrustra, and built fire-altars and fire-temples. And Zarathrustra showed the king the place he would one day occupy in heaven, and made Çpentodata invulnerable.[142 - Spiegel, "Eran," 1, 684 ff.]

Hence from the Bundehesh we obtain no more than the genealogical tree of Zarathrustra, which though characteristic for the place allotted to him, is without historical value; and from the Zartusht Nameh, Sharastani, and Mirkhond, which repeat some miracles more or less similar to those quoted, we gather nothing beyond certain traits: the smiling at birth, the fiery mountain, the preservation of Zarathrustra in the fire, which Pliny and Dio Chrysostom had already made known to us, and which belong to the ancient tradition of Iran. In the miracles which take place by means of oxen and horses, we can merely recognise the ancient and close relation of the Arians in Iran to these animals, a relation which has already been remarked (p. 46). We might perhaps add that Firdusi represents Zarathrustra, whom he puts beside Vistaçpa, as having been killed at a fire in Balkh when the city was captured by Turanians. The intercourse of Zarathrustra with Auramazda was known to Western writers, as we saw, at a far earlier date.

If we can hardly glean anything worth notice from these accounts about Zarathrustra's life and work, we may perhaps gain some information about his date. The evidence of Ammianus Marcellinus and Agathias, when they represent him as a contemporary of Hystaspes, in whom we recognise Vistaçpa of Bactria, carries us no further than the Avesta, which places him in the closest relation to this prince (p. 38), because his date is equally uncertain. Trogus Pompeius, Kephalion, Theon, and Eusebius make Zarathrustra an opponent and therefore a contemporary of Ninus and Semiramis. But as neither Semiramis nor Ninus ruled over Asshur, and they are to be regarded as the personification of the rise of the power and dominion of that country (II. 23), we must substitute for this king and queen the ruler or rulers of Asshur of whom it is certain that their campaigns reached the east of Iran. We found that so far as we can at present judge from the monuments it was only Shalmanesar II. who received tribute from the Eastern lands, and that the armies of Tiglath Pilesar II. trod the soil of Arachosia (p. 19). If we could assume that the contests of Ninus and Semiramis have taken the place of the achievements of these rulers in the East of Iran, the date of Vistaçpa and Zarathrustra would have to be placed between 860 and 740 B.C. But this supposition is really without any basis.

The more ancient statements of the Greeks carry us much further back than the reasoning of Trogus Pompeius and his successors. If we set Pliny aside, who asserts "that the kind of Magism established by Zoroaster was many years older than that taught by Moses," Hermippus of Smyrna puts Zoroaster 5000 years before the Trojan war. Even before Hermippus, Theopompus of Chios, and Hermodorus, the pupil of Plato, had ascribed the same date to him. Eudoxus of Cnidus, the contemporary of Plato, placed him still higher; he thought that Zoroaster lived 6000 years before the death of Plato. According to Pliny, Aristotle ascribed to him the same antiquity, and, as we learn from Diogenes Laertius, maintained that the Magians were older than the Egyptians. And even in the fifth century B.C., Xanthus the Lydian is said to have written that from the time when Zoroaster lived to the march of Xerxes against Hellas a period of 6000 years had elapsed.[143 - Plin. "H. N." 30, 2. Diogen. Laert. prooem. The different readings of 500 years in Suidas and 600 in Diogenes, as compared with 5000 and 6000 in the other MSS., can hardly be maintained against the uniform evidence of other witnesses.]

Through these statements there runs, beyond all doubt, a system, the knowledge of which began in the fifth century B.C. among the Greeks and continued beyond the time of Alexander. Whether we take 5000 years before the Trojan war, or 6000 years before Plato's death, we are equally brought back into the seventh millennium B.C. If the later statements of the West, which make Zoroaster a contemporary of Ninus and Semiramis, are the results of combining the most prominent name in Bactria with the conquest of Bactria by the founder of the Assyrian power, as related in the Medo-Persian Epos, the fixing of Zoroaster's date so many thousand years previously must have been taken by the Greeks from the Persians. In these dates we seem to be dealing with certain cyclic periods. We learn from Theopompus of Chios, that according to the doctrine of the Magians, one of the two gods Oromazdes and Areimanius would reign and the other be subject for 3000 years; for another 3000 years they would be in conflict, and one destroy the works of the other, until at length Areimanius would succumb and men become happy.[144 - Plut. "De Isid." c. 47.] From this we may with certainty conclude that periods of 3000 years were in use among the priests of Iran to denote certain spaces of time, and that these cycles form the base of the statements of the older Greeks, if we can prove the use of such periods in the Avesta or in the books of the Parsees.

In the fragments of the Avesta which have come down to us we find invocations addressed to the "time without beginning," "the time that rules the long periods."[145 - "Vend." 19, 33; Spiegel, "Avesta," 3, 9, 201, 206.] But the fact that Yima's reign is fixed at 1000 years shows that the priests of Iran reckoned by long periods, and other expressions in the Avesta (p. 33) prove that triple multiplications were in use,[146 - "Ashi Yasht," 17; "Vend." 2, 20 ff.] which agrees with the periods given by Theopompus. If, therefore, the Greeks of the fifth and fourth century B.C. relate that Zarathrustra lived about 6000 years before their time, a system must by that time have been current among the priests of Iran in which two cycles of 3000 years were supposed to have elapsed since the time of the prophet, and the third cycle had commenced. A book of the Parsees, the Mainyo-i-Khard, which appears to have been written towards the close of the empire of the Sassanids,[147 - West, "Mainyo-i-Khard," p. x.] tells us that Angromainyu made a compact with Auramazda for 9000 winters, and when these winters were past, Angromainyu would be destroyed, and the creation and all creatures would be as Auramazda had made them.[148 - West, loc. cit. c. 8.] The Bundehesh also speaks of a similar compact, but divides the years in a different manner. All time consists of 12,000 years. In the first 3000 Auramazda reigned alone with the creatures which he had created in an invisible manner; for the first 3000 of the next 9000 everything went according to the will of Auramazda; for the second 3000 the will of Auramazda was crossed by that of Angromainyu, but for the last 3000 Angromainyu will be powerless. The Bundehesh goes into yet further detail in these matters: in the first 3000 years the heavenly creation was secure from attack; in the next 3000 Gayo maretan and the ox, i. e. the first man and the first bull, came into existence. After these 6000 years the enemy arose and slew the first man and the first bull. The reign of Yima is placed by the Bundehesh in the first millennium of the new period, but this reign extends only to 716 years, the first 284 years of the thousand being filled with creatures prior to Yima. The second millennium of the period is occupied with the reign of Thraetaona, Manuschithra, Kava Kavata, Uça, Huçrava, and Aurvataçpa, and the early part of the reign of Kava Vistaçpa, whose thirtieth year coincides with the end of the second millennium.[149 - Justi, "Bundehesh," c. 1, 3, 34. [Cf. West's commentary on c. 34.]] At the beginning of the third millennium, i. e. a thousand years after the death of Yima, Zarathrustra appears; and the period of more successful opposition to the evil spirits begins. According to the more ancient conception, which may still be plainly traced in the Avesta, the world began with the happy age of Yima; it is owing to later views formed within priestly circles that earlier creatures such as the first man and first bull are placed before this period; but it will be shown below that these views existed when the Avesta was written down. A later book of the Parsees, the Sad-der-Bundehesh, puts the period of the conflict between the good and evil deity at 6000 years, and places Zarathrustra exactly in the middle of it; he was created 3000 years after the period of Gayo maretan, and 3000 years before his own resurrection.[150 - Spiegel, "Eran," 1, 507.] Hence it is clear that the formation of these cycles rose among the priests of Iran from the necessity of limiting the period of the old and new law, and of conflict between the good and evil spirits, and the desire to fix the date of the more successful repulse of evil which came in with Zarathrustra. The abbreviation of the period of Yima shows us that the cycles in the Bundehesh do not throughout agree with those of the Avesta. But it is sufficient to establish the fact that periods of 3000 years were in use, and that Zarathrustra appeared at the beginning of a new millennium, in order to understand that the Persians could speak to the Greeks of millenniums in this sense, and of one or two cycles which had elapsed since Zarathrustra's time.

The idea and tendency of such a scheme for the history of the world are easily understood: these periods of 3000 years, which can be increased or diminished without alteration of the sense, have only a dogmatic value. We cannot obtain from them any chronological date for the appearance of Zarathrustra, nor can we obtain such a date by the attempt to go back from the chronological statements in recent Parsee works to the older periods. We may leave unnoticed the assertion in the book of Arda Viraf that the true faith had existed in purity for 300 years down to the time that Alexander came into Iran (p. 50), which would thus bring Zarathrustra into the seventh century B.C. The Bundehesh allows 460 years for the reigns of the Sassanids, 246 for the Askanids, i. e. the Arsacids, 16 for Alexander, before whom come Darai the son of Darai with 14 years, Darai Chirazatan with 12, Huma (a queen) with 30, Vohumano with 112, and Vistaçpa with 90, – all subsequent to the appearance of Zarathrustra.[151 - Justi, "Bundehesh," c. 34.] According to this, 996 years elapsed between Zarathrustra and the fall of the Sassanids, and he would thus, if we reckon from the battle of Nahavend (640 A.D.), be placed in the year 356 B.C., in the reign of Artaxerxes Ochus. But even if we alter the incorrect items in the text of the Bundehesh in accordance with our better knowledge, we do not arrive at any result which is even apparently certain. The dominion of the Sassanids, down to the date of the battle, did not last 460 but only 414 years; on the other hand, the Arsacids reigned for 476 years, not for 264.[152 - If the rise of Arsaces is put in the year 250 B.C. It makes no difference in the total if we choose the year 248 B.C. for the beginning of the Arsacids.] The empire of Alexander, if we add the reigns of the Seleucidæ to his own, occupied 80 years instead of 14, and if in the place of the 26 years of the two Darais of the Bundehesh, who represent the kingdom of the ancient Achæmenids, we put the old Persian kingdom with 229 years, and add to these items the numbers given in the Bundehesh for Huma, Vohumano, and Vistaçpa, after the appearance of Zarathrustra, which amount to 232 years, Zarathrustra would have commenced his work 1431 years before the battle of Nahavend, i. e. in the year 791 B.C. But who can guarantee that Cyrus, the Persian, overthrew the empire of the Medes in the year when Huma, the supposed daughter of Vohumano, died; or that Huma reigned for 30 years? How could Vohumano, the grandson of Vistaçpa, and son of Çpentodata (p. 38), have reigned 112 years, and Vistaçpa himself 90 years after the appearance of Zarathrustra? Huma is not merely a doubtful person, she is altogether fictitious. She is said to have been the mother of Darai Chirazatan, i. e. Darius I., and to have been called Shamirain, i. e. Semiramis, but her brother was the first Sassan, the ancestor of the Sassanids. As the later Arabs and Persians, including Firdousi, are no better informed,[153 - Blau, "Z. D. M. G." 18, 686. Von Gutschmid, ibid.] we see clearly that the remembrance of the Achæmenids had almost entirely died out at the time when these writings were composed; only the name of Darius remained, and an attempt was made to connect this name with Vistaçpa by two fictitious names, Vohumano, i. e. the good spirit, and Huma. Besides Vistaçpa's son Çpentodata (Isfendyar) and Hutaoça, the wife of Vistaçpa, the Avesta mentions a woman, "the pure Huma,"[154 - "Farvardin Yasht," 139.] out of whom this queen must have been formed. It is clear that the tradition of the East, like the Avesta, broke off in the generation after Vistaçpa, and that in the Arabian period only the names Darai and Iskander could be placed between Vistaçpa and the Arsacids.

We must attempt to reach the goal by another path. I have already shown what was the condition of the sacred scriptures in Iran at the date of Alexander and the Seleucids (p. 55). Even before Hermippus of Smyrna, Aristotle had taught that the Magians considered that to be the best in the first instance which was first created, and maintained two principles, a good and evil deity, Oromazdes and Areimanius.[155 - Aristot. "Metaph." 13, 4. Diogen. Laert. prooem.] Theopompus mentioned both these deities and the strife between them, and when he adds that there would one day be a time when the dead would rise again, and men would be immortal and able to withstand everything by their prayers – that after the victory of Oromazdes men would be happy and need no longer any sustenance, and would cast no shadow[156 - Theopom. Fragm. 71, 72, ed. Müller.]– it will be seen below how definitely and exactly the doctrine of the Avesta is here reproduced. Hermodorus mentions a series of teachers, who succeeded the first teacher of the Magians, the "Persian Zoroaster," down to the campaign of Alexander of Macedon.[157 - Diogen. Laert. prooem., cf. Suidas, Μάγοι.] With Eudoxus of Cnidus Zoroaster was the founder of the most beneficent wisdom; the pupils of Prodicus claimed to be acquainted with the writings of Zoroaster (p. 53). Plato calls him the son of Oromazdes, and adds that the heir to the throne was instructed in Magism as well as in the duty of being true during the whole of his life.[158 - "Alcib. I." p. 121.] The importance which the Avesta ascribes to truthfulness will become clear hereafter. If the Greeks of the fourth century could speak of Zoroaster as the teacher of the Persians, and put him in the closest relation with Auramazda, if they could reproduce correctly the names of the good and evil spirits and the main doctrines of the Avesta, it is an inevitable conclusion that the religion of Zarathrustra must have prevailed in the kingdom of the Achæmenids.

This result is confirmed by all the further information which we obtain from the Greeks. In Plutarch the last Darius calls on an eunuch, "to tell the truth in reverence for the great light of Mithra"; the eunuch replies that the king has no reason to accuse the evil spirit, and entreats "Lord Oromazdes," "that he may cause the light of the king to shine again."[159 - Plut. "Alex." c. 30.] Artaxerxes II. was informed by his mother Parysatis that the Persians had received the law which distinguished good and evil from god. He swears "by Mithra," and Plutarch tells us how some related that when Darius, the eldest son of Artaxerxes, who sought his life, was slain, Artaxerxes went into the court of the palace and cried aloud to the Persians: "Rejoice, ye Persians, and tell it to others, that the great Oromazdes has executed judgment on those who imagined crime and wickedness."[160 - Plut. "Artax." c. 4, 23, 29.] In Plutarch, Artaxerxes I. says to Themistocles: "May Areimanius ever implant such a disposition in my enemies that they may drive from themselves their best and bravest men."[161 - "Themistocl." c. 28.] According to Deinon the Magians prophesied with branches in their hands, sacrificed under the open sky, and looked on fire and water as the only symbols of the divinity.[162 - Dinon, Fragm. 9, ed. Müller.] Xenophon represents Cyrus as praising the gods and sacrificing to them every morning according to the instructions of the Magians.[163 - "Cyri Instit." 8, 1, 21.] Though Herodotus does not mention either the name of Zarathrustra or of Auramazda, what he says of the rites of the Medes and Persians agrees exactly with the rules given in the Avesta. "Temples, images, and altars," he says, "are not erected by the Persians, because, as it seems to me, they do not believe like the Hellenes that the gods have the form and nature of men. They call the whole circle of heaven Zeus, and offer sacrifice to him after ascending the summits of mountains. Besides Zeus they have from ancient days sacrificed to the sun, the moon, the earth, water, winds, and fire, which among the Persians is a deity:[164 - Herod. 3, 16.] the winds they also charm by songs. When offering sacrifice they build no altar and kindle no fire, nor pour libations, nor make any use of flutes, or cakes, or barley meal. If any one wishes to offer sacrifice he brings the victim to an open space, and calls on the god, after crowning his tiara with branches of myrtle. After cutting the animal in pieces, and cooking the flesh, he spreads out the most delicate grass, chiefly trefoil, and lays the flesh upon it. The Magian who stands by sings the theogony over it, for such, according to the Persians, is the nature of the prayer. After some time, the person who has made the sacrifice carries the flesh away and uses it for a feast. The Magians, in whose control is the worship by sacrifice, make it a great object to kill ants, serpents, and other creeping winged things: dogs and men only do they spare. No Persian may pollute a river, nor even wash in it, nor will they allow any one else to do so, for they have a great reverence for rivers. The bodies of the dead may not be burned; it is said indeed that the corpse of a Persian cannot be buried till it has been torn by a dog or a bird, and among the Magians this is an acknowledged practice. It is a meritorious act among the Persians to have many children, and he who can show the most receives gifts each year from the king. Each man celebrates the day on which he was born above all other days. What may not be done, may not be spoken of amongst the Persians: the most shameful action is lying, and the next to this is borrowing, for the reason that a man who has debts is generally compelled to lie. Any one afflicted by the itch or the leprosy may not come into the cities or mix with other Persians; and it is believed that such persons have sinned against the sun-god. Lepers from foreign lands are driven out of the country." When Xerxes came to the Hellespont, and was about to cross the bridge, Herodotus represents him as praying to the sun-god, pouring libations from a golden cup, and throwing it with a golden goblet and a Persian sword into the sea.[165 - Herod. 1, 101, 131-140; 7, 40, 43, 113, 191; 3, 84.] We shall see hereafter to what a degree the killing of noxious animals, the reverence for rivers, the expulsion of lepers, the delight in life and the increase of life, the exposing of dead bodies, and singing of the theogony at sacrifices, correspond to the rules and doctrines of the Avesta. In one point only is Herodotus mistaken: he states that the Persians worshipped a female deity called Mithra.

From this array of witnesses belonging to the West it follows that the doctrines of the Avesta, and the religion of Zarathrustra, were current among the Persians and in Western Iran at any rate after the beginning of the fifth century B.C., and they must therefore have been in existence in Eastern Iran at a still earlier date. The inscriptions of the Achæmenids prove that the doctrine of the Avesta was maintained among the Persians with even greater clearness and for a period more ancient. Artaxerxes Ochus prays to Auramazda, Anahita, and Mithra for their protection, and in like manner Artaxerxes Mnemon prays to Auramazda and Mithra. In the inscriptions on Mount Behistun, Darius I., the son of Hystaspes, styles Auramazda "the greatest of the gods" (mathista baganam). Besides Auramazda, "the rest of the gods" are repeatedly mentioned, and denoted by the name Baga. Of Auramazda, Darius and Xerxes say in their inscriptions: "A great god is Auramazda; he has created the heaven and the earth; he has created man and all that is good for men." After crushing in the beginning of his reign the rebellion of nearly all the lands which Cyrus had reduced, Darius repeatedly records his thanks: "that Auramazda had granted him assistance; that his army had been victorious by the grace of Auramazda." He and his successors acknowledge that they have received their throne and their kingdom from Auramazda; by his grace they are kings.[166 - Inscription of Darius at Elvend in Spiegel, "Keilinscriften," s. 45, 47.] The reason why Auramazda has assisted him Darius finds in the fact that he has not been a "liar," and has committed no sin. He entreats Auramazda to protect the land against the invasion of hostile armies, against blight, and "the lie" (drauga). He asserts that "the lie" caused the provinces which had revolted to be rebellious, and declares that the land of Persia, which Auramazda has granted to him, which is beautiful, rich in horses, and well populated, has no fear of enemies owing to Auramazda's grace, and his own. He commends his inscription at Behistun to the protection of his successors, with the words: "If thou destroyest not this tablet then may Auramazda be thy friend; may thy descendants be numerous, and thy life be long, and whatsoever thou undertakest, may Auramazda cause it to succeed. But if thou destroyest it, may Auramazda smite thee, and thy house perish; and whatever thou doest, may Auramazda render it of no effect."[167 - Behistun, 4, 73-80; 56-61; Persop.] On his tomb Darius says: "What I have done I have done by the grace of Auramazda. O man, this is the prayer of Auramazda; think no evil, leave not the right way, sin not." The inscriptions of Xerxes regularly end with the invocation: "May Auramazda protect me, with all the gods; me, my kingdom, and my work."

As we shall see, the fundamental principle of the religion of Zarathrustra is that a supreme god stands over all gods, and to him is ascribed the work of creation. In entire belief in the power of this supreme deity, whom the Achæmenids invoke by the name which is given to him in the Avesta, "who has created heaven and earth and all that is good for men," Darius ascribes to Auramazda victory in battles, the power of granting or refusing success to the king's undertakings, of protecting the land against hostile invasions, blight, and lies. To those who live according to his commands he grants long life and numerous descendants. The rebellion of the provinces is with Darius the work of the lie, the lie of him who had given himself out to be the son of Cyrus, and the lie of those who had claimed to be the descendants of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxares. We have already observed what "the lie" meant in the Avesta. In the same spirit – the spirit of the principal rules of the Avesta – Darius adjures his Persians to think no evil, and not to leave the right path.

Nicolaus of Damascus assures us that the Persians were acquainted with the sayings of Zoroaster. He and others relate that Cyrus or his father was called Atradates, i. e. given by fire,[168 - Strabo, p. 719; Nicol. Damasc. fragm. 66, ed. Müller.] and that he had given to the Areians (p. 11), who provided his famished army with sustenance, the honourable title of Orosangians, i. e. Huverezànha (benefactors). It is in harmony with the doctrine of the Avesta that Cyrus should be represented by such a descent or name as the gift and nursling of fire, and we shall see with what emphasis the Avesta marks and distinguishes good thoughts, words, and actions. From these facts and the inscriptions of Darius there can be no doubt that Zarathrustra's doctrine was current among the Persians at the time of Cyrus. But if it was in force in the West of Iran in the sixth century B.C. the fact that Herodotus, in his account of the period during which the Medes obtained the dominion, down to the time of Cyrus, speaks of no change in religion, either among the Persians or the Medes, is evidence that this religion existed at any rate before the time of Phraortes. The statement found in Herodotus that Deioces had forbidden any one to spit in his presence, reminds us of the rules of the Avesta, by which no one was allowed to approach the sacred fire and gods with uncovered mouth, and on the sculptures of Persepolis the bearer of the fan stands with covered mouth beside Darius. The seven walls which Herodotus represents Deioces as building round Ecbatana, the seven tribes of the Persians, remind us of the seven girdles of the earth in the Avesta; the king of the Persians surrounded by the six tribal princes is the symbol of Auramazda and the six gods who are about him.

Hence we may assume that the doctrine of Zarathrustra had reached the West of Iran at the time when Phraortes united the tribes of the Medes (about 650 B.C.), and was known among the Medes when they were still living under their tribal chiefs and paid tribute to Asshur, or, in case of refusal, were attacked by the Assyrian armies, which, as we ascertained from the inscriptions of the kings of Asshur, was the case from the time of Tiglath Pilesar II. to the time of Assurbanipal, i. e. from the middle of the eighth to the middle of the seventh century B.C. A statement in Herodotus seems to lead us still further back. He calls the Magians a race or tribe of the Medes. According to his narrative this tribe was in existence in the time of Deioces, i. e. about the year 700 B.C. Herodotus could only speak of the Magians as a tribe or family when they had become an hereditary order. At that time, therefore, there must have been among the Medes a priesthood who perpetuated in their families their worship by sacrifice, their doctrine and wisdom, as well as their social importance. Like all Greeks, Herodotus ascribes the discharge of the religious functions among the Persians and Medes to the Magians, and we find that what Herodotus quotes of their rites agrees with the rules of the Avesta. The rise and separation of a peculiar order of priests, their more or less sharply marked distinction from the remaining orders, can never be the work of a short space of time, and such separation can only take place when the worship of the gods requires a knowledge which is not easily accessible or obtainable, when doctrine has obtained a place by the side of belief, when ritual has become developed, and particular duties and rules are prescribed for the life of the priests. When the worship of the gods requires the use of long and definite prayers, the knowledge of complicated usages, on which depends the effect of the sacrifices, and the observation of numerous rules of purification, – such knowledge is only perpetuated in families of hierophants or priests, or in schools which take the place of such families. The formation of a distinct hereditary order on such grounds can hardly have occupied less than a century from the time when the doctrine, on which it is formed, was introduced. Hence we may assume that the doctrine known as Zarathrustra's reached the Medes before the year 750 B.C., i. e. before the date of Tiglath Pilesar II. of Assyria.

Let us hold firmly to the facts that the worship of Auramazda was current among the Persians about the middle of the sixth century B.C., that the same worship was in force among the Medes at least a century earlier, about 650 B.C., and that if an hereditary priesthood was in existence about this time among the Medes who performed and conducted the worship, the doctrine which this priesthood represented must have been adopted before the year 750 B.C. In this way we obtain a proof that the doctrine of Zarathrustra was not only in existence in the East of Iran about the year 800 B.C., but was the dominant creed there, and had force enough to penetrate to the West, and win over the neighbouring tribes of the Medes and Persians.

We cannot explain more exactly how the doctrine of Zarathrustra reached the nations of the West of Iran. Pliny, it is true, exclaims: "Who knows the Medes, who were taught by Zoroaster, Apusorus, and Zaratus, even by hearsay, for no memorials of them are left?"[169 - Plin. "H. N." 30, 2; 28, 19.] According to this the religion of Zoroaster spread even in the West by the influence of eminent men among the Medes. But the date of the persons mentioned cannot be fixed, though Porphyry represents Pythagoras as going to the Chaldæans and Zabratus, by whom he was purified from the evil of his former life, and instructed as to the things from which the disciple should restrain himself, and about the nature and beginning of all things,[170 - "Vita Pythag." 12.] and this Zaratus or Zabratus may be intended for Zarathrustra himself. Hermodorus tells us that Zarathrustra had been followed by many Magians as teachers, one after the other, down to the time when Alexander marched against Persia: these teachers were Osthanes, Astrampsychus, Gobryas, and Pazates.[171 - Diogen. Laert prooem.] Others also assert that Zoroaster was followed "by Osthanes and Astrampsychus."[172 - Suidas, Μάγοι.] Pliny observes that so far as he could discover, Osthanes who accompanied Xerxes in the war against the Hellenes, was the first who had written on the doctrine of the Magians. The second Osthanes, whom Alexander had received among his followers, had caused this religion to be of great importance. From the work of one of these two persons, Philo of Byblus quotes a passage – the work he calls the Octateuch – and Pliny notes down apparently some of the doctrines of the first Osthanes. If then there were men under the Achæmenids in the West of Iran who could write on the doctrine of Zarathrustra from the beginning of the fifth century B.C., we can without hesitation believe the statement that long before this time there were prophets and teachers of the doctrine among the Medes and the Persians.

Can we go beyond the result thus gained by our investigation? – that the doctrine of Zoroaster flourished in Eastern Iran about 800 B.C., and advanced towards the West from this period; may we assume that at this date it was already in possession of written monuments, and even that the fragments of the Avesta which still remain were in existence then? We must first answer the question whether the use of writing in Iran, especially in the East, goes back so far.

According to the statements of Herodotus, the West of Iran was not only in possession of the art of writing by the year 700 B.C., but made considerable use of it. He tells us that Deioces required complaints to be sent in to him in writing, and gave out his decisions also in writing. If processes at law were conducted in writing in Media about the year 700 B.C., it cannot be surprising that Herodotus should also inform us that letters passed between Media and Persia about the year 560 B.C.[173 - Herod. 1, 100, 124, 125.] We learn from the Hebrew Scriptures that when Cyrus allowed the Jews, whom Nebuchadnezzar had removed to Babylon, to return to their homes, he gave his permission for the restoration of the temple in writing. This document was afterwards discovered in the archives of Ecbatana.[174 - Ezra, c. v., vi.] We know it for a fact that Darius I. gave his orders to the satraps in writing, and we are acquainted with the seal of Darius by which they were authenticated. The oldest inscriptions which have come down to us from the Achæmenids, not to mention a seal of Cyrus from Senkereh, belong, if not to Cyrus himself, to Darius, and begin about the last quarter of the sixth century B.C. It is the cuneiform writing of Assyria and Babylon which forms the basis of the writing in these inscriptions, but with considerable alterations. The highly complicated syllabarium of the Eastern Semites is reduced to a phonetic system; we might almost say to an alphabet of about 40 letters. A change of this kind can hardly have been made at one stroke. If it was after they entered into closer combination with Assyria, i. e. after their dependence on the king of Asshur, which began with the accession of Tiglath Pilesar II. (745 B.C.), that the Medes became acquainted with the Assyrian system of writing, this must have been completely mastered before it could be abbreviated and altered, as it was altered by the Medes, whose changes were adopted by the Persians. The cuneiform writing of Western Iran, as we find it in the inscriptions of Darius, can therefore hardly have been established before the year 600 B.C. However this may be, the facts mentioned prove that the writing of the Assyrians in the seventh century B.C. was not unknown in the West of Iran. This would therefore have passed into the East of Iran in its original or simplified form, either at some earlier period, or when the East came under the dominion of the Achæmenids. But it did not, and this is a plain proof that the East, when the cuneiform writing of the West came in that direction, was already in possession of another kind of writing. This Eastern mode of writing, the Arian, which rests on an entirely different basis from the cuneiform, is first known to us from coins and inscriptions of the third century B.C.; but it certainly would not have maintained its ground under the Achæmenids against the writing of the West, and of the rulers, magistrates, and dominant nation, unless it had been in vigorous use before, this period. We must therefore assume that the Arian character was in use in the East of Iran a considerable time before the date of Cyrus, and hence we have no reason to deny the existence of it in that region in the eighth century B.C., since we must allow the neighbouring Arians of India to have been in possession of their written characters from the year 800 B.C. at the least (IV. 155).

If we may assume that the Arian character was in use in the East of Iran about the year 800 B.C., the prayers and sayings of Zarathrustra might have been written down about this date, and the doctrine might have passed on to the West supported by written documents. But the fact that the prayers might have been written down is in no way a proof that they were so written.

It is true that at first sight it seems that the part of the law which has come down to us (the Vendidad) leads to the conclusion that it was written down long before the Persians gained the dominion over Iran, and Media became a powerful state under Cyaxares. The book does not mention the name of the Persians or the Medes, of Ecbatana or Persepolis, while Bactria is spoken of as the seat of the empire; the most westerly district mentioned in the Vendidad is Ragha in Eastern Media.[175 - The Niça of the Vendidad is the Eastern Niça, Parthorum Nisæa, not very far from Merv; above, p. 10, n. 1.] If we add that the book reproaches certain districts in the East, the land of the Arachoti and others, with deviations from the doctrine of Zarathrustra, and that Ragha is indeed Zoroastrian but wavering in its fidelity, we may easily conclude that the Vendidad was written when the doctrine of Zarathrustra had not as yet thoroughly penetrated the East, and was still unknown in the West, when it had just reached, but had not yet completely conquered, the district of Ragha. The Medes were still dependent on Asshur, living separately according to their tribes, Ecbatana was not yet the centre and metropolis of Media, and the kingdom of Bactra was still in existence in the East. This points to a date about 750 B.C. as the time when this doctrine must have spread widely over Media; at any rate to a date before the rise of the Median power, i. e. before 650 B.C. This conclusion is not, however, absolutely certain. The silence of the Vendidad and of the Avesta generally on Ecbatana and Persepolis, the Medes and the Persians, can be explained in another though a more artificial manner. The nations and chief cities of the West were unknown to the tradition of Eastern Iran, and the royal abodes of the Medes and Persians were not consecrated by the action of Zarathrustra. In the accounts given by the Greeks of the worship of these nations, in spite of much agreement, points are found at variance with the rules of the Avesta, and as a fact certain distinctions did prevail. The doctrine had arisen in the East, and the priesthood there was in possession of the purer and more orthodox dogma. If Persia and Media did not follow this in all respects, it was convenient to be silent about the differences in the time of the Achæmenids, or if any one desired to brand them, to mark out the Median Ragha as the seat of heresy, rather than Pasargadæ or Persepolis. This explanation it is true is somewhat far fetched. The result that the religion known by the name of Zarathrustra had reached the Medes and Persians by the middle of the eighth century B.C. is in no way weakened by it, though the assumption that at this period written documents of this doctrine were in existence, and that the book of the law of which we have fragments arose in the first half of the eighth century B.C., is rendered more doubtful if such a mode of interpretation is admitted.

The forms of language preserved in the Avesta have not survived with sufficient distinctness to assist us in fixing the time at which it was written down. As was shown above (p. 65), the manuscripts date from the later period of the Sassanids; they are written in the later East-Pehlevi character, and at a time when the old forms must have undergone changes owing to the language which had come into use in the mean time, and can in fact be proved to have undergone them. The old sounds are obviously modified and confounded,[176 - Lepsius, "Ueber das ursprungliche Zendalphabet," Abh. B. Akad. 1862, s. 298, 306, 381.] so that the language of the Avesta, when compared with that of the inscriptions of the Achæmenids, exhibits forms less ancient and fixed, and indeed in some cases it is more recent than the language of the legends of the Græco-Bactrian coins (p. 27). Nor can any certain conclusions be drawn from the condition of political and social life shown in the Avesta. It is only the splendour of regal power in general, the old sacrificers, heroes, and kings that are extolled in it; a sacrificial prayer to Mithra speaks of the abode of the Arians, where "horse-guiding rulers govern noble troops;" for the rest we hear only of lords of villages, of tribes or cantons, and provinces, and of three orders into which the people are divided. The Vendidad, it is true, reckons by winters and nights, not by years and days; the amount of fines and punishments is computed in animals, goats, sheep, oxen, horses, or camels; and these facts point to an ancient period, but they may have been handed down by tradition. We also hear of the value of these animals and of money (shaeta).[177 - "Vendid." 4, 120; Astad Yasht, 1.] This is the less surprising as the Vendidad speaks of palaces and pillars and various works of art, and mentions smelting-ovens and even ovens for making glass. We found that the Greek princes of Bactria struck square coins, which they would not have done if this had not been the traditional form in Bactria (p. 28). The Achæmenids did not strike coins of this kind, and this shape must therefore have come down from a period anterior to them. The frequent mention of the physician, on the other hand, ought not to be regarded as a proof of later composition, for we hear of the physician and his remedies in ancient poems of the Veda (IV. 35).

In regard to the antiquity of the Avesta, then, we can only build upon the simple facts that it cannot have been written down for the first time when the Buddhists found adherents in Bactria (IV. 542), or when the kingdom of the Greek princes arose in Bactria, or when the Seleucidæ and Alexander, before them, reigned over Iran. It has been proved that the Avesta was in existence before Alexander overthrew the kingdom of the Achæmenids. The series of the successors of Zarathrustra, which western writers could trace backwards from this point – Osthanes II., Pazates, Gobryas, Osthanes I., Astrampsychus, Apusodorus – plainly shows that even under the Achæmenids the West was seriously occupied with religious questions. As Osthanes I. had written on the doctrine of Zoroaster about the time of Xerxes (p. 92), it is at least more probable than not that the Avesta was already in existence at that time. If in the West there was a series, and as the Greeks point out, a continuous series, of priestly teachers, round whom naturally pupils and schools grew up, and after the beginning of the fifth century a theological literature, similar teachers and schools must have existed long before in the East, and this greatly strengthens the conclusion drawn from the contents of the Vendidad, that it must have been written down before the rise of the Medes. But for any more precise determination of the date of the Avesta between the two limits obtained – the year 750 B.C., i. e. the beginning of the formation of a priesthood in the West and the contemporary use of writing in the East, and the year 350 B.C. – we are confined wholly to internal evidence.

Scriptures of such extent as the Avesta is shown to have been, by the accounts of the Greeks and Arabs, and the list of contents (p. 51), and the existing fragments, could not have been written down at once or within a brief space of time. We saw (p. 33) that it set up a religious canon, which not only regulated the doctrine and the worship, the duties of priests and laity, but also comprised the law, and in a word all the relations of life. A codification of this kind is only possible when belief and doctrine, culture and ritual, have arrived at fixed and complete formulæ, have been arranged in a system and developed, and the consequences bearing on life, morality, and law have been drawn from them by an active and influential priesthood. Hence before the Avesta was written down and collected there must have been a priestly order in the East, in the circles of which the doctrine and practice went through this developing, revising, and fixing process. Various sketches, lists of prayers for certain offerings, collections of rules belonging to this or that priesthood or school, must have been in existence, and combinations of the traditional material must have been made, before a canon comprising the whole wisdom of the priests, and far exceeding in extent the law of Manu, could have been compiled.

Among the existing invocations of the Avesta we find sacrificial prayers of a primitive character; but the greater part of the prayers and thanksgivings are without religious feeling or poetical power, and very far removed from the richness and abundance, the beauty and freshness of conception, which streams through the majority of the hymns of the Veda. There are not wanting naïve and poetical pieces which have obviously been handed down and preserved by their use at sacrifices, but these are frequently spoiled by later interpolations, and the form of the whole is generally dry and prosaic. We find but scanty relics of any vigorous conception of the gods, of a living mythology; on the whole the mythical element is faded, and the sacrifice of animals thrown into the background. The greater part of the prayers receive their value from a certain system and completeness; the object is to bring forward all the characteristics of the deity to which they are addressed, and to invoke him by all his names. Thus laudations and epithets are repeated without end. A good many of the prayers are mere nomenclatures, and repeat the same forms in varying order. Besides this tendency, which is far removed from the original simplicity of religious meditation, a value is ascribed to the repetition of certain prayers. Some are to be said a hundred, or a thousand times. In the same way the liturgies are long and full of detail, and sometimes take the form of responses between the celebrant and the ministering priest; they are extremely careful to neglect none of the heavenly spirits or genii, or to injure them by omission, or treat them with less respect than others.

Beside the faded colours of the mythology, the decreasing importance of animal sacrifice, and the formalism of the prayers, we observe in the five Gathas, the invocations which alone have preserved the verse-measure, and present older forms of language than the rest, a tendency to speculation. Not only are the good and evil spirits combined under one head, as is always the case in the Avesta, but the Gathas attempt to resolve the contrast of the beneficial and harmful sides of nature, of the good and evil spirits, into the reciprocal play of two fundamental forces; they identify the prosperity and destruction of nature with moral good and evil, and combine the one with truth, the other with falsehood. The good spirits are the truth, the evil are the lie. The life of appearance and of falsehood is distinguished from the true life, and the service of truth promises life not in this world only but in the next. It is in harmony with these tendencies to abstraction that, according to other passages of the Avesta, heaven is filled with a multitude of the most lifeless personifications of ideas and realities. Could the doctrine of a new religion in an early period come forward with such a spiritualised system, with such elevated moral demands, such abstract conceptions? Could prayers of such a kind have been composed or written down in a primitive age?

The existing fragment of the book of the law is composed in the form of a dialogue, and is for the most part filled with conversations which Zarathrustra carries on with Auramazda. Zarathrustra inquires what is to be done in certain cases against the evil spirits, the Daevas, on the commission of certain sins and impurities. What must be done when a woman is in labour, etc., or when any one has made himself impure by touching a corpse, or has slain a water-dog (otter)? Is the rain impure which has fallen on a corpse and then runs off from it, etc.? These questions Auramazda answers very precisely, and when it is a matter for expiation and purification, he fixes the number of stripes with the horse-whip or the whip of the sacred Çraosha (Çraosha-charana) which the penitent is to receive. It is a theory and practice of purity, on a level with the analogous rules in the laws of Manu, and in some points even more subtle and casuistical. The offences have already been brought under definite categories, and in like manner the purifications and punishments fall into a number of distinct classes. Not only are expiations required for all sins and prescribed down to the minutest details, but the offences must also be repented of; certain formulæ of confession and repentance are prescribed.

We need not stop to prove that a book of laws in this form could not have been written down à priori. The rules for punishment and purification must have grown up in long practice, before they could be put in the mouth of the deity; difficulties and doubts must have been weighed before solutions could be proposed. The book contains the dialogues and inquiries which were held in the schools of the priests on questions of this kind, the practice which prevailed in the schools and the catechisation of the pupils. The answer is naturally placed in the mouth of Auramazda, for it was the answer which he once gave to the question when asked by Zarathrustra. The fragments of the Vendidad are a catechism, the result of the labour of the priestly schools, a system of rules and regulations which marks and postulates the same stage of development for Iran as was reached for the Indians on the Ganges by the law of Manu. Many periods in the religious life must have been passed through before the religious consciousness was no longer shocked by the fact that the supreme deity in person answered petty questions of ritual, and dictated in the most exact gradation and with regard to every possible variety of circumstance, the number of stripes required for the criminals.

This faded mythology and formalised worship, these speculative attempts and casuistry of law, are accompanied by a completely-arranged scheme of certain abstract categories already established. Throughout the whole Avesta runs the division between this world and the next, between the corporeal and incorporeal world, truth and falsehood, and the triple distinction of thinking, speaking, and acting, of thought, word, and deed. And when we further consider that rewards are attached to the reading of sections of the Avesta, that the "long study" of the "thoughts of the pure man," "the excellent knowledge, thought, and conception" are praised and invoked as divine powers, no one will be inclined to see in the Avesta the product of naïve religious feeling, or the deposit of a priestly civilisation which is as yet in its early stages.

Still, if we wish to avoid making any false steps in the conclusions to be drawn from the nature of the Avesta about the time of its composition, we must bear in mind that it contains some conceptions which are the exact opposite of the characteristics just noticed. The myth of Yima, the form of Mithra, the descent of plants, prove older traits in the Avesta than we find in the Veda; the old gods still occupy a large space beside Auramazda and the abstract forms of heaven, and strict unity of system is not yet attained. We must remember also at what an early date the neighbours of Eastern Iran, the Arians of India, arrived at meditation and abstraction; how quickly and entirely they allowed animal sacrifice to pass into the background; with what breadth and detail they developed the rules for purification; how numerous were the daily prayers and repetitions, before the religious feeling became weakened. In the Avesta the time without limit is frequently invoked; among the Indians the gods of light are even in the oldest hymns of the Veda the sons of Aditi, i. e. of the Eternal or the Infinite. And if the attitude of the Avesta is for the most part by far more flat and prosaic than that of the Veda, the Arians of Iran were of a more logical nature, and the glow of imagination which the land of the Ganges kindled in their kindred tribes did not exist in Iran. For this reason the consideration of the character of the Avesta can only lead us to the result that a period of several centuries must have elapsed between the rise of the religion named after Zarathrustra and the writing down of the Avesta; that lists of prayers and rubrics must have been in existence about the year 800 B.C.; that the extensive books which then formed the Avesta may have been written in the first half of the period, which we ascribed to them, extending from 750 to 350 B.C. In any case we can maintain that the Gathas were composed, and that the Avesta existed in its essential parts in the East of Iran, before Cyrus put the empire of the Persians in the place of the empire of the Medes, and all the various parts were collected together before the "Enlightened" began to preach on the Ganges, i. e. about the year 600 B.C.