The Bundahis contains much matter which is not spoken of in the existing Avesta, but which appears to have been taken from Zend books that were still in the hands of its compiler.
What helped to preserve the Avesta is obvious; taken as a whole, it does not profess to be a religious encyclopedia, but only a liturgical collection, and it bears more likeness to a Prayer Book than to the Bible. It can be readily conceived that the Vendidad S4da, which had to be recited every day, would be more carefully preserved than the Yasts, which are generally recited once a month; and these again more carefully than other books, which, however sacred they might be, were not used in the performance of worship. Many texts, no doubt, were lost in consequence of the Arab conquest, but mostly such as would have more importance in the eyes of the theologian than in those of the priest. But we are no longer in the dark as to the character and the contents of that larger literature of which our Avesta is a remnant: that literature is known to us, in its general outlines, through a Pahlavi analysis which was made in the ninth century, two centuries after the Arab conquest and at a time when the sacred literature of the Sassanian times was still in existence. West’s translation of that synopsis! is the greatest service rendered in the last twenty years in the field of Avesta scholarship, and has for the first time rendered a history of Avesta literature possible.
§ 3. During the Sassanian period, while Zoroastrianism was the state religion, the collection of sacred writings was composed of twenty-one books or Nasks, distributed into three classes, each of seven Nasks; being called respectively the Gatha group (g4s4n), the group of the law (dat), and the group of the Hadha-mathra; or the theological group, the legal group, and the mixed group.
1 Pahlavi Texts, IV (forming vol. xxxvii of the Sacred Books of the East). [4] c
XXXiV VEND{DAD.
The seven GAtha Nasks, thus named because they are mostly a development of the Gathas, are :-— The Stét Yast (Dk. VIII, 46) ; The Sdtkar (Dk. VIII, 2; IX, 2); The Varst-mansar (Dk. VIII, 3; IX, 24); The Bak (Dk. VIII, 4; IX, 47); The Vastag (Dk. VIII, 12) ; The Hadhékht (Dk. VIII, 45); The Spand (Dk. VIII, 14).
We possess the Stét Yast (in Zend Staota yésnya) in its entirety: it is the core of the aggregate known as the Yasna, and the most holy part of the Avesta. It contains thirty-three chapters, of which twenty-two are metrical and written in an archaic style, these being the Gathas, properly so called, and the three chief prayers (Ahuna Vairya, Ashem Voht, and Yénhé hatém); eleven chapters are written in prose and in the common dialect 1.
It contains thirty-three chapters, of which twenty-two are metrical and written in an archaic style, these being the Gathas, properly so called, and the three chief prayers (Ahuna Vairya, Ashem Voht, and Yénhé hatém); eleven chapters are written in prose and in the common dialect 1.
The Sfitkar, the Varst-m4ansar, and the Bak contain each twenty-two chapters, answering to the twenty-two GAathas, of which they are mere commentaries or paraphrases. We possess small fragments of the Satkar? and one chapter of the Varst-mansar*. Three chapters of the Bak, which are commentaries to the three chief prayers aforesaid, have been incorporated in the Yasna ‘,
Nothing is left of the Vastag, of which the Dinkart gives no analysis, as the author had neither its Avesta, nor its Zend (neither its original text, nor its Pahlavi translation), in an authentic form before him.
Of the Hadhdékht we have three chapters counted as Yasts 5, and one inserted in the Yasna °.
The Spand, which is dedicated to the story of Zoroaster, has been indirectly preserved, in a modern form, in the Zardust Nama and in Ard Viraf’s visit to hell.
1 Gathas (Yasna XXVIII-LIV) and Yasna XIV-XVII, XXII-XXVH, LVI. ? Fragments to Vd. II, 6; Tahmuras’ Fragm. LXIV-LXVIII (?).
3 Westergaard’s Fragm. IV (= Farg. XXIII of the Varst-mansar Nask).
* Chapters XIX, XX, XXI.
5 Yasts XI and XXI, XXII.
® The so-called FshQsha-m&thra (Yasna LVIII).
INTRODUCTION, III. XXXV
§ 4. The Legal group contains :— The Nikatdm (Dk. VIII, 16) ; The Ganbé-sar-nigat (Dk. VIII, 21) ; The Hasp4ram (Dk. VIII, 28); The SakétOm (Dk. VIII, 38); The Vendidad (Dk. VIII, 44) ; The Kitradat (Dk. VIII, 13); The Bakan Yast (Dk. VIII, 15).
Only the first five of these Nasks are strictly legal; the last two deal with cosmogony and mythology.
Of those five legal Nasks, one has been preserved in its entirety, the Vendid4d'. The NikAtim, the Ganbéasar-nigat, and the Sakatfm are represented by a few fragments. An important section of the Hfspaéram has been preserved, in text and translation, in the Pahlavi Erpatistan and Nirangistan *.
The Kitradat, which gives an historical account of mankind and Iran from the creation of the world till the advent of Zoroaster, has been indirectly preserved in part of the Bundahis and in the Shahn4ma.
The Bak4n Yast was a collection of prayers in honour of the several Yazatas. From that Nask are derived sixteen of our Yasts, to which may be added the Hém Yast (Yasna IX-X]I) and the Srésh Yast (Yasna LVII).
§ 5. The third group of Nasks, the Hadham&thra, is the least known and the least well preserved. It contained :—
The Damdat (Dk. VIII, 5);
The Natar (Dk. VIII, 6); . The Pagag (Dk. VIII, 7);
The Rat-dat-itag (Dk. VIII, 8); The Baris (Dk. VIII, 9);
The Kaskisrav (Dk. VIII, 10);
The VistAsp-sast (Dk. VIII, 11).
The DAamdA&t was the Zoroastrian Genesis; the cosmogonic part of the Bundahis is derived from it. There remains one Zend fragment of it 3.
The Pagag (Dk. VIII, 7);
The Rat-dat-itag (Dk. VIII, 8); The Baris (Dk. VIII, 9);
The Kaskisrav (Dk. VIII, 10);
The VistAsp-sast (Dk. VIII, 11).
The DAamdA&t was the Zoroastrian Genesis; the cosmogonic part of the Bundahis is derived from it. There remains one Zend fragment of it 3.
1 See below, the Introduction to the Vendidad. 2 See below, p. 300 seq. 3 Fragm. Vd. H, 20 c.
c2
XXXVI VEND{DAD.
We know nothing of the NAtar, of which the Dinkart has no analysis.
The G&h and Siréza may be derived from the Pagag that treats of the Gahanb4rs and of the relations between the liturgy and the divisions of time.
The Rat-dat-ftag treats of the arrangement of the sacrifice. It is represented by two fragments |.
The Baris is of an ethical character; the Kaskisrav teaches how to prevent the sacrifice being ill-managed and turning to the benefit of the demons. No fragment has been referred to either of these two Nasks with any certainty *.
The Vistasp-sAst, or ‘the Introduction of Vist4sp, treated of the conversion of Vistasp by Zoroaster and of his wars against Argasp. It is represented by the Vistasp Yast (Yt. XXIV) and the Afrin Paighambar Zartdst (Yt. XXIII). It is one of the sources of the Zardust Nama.
§ 6. From this rapid review we may draw the following conclusions :—
(1) Out of the twenty-one Nasks of the Sassanian Avesta, we possess two in their entirety (the Vendidd4d and the Stét Yast) and the most important part of a third (the Bakan Yast).
(2) We have a considerable part of four Nasks: the Bak, the Hadhékht, the Vistasp-sdst, and the Hadspaéram; and several fragments of most of the others.
(3) We know indirectly, through the medium of Pahlavi translations or compilations, the contents of many Nasks of which we have few or no remnants in their original language: the DAémdat, the Vistasp-sast, the KXitradat, and the Spand. In short we possess specimens, more or less considerable, of fifteen Nasks, and the complete text of the two Nasks which were considered all-important. For the Vendidad, being the book of purification; was to the priest the chief of the legal Nasks, and this is most
' Tahmuras’ Fragm. LVIII; Fragm. to Vd. VII, 43. ®* The quotations in the Pahlavi Nirangistén may be referred to the Kasktsrav.
INTRODUCTION, IIL. XXXVIi
For the Vendidad, being the book of purification; was to the priest the chief of the legal Nasks, and this is most
' Tahmuras’ Fragm. LVIII; Fragm. to Vd. VII, 43. ®* The quotations in the Pahlavi Nirangistén may be referred to the Kasktsrav.
INTRODUCTION, IIL. XXXVIi
likely the reason to which we owe its preservation. As to the Gathas, they were already to the Zoroastrians of the Sassanian age just what they are to the Parsis of to-day: their paramount sanctity was the same as it is now, and their extent was the same, as appears from the fact that the three Gathic Nasks which were developed around the GAthas, or artificially attached to them, are composed each of twenty-two Fargards, answering one by one to the twenty-two G4thas of our Yasna. Therefore the many losses that the Sassanian Avesta underwent in the last twelve centuries did not bear on the essential parts; and the loss, however considerable it may be, is neither absolute, as much of the matter survived under a Pahlavi garb, nor perhaps irreparable, as the Zend finds made in the Pahlavi literature afford a hape -for fresh and more important recoveries, when that deep quarry, only half opened, has been worked out through all its strata. .
§ 7. It is not only the general outlines of the Sassanian Avesta we find sketched in the Dinkart ; it furnishes us also with a history of its formation!, which may be summed up as follows :—
The twenty-one Nasks were formed by Ahura Mazda himself out of the twenty-one words of the Ahuna Vairya. They were brought by Zoroaster to king Vistasp. Two copies of the complete scriptures were written by order of the king: one was deposited in the treasury at Shapig4n, the other in the Record Office*.
When Alexander invaded Persia, the copy in the Record Office was burnt, and the one in Shapigdén was carried off by the Greeks, who had it translated into their own language.
One of the Parthian kings, Valkhash, ordered all the scattered remnants of the Avesta, which had been preserved, either in manuscript or by oral tradition, to be searched for and collected.
1 In two different concordant documents, one at the end of Dinkart III (West, 1. 1. pp. xxx and xxxi), the other in the beginning of Dinkart IV (ibid.
412-415). 2 dez-f nipist, ‘the fortress for books:’ cf. the Hebrew p> np.
XXXVili VENDIDAD.
The founder of the Sassanian dynasty, Ardashir (211- 241), called to his court the high-priest Tansar, gave him the commission to gather and complete the scattered fragments, and invested his work with official authority.
Ardashir’s son, Shahpdhr I (241-272), ordered the documents relating to profane sciences (medicine, astronomy, geography, philosophy), which were scattered amongst the Hindus and the Greeks, to be collected and embodied in the Avesta.
Ardashir’s son, Shahpdhr I (241-272), ordered the documents relating to profane sciences (medicine, astronomy, geography, philosophy), which were scattered amongst the Hindus and the Greeks, to be collected and embodied in the Avesta.
At last Shahpdhr II, son of Auhrmazd (309-379), to check the sects that were distressing the religion, ordered a general disputation between them: the champion of orthodoxy, Adarb4d, son of Mahraspand, submitting himself to a fire-ordeal, went through it victoriously, and the king proclaimed : ‘ Now we have seen the true religion on earth, we will not suffer any false religion,’ and he acted accordingly.
§ 8. This account may be divided into two parts, one extending from the origin to the time of Alexander, the other relating to the restoration of the Avesta after the Greek invasion. These two accounts differ widely in character, the first being vague and legendary, the second being precise in its data and its dates, referring also to an historical period. We shall here have to do only with the second document, of which the import is that the Avesta is a collection that was formed on three occasions out of old fragments: the first edition emanating from a Parthian king, Valkhash: the second from the first Sassanian king, Ardashir Babagén (211-241); the third and last from king Shahpohr I (241-272). Let us consider each of these three times, one by one.
§ 9. One may be surprised, at first sight, by the part ascribed to an Arsacide prince in this religious evolution }. Most Byzantine, Parsi, and Muhammedan writers agree that it was the Sassanian dynasty which raised the Zoroastrian religion from the state of humiliation into which the Greek invasion had made it sink, and, while it gave the
1 Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde III, 7832, n. 1.
INTRODUCTION, III. XXXIX
signal for a revival of the old national spirit, made Mazdeism one of the corner stones of the new establishment !. Therefore it seems strange to hear that the first step taken to make Mazdeism a state religion was taken by one of those very Philhellenic Parthian princes, who were fully imbued with Greek ideas and manners. Yet this view must not be accepted unreservedly. Ardashir is nowhere mentioned as professing a religion different from that of his predecessors. In the struggle between Ardavan and Ardashir, there was no religious interest at stake, but only a political one ; and we are expressly told by Hamza ? that Ardashir and his adversaries belonged to the same confession. Nay, we shall see that one of the charges brought against him, by his adversaries, was his wanton infraction of the Zoroastrian laws. There is therefore nothing that makes it impossible to admit that in the time and at the court of a Parthian prince a Zoroastrian movement may have originated.
Nay, we shall see that one of the charges brought against him, by his adversaries, was his wanton infraction of the Zoroastrian laws. There is therefore nothing that makes it impossible to admit that in the time and at the court of a Parthian prince a Zoroastrian movement may have originated.
§ 10. There were four kings at least? who bore the name of Valkhash: the most celebrated and best known of the four was Vologeses I, the contemporary of Nero. Now that Zoroastrianism prevailed with him, or at least around him, we see from the conduct of his brother Tiridates, who was a Magian (Magus)‘; and by this term we must not understand a magician °, but a Zoroastrian priest. That he was a priest appears from Tacitus’ testimony ®; that he was a Zoroastrian is shown by his scruples about the wor-
1S. de Sacy, Mémoires sur quelques antiquités de la Perse. Cf. Magoudi, Hy, 125.
3 Hamzae Ispahensis Annales, ed. Gottwaldt, p. 31 (in the translation).
% Perhaps five (see de Longpérier, Mémoire sur la Numismatique des Arsacides, p. 111).
* ‘Magus ad eum Tiridates venerat’ (Pliny, Nat. Hist. XXX, 6).
§ Pliny very often confounds Magism and Magia, Magians and Magicians. We know from Pliny, too, that Tiridates refused to initiate Nero into his art; but the cause was not, as he assumes, that it was ‘a detestable, frivolous, and vain art,’ but because Mazdean law forbids the holy knowledge to be revealed to laymen, much more to foreigners (Yast IV, 10; cf. Philostrati Vita Soph. I, 10).
* «Nec recusaturum Tiridatem accipiendo diademati in urbem venire, nisi sacerdotii religione attineretur’ (Ann. XV, 24).
xl VENDIDAD.
ship of the elements. When he came from Asia to Rome to receive the crown of Armenia at the hands of Nero, he avoided coming by sea, and rode along the coasts?, ‘ because the Magi are forbidden to defile the sea*.’ This is quite in the spirit of later Zoroastrianism, and savours much of Mazdeism. That. Vologeses himself shared the religious scruples of his brother appears from his answer to Nero, who insisted upon his coming to Rome also: ‘Come yourself, it is easier for you to cross such immensity of sea %.’ What we know moreover of his personal character qualifies him for taking the initiative in a religious work. He seems to have been a man of contemplative mind rather than a man of action, which often excited the anger or scorn of his people against him ; he had the glory of breaking with the family policy of Parthian kings by giving his brothers a share in the empire, instead of strangling them (Tacitus, Annales, XV, 1,2). At that time the East was in religious fermentation ; Christianity was in its infancy ; gnostic sects were rife: moreover religion was fast becoming part of politics. Vologeses was called by the people of Adiabene against their king Izates, who had turned Jew (Josephus, Antiq. XX, 4, 2) and himself offered the help of his cavalry to Vespasian against Jerusalem.
Vologeses was called by the people of Adiabene against their king Izates, who had turned Jew (Josephus, Antiq. XX, 4, 2) and himself offered the help of his cavalry to Vespasian against Jerusalem.
The namesakes of Vologeses I had too short or too uncertain 2 lease of power for any one of them to be likely to compete with him as the author of that first religious restoration. We shall therefore assume that the Valkhash of the Dinkart is the same as Vologeses I *, and, in this hypothesis, we will ascribe the first collection of Zoroastrian fragments to the third quarter of the first century (50-75),
1 He crossed only the Hellespont.
2 ‘ Navigare noluerat, quoniam inspuere in maria, aliisque mortalium necessitatibus violare naturam eam fas non putant’ (Pliny, 1.1. Cf. Introd. X, 8 seq.)
3 Dio Cassius, LXIII, 4. The answer was mistaken for an insult by Nero, and, as it seems, by Dio himself. In fact Vologeses remained to the last faithful to the memory of Nero (Suet. Nero, 57).
4 This hypothesis, which was for the first time proposed in the first edition of this translation (1880), seems to have been generally accepted (Gutschmid, ‘ Persia,’ in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, XVIII, 603; West, Pahlavi Texts, IV, 413, note 5).
INTRODUCTION, III. xli
which is nearly the time when the first evangelical narratives were written.
Whereas the Parthians boasted their title of Philhellenist, the Sassanian king styled himself Mazdayasn, ‘Worshipper of Mazda.’ It seemed as if Ahura Mazda had ascended the throne with him.
§ 12. Ardashir had a man of the name of Tansar to help him in his work of religious restoration. He had been one of those petty local sovereigns called Mulik ut-tavaif, ‘Kings of provinces, among whom the Iranian empire was divided under the nominal suzerainty of the Parthian emperor. ‘Belonging to the Platonic sect?,’ he had given up his throne to his son and embraced a religious life. When Ardashir rose up against the Mulk ut-tavaif, Tansar welcomed him as the saviour of the empire, became his missionary, preached submission to him, and sent preachers in his interest through the provinces*®. He had written an
} Macoudi, Les prairies d’or, II, 16a, 2 Magoudi, IT, 161. _ ? Kitab et-tanbth, ed. de Goeje, 99. Cf£ S. de Sacy, in Magoudi, IX, 329.
xlii VENDIDAD.
apology of Ardashir in answer to a reproachful letter from one of the princes threatened by Ardashir’s ambition, Gasnasf, king of Tabaristan. Tansar’s letter, translated from the-original Pahlavi into Arabic by Ibn al-Muaqaffa, in the middle of the eighth century, and nearly five centuries later (1210 A.D.) from Arabic into Persian by Muhammad bin ul-Hasan, author of a history of Tabaristan, has come down to us in its secondary form, not free from interpolations which are easily detected, so that the original authentic text is clearly recognisable under the modern accretions},
That letter, which is the oldest and most important record of the religious history of Zoroastrian Persia, sets in a strong light the moral forces that made the success of the Sassanian revolution. Ardashir was the happy leader of a necessary reaction against the political anarchy of the Parthian system, and against the moral, social, and religious anarchy that was the outcome of the political one.
The Parthian kings, in the last two centuries of the dynasty, had been hardly more than feudal chiefs, only so far recognised by the local princes (the Muldk ut-tavaif) as they had strength to make themselves recognised. Each province had its own dynasty, old or new. The legend ran that Alexander, on his death-bed, fearing lest Persia, after his death, should revenge her wrongs on Greece, listened to the perfidious advice of his vizier Aristotle and divided Iran between ninety petty sovereigns, to weaken her for ever. Such was at any rate the condition of Iran in the beginning of the third century A.D. It was in order to restore the unity of the Iranian empire that Ardashir rose. He suppressed those of the Muldk ut-tavaif who declined to recognise him as king of kings, and sent their heads as trophies to Andhita’s temple*. It was decided by a council of Magi that those Muldk who would come and deposit their crowns at the feet of the Shahinshah, to receive
He suppressed those of the Muldk ut-tavaif who declined to recognise him as king of kings, and sent their heads as trophies to Andhita’s temple*. It was decided by a council of Magi that those Muldk who would come and deposit their crowns at the feet of the Shahinshah, to receive
1 See the text and translation of that letter (Lettre de Tansar au Roi de Tabaristan) in the Journal Asiatique, 1894, I, 185-250, 503-555. ® Tabari.
INTRODUCTION, III. xliii
them again from his hands, would retain their title of Shah!. At the time when Tansar wrote, fourteen years had elapsed since Ardashir had begun his work: a part of it was done, the unity of the empire was restored: the only political task that remained to be performed was to avenge Dara’s murder on Alexander’s successors, and to exact from them the old tribute they had formerly paid to Persia for Egypt and Syria *,
§ 13. Then remained the work of moral restoration. The Shahinshah’s second task is to re-establish ‘the law of the Ancients’ (¥l:.J31 i=. 3). How shall that ideal of the past be brought again to light? There lay the difficulty, as the Avesta was all but lost, and the tradition of the law had been obliterated by revolutions and anarchy. ‘ You know that Alexander burnt in Istakhar* our sacred books written on twelve thousand ox-hides. There remained something of it in memory, but it was only legends and traditions®: nothing more was known of the religious laws and ordinances ®; and at last, by the corruption of the men of those times, by the disappearance of the law, the love of novelties and apocrypha’ and the wish for notoriety, even those legends and traditions passed away from the memory of the people, so that there was not a particle authentit
1 Journal Asiatigue, 1. 1. 513-514.
* «Now the Shahinshah intends to go to war against Rm and he will not rest till he has avenged Dara’s blood on the Alexandrides, enriched his own treasury and the treasury of the state, and restored the towns which Alexander spitefully destroyed in Fars. He must exact from them the tribute which they always paid to our kings for the Coptic country and Syria, which our kings had formerly conquered in the land of the Hebrews, at the time of the invasion of Bokht-Nasr’ (1.1. pp. 548-549).—Ardashir’s pretensions are expressed by Herodian in terms remarkably concordant with those in Tansar’s letter: ‘He pretended to have unquestionable rights to the possession of all the provinces in Asia lying between the Euphrates, the Aegean sea, and the Propontis: as all those countries, as far as Ionia and Caria, had always been governed by satraps of their nation from the days of Cyrus, who transferred the empire from the Medes to the Persians, to the time of Darius, who was conquered by Alexander: therefore by entering into possession of the old heritage of his ancestors he would not wrong the Romans.’ (Journal Asiatique, 1894, p. 549.)
left. Therefore we must absolutely have an upright and honest man to revise the Religion.’ Tansar himself confesses that Ardashir does not pretend to re-establish the old order in its entirety, nor even to keep it free from the admixture of new elements. He takes liberties with it, and, whereas he comes forward to correct the new order (sunnati Akhirin) by the light of the older one, he does not waive the right of correcting what may be wrong in the old law. Therefore, by his own confession, his restoration is an adaptation. How little he was embarrassed in his work by the authority of authentic written texts, Tansar lets us easily guess, ‘When the Sh4hinshah wants to suppress any iniquity of the Ancients, which does not suit the necessities of the present, they say: “This is the old custom, it is the rule of the Ancients.” Iniquity, past or present, is a thing to be reproved, whether it comes from the Ancients or from the Moderns. But the Shahinshah has power over the Religion, and God is his ally?; and in this destroying and changing of the order of tyranny, I see him better armed and adorned with more virtues than the Ancients. No king attempted what he did. The Religion being lost and history forgotten, what man could judge him? Besides, even in the times when men had perfect knowledge of their religion and were closely attached to it, they felt the need of a powerful and wise king in times of doubt ; for if the Religion is not enlightened by reason, it has no steadiness 8.’
It is no wonder therefore that Zoroastrians of the time may have considered Ardashir a sacrilegious heretic. One of his acts that created the greatest indignation was that he had the sacred fires of the Muldk ut-tav4if extinguished : a crime that would have cost any other man his life: ‘no man before him,’ exclaimed king Gasnasf, ‘had ventured on such a sacrilege.’ Tansar threw back the charge of sacrilege on the shoulders of the Muldk ut-tav4if: they
1 Lettre de Tansar, 1. 1. p. 212. . Pb IG Gy pep Cel bbw se Ely. Pals pols wIS le ul UL yer
INTRODUCTION, III. xlv
had no right to have a second fire of their own: ‘it was a bad innovation, contrary to the custom of the old kings.’ It is more likely that the unity of the royal fire was a new dogma, invented on the spur of the moment to serve the usurper’s political devices; and Atar himself, when found to favour anarchy, was treated like any other rebel. In fact many were the laws, introduced by Ardashir, that were disapproved by public opinion as unwarranted innovations: such were the laws on the strict division of the people into classes with their functions, rights, and distinctive marks ; and the laws on heredity. His restoring the Law of the Ancients, said Gasnasf, is nothing else than destroying the real Law!.
His restoring the Law of the Ancients, said Gasnasf, is nothing else than destroying the real Law!.
§ 14. How far these reforms were representéd as resting on the mere will and reason of the king, or on the authority of religious texts, we do not know. As to the religious texts themselves, and their collection into a body of doctrines, the Dinkart has the following: ‘ Ardashir had all the scattered teaching (4mék-i pargandak) brought together to the capital under the high authority of Tansar ; Tansar came; him alone he accepted (frag patiraft); and from all the others he took away authority.’ In other words, among the Zoroastrian schools,there were current several collections of religious texts, more or less authentic, and it was the one taught by Tansar that was stamped by Ardashir with an official character. From another text in the Dinkart it appears that the Ardashir compilation contained two classes of texts: texts that were incorporated as they were, and other texts that were conjecturally restored by Tansar, the Pérydétkés, so as to make a collection that should be an exact reproduction of the Vistasp Avesta, the lost treatise of Shapigan?: which is as much as saying that the Ardashir Avesta is a compound of texts anterior to Tansar and texts emanating from Tansar, the whole being an ideal restoration of a primitive Avesta, of the ‘old law’ or of what was supposed to be the old law, in the time of Ardashir.
1 Journal Asiatique, 1894, No. 3, p. 514. 2 See the text in the Guimet Zend-Avesta, III, p. xxxi, note 2.
xlvi VEND{DAD.
§ 15. Ardashir’s collection was not a canon closed. His successor Shahpdhr I (241-272), the conqueror of Valerianus, had, we are told, the scientific and philosophic fragments, scattered in India and Greece, collected and embodied in the Avesta. This is a confession that part of the Avesta was translated or imitated from foreign sources: but it is a confession that a Zoroastrian might easily make, as it was an accepted legend that Alexander had the Avesta translated into Greek, so that they could borrow back from the Greeks without being indebted to them. To us it tells a different tale, namely, that the scientific Nasks of the Avesta!, of which unfortunately very little is left?, were written under Shaéhpdhr I, in imitation of Greek and Sanskrit scientific treatises.
To us it tells a different tale, namely, that the scientific Nasks of the Avesta!, of which unfortunately very little is left?, were written under Shaéhpdhr I, in imitation of Greek and Sanskrit scientific treatises.
§ 16. It was not to be expected that a body of Scriptures, formed so recently and with such visible accretions, should obtain at once sufficient authority to command universal respect and check the sectarian spirit. In vain did Ardashir put the secular arm at the service of the new orthodoxy ®: the inquisition disgusted the older generation and could not ensure the triumph of one particular system. The old free believers, not yet confined in the immovable limits of orthodox dogma, went on growing and branching off into independent heresies. One of these, Manicheism, became at one moment powerful even at the court of Shahpdhr. The execution of Manes under Shahpdhr’s successor, Bahram I (272-276), did not stop the progsess of the heresies, and it was only under Shahpdhr II (309-379) that, through Adarbad Mahraspand’s devotion, the ortho-
! The fragments treating of medicine and astronomy, time and space, nature and creation, generation and corruption (yahvinishn vindsishn; yéveois xat Odpors ; SLund 3 oS pls, Tansar, p. 10 b).
* Of the Hadha-mathra Nasks the contents of only one are sufficiently known (the Daémd&d).
* ¢The SbShinsh&h has ordered that if a man swerve from the Religion he should be put in prison, and that for a whole year without ceasing the clergy should read to him, and admonish him, and give him proofs and dissipate his doubts, If he repent and confess his error, he is set at liberty; if through obstinacy and pride he harden in infidelity, he is put to death.’ (Letter of Tansar, fol. 12 a.)—Cf. Vd. XVIII, 9, 10; Mindkhard XV, 22-25.
INTRODUCTION, IV. xl vii
dox doctrine prevailed in a decisive way. After a public controversy with his opponents, he appealed to God’s judgment and had molten brass poured on his breast: he went through the ordeal unscathed, and confounded the heretics. During the ordeal he may have repeated the Gatha lines :—
*O Good Spirit, Ahura Mazda, by thy fire thou decidest between the opponents, according to the greater degree of piety and sanctity; and many of those who see it believe in thy law’ (Yasna XLVII, 6).
The king announced that the true religion having manifested itself in a visible way, any false religion (ag-dinth) could be tolerated no more. That great religious event must have taken place about the year 330; for the persecution of the Christians began in that year. It was about the time when the Fathers at Nicaea organised Christianity into an orthodox state religion.
That great religious event must have taken place about the year 330; for the persecution of the Christians began in that year. It was about the time when the Fathers at Nicaea organised Christianity into an orthodox state religion.
After Adarb4d the canon was closed. Whether he added his contribution to the bulk of the sacred texts, like his predecessors under Ardashir and Shahpdhr, there is no evidence either to prove or disprove: in any case, the Avesta after him underwent no change of any sort. The Parsi tradition makes him the last of the founders of the religion, and, forgetting the teachers between Zoroaster and Adarbéd, makes these two names the Alpha and Omega of the Avesta history}.
CHAPTER IV. PARTHIAN ELEMENTS IN THE AVESTA.
§ 1. From the preceding it appears that the Sassanian Avesta, as fixed by Adarbad Mahraspand in the beginning
1 The Patet sums up the religious tradition as follows :—
“I keep steady in the religion which the Lord Hérmezd and the Amshaspands taught the worshipped Fréhar of Zartusht, the Spitamide ;
‘which Zartusht taught Vistasp;
‘which Vistasp taught Frashéshtar, Jam4sp, and Isfandy4r ;
‘which the latter taught the faithful in this world ;
‘which by a continuous tradition came down to the ordainer of the holy law, Adarbéd Mabraspand, who for its sake submitted to the ordeal and came out of it victoriously.’
xl viii VEND{DAD.
of the fourth century, represents three successive accretions at least, the first due to Vologeses in the middle of the first century, the second to Ardashir and Tansar in the middle of the third century, and the third to Shahpdhr I, at the end of the same. Now we must inquire whether the texts of these successive editions belong, all or in part, to an older Avesta, anterior to the Greek conquest. The evidence in the Dinkart and in Tansar’s letter prepares us to suppose that the post-Alexandrian element, at least as far as the form goes, must be considerable. The internal evidence allows us to give greater precision to that in- _ ference. .
The evidence in the Dinkart and in Tansar’s letter prepares us to suppose that the post-Alexandrian element, at least as far as the form goes, must be considerable. The internal evidence allows us to give greater precision to that in- _ ference. .
§ 2. One of the best-known and most brilliant pieces of the Avesta, the Hém Yast, appears to contain an allusion to Alexander. It is said of Haoma, the plant-god, whose worship is the centre of the Mazdean liturgy, that ‘he overthrew the usurping Keres4ni who arose, longing for sovereignty, and said: henceforth no priest will go at his wish through the country to teach the law.’ Now, the only persecutor of religion of whom Parsi tradition makes mention before the Arabs is Alexander. He is the third in that trinity of tyrants created by Ahriman, who desired to have made them immortal for the destruction of the world. But the first two, Zohak and AfrasyAb, were born and died before Zarathustra was born, so that Alexander alone of the three could appear as an anti-Zoroastrian persecutor; which makes us wonder whether the usurper confounded by Haoma might not be the Greek conqueror. Now that epithet Keres4ni, literally a bandit, is translated or transcribed in Pahlavi by Kilisy4k, which is the name given in the Pahlavi literature to the infidels of Ram. Therefore, for the old mediaeval tradition the KeresAni usurper was neither a dév nor a Turanian, he was a Greek. If the Keresani persecutor were a Greek, he could be no other than Alexander. A mediaeval Pahlavi apocalypse, the Bahman Yast (II, 19), passing in review the restorers of religion, begins with the Arsacide who destroyed ‘ the impious Alexander, the K ilisyAk.’
If the Keresani is Alexander, the passage quoted and the
INTRODUCTION, IV. xlix
whole of the Hém Yast, which forms a coherent whole, cannot have been written before the death of Alexander or more accurately before the fall of the Greek domination in Persia. It was about 150B.C. that Mithridates the Great (B.C. 171-137) dealt the last blow to the Kilisy4k. Therefore the Hém Yast could hardly have been written before the middle of the second century before our era. -
It was about 150B.C. that Mithridates the Great (B.C. 171-137) dealt the last blow to the Kilisy4k. Therefore the Hém Yast could hardly have been written before the middle of the second century before our era. -
§ 3. If the Avesta, or part of it, were composed under the Arsacidae, an important fact, otherwise unaccounted for, is explained ipso facto: namely the fact that the Avesta seems to ignore the existence of an Iranian empire. The highest political unity is the dahyu, a name which in the inscriptions of Darius denoted the satrapies, the provincial kingdoms of Media, Bactriana, Sogdiana, Arachosia, Aria, Parthia, &c. The highest political power is the danhupaiti, the chief of a dahyu. The one universal daNhupaiti, the one daNhupaiti of all dahyus, is Mithra’, This refers to a time when there was no real daNhupaiti of all dahyus, no Shahinshah, when the real power was in the hands of the independent local kings. This is the period of the Provincial kings, the Muldk ut-tavaif; and this very name, Mulfk ut-tavaif, is nothing less than a literal translation of the Zend danhupaiti.
§ 4. At the time when the Avesta took its definitive form, Chaldaea was inhabited by Arab tribes, it was already a sort of Iraq Arabi. To the writer of the Avesta, Babylon (Bawri) is the residence of Azi Dahaka *, and Azi Dahdka represents the Arab race. It is not only in ' the later ShAhn4ma that he is made the son of an Arab king; both the Bundahis, which reproduces old Avesta documents®, and the Avesta book of the Genealogies itself, made him a descendant of Tag, the eponym of the
1 Yasna I, 11.
? Yt. V, 29.—Elsewhere, Yt. XV, 19, Asi is described as offering up a sacrifice to Vayu in the unaccessible Kvirista. We know from Hamza (p. 32) that this was the name of a palace (the Kulang palace, the fortress of the Stork) which Asi Dahaka had built in Babylon.
3 Son of Khrat&sp (corrupted to Mards in Firdausi), son of Zainig4v, son of Virafshang, son of Tag (Bund. XXXI, 6).
(4)
l VENDIDAD.
Tagik?. Nowthe oldest period known when the Arabs settled along the Euphrates and Tigris is the second half of the Arsacide period. We know that at that time Holw4n was on the frontier between thé Iranians and Arabs. The region east of Holwdn ‘was in the hands of the Provincial kings (Muldk ut-tavaif = daNhu-paitis) who were all Persians, and did not recognise the authority of the Arabs. Iraq and SavAd remained in the hands of the Arabs, who were waging a perpetual war with one another, as they are used to do®.” Therefore the texts in which the Arab Asi Dahaka appears as reigning in Babylon belong to a time when Arabs were already settled in Mesopotamia.
Iraq and SavAd remained in the hands of the Arabs, who were waging a perpetual war with one another, as they are used to do®.” Therefore the texts in which the Arab Asi Dahaka appears as reigning in Babylon belong to a time when Arabs were already settled in Mesopotamia.
A certain Zaini-gaus or ZainigAv ® is mentioned once in the Avesta as being conquered and killed by Frangrasyan * who on that one occasion was invested with the royal fivarené and who, accordingly, in the Shahn4ma, is credited with having delivered Iran from an Arab invasion: in the absence of Kai-KAds, it says, invaders flowed over Iran from every side, both Turanians and Arabs: ‘the Arabs were conquered by the Turanians.’ Perhaps the key to the Afrasy4b enigma is here. One can hardly understand how the Turanians beyond the Oxus, whom Afrésyab is supposed to represent, could repel the Arabs coming from over the Euphrates. But one must bear in mind that Afrasy4b’s career ends on the banks of the Kaééasta lake, in Adarbaigan 5, north of Mesopotamia. On another side, the legendary history of Yemen tells of the Tubbah Abd Kurrub’s invasions into Mesopotamia and his struggles with
1 Tg, a brother of Héshang and the ancestor of the TAagtks (Xitradad Nask, in Dinkart VIII, 13, 8).
? Tabari, tr. Zotenberg, II, 8-9. The Hatra, Hfra, and Ghassanian kingdoms were already flourishing in the first century of our era. The Ghassanians reigned at Damas when Paulus was a prisoner there.
® Bearing the same name as Asi Dahaka’s grandfather (p. xlix).
* Yt. XIX, 93. The translation in the Sacted Books of the East is to be corrected as follows: ‘that glory that Frangrasyan, the Turanian, bore, when the wicked Zainigau was killed.’ (Cf. Greater Bundahis: ‘There was a fiend called Zinigiv who had poison in his eye: he had come from the country of the Arabs to reign on Iran-Shahr: any man he gazed at with his evil eye, he killed. The Iranians called Frasy4v into their country, he killed that Zinigdv.’)
® Yt. XVII, 42.
INTRODUCTION, V. li
the Turanians of Adarbaigan!; so that the wars of Frangrasyan and Zainigau may be an echo of the predatory struggles between the Arabs from the south and those Turanians of north-western Iran who were for centuries the plague of that country, and whom Khusr6é Néshirvan tried at last to imprison in the Caucasus.
CHAPTER V. BRAHMANICAL, BUDDHIST, AND GREEK ELEMENTS.
§ 1. The political and social circumstances which the Avesta reflects being those of the Parthian time, one may easily expect to find in its doctrine the reaction of those civilisations, or religions, which flourished during that period either in Iran or in the neighbouring countries. In fact, we find in the Avesta either polemics against, or loans | from, the great contemporary systems, the Brahmanical, , the Buddhist, the Greek, and the Jewish.
In fact, we find in the Avesta either polemics against, or loans | from, the great contemporary systems, the Brahmanical, , the Buddhist, the Greek, and the Jewish.
§ 2. The true Zoroastrian is called a Mazdayasna, ‘a worshipper of Mazda *,’ in contradistinction to the Daévayasna, ‘the worshipper of the Daévas.’ Daéva is generally understood as ‘a demon,’ and that is the meaning it has in the derived dév and in most of the Zend texts generally; as it is applied to the evil forces of nature, like the Wind- Daéva, or to the evil forces of the soul, like Aéshma, ‘Wrath;’ Akem Mand, ‘ Bad Thought;’ Tardmaiti, ‘ Pride.’ But it must also have applied to false gods, for the Daévayasna is not a bad Zoroastrian, it is a man who does not belong to the Zoroastrian system, it is a foreigner, an Anaryan. Doctors must practise on Daévayasnas before treating Mazdayasnas, which is a rule clear and practical only if the Daévayasna is a worshipper of the false gods, of Indian, Assyrian, or Greek idols; for the test is simple enough. The word may have applied first and more
1 Tabari, J, 505 ; Hamza, tr. p. 98. ® The Sassanian kings took on their coins the title of Mazdayasn, instead of the Philhellen of the Arsacidae.
d2 lii VENDIDAD.
especially to the Indian religions and to the worshippers of Devas.
§ 3. The disparaging meaning of the word Deva in Zoroastrianism was formerly interpreted as a sign that Zoroaster’s religion was born in an Indo-Iranian period, from a moral reaction against Vedic polytheism, which sent to hell the former gods. This theory, as far as I can see, has no longer any supporter: it has been seen that it all rests on a few lexicographical particularities, not on inner historical evidence. In fact Zoroastrianism has much in common with the Vedic Pantheon; its supreme God, Ahura Mazda, is not more different from the great Asura, Varuza, than Zeus is from Jupiter ; the Zoroastrian Apollo, Mithra, answers exactly to the Vedic Mitra. The worship is centred on both sides around the sacred plant (Soma—
_Haoma) and the sacred fire(Agni—Atar). The mythological struggle between the God of the Lightning, Indra, and the serpent Ahi is transferred to Atar (the Fire) and Asi. Yama, son of Vivasvat, and Traitana revive in Yima, son of Vivanghazt, and Thraétaona. How those analogies are to | be accounted for, whether they are the relics of an old Indo-Iranian religion, or whether they have been, entirely or partly, borrowed from either side by the other, remains an open question, which we are neither prepared to answer in the negative, nor to answer at all. But thus much is clear that there is not the slightest evidence or symptom of any such inner upheaval, rejecting a Vedic or quasi-Vedic religion, as was supposed to have taken place in prehistoric periods.
But thus much is clear that there is not the slightest evidence or symptom of any such inner upheaval, rejecting a Vedic or quasi-Vedic religion, as was supposed to have taken place in prehistoric periods.
§ 4. This only remains, that when Zoroastrianism, with the exclusive character which belongs to moral religions, wanted to brand and condemn the most dangerous rival it encountered amongst its neighbours, it found no more characteristic name to designate the false gods and the demons than the name given to divine beings in the false religions of India which had so many followers in the eastern provinces of the empire. It went so far as to take the names of three Indian devas to designate those archdemons which it opposes artificially and systematically to the Amesha-Spestas; they are Ivdra, Saurva, and
INTRODUCTION, V. liti
Naunghaithya, given as counterparts to Asha Vahista, ‘ Perfect Righteousness ;’ Khshathra Vairya, ‘Good Government ;’ and Spenta Armaiti, ‘Humility.’ There is nothing in their Avesta character that reminds one of Indra the Storm God, of Sarva a name of Siva, or of NAsatya the Asvin ; they are Wickedness, Tyranny, and Pride, by the mere fact of their opposition to the three Amshaspands, and it appears clear thereby that their present character is not the result of a prolonged evolution in the inner circle of Zoroastrianism.
§ 5. The Daéva Baiti who, by order of Angra Mainyu, ‘tries to kill Zarathustra on his being born, is according to the Greater Bundahis ‘the demon who resides in the idols’ (b(t), and is the same as Batasp worshipped in India. Batdsp, the founder of the Samanean or Buddhist sect, is no less a personage than the Bodhisattva, from which it follows that Baiti is nothing but the object of the Buddhist worship, the Buddha, or better the Bodhi. In fact once Bditi is called Bhidhi'!. Therefore, at the time when the legend of Zarathustra was written down, Buddhism was one of the religions with which he was supposed to have to struggle. The composer of the nineteenth Fargard of the Vendidad, therefore, knew of Buddhism, and this accounts for the striking analogies between the legend of Zarathustra’s temptation by Angra Mainyu and Sakya’s temptation by Mara. The Zoroastrian writer thought it fair to borrow such an edifying legend from the very religion he opposed.
§ 6. Another passage in the Yasts mentions controversies victoriously carried on by Zoroastrians against that impostor Gaotema. Here, again, it is striking to find Zoroastrians engaged in religious warfare with an enemy who bears one of the names of Buddha, Gotama. Controversies were to the taste of both sects: Gotama, in the GAtakas, seems to pass all his life in confounding heretics ; and late tradition ascribes to Zoroaster, as one of his most
1 Farg. XI, 9.
liv VENDIDAD.
glorious feats, the defeat and conversion of a great Indian sage Kangragaka.
Controversies were to the taste of both sects: Gotama, in the GAtakas, seems to pass all his life in confounding heretics ; and late tradition ascribes to Zoroaster, as one of his most
1 Farg. XI, 9.
liv VENDIDAD.
glorious feats, the defeat and conversion of a great Indian sage Kangragaka.
§ 7. Buddhism was brought beyond the Indus as early as Asoka’s reign, though it was only under the Graeco- Bactrian kings (250-125 B.C.) and under the Indo-Greeks (first century before Christ) that it spread widely in the eastern provinces of Iran. One of the greatest Indo- ' Greeks, Menander—Milinda, was revered as a Buddhist saint. In the middle of the first century B.c. Bactriana was famed for its Buddhist priests, the Zapavato., the Shamans. In the first century of our era, Kanishka’s coins present, in an instructive eclecticism, all the deities of the Indo-Scythian empire, Greek gods, Brahmanical devas, Buddha, and the principal yazatas of Mazdeism. If therefore the alleged allusions to Buddhism are accepted, the Avesta passages where they occur cannot have been written earlier than the second century before our era, though they may bear a later date, as Buddhism was uprooted from Eastern Iran only by Islam.
§ 8. We have already seen that Alexander was known to the composer of the Hém Yast, nay more, that it must be posterior to the fall of the Greek domination in Iran (about 150 B.C.). There was time enough for Greek influence to permeate the Zoroastrian schools, and so it did.
§ 9. The doctrine of the Magi on the duration of the world prevalent during the Achaemenian period is known from Theopompus, a writer contemporary with Philip and Alexander. The existence of the world is divided into periods of three thousand years. During the first two periods Ormazd and Ahriman reign alternately ; during the third period they struggle, and destroy each other's work; at the end, Ahriman is conquered and men live happily, needing no food and casting no shadow.
This same doctrine is found in Zoroastrian books, but with a characteristic difference. The world lasts four periods of three thousand years each: the third period is filled, as in Theopompus, with the mixture and conflict of the two principles; the fourth period, that opens with the apparition of Zoroaster and the true religion, ends with the ruin of
INTRODUCTION, V. lv
Abriman, the resurrection and future life. But in the first two periods the agreement ceases. In the pre-Alexandrian conception, each period belongs to each of the two principles in turn; the spirit of the Zoroastrian doctrine is quite mystical During three thousand years the world had only a spiritual, unseen form, and it remained uncorrupted, unmoving, not perceptible. In the next period of three thousand years, it received material form and began to move, though it was still free from Ahriman.
In the next period of three thousand years, it received material form and began to move, though it was still free from Ahriman.
§ 10. That period of spiritual, ideal existence of the world, preceding its material and sensible apparition, reminds one strikingly of the Platonic ideas, and it can hardly have entered Zoroastrianism before Greek philosophy penetrated the East. This hypothesis will seem less bold than it does at first sight, if we remember that, on the confession of old Parsi tradition itself, texts on ‘ generation and corruption’ (yahvQnishn u-vindsishn), recovered from the Greeks, were embodied in the sacred books as late as the end of the third century of our era; and that the. high-priest Tansar, the man who played so important | a part in Ardashir’s religious revolution, was expressly represented as a member of the Platonic sect. Without | pressing conclusions too hard as to facts and dates, this much can be safely inferred from the preceding, that | Platonic doctrines had found their way to Persia in the first centuries of the Christian era.
Platonism of course means Neo-Platonism, that is to say that philosophic compound, inspired by the spirit of Plato, which permeated all the speculations of the centuries before Christ and long after, and which finds its first and most influential expression in Philo Judaeus. In Philo is found, as far as I know, the first exact parallel to the Avesta doctrine mentioned above. As God perceived that no work can be beautiful but from a beautiful model, and that any sensible object needs an ideal archetype, ‘ when he wanted to create this visible world, he first drew the intelligible one’ (Bovdnbels tdv dpardy rovrovt xécpov bnutovpyjoat, mpoeferizov rév vontdv). The dpatds xdéopos is the gaéthya sti, the ronrds is the mainyava.
lvi VENDIDAD.
§ 11. The first Genius under Ahura is Vohu Mané, ‘Good Thought,’ who is his first spiritual creation and the moving principle of the world. He was created first of all beings; through him in the beginning Ahura created the world and the religion ; and Ahura takes his advice before proceeding to any of his acts. Besides being his first creation and the instrument of his other creations, he is the type of mankind. At last, in the next world, he is the intercessor between Ahura and man.
Besides being his first creation and the instrument of his other creations, he is the type of mankind. At last, in the next world, he is the intercessor between Ahura and man.
When we define Vohu Mané in the words of the Avesta, we define the Logos: and inversely Vohu Mané may be defined in the same terms as Philo’s Adyos @eios : ‘as the first manifestation of the divine powers, he is the first-born, the first archangel of God; as an ideal type of human nature, he is the perfect man.’ Like Vohu Mané in the GAthas and still more, the Logos is the instrument of creation. Like him, he is the perfect intercessor, for he applies to the Father to obtain for men the forgiveness of sins and plenty of benefits. As Zarathustra applies to Vohu Mané for his first instruction, so is the Logos the messenger of God, his elect, the transmitter of his revelations. Both Philo’s Logos and the Avesta Vohu Mané are God’s first-born and first instrument, the ideal man, the intercessor, the revealer.
§ 12. If Vohu Mand is a Zoroastrian adaptation of the Logos, it will follow that the Amshaspands themselves are a post-Alexandrian development; for Vohu Mané is the type of the Amshaspands. As Vohu Mané was chosen to represent mankind, so there grew up round this initial ideal divine abstractions that might be attached, somehow, to the other departments of nature to help like Vohu Mané, and with him, in the creation of the world. This is the series of the six Amesha Spentas:
Vohu Mané, Good Thought, _ reigning over Man (and cattle). Asha Vahista, Perfect Righteousness, _,, Fire.
Here again Philo presents us with a striking parallel.
INTRODUCTION, VI. lvii
Between God and the world, the Logos is only the first of a series of divine abstractions or powers (Adyo:, or duvdpets): in one passage, unfortunately mutilated, he enumerates six of them, the @eios Adyos being the first. The third, 4 BaotAcKy, ‘the Royal virtue,’ answers literally to the third member of the Zoroastrian series, Khshathra, Vairya. The other members of the Philonian series o:nrexy, ‘ the Creative virtue;’ fArews, ‘the power of Mercy;’ vopoderinn, ‘the Legislative virtue,’ have no counterpart in the Avesta series, which prevents our attributing any particular historical importance to the coincidence of Khshathra Vairya with the BaotAky: yet the coincidence is not quite accidental: it was made possible only by the fact that both | Philo and the organisers of the Avesta system moved in a common atmosphere of moral and metaphysical abstractions. -: In fact trews, though not one of the Amesha Spentas, might have become one, and in fact is consecrated and invoked with Khshathra Vairya under the name of Mareadika’, ‘Mercy.’ The vopoderixy is sanctified in dkaésa, ‘the Law,’ or in M&athra Spenta, ‘the Holy Word.’ This is the Gnostic atmosphere, and the Gathas, which | are, on the whole, a poem to the glory of the Amesha ‘ Spestas and the virtues they impersonate, may be termed the first monument of Gnosticism, but of practical, purely ethic Gnosticism, permeated by a strong sense of reality and a deep pre-occupation with morality: abstraction here is only a means of edification. Philo is nearer the true ' Gnostics than the writers of the Gathas: they were mere moralists, with no metaphysical instinct.
CHAPTER VI. JEWISH ELEMENTS IN THE RELIGION.
§ 1. The Jewish influence, less visible in the doctrine than the Greek, is prominent in the general views and the , form of the book.
1 Yt. IL, 2, 7.
Iviii VEND{DAD.
The Avesta and the Pentateuch are the only two religious books known in which legislation descends from the heavens to the earth in a series of conversations between the lawgiver and his God. Without attaching undue importance to this correspondence, we shall be more impressed with the fact that both books have the same object, viz. to write the history of the creation and mankind ; and in mankind, more especially, the history of the elect race (the Iranians here, the Hebrews there), and in that race the history of the true religion (the religion of Mazda, revealed by Mazda to Zarathustra, and the religion of Jehovah, revealed by Jehovah to Moses). The ultimate end of both books is to teach the faithful the rule of life.
§ 2. Here is a series of particular concordances that show more clearly the unity of their plan: