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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Vologeses 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. § 11. Between Vologeses and Ardashir, for nearly two centuries, there is a blank in the religious history of Iran. With Ardashir, Zoroastrianism became the religion of the state. The founder of the new dynasty belonged, through his grandmother, to one of the local royal families of Persia, the Bazrangis, and through his grandfather, Sds4n, to the sacerdotal race. Sds4n had in his hands the management of the temple of Andhita (the Iranian Artemis) at Istakhar. By birth a king and a priest, Ardashir reduced to a formula the throne-and-altar theory : ‘Be aware, my son,’ he wrote in his political testament, ‘that religion and royalty are two brothers that cannot subsist one without the other ; for royalty rests on religion and religion has royalty to protect it'.’ Agathias reports that Ardashir was initiated © in the doctrine of the Magi and could himself celebrate their mysteries; that, from his accession to the throne, their race, formerly little honoured, got the upper hand both in public and private affairs ; they became his constant counsellors, and had the management of justice in their hands. 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.
2Whereas 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
3He 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.) * The Paoiry6 dkaés6 in the Avesta. ‘ Persepolis.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Vologeses 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. § 11. Between Vologeses and Ardashir, for nearly two centuries, there is a blank in the religious history of Iran. With Ardashir, Zoroastrianism became the religion of the state. The founder of the new dynasty belonged, through his grandmother, to one of the local royal families of Persia, the Bazrangis, and through his grandfather, Sds4n, to the sacerdotal race. Sds4n had in his hands the management of the temple of Andhita (the Iranian Artemis) at Istakhar. By birth a king and a priest, Ardashir reduced to a formula the throne-and-altar theory : ‘Be aware, my son,’ he wrote in his political testament, ‘that religion and royalty are two brothers that cannot subsist one without the other ; for royalty rests on religion and religion has royalty to protect it'.’ Agathias reports that Ardashir was initiated © in the doctrine of the Magi and could himself celebrate their mysteries; that, from his accession to the throne, their race, formerly little honoured, got the upper hand both in public and private affairs ; they became his constant counsellors, and had the management of justice in their hands. 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.
2Whereas 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
3He 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.) * The Paoiry6 dkaés6 in the Avesta. ‘ Persepolis.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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