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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1* A century ago, it is said, they still numbered nearly 100,000 souls; but Xiv VENDIDAD. As the Parsis are the ruins of a people, so are their sacred books the ruins of a religion. There has been no other great belief in the world that ever left such poor and meagre monuments of its past splendour. Yet great is the value which that small book, the Avesta, and the belief of that scanty people, the Parsis, have in the eyes of the historian and theologian, as they present to us the last reflex of the ideas which prevailed in Iran during the five centuries which preceded and the seven which followed the birth of Christ, a period which gave to the world the Gospels, the Talmud, and the Qur’an. Persia, it is known, had much influence on each of the movements which produced, or proceeded from, those three books; she lent much to the first heresiarchs, much to the Rabbis, much to Mohammed. By help of the Parsi religion and the Avesta, we are enabled to go back to the very heart of that most momentous period in the history of religious thought, which saw the blending of the Aryan mind with the Semitic, and thus opened the second stage of Aryan thought. Inquiries into the religion of ancient Persia began long ago, and it was the old enemy of Persia, the Greek, who first studied it. Aristotle’, Hermippus *, and many others® wrote of it in books of which, unfortunately, nothing more than a few fragments or merely the titles have come down to us. We find much valuable information about it, scattered in the accounts of historians and travellers, extending over ten centuries, from Herodotos down to Agathias and Procopius (from 450 B.C. to 550A.C.)*. The clearest and most faithful account of the dualist doctrine is found in the treatise De Jside et Osiride, ascribed to Plutarch. But there now remain no more than 8,000 or 9,000, scattered in Yazd and the surrounding villages (Dosabhoy Framji, History of the Parsis.—Houtum- Schindler gave 8,499 in 1879 ; of that number there were 6,483 in Yazd, 1,756 in Kirmfn, 150 in Teherfn : see Z. D. M.G., 1882, p. 55)- 1 Diogenes Laertius, Prooemium 8. ® Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXX, 1, 2. Cf. Windischmann, Zor. Stud. p. 288. * Dinon, Theopompus (the 8th book of his Philippica), Hermodoras, Heraclides Cumanus. ‘ All this store of information has been collected by Brisson (see below), Kleuker (see below), and Windischmann (Zoroastrische Studien, 260 seq.) INTRODUCTION, I. xv
2Cf. Windischmann, Zor. Stud. p. 288. * Dinon, Theopompus (the 8th book of his Philippica), Hermodoras, Heraclides Cumanus. ‘ All this store of information has been collected by Brisson (see below), Kleuker (see below), and Windischmann (Zoroastrische Studien, 260 seq.) INTRODUCTION, I. xv Zoroastrianism was never more eagerly studied than in the first centuries of the Christian era, though without anything of the disinterested and almost scientific curiosity of the earlier times. Religious and philosophic sects, in search of new dogmas, eagerly received whatever came to them bearing the name of Zoroaster. As Xanthos the Lydian, who is said to have lived before Herodotos, had mentioned Zoroastrian Adyia 1, there came to light, in those later times, scores of oracles, styled Ady:a tof Zwpodorpov, or ‘Oracula Chaldatca sive Magica,’ the work of Neo-Platonists who were but very remote disciples of the Median sage. As his name had become the very emblem of wisdom, they would cover with it the latest inventions of their everdeepening theosophy. Zoroaster and Plato were treated as if they had been philosophers of the same school, and Hierocles expounded their doctrines in the same book. Proclus collected seventy Tetrads of Zoroaster and wrote commentaries on them?; but we need hardly say that Zoroaster commented on by Proclus was nothing more or less than Proclus commented on by Proclus. Prodicus the Gnostic possessed secret books of Zoroaster ®; and, upon the whole, it may be said that in the first centuries of Christianity, the religion of Persia was more studied and less understood than it had ever been before. The real object aimed at, in studying the old religion, was to form a new one. Throughout the Middle Ages nothing was known of Mazdeism but the name of its founder, who from a Magus was converted into a magician and master of the hidden sciences. It was not until the Renaissance that real inquiry was resumed. The first step was to collect all the information that could be gathered from Greek and Roman writers. That task was undertaken and successfully completed by Barnabé Brisson *. A nearer approach to the 1 See Nicolaus Damascenus, Didot, Fragm. Hist. III, 409. 2 Fabricius, Graeca Bibliotheca, fourth ed. p. 309 seq. ® Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata I. Cf. Porphyrius, de vita Plotini, § 16. « “De regio Persarum principatu libri tres,’ Paris, 1590. The second book is devoted to the religion and manners of the ancient Persians. Xvi VEND{DAD.
3III, 409. 2 Fabricius, Graeca Bibliotheca, fourth ed. p. 309 seq. ® Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata I. Cf. Porphyrius, de vita Plotini, § 16. « “De regio Persarum principatu libri tres,’ Paris, 1590. The second book is devoted to the religion and manners of the ancient Persians. Xvi VEND{DAD. original source was made in the following century by Italian, English, and French travellers in Asia. Pietro della Valle, Henry Lord, Mandelslo, Ovington, Chardin, Gabriel du Chinon, and Tavernier found Zoroaster’s last followers in Persia and India, and made known their existence, their manners, and the main features of their belief to Europe. Gabriel du Chinon saw their books and recognised that they were not all written in the same language, their original holy writ being no longer understood except by means of translations and commentaries in another tongue. In the year 1700, a professor at Oxford, Thomas Hyde, the greatest Orientalist of his time in Europe, made the first systematic attempt to restore the history of the old Persian religion by combining the accounts of the Mohammedan writers with ‘the true and genuine monuments of ancient Persia!’ Unfortunately the so-called genuine monuments of ancient Persia were nothing more than recent Persian compilations or refacimenti* But notwithstanding this defect, which could hardly be avoided then, and a distortion of critical acumen °, the book of Thomas Hyde was the first complete and true picture of modern Parsiism, and it made inquiry into its history the order of the day. A warm appeal made by him to the zeal of travellers, to seek for and procure at any price the sacred books of the Parsis, did not remain ineffectual, and from that time scholars bethought themselves of studying Parsiism in its own home. 1‘Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et Medorum religionis historia,’ Oxford, 1700. 3 The Saddar, an excellent text-book of Parstism, of which he gave an incorrect edition (the only one still in existence) and an incorrect translation, superseded only lately by West’s translation in the Sacred Books of the East.— A Persian metrical translation of the Pahlavi Ard& Viraf’s visit to hell—The Farhangi Jihangirt, a Persian dictionary compiled in 1609 and explaining many Pahlavi and Pazend terms. 3 Being struck with the many analogies between the Zoroastrian and the biblical systems, he recognised in Abraham the first lawgiver of ancient Persia, in Magism a Sabean corruption of the primeval faith, and in Zoroaster a reformer, who had leamt the forgotten truth from the exiled Jews in Babylon. a INTRODUCTION, I. . xvii
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.
1* A century ago, it is said, they still numbered nearly 100,000 souls; but Xiv VENDIDAD. As the Parsis are the ruins of a people, so are their sacred books the ruins of a religion. There has been no other great belief in the world that ever left such poor and meagre monuments of its past splendour. Yet great is the value which that small book, the Avesta, and the belief of that scanty people, the Parsis, have in the eyes of the historian and theologian, as they present to us the last reflex of the ideas which prevailed in Iran during the five centuries which preceded and the seven which followed the birth of Christ, a period which gave to the world the Gospels, the Talmud, and the Qur’an. Persia, it is known, had much influence on each of the movements which produced, or proceeded from, those three books; she lent much to the first heresiarchs, much to the Rabbis, much to Mohammed. By help of the Parsi religion and the Avesta, we are enabled to go back to the very heart of that most momentous period in the history of religious thought, which saw the blending of the Aryan mind with the Semitic, and thus opened the second stage of Aryan thought. Inquiries into the religion of ancient Persia began long ago, and it was the old enemy of Persia, the Greek, who first studied it. Aristotle’, Hermippus *, and many others® wrote of it in books of which, unfortunately, nothing more than a few fragments or merely the titles have come down to us. We find much valuable information about it, scattered in the accounts of historians and travellers, extending over ten centuries, from Herodotos down to Agathias and Procopius (from 450 B.C. to 550A.C.)*. The clearest and most faithful account of the dualist doctrine is found in the treatise De Jside et Osiride, ascribed to Plutarch. But there now remain no more than 8,000 or 9,000, scattered in Yazd and the surrounding villages (Dosabhoy Framji, History of the Parsis.—Houtum- Schindler gave 8,499 in 1879 ; of that number there were 6,483 in Yazd, 1,756 in Kirmfn, 150 in Teherfn : see Z. D. M.G., 1882, p. 55)- 1 Diogenes Laertius, Prooemium 8. ® Pliny, Hist. Nat. XXX, 1, 2. Cf. Windischmann, Zor. Stud. p. 288. * Dinon, Theopompus (the 8th book of his Philippica), Hermodoras, Heraclides Cumanus. ‘ All this store of information has been collected by Brisson (see below), Kleuker (see below), and Windischmann (Zoroastrische Studien, 260 seq.) INTRODUCTION, I. xv
2Cf. Windischmann, Zor. Stud. p. 288. * Dinon, Theopompus (the 8th book of his Philippica), Hermodoras, Heraclides Cumanus. ‘ All this store of information has been collected by Brisson (see below), Kleuker (see below), and Windischmann (Zoroastrische Studien, 260 seq.) INTRODUCTION, I. xv Zoroastrianism was never more eagerly studied than in the first centuries of the Christian era, though without anything of the disinterested and almost scientific curiosity of the earlier times. Religious and philosophic sects, in search of new dogmas, eagerly received whatever came to them bearing the name of Zoroaster. As Xanthos the Lydian, who is said to have lived before Herodotos, had mentioned Zoroastrian Adyia 1, there came to light, in those later times, scores of oracles, styled Ady:a tof Zwpodorpov, or ‘Oracula Chaldatca sive Magica,’ the work of Neo-Platonists who were but very remote disciples of the Median sage. As his name had become the very emblem of wisdom, they would cover with it the latest inventions of their everdeepening theosophy. Zoroaster and Plato were treated as if they had been philosophers of the same school, and Hierocles expounded their doctrines in the same book. Proclus collected seventy Tetrads of Zoroaster and wrote commentaries on them?; but we need hardly say that Zoroaster commented on by Proclus was nothing more or less than Proclus commented on by Proclus. Prodicus the Gnostic possessed secret books of Zoroaster ®; and, upon the whole, it may be said that in the first centuries of Christianity, the religion of Persia was more studied and less understood than it had ever been before. The real object aimed at, in studying the old religion, was to form a new one. Throughout the Middle Ages nothing was known of Mazdeism but the name of its founder, who from a Magus was converted into a magician and master of the hidden sciences. It was not until the Renaissance that real inquiry was resumed. The first step was to collect all the information that could be gathered from Greek and Roman writers. That task was undertaken and successfully completed by Barnabé Brisson *. A nearer approach to the 1 See Nicolaus Damascenus, Didot, Fragm. Hist. III, 409. 2 Fabricius, Graeca Bibliotheca, fourth ed. p. 309 seq. ® Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata I. Cf. Porphyrius, de vita Plotini, § 16. « “De regio Persarum principatu libri tres,’ Paris, 1590. The second book is devoted to the religion and manners of the ancient Persians. Xvi VEND{DAD.
3III, 409. 2 Fabricius, Graeca Bibliotheca, fourth ed. p. 309 seq. ® Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata I. Cf. Porphyrius, de vita Plotini, § 16. « “De regio Persarum principatu libri tres,’ Paris, 1590. The second book is devoted to the religion and manners of the ancient Persians. Xvi VEND{DAD. original source was made in the following century by Italian, English, and French travellers in Asia. Pietro della Valle, Henry Lord, Mandelslo, Ovington, Chardin, Gabriel du Chinon, and Tavernier found Zoroaster’s last followers in Persia and India, and made known their existence, their manners, and the main features of their belief to Europe. Gabriel du Chinon saw their books and recognised that they were not all written in the same language, their original holy writ being no longer understood except by means of translations and commentaries in another tongue. In the year 1700, a professor at Oxford, Thomas Hyde, the greatest Orientalist of his time in Europe, made the first systematic attempt to restore the history of the old Persian religion by combining the accounts of the Mohammedan writers with ‘the true and genuine monuments of ancient Persia!’ Unfortunately the so-called genuine monuments of ancient Persia were nothing more than recent Persian compilations or refacimenti* But notwithstanding this defect, which could hardly be avoided then, and a distortion of critical acumen °, the book of Thomas Hyde was the first complete and true picture of modern Parsiism, and it made inquiry into its history the order of the day. A warm appeal made by him to the zeal of travellers, to seek for and procure at any price the sacred books of the Parsis, did not remain ineffectual, and from that time scholars bethought themselves of studying Parsiism in its own home. 1‘Veterum Persarum et Parthorum et Medorum religionis historia,’ Oxford, 1700. 3 The Saddar, an excellent text-book of Parstism, of which he gave an incorrect edition (the only one still in existence) and an incorrect translation, superseded only lately by West’s translation in the Sacred Books of the East.— A Persian metrical translation of the Pahlavi Ard& Viraf’s visit to hell—The Farhangi Jihangirt, a Persian dictionary compiled in 1609 and explaining many Pahlavi and Pazend terms. 3 Being struck with the many analogies between the Zoroastrian and the biblical systems, he recognised in Abraham the first lawgiver of ancient Persia, in Magism a Sabean corruption of the primeval faith, and in Zoroaster a reformer, who had leamt the forgotten truth from the exiled Jews in Babylon. a INTRODUCTION, I. . xvii
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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