Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1That unexpected voice silenced all controversies, and the last echoes of the loud discussion which had been opened in 1771 died away unheeded 1. 1 The attacks of John Romer (‘ Zend: Is it an Original Language?’ London, INTRODUCTION, II. XXVii CHAPTER II. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE ZEND-AVESTA. The peace did not last long, and a year after the death of Burnouf a new controversy broke out, which still continues, the battle of the methods, that is, the dispute between those who, to interpret the Avesta, rely chiefly or exclusively on tradition, and those who rely only on comparison with the Vedas. The cause of the rupture was the rapid progress made in the knowledge of the Vedic language and literature: the deeper one penetrated into that oldest form of Indian words and thoughts, the more striking appeared its close affinity with the Avesta words and thoughts. Many a mysterious line in the Avesta received an unlooked-for light from the poems of , the Indian Rishis, and the long-forgotten past and the origin of many gods and heroes, whom the Parsi worships and extols without knowing who they were and whence they came, were suddenly revealed by the Vedas. Emboldened by its bright discoveries, the comparative method took pity on its slower and less brilliant rival, which was then making its first attempts to unravel the Pahlavi traditional books. Is it worth while, said the Vedic scholars }s to try slowly and painfully to extract the secret of the old book from that uncouth literature? Nay, is there any hope that its secret is there? Translating the Avesta in accord- y ance with the Pahlavi is not translating the Avesta, but only translating the Pahlavi version, which, wherever it has been deciphered, is found to wander strangely from the true meaning of the original text. Tradition, as a rule, is wont to enforce the ideas of its own ages into the books of past ages. From the time when the Avesta was written to the time when it was translated, many ideas had undergone great changes: such ideas, tradition must needs either 1855) called forth a refutation only in Bombay (Dhanjibai Framji, ‘On the Origin and the Authenticity of the Aryan Family of Languages, the Zend- Avesta and the Huzvarash,’ 1861). 1 Roth, Benfey, Haug. Cf. Revue Critique, 1877, IJ, 81. XXVill VENDIDAD. misunderstand or not understand at all, and tradition is always either new sense or nonsense. The key to the Avesta is not the Pahlavi, but the Veda. The Avesta and the Veda are two echoes of one and the same voice. the reflex of one and the same thought : the Vedas, therefore, are both the best lexicon and the best commentary to the Avesta.
2The key to the Avesta is not the Pahlavi, but the Veda. The Avesta and the Veda are two echoes of one and the same voice. the reflex of one and the same thought : the Vedas, therefore, are both the best lexicon and the best commentary to the Avesta. The traditional school! replied that translating Zend by means of Sanskrit and the Avesta by means of the Vedas, because Zend and the Avesta are closely related to Sanskrit and the Vedas, is forgetting that relationship is not identity, and that what interests the Zend scholar is not to know how far Zend agrees with Sanskrit, but what it is in itself: what he seeks for in the Avesta, is the Avesta, not the Veda. Both the Vedic language and the Vedas are quite unable to teach us what became in Persia of those elements, which are common to the two systems, a thing which tradition alone can teach us. By the comparative method, the Zend meregha, which means ‘a bird, would assume the meaning of ‘gazelle’ to accord with the Sanskrit mviga; ratu,‘a part of the day,’ would be extended to ‘a season’ out of regard for rztu; mainyu, ‘a spirit,’ and dahyu, ‘a province,’ would be degraded to ‘anger’ and to ‘a set of thieves,’ and ‘the demons,’ the Daévas, would: ascend from their dwelling in hell up to heaven, to meet their philological brothers, the Indian Devas. The traditional method, as it starts from matters of fact, moves always in the field of reality; the comparative method starts frém an hypothesis, moves in a vacuum, and builds up a fanciful religion and a fanciful language. Such being the methods of the two schools, it often happened that a passage, translated by two scholars, one of each school, took so different an aspect that a layman would have been quite unable to suspect that it was one and the same passage he had read twice. Yet the divergence between the two methods is more apparent than real, and proceeds from an imperfect notion of the field in Spiegel, Justi. INTRODUCTION, II. XXiX
3Yet the divergence between the two methods is more apparent than real, and proceeds from an imperfect notion of the field in Spiegel, Justi. INTRODUCTION, II. XXiX which each of them ought to work. They ought not to oppose, but assist one another, as they are not intended to instruct us about the same kind of facts, but about two kinds of facts quite different and independent. No lan- | guage, no religion, that has lived long and changed much, can be understood at any moment of its development, unless we know what it was before and what it became . afterwards. The language and religion of the Avesta record but a moment in the long life of the Iranian language and thought, so that we are unable to understand them, unless we know whence they came and what they became. What they became we learn directly from tradition, since the tradition arose from the very ideas which the Avesta expresses ; whence they came we learn indirectly from the Vedas, because the Vedas come from the same source as the Avesta. Therefore it cannot happen that the tradition and the Veda will really contradict one another, if we take care to ask from each only what it knows, from one the present, and from the other the past. Each method is equally right and equally efficacious at its proper time and in its right place. The first place belongs to tradition, as it comes straight from the Avesta. The second inquiry, to be successful, requires infinite prudence and care: the Veda is not the past of the Avesta, as the Avesta is the past of tradition ; the Avesta and Veda are not derived from one — another, but from one and the same original, diversely altered in each, and, therefore, there are two stages of variation between them, whereas from the Avesta to tradition there is only one. The Veda, if first interrogated, gives no valuable evidence, as the words and gods, common to the two systems, may not have retained in both the same meaning they had in the Indo-Iranian period: they may have preserved it in one and lost it in the other, or they may have both altered it, but each in a different way. The Veda, generally speaking, cannot help us in discovering matters of fact in the Avesta, but only in explaining them when discovered by tradition. If we review the discoveries made by the masters of the comparative school, it will be seen that they have in reality started, without noticing it, XXX VEND{DAD. from facts formerly established by tradition. In fact tradition gives the materials, and comparison puts them in order. It is not possible, either to know the Avesta without the former, or to understand it without the latter. ;
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.
1That unexpected voice silenced all controversies, and the last echoes of the loud discussion which had been opened in 1771 died away unheeded 1. 1 The attacks of John Romer (‘ Zend: Is it an Original Language?’ London, INTRODUCTION, II. XXVii CHAPTER II. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE ZEND-AVESTA. The peace did not last long, and a year after the death of Burnouf a new controversy broke out, which still continues, the battle of the methods, that is, the dispute between those who, to interpret the Avesta, rely chiefly or exclusively on tradition, and those who rely only on comparison with the Vedas. The cause of the rupture was the rapid progress made in the knowledge of the Vedic language and literature: the deeper one penetrated into that oldest form of Indian words and thoughts, the more striking appeared its close affinity with the Avesta words and thoughts. Many a mysterious line in the Avesta received an unlooked-for light from the poems of , the Indian Rishis, and the long-forgotten past and the origin of many gods and heroes, whom the Parsi worships and extols without knowing who they were and whence they came, were suddenly revealed by the Vedas. Emboldened by its bright discoveries, the comparative method took pity on its slower and less brilliant rival, which was then making its first attempts to unravel the Pahlavi traditional books. Is it worth while, said the Vedic scholars }s to try slowly and painfully to extract the secret of the old book from that uncouth literature? Nay, is there any hope that its secret is there? Translating the Avesta in accord- y ance with the Pahlavi is not translating the Avesta, but only translating the Pahlavi version, which, wherever it has been deciphered, is found to wander strangely from the true meaning of the original text. Tradition, as a rule, is wont to enforce the ideas of its own ages into the books of past ages. From the time when the Avesta was written to the time when it was translated, many ideas had undergone great changes: such ideas, tradition must needs either 1855) called forth a refutation only in Bombay (Dhanjibai Framji, ‘On the Origin and the Authenticity of the Aryan Family of Languages, the Zend- Avesta and the Huzvarash,’ 1861). 1 Roth, Benfey, Haug. Cf. Revue Critique, 1877, IJ, 81. XXVill VENDIDAD. misunderstand or not understand at all, and tradition is always either new sense or nonsense. The key to the Avesta is not the Pahlavi, but the Veda. The Avesta and the Veda are two echoes of one and the same voice. the reflex of one and the same thought : the Vedas, therefore, are both the best lexicon and the best commentary to the Avesta.
2The key to the Avesta is not the Pahlavi, but the Veda. The Avesta and the Veda are two echoes of one and the same voice. the reflex of one and the same thought : the Vedas, therefore, are both the best lexicon and the best commentary to the Avesta. The traditional school! replied that translating Zend by means of Sanskrit and the Avesta by means of the Vedas, because Zend and the Avesta are closely related to Sanskrit and the Vedas, is forgetting that relationship is not identity, and that what interests the Zend scholar is not to know how far Zend agrees with Sanskrit, but what it is in itself: what he seeks for in the Avesta, is the Avesta, not the Veda. Both the Vedic language and the Vedas are quite unable to teach us what became in Persia of those elements, which are common to the two systems, a thing which tradition alone can teach us. By the comparative method, the Zend meregha, which means ‘a bird, would assume the meaning of ‘gazelle’ to accord with the Sanskrit mviga; ratu,‘a part of the day,’ would be extended to ‘a season’ out of regard for rztu; mainyu, ‘a spirit,’ and dahyu, ‘a province,’ would be degraded to ‘anger’ and to ‘a set of thieves,’ and ‘the demons,’ the Daévas, would: ascend from their dwelling in hell up to heaven, to meet their philological brothers, the Indian Devas. The traditional method, as it starts from matters of fact, moves always in the field of reality; the comparative method starts frém an hypothesis, moves in a vacuum, and builds up a fanciful religion and a fanciful language. Such being the methods of the two schools, it often happened that a passage, translated by two scholars, one of each school, took so different an aspect that a layman would have been quite unable to suspect that it was one and the same passage he had read twice. Yet the divergence between the two methods is more apparent than real, and proceeds from an imperfect notion of the field in Spiegel, Justi. INTRODUCTION, II. XXiX
3Yet the divergence between the two methods is more apparent than real, and proceeds from an imperfect notion of the field in Spiegel, Justi. INTRODUCTION, II. XXiX which each of them ought to work. They ought not to oppose, but assist one another, as they are not intended to instruct us about the same kind of facts, but about two kinds of facts quite different and independent. No lan- | guage, no religion, that has lived long and changed much, can be understood at any moment of its development, unless we know what it was before and what it became . afterwards. The language and religion of the Avesta record but a moment in the long life of the Iranian language and thought, so that we are unable to understand them, unless we know whence they came and what they became. What they became we learn directly from tradition, since the tradition arose from the very ideas which the Avesta expresses ; whence they came we learn indirectly from the Vedas, because the Vedas come from the same source as the Avesta. Therefore it cannot happen that the tradition and the Veda will really contradict one another, if we take care to ask from each only what it knows, from one the present, and from the other the past. Each method is equally right and equally efficacious at its proper time and in its right place. The first place belongs to tradition, as it comes straight from the Avesta. The second inquiry, to be successful, requires infinite prudence and care: the Veda is not the past of the Avesta, as the Avesta is the past of tradition ; the Avesta and Veda are not derived from one — another, but from one and the same original, diversely altered in each, and, therefore, there are two stages of variation between them, whereas from the Avesta to tradition there is only one. The Veda, if first interrogated, gives no valuable evidence, as the words and gods, common to the two systems, may not have retained in both the same meaning they had in the Indo-Iranian period: they may have preserved it in one and lost it in the other, or they may have both altered it, but each in a different way. The Veda, generally speaking, cannot help us in discovering matters of fact in the Avesta, but only in explaining them when discovered by tradition. If we review the discoveries made by the masters of the comparative school, it will be seen that they have in reality started, without noticing it, XXX VEND{DAD. from facts formerly established by tradition. In fact tradition gives the materials, and comparison puts them in order. It is not possible, either to know the Avesta without the former, or to understand it without the latter. ;
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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