Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/827

Rh ZEN D- A VESTA 777 Ardeshir Babagan, and his son Shapur I. resumed and con tinued the work, and proclaimed the new Avesta thus pro duced as canonical. Finally, under Shapur II. (309-380) a new revision and final redaction were made by Adarbad Mahraspand It is possible enough for historical criticism to regard this tradition in many of its features as mere fiction, or as a perversion of facts made for the purpose of transferring the blame for the loss of a sacred literature to other shoulders than those really responsible for it. People may, if they choose, absolve Alexander from the charge of vandalism of which he is accused ; but the fact nevertheless remains, that he sutFered the palace at Persepolis to be burnt (Diod., xvii. 72 ; Curt., v. 7). Even the statement as to the one or two complete copies of the Avesta may be given up as the invention of a later day. Nevertheless the essential elements of the tradition remain unshaken, viz., that the original Avesta or old sacred literature, divided on account of its great bulk and heterogeneous contents into many portions and a variety of separate works, had an actual existence in numerous copies and also in the memories of priests, that, although gradually diminishing in bulk, it remained extant during the long period of foreign domina tion and ecclesiastical decay after the time of Alexander, and that it served as a basis for the redaction subsequently made. The kernel of this native tradition the fact of a late collection of older fragments appears indisputable. The character of the book is entirely that of a compilation. In its outward form the Avesta as we now have it belongs to the Sasanian period, the last survival of the compilers work already alluded to. And it need hardly be said that the collecting and arranging of the scattered fragments often rendered necessary, or at least desirable, certain ad ditions by the redactors own hands. But, broadly speaking, the materials out of which the compilers reared their build ing belonged originally to older structures and are of very various dates. Opinions differ greatly as to the precise age of the original texts brought together by subsequent redactors : according to some, they are pre-Achaemenian ; according to Darmesteter, they were written in Media under the Achaemenian dynasty ; according to Eduard Meyer, they are on the whole of Sasanian origin ; according to some, their source must be sought in the east, according to others, in the west, of Iran. But to search for a precise time or exact locality is to deal with the question too narrowly ; it is more correct to say that the Avesta was worked at from the time of Zoroaster down to the Sasanian period. Its oldest portions, the Gathas, proceed from Zoroaster himself. This conclusion is inevitable for every one to whom Zoroaster is an historical personality, and who does not shun the labour of an unprejudiced research into the meaning of those difficult texts (comp. ZOROASTER). The rest of the Avesta, in spite of the opposite opinion of learned Parsees, does not even claim to come from Zoroaster. As the Gathas constitute the kernel of the Later Yasna, so they ultimately proved to be the first nucleus of a religious literature at large. The language in which Zoroaster taught, especially a later development of it, an idiom in disputably belonging to eastern Iran, remained as the standard with the followers of Zoroaster, and became the sacred language of the priesthood of the faith which he had founded ; as such it became, so to speak, absolved from the ordinary conditions of time and space. Taught and acquired as an ecclesiastical language, it was enabled to live an artificial life long after it had become extinct as a vernacular, in this respect comparable to the Latin of the Middle Ages or the Hebrew of the rabbinical schools. The various texts themselves enable us to trace its gradual paralysis, decay, and death. It is only from this point of view that the language can be used as a criterion for the relative chronology of these. Any more exact arrangement seems almost impossible ; we have practically no other tests to apply. The priests by whom the texts were edited gave them the form intended to be valid once for all and refrained from any allusion to ephemeral relations. The following conclusions may be stated in a general way. The language of the Avesta travelled with the Zoroastrian religion and with the main body of the priesthood, in all probability, that is to say, from east to west ; within the limits of Iran it became international. The Avesta texts must have passed through a long process of development, which did not reach its close till at a comparatively late period. Many portions are the result of repeated redacting and compiling ; older texts are removed from their original connexion, and worked into new ones or made use of in these. In these operations the revisers of the Sasanian epoch may be presumed to have had only the smallest share ; the texts they had before them were already for the most part in a revised form. They were no longer in a position to give a relatively correct text ; what they still had in their power to some extent to perform is approxi mately exhibited in such passages as Yt., 1, 12 sq.; Yt., 2, 11 sq. ; Yt., 10, 120 sq., perhaps in part translated back from the Pahlavi. The great Yashts and the Vendidad are the most instructive portions for the history of the text. The original kernel of Yashts 5, 8, 15, 17, 19 consists of the Iranian mythology of gods and heroes which had its origin in the East, and there also was cast into a poetical form. Fragments of it were worked into the framework of the great Yashts at a much later date. The author of Vend., 2 used in a fragmentary way a poetic version of the Yima legend. The redactor of Vend., 3, judging from the monotonous and clumsy style of the opening sections, must have been prosaic enough ; yet from the twenty-fourth paragraph onwards we have a bright and pleasant description of the blessings of agriculture, in a poetical form, that contrasts singularly with what im mediately precedes it, and must certainly have been borrowed from an older source. In this way alone can we in other instances also account for the numerous verses with which the prose is often interspersed. Their function often was merely to set off and ornament the later prose. Oi &quot;genuine&quot; and &quot;spurious&quot; there can be in this connexion no question, but only of &quot;older&quot; and &quot;more recent. However vague and obscure the question may remain after all has been said, we can at least lay so much down as fundamentally fixed, namely, that all that is metrical in the Avesta bears the stamp of a higher antiquity than does the prose. As has been already stated, the Avesta now in our hands is but a small portion of the book as edited under the Sasanians. The large part perished under the devastating wave of persecution which broke over Iran with the Mohammedan invasion, or under the still more fatal influ ences of the apathy and forgetfulness of its proper guardians. The understanding of the older Avesta texts was far from perfect even at the time when they were being edited and revised. The need for a translation and interpretation became evident; and under the later Sasanians the majority of the books, if not the whole of them, were rendered into the current Pahlavi. A thorough use of this translation will not be possible until we have it in good critical editions, and acquaintance with its language ceases to be the mono poly of a few privileged individuals. For the interpretation of the older texts it is of great value. The Parsee priest Neryosangh subsequently translated a portion of the Pahlavi version into Sanskrit. The MSS. of tho Avesta are comparatively speaking of recent date. The oldest is the Puhlavi Yispered in Copenhagen, of date XXIV. - &quot;98