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Rh thought current during the writer's times. The Menuk-i Khrat, for example, betrays Moslem influence when it preaches fatalism, but is otherwise faithfully voicing the sentiments of the orthodox Sasanian Church. This interweaving of old ideas with the new ones, and the interpolations and additions of the later writers in the works of earlier generations, often make it hopeless to disentangle the complications and distinguish between the opinions and ideas of different periods.

Thirteen hundred years have elapsed since the dissolution of the last of the Zoroastrian empires. Henceforth we have to record the religious history of the Zoroastrian remnants in Persia and the Zoroastrian settlers of India. Zoroastrianism sinks with the Zoroastrian power, and a long period of obscurity follows. I have named it a period of decadence.

Under the aegis of the British rule in India Zoroastrianism emerges once again with the prosperity of the Parsi community. I have hailed this as the period of the revival of Zoroastrianism.

These various periods, which represent chronologically different stages of the historic development of the religious thought of Iran, from remote antiquity down to the immediate present, will, I hope, give the reader a general and comprehensive view of the history of Zoroastrian religion. As the subjects are treated piecemeal in different periods according to the natural growth of ideas from period to period, the reader will have to read crosswise when he needs a complete account of any particular concept. For example, if he wants to know all that the Zoroastrian literature has to say about Ormazd, he will get it as a whole not from any one period, but from all. The detailed list of contents and the index will help him in his inquiry.

Transliteration of the technical terms. I have sought to preserve the changes that these have undergone during successive periods, and have variously transliterated them in the treatment of the different periods, according as they represent the Avestan, Pahlavi, or Persian pronunciations. Thus, for example, Ahura Mazda of the Gathic and Avestan periods become Ormazd in the Pahlavi period. Angra Mainyu assumes the form Ahriman in the subsequent periods. The Avestan Vohu Manah changes into Pahlavi Vohuman and into Bahman in Persian. In the frequent use of the name of the prophet, I have, however, not scrupulously followed this method. I have distinguished between the Avestan,