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AVESTA. dayasnian religion and its teachings; 4 (thirty- two sections), this world and the next, the res- urrection and the judgment; 5 (thirty-five sec- tions), astronomy; 6 (twenty- two sections), ritual performances and the merit accruing; 7 (fifty sections before Alexander, thirteen then re- maining), chiefly political and social in its na- ture; 8 (sixty sections before Alexander, twelve remaining), legal; (sixty sections before Alex- ander, fifteen preserved), mainly religious wis- dom and advice; 11 (sixty sections before Alex- ander, six preserved), religion and its practical relations to man; 12 (twenty-two sections), physical truths and spiritual regeneration; 13 (sixty sections), virtuous actions, and a sketch of Zoroaster's infancy; 14 (seventeen sections), on Ormazd and the Archangels; 15 (fifty-four), justice in business and in weights and measures, the path of righteousness: 16 (sixty-five sec- tions), on next-of-kin marriage, a tenet of the faith; 17 (sixty-four sections), future punish- ments, astrology; 18 (fifty-two sections), jus- tice in exercising authority, on the resurrection, and on the annihilation of evil; 19, the Vīdēv- dād, or Vendīdād (twenty-two sections), on pol- lution and its purification; 20 (thirty sections), on goodness; 21 (thirty-three sections), praise of Ormazd and the Archangels.

During the five centuries after the ravages of Alexander, much, doubtless, had been lost, much forgotten. The Parsi tradition acknowledges this itself when it says above, for example, that the seventh Nask consisted originally of fifty sections, but only thirteen remained 'after the accursed Iskander (Alexander).' So says the Dēnkart and so the Rivāyats. Like statements of loss are made of the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh Nasks. The loss in the five centuries from the invasion of Alexander till the time of the Sas- sanian dynasty was but small in comparison with the decay that overtook the scriptures from the Sassanian times till our day. The Mohammedan invasion and the inroads made by the Koran proved far more destructive. The persecuted people lost or neglected many por- tions of their sacred scriptures. Of the twenty- one Nasks that were recognized in Sassanian times as surviving from the original Avesta, only one single Nask — the nineteenth, the Ven- dīdād — has come down to us in its full form. Even this shows evidence of having been patched up and pieced together. We can, furthermore, probably identify our present book of the Yasna and Vīspered with the Staot Yasht (staota yesnya), or Yasht (yasnya), as it is also called. The two fragments, Yt. 21 and 22 (as printed in Westergaard's edition) and Yt. 11, in its first form, are recognized by the MSS. as taken from the twentieth, or Hādhōkht Nask. The Nīrangistān, a Pahlavi work, contains extensive Avestan quotations, which are believed to have been taken from the Hūspāram, or seventeenth Nask. Numerous quotations in Pahlavi works contain translations from old Avestan passages. The Pahlavi work, Shāyast-lā-Shāyast, quotes briefly from no less than thirteen of the lost Nasks; the Būndahishn and other Pahlavi books give translations of selections, the original Aves- ta text of which is lost. Grouping together all the Avesta texts, we may roughly calculate that about two-thirds of the total scriptures have disappeared since Sassanian times.

The present form of the Avesta belongs to the Sassanian period. Internal evidence shows that it is made up of parts most varied in age and character. This bears witness to the statement that during that period the texts, so far as they had survived the ravages of Alexander, and defied the corrupting influence of time, were gathered together, compiled, and edited. The character of the texts, when critically studied, shows the method that must have been adopted. According to the record of Khusro Anoshirvan (A.D. 531-579), referred to above, King Valk- hash, the first compiler of the Avesta, ordered that all the writings which might have survived should be searched for, and that all the priests who preserved the traditions orally should con- tribute their share to restoring the original Avesta. These texts, as collected, were reedit- ed under successive rulers, until, under Shah- puhar II. (c. 309-379 A.D.), the final redaction was made by his prime minister, Atūr-pāt Māraspend. It is manifest that the editors used the old texts as far as possible; sometimes they patched up defective parts by inserting other texts; occasionally they may have added or composed passages to join these, or to com- plete some missing portion. In this respect the textual criticism by means of metrical restoration is most instructive. Almost all the oldest por- tions of the texts are found to be metrical; the later, or inserted portions, are, as a rule, but not always, written in prose. The grammatical test is also useful; the youngest portions gen- erally show a decay of clear grammatical knowl- edge. The metrical Gāthās in this respect are remarkably pure. They are, of course, the oldest portion of the text, dating from Zoroaster himself, despite the view of Darmesteter, who wished to bring the date of their completion down to the first Christian Century. The longer Yashts, and the metrical portions of the Yasna, contain much that is very old; in point of time these parts would probably fall but a few cen- turies later than the Gāthās. The Vendīdād in this respect is most incongruous. Some parts of it are doubtless of great antiquity, though corrupted in form; other parts of it, like the younger portions also of the Yashts, may be quite late. The same is true of formulaic pas- sages throughout the whole of the Avesta, and of some of the ceremonial or ritual selections in the Vīspered and Nyāishes, etc. Roughly speaking, the chronological order of the texts would be somewhat as follows: I. Gāthās (Ys. 28-53), including (II.) the Yasna Haptanghāiti (Ys. 35-42), and some other compositions, like Ys. 12; Ys. 58 in the Gāthā dialect. III. Metrical Yasna and Yashts, Ys. 9-11; Ys. 57, 62, 65; Yt. 5, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 19; portions of Vd. 2, 3, 4, 5, 18, 19, and scattered verses in the Vīspered and Afrīngāns, etc. In such cases it is generally, but not always, easy to discover, by style and language, where old material failed and the hand of the redactor came in with stupid or prosaic additions. Considerable portions of our present Avesta, especially the entire Gāthās, we may regard as coming directly from Zoroaster himself; still, additions from time to time must have been made to the sacred canon from his time on till the invasion of Alexander. The so-called copy of the Zoroastrian Bible, which it is claimed was destroyed by that invader, doubtless contained much that was not