Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 06.djvu/110

Rh the like of which is not allowable for eras. Everything, the knowledge of which is connected with creation and with the history of bygone generations, is mixed up with falsifications and myths, because it belongs to a far remote age; because a long interval separates us therefrom, and because the student is incapable of keeping it in memory, and of fixing it (so as to preserve it from confusion). God says: "Have they not got the stories about those who were before them? None but God knows them." (Surahix, 71.) Therefore it is becoming not to admit any account of a similar subject, if it is not attested by a book, the correctness of which is relied upon, or by a tradition, for which the conditions of authenticity, according to the prevalent opinion, furnish grounds of proof.

If we now first consider this era, we find a considerable divergence of opinion regarding it among these nations. For the Persians and Magians think that the duration of the world is 12,000 years, corresponding to the number of signs in the zodiac and of the months; and that Zoroaster, the founder of their law, thought that of those there had passed, till the time of his appearance, 3,000 years, intercalated with the day-quarters, for he himself had made their computation, and had taken into account that defect, which had accrued to them on account of the day-quarters, till the time when they were intercalated and made to agree with real time. From his appearance to the beginning of the Aera Alexandri, they count 258 years; therefore they count from the beginning of the world to Alexander 3,258 years. However, if we compute the years from the creation of Gayomarth, whom they hold to be the first man, and sum up the years of the reign of each of his successors — for the rule of Iran remained with his descendants without interruption — this number is, for the time till Alexander, the sum total of 3,354 years. So the specification of the single items of the addition does not agree with the sum total.

A section of the Persians is of the opinion that those past 3,000 years which we have mentioned are to be counted from the creation of Gayomarth; because, before that, already six