The universal ignorance which prevails throughout the East as to the
origin of those antiquities which excite the wonder of every traveller
makes it necessary that we should again direct our course towards that
hemisphere, to redeem, if possible, its venerable remains from that moral
night which successive ages have accumulated around them.
Persia[206] was the source which poured its vivifying light into the
mental obnubilation of our European ancestors. By a reverse of those
casualties from which no condition can be exempt, Persia has, in her turn,
been made the theatre of darkness; and though, under the fostering
auspices of British institutions, the mist has, to a large amount, been
dispelled, yet is the proudest era of her splendour left still
unexplored, and that is the epoch which called forth into life those
monuments of literature and philosophical eminence, which, resisting the
corrosion of time and the assaults of war, still proudly elevate their
heads towards those orbs, with whose pompous ceremonial they were
essentially connected, and whose generative properties they typically
symbolised--I mean the Round Towers.
This was the moment of Persia’s halcyon pride: this the period of her
earthly coruscation: to this have all the faculties of my ardent mind with
vigour been addressed; and while, in the humble consciousness of
successful investigation, I announce its issue to have far exceeded my
hopes, I shall avail myself of the industry of preceding inquirers to
throw light upon the intervals of value which intervene; but, lest I
should intrude upon the province of their well-earned honours, I shall, in
every such case of borrowed assistance, allow the writers themselves to
speak; by which it will additionally appear that, with much good taste,
and with historical honesty, they have left a vacuum in their researches,
for which the public mind has been long athirst, and which my exclusive
resources could alone supply.
“The Persian empire,”[207] says Heeren, “owed its origin to one of those
great political revolutions which are of such frequent occurrence in Asia,
and the rise and progress of which we have already considered in general.
A rude mountain tribe of nomad habits rushed with impetuous rapidity from
its fastnesses, and overwhelmed all the nations of Southern Asia, (the
Arabians excepted), from the Mediterranean to the Indus and Iaxartes. The
mighty empires which arose in Asia were not founded in the same manner
with the kingdoms of Europe. They were generally erected by mighty
conquering nations, and these, for the most part, nomad nations. This
important consideration we must never lose sight of, when engaged in the
study of their history and institutions.”
“Not only is Persia[208] Proper memorable on account of its historical
associations, but also for the architectural remains which it continues to
present. The ruins of Persepolis are the noblest monuments of the most
flourishing era of this empire, which have survived the lapse of ages. As
solitary in their situation as peculiar in their character, they rise
above the deluge of years, which for centuries has overwhelmed all the
records of human grandeur, around them, or near them, and buried all
traces of Susa and of Babylon. Their venerable antiquity and majestic
proportions do not more command our reverence, than the mystery which
involves their construction awakens the curiosity of the most unobservant
spectator. Pillars which belong to no known order of architecture;
inscriptions in an alphabet which continues an enigma; fabulous animals
which stand as guards at the entrance; the multiplicity of allegorical
figures which decorate the walls,--all conspire to carry us back to ages
of the most remote antiquity, over which the traditions of the East shed a
doubtful and wandering light.”
“The Persians have taken more pains than almost any other nation to
preserve their records in writing; yet it has been their fate, in common
with most other nations of antiquity, to be indebted for the stability of
their fame to foreign historians. Notwithstanding the pains they took to
register the acts of their government, the _original documents of their
history_, with a few accidental exceptions, have altogether perished. And
the inscriptions of Persepolis, like the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians,
will, in a manner, have outlived themselves, unless a complete key be
discovered to the alphabet in which they are composed.”
Now, as a set off to these extracts, it will be necessary to remark that,
though true in substance, they are only so as descriptive of a particular
epoch. Empire after empire rolled over, in succession, before that which
the historian here delineates, and which was but the motley combination of
a rugged swarm of mountaineers, who stalked with ferocious insensibility
over the consecrated relics of monumental glory.
Herodotus and Arrian were the authorities that seduced him into this
mistake, the former of whom states that “the Persians originally occupied
a small and craggy country, and that it was proposed in the time of Cyrus
that they should exchange this for one more fertile; a plan which Cyrus
discouraged as likely to extinguish their hardy and warlike pursuits”; and
the latter, that “the Persians, when, under Cyrus, they conquered all
Asia, were a poor people, inhabiting a hilly region”;[209] but those
writers were as misinformed, as to all events and particulars relating to
this locality, anterior to the time specified above, as any of their
contemporaries; and when we reflect how very recent an era in the history
of the world was that in which Cyrus appeared, it will be seen how fragile
a substratum was that which the professor had adopted for the erection of
his materials. We read accordingly, in Terceira’s Spanish history of that
country, that “there was not at that time (A.D. 1590) one man in Persia
(these were the direct descendants of Cyrus’s men) that understood their
_ancient_ letters, for having often seen some plates of metal with
_ancient_ inscriptions on them, I made inquiry after the meaning of them;
and men _well versed_ in their _antiquities_, and _studious_, told me that
was _Fars kadeem, ancient Persian_, after the old fashion, and _therefore_
I should find _no man_ that understood it.”
Indeed the reasonings of Heeren himself,--and learned I cheerfully
acknowledge them,--would seem to make him rise above the narrowness of his
Grecian supporters.
“Even previous,” says he, “to the time when the Arabs, with the sword in
one hand and the Koran in the other, overran and subdued Persia, they were
the more open to settlers from the North and East, from the circumstance
that Persia was situated on the great highway of nations, by which the
human race spread itself from East to West. All that is meant to be
asserted is, that the various races who successively had dominion in these
parts, all belonged to the same original stock.
“This fact, which the observations of the best modern travellers tend to
confirm, may explain how it has come to pass that many districts,
anciently celebrated for their fertility, are at present barren and
unproductive. A single invasion, by destroying the water-courses, is
sufficient to reduce, in a short time, a fertile and flourishing country
to an arid desert; and to how many such disastrous contingencies has not
Persia at all times been exposed!”
“Another fact, suggested by the languages of Asia and the ancient dialects
of Persia, is too important to be passed over in silence. Not only in the
Persian territory but in other parts of Eastern Asia, particularly the two
Indian peninsulas, we find languages which still subsist, mixed up with
others which are preserved to us only in a few written names. To this
class belong, in Persia, the Zend and Pahlivi, already mentioned; in
Hindustan, the celebrated Sanscrit, as well as the Pali in the Burman
peninsula.
“Accordingly, we shall venture to consider as the same parent stock the
race which bore rule in Iran, comprehending all the inferior races, and
which may be termed in general the Persian or Medo-Persian, inasmuch as
the countries in its occupation were termed, in a wider sense, the land of
Persia.
“They have been denominated by Rhode (Heilige sagen, etc.) the people of
Zend, not improperly, if we consider the Zend as the original language of
all the race ... not confined to Persis, properly so called, but extending
over the steppes of Carmania and to the shores of the Caspian. Even at the
present day they are comprised under the general name of Persia, though
Farsistan, the original country of the Persians, forms a very small part
of this territory.
“The Semitic and the Persian were, therefore, the principal languages of
Asia; the latter being spoken as far as the Indus. Our knowledge of the
languages prevalent on the other side of that river is as yet too
defective to enable us to speak with anything like certainty. Possibly it
may be reserved for our own age to arrive at important conclusions on this
subject, if the affinity between the Zend and the Sanscrit, the sacred
languages of Persia and Hindustan, should be established,--if the spirit
of discovery which characterises the British nation should succeed in
rescuing from oblivion some more remains of ancient Indian literature, and
a second Anquetil Duperron present the public with the sacred books of the
Brahmans, with the same success that his predecessor has illustrated those
of the Parsees.”
Though I cannot avoid concurring in the laudable hope that “our own age”
may witness important conclusions on this subject, still it strikes
me,--_and I earnestly urge it as worthy of the notice of a Reform
Ministry_, that until the _Irish Language_ be raked from its ashes, no
accuracy can ever be obtained either in the Zend, Pahlavi, or Sanscrit
_dialects_, which are but emanations from it, or in the _subject matter_,
historical or religious, which they profess to pourtray.
“In the interior of these districts is situated a considerable lake,
called the Lake Zevora, unquestionably the _Aria Palus_ of antiquity. A
large river, anciently bearing the same name, at present called the
Ilmend, empties itself into this inland sea from the deserts to the
south-east, and Christie fell in with another stream farther to the north,
called the Herat, near a town of the same name.
“I consider (with Kinneir) the city of Herat to be same with the ancient
Aria, or, as it was also called, Artacoana. We are told that Alexander on
his march to Bactriana inclined to the south to visit Aria. We must
carefully distinguish between the terms Aria and Ariana, as used by the
Greeks. The former was applied to a province which we shall have occasion
to describe in the sequel. The latter is equivalent to Iran, and appears
to have been formed from the ancient term in the Zend language, Eriene.
The whole of Iran composes a sort of oblong, the Tigris and Indus forming
its sides to the east and west; the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean bounding
it to the south; and the Caspian, with Mount Taurus and the river Oxus,
shutting it in to the north. These were also the limits of the ancient
Ariana (see Strabo, p. 1048), except that, towards the west, its boundary
was an imaginary line separating it from Persia Proper. Of this more
extensive district, Aria (according to Strabo) formed only a part,
distinguished by its superior fertility. Herodotus appears to have been
unacquainted with the term Aria; he merely mentions the Arii as a nation
allied to the Medes.
“Aria, lying to the east of Media, derived its name from the river Arius,
the modern Heri: and the Arians and Medes were originally the same race;
the Medes, according to Herodotus, having originally borne the name
Arians. It is apparent, from the same place (Herod. vii. 62) that what
were called the _Median habits_ were not confined to Media Proper, but
extended to the countries lying eastward, and as these touch on Bactria,
we cannot be surprised at the conformity which prevailed.”
These latter quotations I have thought fit to introduce to show the
ignorance of the modern Greeks,--those of Cyrus and Herodotus’s
days--compared with their Pelasgic predecessors--_Iran_, the real name for
all those countries of higher Asia as far as the Indus,[210] being
called, in the Zend, _Eriene_, the Greeks, whose intercourse with the East
now for the first time began, without troubling their brains to ascertain
what the word in either form meant, transmuted this latter into _Ariana_,
whereas their forefathers, the Pelasgi, a literary and a religious tribe,
changed its namesake in the West, our own _Iran_--which in the Pahlavi
dialect was called _Erin_, and in the Zend would also be called
_Eriene_--into _Ierne_, thereby evincing their knowledge of the import of
the term, and registering their subscription in its _sacred_
attributes.[211]
The following, however, is more to the point, and in itself sufficient to
redeem the professor’s entire work from any occasional inclination to
Grecian subserviency.
“It cannot be doubted that at some remote period antecedent to the
commencement of historical records, one mighty race possessed these vast
plains.
“The traditions of this race preserve some very important particulars
respecting their descent, their ancient abodes, and their gradual
dissemination through the land of Iran. These traditions are preserved in
the beginning of the Vendidat, the most important, and it is probable, the
most ancient of all their sacred books, the collection of which is styled
the Zendavasta, to which we shall have occasion to refer hereafter. The
first two chapters of this work, entitled _Fargards_, contain the above
traditions, not wrapt up in allegory, but so evidently historical as to
demand nothing more than the application of geographical knowledge to
explain them. With the exception of the Mosaical Scriptures, we are
acquainted with nothing which so plainly wears the stamp of remote
antiquity, ascending beyond the times within which the known empires of
the East flourished; in which we catch, as it were, the last faint echo of
the history of a former world, anterior to that great catastrophe of our
planet, which is attested in the vicinity of the parent country of these
legends, by the remains of the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the mammoth,
and other countries properly belonging to the countries of the South. It
would be a fruitless labour to attempt to assign dates to these remains,
but if the compiler of the _Vendidat_ himself, who was long anterior to
the Persian, and as we shall have occasion to show, probably also to the
Median dynasty, as known to us, received them as the primeval traditions
of his race, our opinion of their importance may be fully justified.
“These legends describe as the _original_ seat of the race, a delicious
country, named Eriene-_Veedjo_, which enjoyed a climate singularly mild,
having seven months summer and five of winter. Such was the state at
first, as created by the power of Ormuzd; but the author of evil, the
death-dealing Ahriman, smote it with the plague of cold, so that it came
to have ten months of winter and only two of summer. Thus the nation began
to desert the paradise they at first occupied, and Ormuzd successively
created for their reception sixteen other places of benediction and
abundance, which are faithfully recorded in the legend.
“What then was the site of the Eriene referred to? The editors and
commentators on the Zendavesta are inclined to discover it in Georgia, or
the Caucasian district; but the opinion must necessarily appear
unsatisfactory to anyone who will take into account the whole of the
record, and the succession of places there mentioned as the abodes of the
race. On the contrary, we there trace a gradual migration of the nation
from east to west, not as this hypothesis would tend to prove, from west
to east. The first abode which Ormuzd created for the exiled people was
Soghdi, whose identity with Sogdiana is sufficiently apparent; next Môore,
or Maroo, in Khorasan; then Bakhdi, or Balkh (Bactriana), and so on to
Fars itself, and the boundaries of Media or India. The original country of
Eriene must therefore lie to the east of Leed, and thus we are led, by the
course of tradition, to those regions which we have already referred to as
the scene of the traditions and fables of the nation, viz. the mountainous
tracts on the borders of Bucharia, the chain of Mustag and Beloorland, as
far as the Paropamisan range on the confines of Hindustan, and extending
northwards to the neighbourhood of the Altain chain. This savage and
ungenial region enjoys at present only a short summer, at the same time
that it contains the relics of an ancient world, which confirm, by
positive proof, the legend of the Vendidat, that anciently the _climate_
was of a _totally different character_. When the altered nature of their
original seats compelled the race to quit them, Ormuzd prepared for them
other places of repose and abundance, within the precincts of that
territory which has _preserved to the present day the appellation of Iran;
the nation carrying with them the name of Eriene, which is obviously the
same with Iran_.
“Jemshid, the father of his people, the most glorious of mortals whom the
sun ever beheld. In his day animals perished not: there was no want either
of water or of fruit-bearing trees, or of animals fit for the food of
mankind. During the light of his reign there was neither frost nor burning
heat, nor death, nor unbridled passions, nor the work of the Deevs. Man
appeared to retain the age of fifteen; the children grew up in safety as
long as Jemshid reigned the father of his people.[212]
“The restoration of such a golden age was the end of the legislation of
Zoroaster, who, however, built his code on a religious foundation
agreeably to the practice of the East; and the multifarious ceremonies he
prescribed had all reference to certain doctrines intimately associated
with his political dogmata; and it is absolutely necessary to bear in mind
their alliance, if we would not do injustice to one part or other of his
system.
“On these principles Zoroaster built his laws for the improvement of the
soil by means of agriculture, by tending of cattle and gardening, which he
perpetually inculcates, as if he could not sufficiently impress his
disciples with a sense of their importance.
“According to his own professions he was only the restorer of the doctrine
which Ormuzd himself had promulgated in the days of Jemshid: this
doctrine, however, had been misrepresented, a false and delusive magia,
the work of Deevs, had crept in, which was first to be extinguished, in
order to restore the pure laws of Ormuzd.
“Even Plato, the first Grecian writer who mentions Zoroaster, speaks of
him as _a sage of remote antiquity_; and the same is established by the
evidence of Hermippus and Eudoxus, which Pliny has preserved. The second
Zoroaster, supposed by Toucher to have flourished under Darius Hystaspes,
is the mere figment of some later Grecian authors of little credit.
“On the whole, we _are compelled_ to carry back Zoroaster to the period
when Bactriana was an independent monarchy, _a period anterior to the very
commencement of the Median empire_, as related by Herodotus, ascending
_beyond the eighth century_ before the Christian era. Whether we must
refer him to a _still more ancient epoch_, prior to the Assyrian monarchy,
the chronological notices we have already given are all that can be
afforded, except we be prepared to transport the sage beyond the _utmost
limits of recorded_ history.”
As I have no longer occasion, however, for the _sage_ than to show that he
was a _reformer_; and though at least “eight (more likely _eighteen_)
hundred years before the Christian era,”--yet was he even then,
comparatively, a _modern_,--I shall now turn to other sources to ascend to
the dynasties that had preceded him.
“The rare and interesting tract on twelve religions,” says Sir W. Jones,
“entitled the Dabistan, and composed by a Mohammedan traveller, a native
of Cashmere, named Moshan, but distinguished by the assumed surname of
Fani, or Perishable, begins with a wonderfully curious chapter on the
religion of Hushang, which was _long anterior to Zeradust_ (_Zoroaster_),
but had continued to be _secretly professed_ by many learned Persians,
even to the author’s time; and several of the most eminent of these
dissenting, in many points, from the Ghabres, and persecuted by the ruling
powers of their country, had retired to India, where they compiled a
number of books, now extremely scarce, which Moshan had perused, and with
the writers of which, or with many of them, he had contracted an intimate
friendship. From them he learned that a _powerful monarchy had been
established for ages in Iran for the accession of Cayemurs_; that it was
called the Mahabadean dynasty, for a reason which will soon be mentioned;
and that many princes, of whom seven or eight only are named in the
Dabistan, and among them Mahbul, or Maha Beli, had raised the empire to
the zenith of human glory. If we can rely on this evidence,--_which to me
appears unexceptionable_,--the Iranian monarchy must have been the oldest
in the world.”
Sir John Malcolm had some scruples as to the authenticity of this
production, and entered upon a very severe analysis of its contents;
merely because the _idols_ which the ancient Persians are therein stated
to have adored, and the _mode_ of their adoration, were dissimilar to
those of India! Was it necessary that they should be alike? It is true,
that from Persia everything Indian flowed; but there, on its importation,
it partook of the peculiarities of the soil and climate; while, even in
Persia itself, a great degeneracy occurred; and the deterioration and
moral laxity, thus superinduced, was what the virtuous Zeradust so
deplored, and what _kindled_ his _fervour_ to new model the system.
But “the introduction of the angel _Gabriel_,” he says, “appears of
itself enough to discredit the whole work.” Was Sir John sure that this
rendering was literal? He himself admits that he was “following a
Mohammedan author, who has certainly made a _free_ translation of the
Pahlavi text.” And, if so in one case, why not in another? But even
admitting that there was no _freedom_ at all used in the matter; and that
_Gabriel_ is the rigid version of the name of the messenger employed, this
should not, _in the least_, affect our reliance upon the Dabistan, as I
shall adduce a greater _coincidence_ than this, nay, a downright
_identity_, not only of _name_ but of _essence_, between the divine
dispensation in all previous ages, and the spiritual form of it with which
we are at present blessed.
But you will say, perhaps, that Moshan Fani’s authorities were, in a great
measure, _floating_, and dependent upon _histories_ of a merely oral
stamp, which--wanting as they do, the impress of lettered perpetuity, and
subject, as they are, to variation, both of curtailment and of addition,
besides the colour of depreciation or enhancement, which they must
furthermore undergo, according to the nature of the successive _media_
through which they pass,--cannot, after repeated transfusions, retain much
similarity with the original truth, nor afford to a rational and thinking
mind, however they may gratify selfish or national love, much stability
for conviction or satisfactory acquiescence?
To the first I shall reply that it seems not correct, as the manuscripts
by which he was guided appear still in existence; and this was not without
its influence on Sir John’s own scepticism, when he declares, that “the
doubtful authority of this work has received some support from the recent
discovery of a volume in the ancient Pahlivi, called the Dussadeer, or
Zemarawatseer, to which its authors refer.”
Then, as to the _vanity_ alluded to, the compiler may well be acquitted of
any, as being of a different creed, and proverbially intolerant, he could
not, _did not truth oversway_, have felt much communion of pleasure in
celebrating the glories of a defunct religion. And though I concede that
_that_ species of information, which arises from the traditions of
successive races of men, cannot be so satisfactory as that which is
_stereotyped_ in alphabetic characters; nay, that, according as it
diverges from its first outlet, it is likely to diverge also from
exactness; still I do insist, that the prevalence of those _traditions_,
wherever they occur, argues some alliance with _fact_ and _reality_; just
as idolatry itself, in all its ramifications, is but the corrupt
transmission of original pure religion.