Dr. Haug--who through the judicious recommendation of Mr. Howard,
Director of Public Instruction in the Bombay Presidency, was appointed
to a Professorship of Sanskrit in the Poona College--should have
grasped the opportunity, and devoted himself to a thorough study of
the sacred literature of the Parsis. He went to India well prepared
for his task, and he has not disappointed the hopes which those who
knew him entertained of him on his departure from Germany. Unless he
had been master of his subject before he went to Poona, the assistance
of the Dustoors would have been of little avail to him. But knowing
all that could be known in Europe of the Zend language and literature,
he knew what questions to ask, he could check every answer, and he
could learn with his eyes what it is almost impossible to learn from
books--namely, the religious ceremonial and the ritual observances
which form so considerable an element in the Vendidad and Vispered.
The result of his studies is now before us in a volume of 'Essays on
the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsees,' published
at Bombay, 1862. It is a volume of only three hundred and sixty-eight
pages, and sells in England for one guinea. Nevertheless, to the
student of Zend it is one of the cheapest books ever published. It
contains four Essays: 1. History of the Researches into the Sacred
Writings and Religion of the Parsees from the earliest times down to
the present; 2. Outline of a Grammar of the Zend Language; 3. The
Zend-Avesta, or the Scripture of the Parsees; 4. Origin and
Development of the Zoroastrian Religion. The most important portion is
the Outline of the Zend Grammar; for, though a mere outline, it is the
first systematic grammatical analysis of that curious language. In
other languages, we generally begin by learning the grammar, and then
make our way gradually through the literature. In Zend, the
grammatical terminations had first to be discovered by a careful
anatomy of the literature. The Parsis themselves possessed no such
work. Even their most learned priests are satisfied with learning the
Zend-Avesta by heart, and with acquiring some idea of its import by
means of a Pehlevi translation, which dates from the Sassanian period,
or of a Sanskrit translation of still later date. Hence the
translation of the Zend-Avesta published by Anquetil Duperron, with
the assistance of Dustoor Darab, was by no means trustworthy. It was,
in fact, a French translation of a Persian rendering of a Pehlevi
version of the Zend original. It was Burnouf who, aided by his
knowledge of Sanskrit, and his familiarity with the principles of
comparative grammar, approached, for the first time, the very words of
the Zend original. He had to conquer every inch of ground for himself,
and his 'Commentaire sur le Yasna' is, in fact, like the deciphering
of one long inscription, only surpassed in difficulty by his later
decipherments of the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenian monarchs
of Persia. Aided by the labours of Burnouf and others, Dr. Haug has at
last succeeded in putting together the disjecta membra poetae, and we
have now in his Outline, not indeed a grammar like that of Pa_n_ini
for Sanskrit, yet a sufficient skeleton of what was once a living
language, not inferior, in richness and delicacy, even to the idiom of
the Vedas.
There are, at present, five editions, more or less complete, of the
Zend-Avesta. The first was lithographed under Burnouf's direction, and
published at Paris 1829-1843. The second edition of the text,
transcribed into Roman characters, appeared at Leipzig 1850, published
by Professor Brockhaus. The third edition, in Zend characters, was
given to the world by Professor Spiegel, 1851; and about the same
time a fourth edition was undertaken by Professor Westergaard, at
Copenhagen, 1852 to 1854. There are one or two editions of the
Zend-Avesta, published in India, with Guzerati translations, which we
have not seen, but which are frequently quoted by native scholars. A
German translation of the Zend-Avesta was undertaken by Professor
Spiegel, far superior in accuracy to that of Anquetil Duperron, yet in
the main based on the Pehlevi version. Portions of the ancient text
had been minutely analysed and translated by Dr. Haug, even before his
departure for the East.
The Zend-Avesta is not a voluminous work. We still call it the
Zend-Avesta, though we are told that its proper title is Avesta Zend,
nor does it seem at all likely that the now familiar name will ever be
surrendered for the more correct one. Who speaks of Cassius Dio,
though we are told that Dio Cassius is wrong? Nor do we feel at all
convinced that the name of Avesta Zend is the original and only
correct name. According to the Parsis, Avesta means sacred text, Zend
its Pehlevi translation. But in the Pehlevi translations themselves,
the original work of Zoroaster is spoken of as Avesta Zend. Why it is
so called by the Pehlevi translators, we are nowhere told by
themselves, and many conjectures have, in consequence, been started by
almost every Zend scholar. Dr. Haug supposes that the earliest
portions of the Zend-Avesta ought to be called Avesta, the later
portions Zend--Zend meaning, according to him, commentary,
explanation, gloss. Neither the word Avesta nor Zend, however, occurs
in the original Zend texts, and though Avesta seems to be the Sanskrit
avastha, the Pehlevi apestak, in the sense of 'authorised text,' the
etymology of Zend, as derived from a supposed zanti, Sanskrit _gn_ati,
knowledge, is not free from serious objections. Avesta Zend was most
likely a traditional name, hardly understood even at the time of the
Pehlevi translators, who retained it in their writings. It was
possibly misinterpreted by them, as many other Zend words have been at
their hands, and may have been originally the Sanskrit word
_k_handas,[46] which is applied by the Brahmans to the sacred hymns of
the Veda. Certainty on such a point is impossible; but as it is but
fair to give a preference to the conjectures of those who are most
familiar with the subject, we quote the following explanation of Dr.
Haug:
'The meaning of the term "Zend" varied at different periods.
Originally it meant the interpretation of the sacred texts
descended from Zarathustra and his disciples by the
successors of the prophet. In the course of time, these
interpretations being regarded as equally sacred with the
original texts, both were then called Avesta. Both having
become unintelligible to the majority of the Zoroastrians,
in consequence of their language having died out, they
required a Zend or explanation again. This new Zend was
furnished by the most learned priests of the Sassanian
period in the shape of a translation into the vernacular
language of Persia (Pehlevi) in those days, which
translation being the only source to the priests of the
present time whence to derive any knowledge of the old
texts, is therefore the only Zend or explanation they know
of.... The name Pazend, to be met with frequently in
connection with Avesta and Zend, denotes the further
explanation of the Zend doctrine..... The Pazend language is
the same as the so-called Parsi, i. e. the ancient Persian,
as written till about the time of Firdusi, 1000 A.D.'
[Footnote 46: See page 84.]
Whatever we may think of the nomenclature thus advocated by Dr. Haug,
we must acknowledge in the fullest manner his great merit in
separating for the first time the more ancient from the more modern
parts of the Zend-Avesta. Though the existence of different dialects
in the ancient texts was pointed out by Spiegel, and although the
metrical portions of the Ya_s_na had been clearly marked by
Westergaard, it is nevertheless Haug's great achievement to have
extracted these early relics, to have collected them, and to have
attempted a complete translation of them, as far as such an attempt
could be carried out at the present moment. His edition of the
Gathas--for this is the name of the ancient metrical portions--marks
an epoch in the history of Zend scholarship, and the importance of the
recovery of these genuine relics of Zoroaster's religion has been well
brought out by Bunsen in the least known of his books, 'Gott in der
Geschichte.' We by no means think that the translations here offered
by Dr. Haug are final. We hope, on the contrary, that he will go on
with the work he has so well begun, and that he will not rest till he
has removed every dark speck that still covers the image of
Zoroaster's primitive faith. Many of the passages as translated by him
are as clear as daylight, and carry conviction by their very
clearness. Others, however, are obscure, hazy, meaningless. We feel
that they must have been intended for something else, something more
definite and forcible, though we cannot tell what to do with the
words as they stand. Sense, after all, is the great test of
translation. We must feel convinced that there was good sense in these
ancient poems, otherwise mankind would not have taken the trouble to
preserve them; and if we cannot discover good sense in them, it must
be either our fault, or the words as we now read them were not the
words uttered by the ancient prophets of the world. The following are
a few specimens of Dr. Haug's translations, in which the reader will
easily discover the different hues of certainty and uncertainty, of
sense and mere verbiage:
1. That I will ask Thee, tell me it right, thou living God!
whether your friend (Sraosha) be willing to recite his own
hymn as prayer to my friend (Frashaostra or Vistaspa), thou
Wise! and whether he should come to us with the good mind,
to perform for us true actions of friendship.
2. That I will ask Thee, tell me it right, thou living God!
How arose the best present life (this world)? By what means
are the present things (the world) to be supported? That
spirit, the holy (Vohu mano), O true wise spirit! is the
guardian of the beings to ward off from them every evil; He
is the promoter of all life.
3. That I will ask Thee, tell me it right, thou living God!
Who was in the beginning the Father and Creator of truth?
Who made the sun and stars? Who causes the moon to increase
and wane if not Thou? This I wish to know, except what I
already know.
4. That I will ask Thee, tell me it right, thou living God!
Who is holding the earth and the skies above it? Who made
the waters and the trees of the field? Who is in the winds
and storms that they so quickly run? Who is the Creator of
the good-minded beings, thou Wise?
This is a short specimen of the earliest portion of the Zend-Avesta.
The following is an account of one of the latest, the so-called Ormuzd
Yasht:
'Zarathustra asked Ahuramazda after the most effectual spell
to guard against the influence of evil spirits. He was
answered by the Supreme Spirit, that the utterance of the
different names of Ahuramazda protects best from evil.
Thereupon Zarathustra begged Ahuramazda to communicate to
him these names. He then enumerates twenty. The first is
Ahmi, i. e. "I am;" the fourth, Asha-vahista, i. e. "the
best purity;" the sixth, "I am wisdom;" the eighth, "I am
knowledge;" the twelfth, Ahura, i. e. "living;" the
twentieth, "I am who I am, Mazdao."'
Ahuramazda says then further:
'"If you call me at day or at night by these names, I shall
come to assist and help you; the angel Serosh will then
come, the genii of the waters and the trees." For the utter
defeat of the evil spirits, bad men, witches, Peris, a
series of other names are suggested to Zarathustra, such as
protector, guardian, spirit, the holiest, the best
fire-priest, etc.'
Whether the striking coincidence between one of the suggested names of
Ahuramazda, namely, 'I am who I am,' and the explanation of the name
Jehova, Exodus iii. 14, 'I am that I am,' is accidental or not, must
depend on the age that can be assigned to the Ormuzd Yasht. The
chronological arrangement, however, of the various portions of the
Zend-Avesta is as yet merely tentative, and these questions must
remain for future consideration. Dr. Haug points out other
similarities between the doctrines of Zoroaster and the Old and New
Testaments. 'The Zoroastrian religion,' he writes, 'exhibits a very
close affinity to, or rather identity with, several important
doctrines of the Mosaic religion and Christianity, such as the
personality and attributes of the devil, and the resurrection of the
dead.' Neither of these doctrines, however, would seem to be
characteristic of the Old or New Testament, and the resurrection of
the dead is certainly to be found by implication only, and is nowhere
distinctly asserted, in the religious books of Moses.
There are other points on which we should join issue with Dr.
Haug--as, for instance, when, on page 17, he calls the Zend the elder
sister of Sanskrit. This seems to us in the very teeth of the evidence
so carefully brought together by himself in his Zend grammar. If he
means the modern Sanskrit, as distinguished from the Vedic, his
statement would be right to some extent; but even thus, it would be
easy to show many grammatical forms in the later Sanskrit more
primitive than their corresponding forms in Zend. These, however, are
minor points compared with the great results of his labours which Dr.
Haug has brought together in these four Essays; and we feel certain
that all who are interested in the study of ancient language and
ancient religion will look forward with the greatest expectations to
Dr. Haug's continued investigations of the language, the literature,
the ceremonial, and the religion of the descendants of Zoroaster.
_December, 1862._
VI.
PROGRESS OF ZEND SCHOLARSHIP.[47]
There are certain branches of philological research which seem to be
constantly changing, shifting, and, we hope, progressing. After the
key to the interpretation of ancient inscriptions has been found, it
by no means follows that every word can at once be definitely
explained, or every sentence correctly construed. Thus it happens that
the same hieroglyphic or cuneiform text is rendered differently by
different scholars; nay, that the same scholar proposes a new
rendering not many years after his first attempt at a translation has
been published. And what applies to the decipherment of inscriptions
applies with equal force to the translation of ancient texts. A
translation of the hymns of the Veda, or of the Zend-Avesta, and, we
may add, of the Old Testament too, requires exactly the same process
as the deciphering of an inscription. The only safe way of finding the
real meaning of words in the sacred texts of the Brahmans, the
Zoroastrians, or the Jews, is to compare every passage in which the
same word occurs, and to look for a meaning that is equally applicable
to all, and can at the same time be defended on grammatical and
etymological grounds. This is no doubt a tedious process, nor can it
be free from uncertainty; but it is an uncertainty inherent in the
subject itself, for which it would be unfair to blame those by whose
genius and perseverance so much light has been shed on the darkest
pages of ancient history. To those who are not acquainted with the
efforts by which Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen, and Rawlinson unravelled
the inscriptions of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, it may seem
inexplicable, for instance, how an inscription which at one time was
supposed to confirm the statement, known from Herodotus, that Darius
obtained the sovereignty of Persia by the neighing of his horse,
should now yield so very different a meaning. Herodotus relates that
after the assassination of Smerdis the six conspirators agreed to
confer the royal dignity on him whose horse should neigh first at
sunrise. The horse of Darius neighed first, and he was accordingly
elected king of Persia. After his election, Herodotus states that
Darius erected a stone monument containing the figure of a horseman,
with the following inscription: 'Darius, the son of Hystaspes,
obtained the kingdom of the Persians by the virtue of his horse
(giving its name), and of Oibareus, his groom.' Lassen translated one
of the cuneiform inscriptions, copied originally by Niebuhr from a
huge slab built in the southern wall of the great platform at
Persepolis, in the following manner: 'Auramazdis magnus est. Is
maximus est deorum. Ipse Darium regem constituit, benevolens imperium
obtulit. Ex voluntate Auramazdis Darius rex sum. Generosus sum Darius
rex hujus regionis Persicae; hanc mihi Auramazdis obtulit "hoc
pomoerio ope equi (Choaspis) clarae virtutis."' This translation was
published in 1844, and the arguments by which Lassen supported it, in
the sixth volume of the 'Zeitschrift fuer die Kunde des Morgenlandes,'
may be read with interest and advantage even now when we know that
this eminent scholar was mistaken in his analysis. The first step
towards a more correct translation was made by Professor Holtzmann,
who in 1845 pointed out that Smerdis was murdered at Susa, not at
Persepolis; and that only six days later Darius was elected king of
Persia, which happened again at Susa, and not at Persepolis. The
monument, therefore, which Darius erected in the [Greek: proasteion],
or suburb, in the place where the fortunate event which led to his
elevation occurred, and the inscription recording the event in loco,
could not well be looked for at Persepolis. But far more important was
the evidence derived from a more careful analysis of the words of the
inscription itself. Niba, which Lassen translated as pomoerium,
occurs in three other places, where it certainly cannot mean suburb.
It seems to be an adjective meaning splendid, beautiful. Besides, niba
is a nominative singular in the feminine, and so is the pronoun hya
which precedes, and the two words which follow it--uva_s_pa and
umartiya. Professor Holtzmann translated therefore the same sentence
which Professor Lassen had rendered by 'hoc pomoerio ope equi
(Choaspis) clarae virtutis,' by 'quae nitida, herbosa, celebris est,' a
translation which is in the main correct, and has been adopted
afterwards both by Sir H. Rawlinson and M. Oppert. Sir H. Rawlinson
translates the whole passage as follows: 'This province of Persia
which Ormazd has granted to me, which is illustrious, abounding in
good horses, producing good men.' Thus vanished the horse of Darius,
and the curious confirmation which the cuneiform inscription was at
one time supposed to lend to the Persian legend recorded by Herodotus.
[Footnote 47: 'A Lecture on the Original Language of Zoroaster.' By
Martin Haug. Bombay, 1865.]
It would be easy to point out many passages of this kind, and to use
them in order to throw discredit on the whole method by which these
and other inscriptions have lately been deciphered. It would not
require any great display of forensic or parliamentary eloquence, to
convince the public at large, by means of such evidence, that all the
labours of Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen, and Rawlinson had been in vain,
and to lay down once for all the general principle that the original
meaning of inscriptions written in a dead language, of which the
tradition is once lost, can never be recovered. Fortunately, questions
of this kind are not settled by eloquent pleading or by the votes of
majorities, but, on the contrary, by the independent judgment of the
few who are competent to judge. The fact that different scholars
should differ in their interpretations, or that the same scholars
should reject his former translation, and adopt a new one that
possibly may have to be surrendered again as soon as new light can be
thrown on points hitherto doubtful and obscure--all this, which in the
hands of those who argue for victory and not for truth, constitutes so
formidable a weapon, and appeals so strongly to the prejudices of the
many, produces very little effect on the minds of those who understand
the reason of these changes, and to whom each new change represents
but a new step in advance in the discovery of truth.
Nor should the fact be overlooked that, if there seems to be less
change in the translation of the books of the Old Testament for
instance, or of Homer, it is due in a great measure to the absence of
that critical exactness at which the decipherers of ancient
inscriptions and the translators of the Veda and Zend-Avesta aim in
rendering each word that comes before them. If we compared the
translation of the Septuagint with the authorised version of the Old
Testament, we should occasionally find discrepancies nearly as
startling as any that can be found in the different translations of
the cuneiform inscriptions, or of the Veda and Zend-Avesta. In the
Book of Job, the Vulgate translates the exhortation of Job's wife by
'Bless God and die;' the English version by 'Curse God and die;' the
Septuagint by 'Say some word to the Lord and die.' Though, at the time
when the Seventy translated the Old Testament, Hebrew could hardly be
called a dead language, yet there were then many of its words the
original meaning of which even the most learned rabbi would have had
great difficulty in defining with real accuracy. The meaning of words
changes imperceptibly and irresistibly. Even where there is a
literature, and a printed literature like that of modern Europe, four
or five centuries work such a change that few even of the most learned
divines in England would find it easy to read and to understand
accurately a theological treatise written in English four hundred
years ago. The same happened, and happened to a far greater extent, in
ancient languages. Nor was the sacred character attributed to certain
writings any safeguard. On the contrary, greater violence is done by
successive interpreters to sacred writings than to any other relics
of ancient literature. Ideas grow and change, yet each generation
tries to find its own ideas reflected in the sacred pages of their
early prophets, and, in addition to the ordinary influences which blur
and obscure the sharp features of old words, artificial influences are
here at work distorting the natural expression of words which have
been invested with a sacred authority. Passages in the Veda or
Zend-Avesta which do not bear on religious or philosophical doctrines
are generally explained simply and naturally, even by the latest of
native commentators. But as soon as any word or sentence can be so
turned as to support a doctrine, however modern, or a precept, however
irrational, the simplest phrases are tortured and mangled till at last
they are made to yield their assent to ideas the most foreign to the
minds of the authors of the Veda and Zend-Avesta.
To those who take an interest in these matters we may recommend a
small Essay lately published by the Rev. R. G. S. Browne--the 'Mosaic
Cosmogony'--in which the author endeavours to establish a literal
translation of the first chapter of Genesis. Touching the first verb
that occurs in the Bible, he writes: 'What is the meaning or scope of
the Hebrew verb, in our authorised version, rendered by "created?" To
English ears and understandings the sound comes naturally, and by long
use irresistibly, as the representation of an ex nihilo creation. But,
in the teeth of all the Rabbinical and Cabbalistic fancies of Jewish
commentators, and with reverential deference to modern criticism on
the Hebrew Bible, it is not so. R. D. Kimchi, in his endeavour to
ascertain the shades of difference existing between the terms used in
the Mosaic cosmogony, has assumed that our Hebrew verb bara has the
full signification of ex nihilo creavit. Our own Castell, a profound
and self-denying scholar has entertained the same groundless notion.
And even our illustrious Bryan Walton was not inaccessible to this
oblique ray of Rabbinical or ignis fatuus.'