without the presence of Persian words, the presence of Persian ideas
might be detected by careful analysis. No doubt this is a much more
delicate process, yet, as we can discover Jewish and Christian ideas
in the Koran, there ought to be no insurmountable difficulty in
pointing out any Persian ingredients in Genesis, however disguised and
assimilated. Only, before we look for such ideas, it is necessary to
show the channel through which they could possibly have flowed either
from the Avesta into Genesis, or from Genesis into the Avesta. History
shows us clearly how Persian words and ideas could have found their
way into such late works as Tobit, or even into the book of Daniel,
whether he prospered in the reign of Darius, or in the reign of Cyrus
the Persian. But how did Persians and Jews come in contact, previously
to the age of Cyrus? Dr. Spiegel says that Zoroaster was born in
Arran. This name is given by mediaeval Mohammedan writers to the plain
washed by the Araxes, and was identified by Anquetil Duperron with the
name Airyana vae_g_a, which the Zend-Avesta gives to the first created
land of Ormuzd. The Parsis place this sacred country in the vicinity
of Atropatene, and it is clearly meant as the northernmost country
known to the author or authors of the Zend-Avesta. We think that Dr.
Spiegel is right in defending the geographical position assigned by
tradition to Airyana vae_g_a, against modern theories that would place
it more eastward in the plain of Pamer, nor do we hesitate to admit
that the name (Airyana vae_g_a, i. e. the seed of the Aryan) might
have been changed into Arran. We likewise acknowledge the force of the
arguments by which he shows that the books now called Zend-Avesta were
composed in the Eastern, and not in the Western, provinces of the
Persian monarchy, though we are hardly prepared to subscribe at once
to his conclusion (p. 270) that, because Zoroaster is placed by the
Avesta and by later traditions in Arran, or the Western provinces, he
could not possibly be the author of the Avesta, a literary production
which would appear to belong exclusively to the Eastern provinces.
The very tradition to which Dr. Spiegel appeals represents Zoroaster
as migrating from Arran to Balkh, to the court of Gustasp, the son of
Lohrasp; and, as one tradition has as much value as another, we might
well admit that the work of Zoroaster, as a religious teacher, began
in Balkh, and from thence extended still further East. But admitting
that Arran, the country washed by the Araxes, was the birthplace of
Zoroaster, can we possibly follow Dr. Spiegel when he says, Arran
seems to be identical with Haran, the birthplace of Abraham? Does he
mean the names to be identical? Then how are the aspirate and the
double r to be explained? how is it to be accounted for that the
mediaeval corruption of Airyana vae_g_a, namely Arran, should appear in
Genesis? And if the dissimilarity of the two names is waived, is it
possible in two lines to settle the much contested situation of Haran,
and thus to determine the ancient watershed between the Semitic and
Aryan nations? The Abbe Banier, more than a hundred years ago, pointed
out that Haran, whither Abraham repaired, was the metropolis of
Sabism, and that Magism was practised in Ur of the Chaldees
('Mythology, explained by History,' vol. i. book iii. cap. 3). Dr.
Spiegel having, as he believes, established the most ancient
meeting-point between Abraham and Zoroaster, proceeds to argue that
whatever ideas are shared in common by Genesis and the Avesta must be
referred to that very ancient period when personal intercourse was
still possible between Abraham and Zoroaster, the prophets of the Jews
and the Iranians. Now, here the counsel for the defence would remind
Dr. Spiegel that Genesis was not the work of Abraham, nor, according
to Dr. Spiegel's view, was Zoroaster the author of the Zend-Avesta;
and that therefore the neighbourly intercourse between Zoroaster and
Abraham in the country of Arran had nothing to do with the ideas
shared in common by Genesis and the Avesta. But even if we admitted,
for argument's sake, that as Dr. Spiegel puts it, the Avesta contains
Zoroastrian and Genesis Abrahamitic ideas, surely there was ample
opportunity for Jewish ideas to find admission into what we call the
Avesta, or for Iranian ideas to find admission into Genesis, after the
date of Abraham and Zoroaster, and before the time when we find the
first MSS. of Genesis and the Avesta. The Zend MSS. of the Avesta are
very modern, so are the Hebrew MSS. of Genesis, which do not carry us
beyond the tenth century after Christ. The text of the Avesta,
however, can be checked by the Pehlevi translation, which was made
under the Sassanian dynasty (226-651 A.D.), just as the text of
Genesis can be checked by the Septuagint translation, which was made
in the third century before Christ. Now, it is known that about the
same time and in the same place--namely at Alexandria--where the Old
Testament was rendered into Greek, the Avesta also was translated into
the same language, so that we have at Alexandria in the third century
B.C. a well established historical contact between the believers in
Genesis and the believers in the Avesta, and an easy opening for that
exchange of ideas which, according to Dr. Spiegel, could have taken
place nowhere but in Arran, and at the time of Abraham and Zoroaster.
It might be objected that this was wrangling for victory, and not
arguing for truth, and that no real scholar would admit that the
Avesta, in its original form, did not go back to a much earlier date
than the third century before Christ. Yet, when such a general
principle is to be laid down, that all that Genesis and Avesta share
in common must belong to a time before Abraham had started for Canaan,
and Zoroaster for Balkh, other possible means of later intercourse
should surely not be entirely lost sight of.
For what happens? The very first tradition that is brought forward as
one common to both these ancient works--namely, that of the Four Ages
of the World--is confessedly found in the later writings only of the
Parsis, and cannot be traced back in its definite shape beyond the
time of the Sassanians (Eran, p. 275). Indications of it are said to
be found in the earlier writings, but these indications are extremely
vague. But we must advance a step further, and, after reading very
carefully the three pages devoted to this subject by Dr. Spiegel, we
must confess we see no similarity whatever on that point between
Genesis and the Avesta. In Genesis, the Four Ages have never assumed
the form of a theory, as in India, Persia, or perhaps in Greece. If we
say that the period from Adam to Noah is the first, that from Noah to
Abraham the second, that from Abraham to the death of Jacob the third,
that beginning with the exile in Egypt the fourth, we are transferring
our ideas to Genesis, but we cannot say that the writer of Genesis
himself laid a peculiar stress on this fourfold division. The Parsis,
on the contrary, have a definite system. According to them the world
is to last 12,000 years. During the first period of 3,000 years the
world was created. During the second period Gayo-maratan, the first
man lived by himself, without suffering from the attacks of evil.
During the third period of 3,000 years the war between good and evil,
between Ormuzd and Ahriman, began with the utmost fierceness; and it
will gradually abate during the fourth period of 3,000 years, which is
still to elapse before the final victory of good. Where here is the
similarity between Genesis and the Avesta? We are referred by Dr.
Spiegel to Dr. Windischmann's 'Zoroastrian Studies,' and to his
discovery that there are ten generations between Adam and Noah, as
there are ten generations between Yima and Thraetaona; that there are
twelve generations between Shem and Isaac, as there are twelve between
Thraetaona and Manus_k_itra; and that there are thirteen generations
between Isaac and David, as there are thirteen between Manus_k_itra
and Zarathustra. What has the learned counsel for the defence to say
to this? First, that the name of Shem is put by mistake for that of
Noah. Secondly, that Yima, who is here identified with Adam, is never
represented in the Avesta as the first man, but is preceded there by
numerous ancestors, and surrounded by numerous subjects, who are not
his offspring. Thirdly, that in order to establish in Genesis three
periods of ten, twelve, and thirteen generations, it is necessary to
count Isaac, who clearly belongs to the third, as a member of the
second, so that in reality the number of generations is the same in
one only out of the three periods, which surely proves nothing. As to
any similarity between the Four Yugas of the Brahmans and the Four
Ages of the Parsis, we can only say that, if it exists, no one has as
yet brought it out. The Greeks, again, who are likewise said to share
the primitive doctrine of the Four Ages, believe really in five, and
not in four, and separate them in a manner which does not in the
least remind us of Hindu Yugas, Hebrew patriarchs, or the battle
between Ormuzd and Ahriman.
We proceed to a second point--the Creation as related in Genesis and
the Avesta. Here we certainly find some curious coincidences. The
world is created in six days in Genesis, and in six periods in the
Avesta, which six periods together form one year. In Genesis the
creation ends with the creation of man, so it does in the Avesta. On
all other points Dr. Spiegel admits the two accounts differ, but they
are said to agree again in the temptation and the fall. As Dr. Spiegel
has not given the details of the temptation and the fall from the
Avesta, we cannot judge of the points which he considers to be
borrowed by the Jews from the Persians; but if we consult M. Breal,
who has treated the same subject more fully in his 'Hercule et Cacus,'
we find there no more than this, that the Dualism of the Avesta, the
struggle between Ormuzd and Ahriman, or the principles of light and
darkness, is to be considered as the distant reflex of the grand
struggle between Indra, the god of the sky, and V_r_itra, the demon of
night and darkness, which forms the constant burden of the hymns of
the Rig-veda. In this view there is some truth, but we doubt whether
it fully exhibits the vital principle of the Zoroastrian religion,
which is founded on a solemn protest against the whole worship of the
powers of nature invoked in the Vedas, and on the recognition of one
supreme power, the God of Light, in every sense of the word--the
spirit Ahura, who created the world and rules it, and defends it
against the power of evil. That power of evil which in the most
ancient portions of the Avesta has not yet received the name of
Ahriman (i. e. angro mainyus), may afterwards have assumed some of the
epithets which in an earlier period were bestowed on V_r_itra and
other enemies of the bright gods, and among them, it may have assumed
the name of serpent. But does it follow, because the principle of evil
in the Avesta is called serpent, or azhi dahaka, that therefore the
serpent mentioned in the third chapter of Genesis must be borrowed
from Persia? Neither in the Veda nor in the Avesta does the serpent
ever assume that subtil and insinuating form as in Genesis; and the
curse pronounced on it, 'to be cursed above all cattle, and above
every beast of the field,' is not in keeping with the relation of
V_r_itra to Indra, or Ahriman to Ormuzd, who face each other almost as
equals. In later books, such as 1 Chronicles xxi. 1, where Satan is
mentioned as provoking David to number Israel (the very same
provocation which in 2 Samuel xxiv. 1 is ascribed to the anger of the
Lord moving David to number Israel and Judah), and in all the passages
of the New Testament where the power of evil is spoken of as a person,
we may admit the influence of Persian ideas and Persian expressions,
though even here strict proof is by no means easy. As to the serpent
in Paradise, it is a conception that might have sprung up among the
Jews as well as among the Brahmans; and the serpent that beguiled Eve
seems hardly to invite comparison with the much grander conceptions of
the terrible power of V_r_itra and Ahriman in the Veda and Avesta.
Dr. Spiegel next discusses the similarity between the Garden of Eden
and the Paradise of the Zoroastrians, and though he admits that here
again he relies chiefly on the Bundehesh, a work of the Sassanian
period, he maintains that that work may well be compared to Genesis,
because it contains none but really ancient traditions. We do not for
a moment deny that this may be so, but in a case like the present,
where everything depends on exact dates, we decline to listen to such
a plea. We value Dr. Spiegel's translations from the Bundehesh most
highly, and we believe with him (p. 283) that there is little doubt as
to the Pishon being the Indus, and the Gihon the Jaxartes. The
identification, too, of the Persian river-name Ranha (the Vedic Rasa)
with the Araxes, the name given by Herodotus (i. 202) to the Jaxartes,
seems very ingenious and well established. But we should still like to
know why and in what language the Indus was first called Pishon, and
the Jaxartes, or, it may be, the Oxus, Gihon.
We next come to the two trees in the garden of Eden, the tree of
knowledge and the tree of life. Dr. Windischmann has shown that the
Iranians, too, were acquainted with two trees, one called Gaokerena,
bearing the white Haoma, the other called the Painless tree. We are
told first that these two trees are the same as the one fig tree out
of which the Indians believe the world to have been created. Now,
first of all, the Indians believed no such thing, and secondly, there
is the same difference between one and two trees as there is between
North and South. But we confess that until we know a good deal more
about these two trees of the Iranians, we feel no inclination whatever
to compare the Painless tree and the tree of knowledge of good and
evil, though perhaps the white Haoma tree might remind us of the tree
of life, considering that Haoma, as well as the Indian Soma, was
supposed to give immortality to those who drank its juice. We
likewise consider the comparison of the Cherubim who keep the way of
the tree of life and the guardians of the Soma in the Veda and Avesta,
as deserving attention, and we should like to see the etymological
derivation of Cherubim from [Greek: gryphes], Greifen, and of Seraphim
from the Sanskrit sarpa, serpents, either confirmed or refuted.
The Deluge is not mentioned in the sacred writings of the
Zoroastrians, nor in the hymns of the Rig-veda. It is mentioned,
however, in one of the latest Brahma_n_as, and the carefully balanced
arguments of Burnouf, who considered the tradition of the Deluge as
borrowed by the Indians from Semitic neighbours, seem to us to be
strengthened, rather than weakened, by the isolated appearance of the
story of the Deluge in this one passage out of the whole of the Vedic
literature. Nothing, however, has yet been pointed out to force us to
admit a Semitic origin for the story of the Flood, as told in the
_S_atapatha-brahma_n_a, and afterwards repeated in the Mahabharata and
the Pura_n_as: the number of days being really the only point on which
the two accounts startle us by their agreement.
That Noah's ark rested upon the mountain of Ararat, and that Ararat
may admit of a Persian etymology, is nothing to the point. The
etymology itself is ingenious, but no more. The same remark applies to
all the rest of Dr. Spiegel's arguments. Thraetaona, who has before
been compared to Noah, divided his land among his three sons, and gave
Iran to the youngest, an injustice which exasperated his brothers, who
murdered him. Now it is true that Noah, too, had three sons, but here
the similarity ends; for that Terach had three sons, and that one of
them only, Abram, took possession of the land of promise, and that of
the two sons of Isaac, the youngest became the heir, is again of no
consequence for our immediate purpose, though it may remind Dr.
Spiegel and others of the history of Thraetaona. We agree with Dr.
Spiegel, that Zoroaster's character resembles most closely the true
Semitic notion of a prophet. He is considered worthy of personal
intercourse with Ormuzd; he receives from Ormuzd every word, though
not, as Dr. Spiegel says, every letter of the law. But if Zoroaster
was a real character, so was Abraham, and their being like each other
proves in no way that they lived in the same place, or at the same
time, or that they borrowed aught one from the other. What Dr. Spiegel
says of the Persian name of the Deity, Ahura, is very doubtful. Ahura,
he says, as well as ahu, means lord, and must be traced back to the
root ah, the Sanskrit as, which means to be, so that Ahura would
signify the same as Jahve, he who is. The root 'as' no doubt means to
be, but it has that meaning because it originally meant to breathe.
From it, in its original sense of breathing, the Hindus formed asu,
breath, and asura, the name of God, whether it meant the breathing
one, or the giver of breath. This asura became in Zend ahura, and if
it assumed the general meaning of Lord, this is as much a secondary
meaning as the meaning of demon or evil spirit, which asura assumed in
the later Sanskrit of the Brahma_n_as.
After this, Dr. Spiegel proceeds to sum up his evidence. He has no
more to say, but he believes that he has proved the following points:
a very early intercourse between Semitic and Aryan nations; a common
belief shared by both in a paradise situated near the sources of the
Oxus and Jaxartes; the dwelling together of Abraham and Zoroaster in
Haran, Arran, or Airyana vae_g_a. Semitic and Aryan nations, he tells
us, still live together in those parts of the world, and so it was
from the beginning. As the form of the Jewish traditions comes nearer
to the Persian than to the Indian traditions, we are asked to believe
that these two races lived in the closest contact before, from this
ancient hearth of civilisation, they started towards the West and the
East--that is to say, before Abraham migrated to Canaan, and before
India was peopled by the Brahmans.
We have given a fair account of Dr. Spiegel's arguments, and we need
not say that we should have hailed with equal pleasure any solid facts
by which to establish either the dependence of Genesis on the
Zend-Avesta, or the dependence of the Zend-Avesta on Genesis. It would
be absurd to resist facts where facts exist; nor can we imagine any
reason why, if Abraham came into personal contact with Zoroaster, the
Jewish patriarch should have learnt nothing from the Iranian prophet,
or vice versa. If such an intercourse could be established, it would
but serve to strengthen the historical character of the books of the
Old Testament, and would be worth more than all the elaborate theories
that have been started on the purely miraculous origin of these books.
But though we by no means deny that some more tangible points of
resemblance may yet be discovered between the Old Testament and the
Zend-Avesta, we must protest against having so interesting and so
important a matter handled in such an unbusinesslike manner.
_April, 1864._
VIII.
THE MODERN PARSIS.[50]
I.
It is not fair to speak of any religious sect by a name to which its
members object. Yet the fashion of speaking of the followers of
Zoroaster as Fire-worshippers is so firmly established that it will
probably continue long after the last believers in Ormuzd have
disappeared from the face of the earth. At the present moment, the
number of the Zoroastrians has dwindled down so much that they hardly
find a place in the religious statistics of the world. Berghaus in his
'Physical Atlas' gives the following division of the human race
according to religion:
Buddhists 31.2 per cent.
Christians 30.7 "
Mohammedans 15.7 "
Brahmanists 13.4 "
Heathens 8.7 "
Jews 0.3 "
[Footnote 50: 'The Manners and Customs of the Parsees.' By Dadabhai
Naoroji, Esq. Liverpool, 1861.
'The Parsee Religion,' By Dadabhai Naoroji, Esq. Liverpool, 1861.]
He nowhere states the number of the Fire-worshippers, nor does he tell
us under what head they are comprised in his general computation. The
difficulties of a religious census are very great, particularly when
we have to deal with Eastern nations. About two hundred years ago,
travellers estimated the Gabars (as they are called in Persia) at
eighty thousand families, or about 400,000 souls. At present the
Parsis in Western India amount to about 100,000, to which, if we add
5,500 in Yazd and Kirman, we get a total of 105,500. The number of the
Jews is commonly estimated at 3,600,000; and if they represent 0.3 per
cent of mankind, the Fire-worshippers could not claim at present more
than about 0.01 per cent of the whole population of the earth. Yet
there were periods in the history of the world when the worship of
Ormuzd threatened to rise triumphant on the ruins of the temples of
all other gods. If the battles of Marathon and Salamis had been lost,
and Greece had succumbed to Persia, the state religion of the empire
of Cyrus, which was the worship of Ormuzd, might have become the
religion of the whole civilised world. Persia had absorbed the
Assyrian and Babylonian empires; the Jews were either in Persian
captivity or under Persian sway at home; the sacred monuments of Egypt
had been mutilated by the hands of Persian soldiers. The edicts of the
great king, the king of kings, were sent to India, to Greece, to
Scythia, and to Egypt; and if 'by the grace of Auramazda' Darius had
crushed the liberty of Greece, the purer faith of Zoroaster might
easily have superseded the Olympian fables. Again, under the Sassanian
dynasty (226-651 A.D.) the revived national faith of the Zoroastrians
assumed such vigour that Shapur II, like another Diocletian, could
aim at the extirpation of the Christian faith. The sufferings of the
persecuted Christians in the East were as terrible as they had ever
been in the West; nor was it by the weapons of Roman emperors or by
the arguments of Christian divines that the fatal blow was dealt to
the throne of Cyrus and the altars of Ormuzd. The power of Persia was
broken at last by the Arabs; and it is due to them that the religion
of Ormuzd, once the terror of the world, is now, and has been for the
last thousand years, a mere curiosity in the eyes of the historian.
The sacred writings of the Zoroastrians, commonly called the
Zend-Avesta, have for about a century occupied the attention of
European scholars, and, thanks to the adventurous devotion of Anquetil
Duperron, and the careful researches of Rask, Burnouf, Westergaard,
Spiegel, and Haug, we have gradually been enabled to read and
interpret what remains of the ancient language of the Persian
religion. The problem was not an easy one, and had it not been for the
new light which the science of language has shed on the laws of human
speech, it would have been as impossible to Burnouf as it was to Hyde,
the celebrated Professor of Hebrew and Arabic at Oxford, to interpret
with grammatical accuracy the ancient remnants of Zoroaster's
doctrine. How that problem was solved is well known to all who take an
interest in the advancement of modern scholarship. It was as great an
achievement as the deciphering of the cuneiform edicts of Darius; and
no greater compliment could have been paid to Burnouf and his
fellow-labourers than that scholars, without inclination to test their
method, and without leisure to follow these indefatigable pioneers
through all the intricate paths of their researches, should have
pronounced the deciphering of the ancient Zend as well as of the
ancient Persian of the Achaemenian period to be impossible, incredible,
and next to miraculous.
While the scholars of Europe are thus engaged in disinterring the
ancient records of the religion of Zoroaster, it is of interest to
learn what has become of that religion in those few settlements where
it is still professed by small communities. Though every religion is
of real and vital interest in its earliest state only, yet its later
development too, with all its misunderstandings, faults, and
corruptions, offers many an instructive lesson to the thoughtful
student of history. Here is a religion, one of the most ancient of the
world, once the state religion of the most powerful empire, driven
away from its native soil, deprived of political influence, without
even the prestige of a powerful or enlightened priesthood, and yet
professed by a handful of exiles--men of wealth, intelligence, and
moral worth in Western India--with an unhesitating fervour such as is
seldom to be found in larger religious communities. It is well worth
the serious consideration of the philosopher and the divine to
discover, if possible, the spell by which this apparently effete
religion continues to command the attachment of the enlightened Parsis
of India, and makes them turn a deaf ear to the allurements of the
Brahmanic worship and the earnest appeals of Christian missionaries.
We believe that to many of our readers the two pamphlets, lately
published by a distinguished member of the Parsi community, Mr.
Dadabhai Naoroji, Professor of Guzerati at University College,
London, will open many problems of a more than passing interest. One
is a Paper read before the Liverpool Philomathic Society, 'On the
Manners and Customs of the Parsees;' the other is a Lecture delivered
before the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, 'On the
Parsee Religion.'
In the first of these pamphlets, we are told that the small community
of Parsis in Western India is at the present moment divided into two
parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals. Both are equally attached
to the faith of their ancestors, but they differ from each other in
their modes of life--the Conservatives clinging to all that is
established and customary, however absurd and mischievous, the
Liberals desiring to throw off the abuses of former ages, and to avail
themselves, as much as is consistent with their religion and their
Oriental character, of the advantages of European civilisation. 'If I
say,' writes our informant, 'that the Parsees use tables, knives and
forks, &c., for taking their dinners, it would be true with regard to
one portion, and entirely untrue with regard to another. In one house
you see in the dining-room the dinner table furnished with all the
English apparatus for its agreeable purposes; next door, perhaps, you
see the gentleman perfectly satisfied with his primitive good old mode
of squatting on a piece of mat, with a large brass or copper plate
(round, and of the size of an ordinary tray) before him, containing
all the dishes of his dinner, spread on it in small heaps, and placed
upon a stool about two or three inches high, with a small tinned
copper cup at his side for his drinks, and his fingers for his knives
and forks. He does this, not because he cannot afford to have a
table, &c., but because he would not have them in preference to his
ancestral mode of life, or, perhaps, the thought has not occurred to
him that he need have anything of the kind.'