ZARATHRUSTRA AND THE DATE OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE AVESTA.[118]
The examination of the difficult questions, whether, from what period,
and to what extent, the Avesta was known in Western Iran before the time
of Alexander, when the book came into existence, whether its contents
have come down uninjured from an ancient period, or whether it underwent
alterations in the time of the Parthians and the Sassanids, will be best
opened by collecting and testing the accounts which have been preserved
in the West about Zarathrustra and his work. Herodotus does not mention
him, but Xanthus the Lydian is said to have spoken of him, before the
date of Herodotus. Plato describes Zoroaster as the founder of the
doctrine of the Magians, and calls him a son of Oromazes.[119] With
Hermodorus, a pupil of Plato, Zoroaster is a Persian, the first
Magian.[120] Deinon concludes from the name that he was a worshipper of
the stars. Hermippus of Smyrna speaks of him as a Bactrian, and is said
to have described him as a pupil of Azonakes (or Agonakes).[121]
Diodorus informs us that Zoroaster gave out among the Arians that the
good spirit had revealed to him the laws which he published.[122] Trogus
Pompeius relates that Ninus finally carried on war with Zoroaster the
king of the Bactrians, who discovered the art of the Magians, and
inquired accurately into the primal forces of the world, and the
movements of the stars; he was slain by Ninus.[123] Pliny observes that
Zoroaster, the founder of the doctrine of the Magians, smiled on the day
of his birth, and beat his head vigorously as a symbol of his wisdom;
for thirty years he lived in the desert on cheese. Plutarch's account is
that Zoroaster took no other food or drink all his life but milk, and
like Lycurgus and Numa, he associated with the Divine Being.[124] Dio
Chrysostom tells us that Zoroaster from his love for wisdom and justice
lived remote from men in solitude on a mountain, which had been kindled
by fire from above, and burned continuously, and when the king
approached the mountain with his leading men to offer prayer to the god,
Zoroaster came unharmed out of the fire, and bade them offer sacrifice
for the god had visited the place. After this Zoroaster did not
associate with all men, but only with those who were most adapted to
receive the truth and converse with the god, whom the Persians called
Magians, _i.e._ those who have skill to serve the Divine Being.[125]
Kephalion asserted that Zoroaster the Magian, the king of the Bactrians,
fought with Semiramis and was vanquished by her.[126] Theon of
Alexandria also speaks of the conflict between Semiramis and the
Bactrian Zoroaster. Arnobius is aware of the battle of Ninus with
Zoroaster and the Bactrians,[127] and in Eusebius Zoroaster, the Magian,
the king of the Bactrians, fights against Ninus.[128] According to the
treatise of Eubulus of Athens on Mithras, Porphyrius related that
Zoroaster had consecrated a natural cave, in which were flowers and
springs, in the neighbouring mountains of Persia, in honour of Mithra,
the creator and father of all, and since that time the favour of the god
had been sought in a cave.[129] Ammianus Marcellinus calls Zoroaster a
Bactrian, and tells us that Hystaspes, the father of Darius, spread
abroad the doctrine of the Magians.[130] Agathias remarks that the
Persians of his time asserted that Zoroaster, or Zaradus, as they called
him, who gave them their religious doctrine and law, the son of
Oromasdes, lived at the time of Hystaspes; but they made the assertion
in such a manner that no man knew whether this Hystaspes was the father
of Darius or some other of the name. But whatever the date of his life,
he changed the earlier forms of worship, and was the discoverer of the
doctrine of the Magians.[131] Suidas distinguishes between the
Perso-Mede Zoroaster, the chief of the Magians, and the astronomer of
the same name, an Assyrian, who lived at the time of Ninus.[132] In
Syncellus, Zoroaster is the first of the eight Median kings, who,
according to the statement of Berosus, reigned over Babylonia from 2458
to 2224 B.C.[133]
These statements do not amount to much. Yet we find the tradition
maintained from the pupils of Plato down to Agathias, that Zoroaster
founded the doctrine of the Magians; Diodorus, Plutarch, and Dio mention
the intercourse of Zoroaster with the good spirit or the deity.
Diodorus calls him an Arian, _i.e._ an inhabitant of Eastern Iran.
Hermippus, Trogus Pompeius, Kephalion, Theon, Arnobius, and Eusebius
speak of him as a Bactrian, and the king of the Bactrians, and represent
him as fighting with Ninus or Semiramis, which is also asserted by Moses
of Khorene.[134] Hence in the last two centuries B.C. it must have been
known in the West that Zoroaster belonged to the East of Iran, and thus
he was brought into connection with the most prominent fact known in the
history of Bactria, the contest of the Bactrians against Ninus and
Semiramis. This story, as we said, comes from the Medo-Persian Epos, and
moreover the Epos did not authorise this connection of Ninus and
Zoroaster. The opponent of Ninus, who reigned over Bactria, was,
according to Diodorus, Oxyartes or Exaortes (p. 20). The fact that
Zoroaster was the most important name in the antiquity of Iran among
western nations obviously induced Syncellus to put him at the head of
the supposed ancient Median dynasty. If Zoroaster, as Pliny and Plutarch
think, lived only on milk and cheese, and passed thirty years in the
wilderness, these are merely traits taken from the lives of the Brahman
ascetics. The story in Dio Chrysostom, that Zoroaster came unharmed from
the fire, and the opposite statements of the Chronicle of Alexandria and
of Suidas, that he brought down fire from heaven and was consumed by it,
or struck by lightning, contain traits which have obviously sprung from
the importance which the doctrine of Zoroaster and the Magians ascribe
to the worship of fire, and from the division between the fire of
lightning and earthly fire, of which we shall speak below. The narrative
of Eubulus is founded on the mysteries of Mithra, which came into the
West in the first century B.C.[135] These mysteries are due to the
confusion of the Mithra of the Iranians with the sun-god of the Syrians;
the mystae were consecrated in caves, or in places called caves, and
there underwent their probation. As the god of light and the soul Mithra
slays in the cave, that is in the world of gloom and matter, the bull
which is the symbol of matter, as opposed to light, in its creative
power, and conveys the soul, the side of man akin to light, out of the
gloom of matter through the heaven of the fixed stars, and then through
the heaven of the planets, to the light.[136] Ammianus Marcellinus and
Agathias have better information about Zoroaster. They are aware that he
stands in some relation to Hystaspes. Ammianus, though he expressly
describes Zoroaster as a Bactrian, puts Hystaspes the well-known father
of Darius, as the supporter of the doctrine of the Magians, in the place
of the Vistacpa of the Avesta, who opens a wide path for the teaching of
Zoroaster; Agathias, on the other hand, expresses himself with greater
circumspectness; he cannot decide whether the father of Darius or some
other Hystaspes is meant.
The result is this: Before the time of Alexander of Macedon, at the
latest in the first half of the fourth century B.C., the Greeks were
aware that Zoroaster had founded the doctrine of the Magians; in the
last centuries B.C. and onwards it was known that he belonged to Bactria
and Eastern Iran; but it was not till the fourth century A.D. that he
was known to have lived under king Hystaspes; at any rate we have no
older evidence on this point.
Much more recent in date, and of far less value, is the information
derived from the East, with the exception of the Avesta, on
Zarathrustra. It does not go back beyond the period of the Arabian
empire over Iran. The Bundehesh, written in this period (p. 65, _n._ 3),
contains a genealogy, which carries Zarathrustra's origin beyond
Pourushacpa and Haechatacpa, from whom, according to the Avesta, he was
sprung (p. 38), through twelve generations to Manuschithra (Minocher).
In the Avesta, the soul of the pure Manuschithra, the son of Airyu, is
invoked;[137] it has been observed above that the national genealogy in
Iran placed Thraetaona, and not Manu, at the head; Airyu, the son of
Thraetaona, was the proper progenitor of the Airyas. With the name
Manuschithra, _i.e._ scion of Manu, who is now the son of Airyu, this
table passed back into the old Arian conception of the father Manu (p.
44). In the Avesta, Zarathrustra is connected by his father, the fourth
sacrificer of the Haoma, with the old sacrificers; and by deriving his
family from Manuschithra the Bundehesh places him in the closest
relation to the progenitors of the Airyas. For the rest this book has
little to say about the life of Zoroaster. It informs us that the house
of Pourushacpa lay on a hill on the river Daraja, a river which we
cannot identify;[138] the Bundehesh places it in Airyana Vaeja
(Airanvij), in a district which we must place in the high region of the
Hindu Kush, on the sources of the Oxus (p. 31, _n_. 2), though the
Bundehesh informs us that "it lay by the side of Atropatene." According
to another passage in the book, Airyana Vaeja lay near the garden of
Yima and Cashmere. In a third passage the garden of Yima, which we are
compelled by unmistakable indications in the Avesta, to seek on the
divine mountain, lies in the centre of Iran, under Mount Damkan.[139]
Atropatene, as a name for the Alpine land in the north-west of Iran (now
Aderbeijan), came into use in the time of the Greek empire; at any rate
we cannot trace it earlier.[140] _Athrapaiti_ means "lord of fire";
_athrapata_, "one protected by fire"; in the remote mountains of this
district the old fire-worship was preserved with peculiar zeal under the
Seleucids; from the time of Ardeshir the Sassanids venerated the
fire-temple Adar Gucasp (near Takht-i-Soliman), which lay in this
region, above all others, and this was the reason why in the time of the
Arabs it was thought that Airyana Vaeja must be sought there.[141] In
any case it is impossible, out of regard to the Bundehesh and even later
statements of the Moslem period, to place Zarathrustra in the north-west
of Iran in order to represent him as a foreigner, reforming the religion
of the north-east, when the Avesta, which distinctly places him in the
east and puts him among the sacrificers and heroes of the east and
rulers of Bactria, together with the older and more important evidence
of the West, is on the opposite side.
The "Book of Zartusht," one of the most recent books of the Parsees (it
dates from the thirteenth century of our era), can only tell us of the
marvellous preservation of Zarathrustra and the miracles which he
wrought. The first miracle recorded in it is the fact that Zoroaster
smiled at his birth. But the wicked king Duransarun sought to murder the
newly-born child in his cradle. His arm is paralysed, and he cannot
strike the blow home. Then the evil spirits steal the child, kindle a
great fire in the desert, and throw him into it. But he sleeps
peacefully in the fire, and his mother recovers him without injury. A
herd of cattle are about to trample him on a narrow path, when the
largest one stands over and protects him, till the herd have passed by.
In a similar manner he is preserved when a pair of wild horses are
driven over him. Even the wolves will not eat him. When he has reached
his thirtieth year these trials are over, and Zarathrustra emigrates
with his followers. On reaching Iran the good spirit Vohu mano appeared
and conducted him to Auramazda. He had to pass over a fiery mountain,
but the fire did not singe a hair; molten metal was poured on his
breast, and he felt it not; his entrails were removed and then replaced
without injury to him. Auramazda gave him the Avesta and commanded him
to go to king Vistacpa (now Kai Gushtacp) to Balkh, and proclaim it to
him. In Balkh Zoroaster overcame the sages of the king in argument, but
they maligned him before their master as a wizard, and he was put in
prison. Then the feet of the king's horse were drawn up into its belly,
and the king bade Zarathrustra heal his horse. He required the king to
believe in him and his doctrine; and when the king had acknowledged the
new faith, one of the horse's feet was restored to it. Zarathrustra
further demanded that Vistacpa's son Cpentodata (Isfendyar) should
consecrate himself to the defence of the new faith, that the king's
consort should adopt the law, and those who maligned him should be
punished. When these three requests had been complied with, the horse
recovered all its four feet. After this Vistacpa did nothing without the
advice of Zarathrustra, and built fire-altars and fire-temples. And
Zarathrustra showed the king the place he would one day occupy in
heaven, and made Cpentodata invulnerable.[142]
Hence from the Bundehesh we obtain no more than the genealogical tree of
Zarathrustra, which though characteristic for the place allotted to him,
is without historical value; and from the Zartusht Nameh, Sharastani,
and Mirkhond, which repeat some miracles more or less similar to those
quoted, we gather nothing beyond certain traits: the smiling at birth,
the fiery mountain, the preservation of Zarathrustra in the fire, which
Pliny and Dio Chrysostom had already made known to us, and which belong
to the ancient tradition of Iran. In the miracles which take place by
means of oxen and horses, we can merely recognise the ancient and close
relation of the Arians in Iran to these animals, a relation which has
already been remarked (p. 46). We might perhaps add that Firdusi
represents Zarathrustra, whom he puts beside Vistacpa, as having been
killed at a fire in Balkh when the city was captured by Turanians. The
intercourse of Zarathrustra with Auramazda was known to Western writers,
as we saw, at a far earlier date.
If we can hardly glean anything worth notice from these accounts about
Zarathrustra's life and work, we may perhaps gain some information about
his date. The evidence of Ammianus Marcellinus and Agathias, when they
represent him as a contemporary of Hystaspes, in whom we recognise
Vistacpa of Bactria, carries us no further than the Avesta, which places
him in the closest relation to this prince (p. 38), because his date is
equally uncertain. Trogus Pompeius, Kephalion, Theon, and Eusebius make
Zarathrustra an opponent and therefore a contemporary of Ninus and
Semiramis. But as neither Semiramis nor Ninus ruled over Asshur, and
they are to be regarded as the personification of the rise of the power
and dominion of that country (II. 23), we must substitute for this king
and queen the ruler or rulers of Asshur of whom it is certain that their
campaigns reached the east of Iran. We found that so far as we can at
present judge from the monuments it was only Shalmanesar II. who
received tribute from the Eastern lands, and that the armies of Tiglath
Pilesar II. trod the soil of Arachosia (p. 19). If we could assume that
the contests of Ninus and Semiramis have taken the place of the
achievements of these rulers in the East of Iran, the date of Vistacpa
and Zarathrustra would have to be placed between 860 and 740 B.C. But
this supposition is really without any basis.
The more ancient statements of the Greeks carry us much further back
than the reasoning of Trogus Pompeius and his successors. If we set
Pliny aside, who asserts "that the kind of Magism established by
Zoroaster was many years older than that taught by Moses," Hermippus of
Smyrna puts Zoroaster 5000 years before the Trojan war. Even before
Hermippus, Theopompus of Chios, and Hermodorus, the pupil of Plato, had
ascribed the same date to him. Eudoxus of Cnidus, the contemporary of
Plato, placed him still higher; he thought that Zoroaster lived 6000
years before the death of Plato. According to Pliny, Aristotle ascribed
to him the same antiquity, and, as we learn from Diogenes Laertius,
maintained that the Magians were older than the Egyptians. And even in
the fifth century B.C., Xanthus the Lydian is said to have written that
from the time when Zoroaster lived to the march of Xerxes against Hellas
a period of 6000 years had elapsed.[143]
Through these statements there runs, beyond all doubt, a system, the
knowledge of which began in the fifth century B.C. among the Greeks and
continued beyond the time of Alexander. Whether we take 5000 years
before the Trojan war, or 6000 years before Plato's death, we are
equally brought back into the seventh millennium B.C. If the later
statements of the West, which make Zoroaster a contemporary of Ninus and
Semiramis, are the results of combining the most prominent name in
Bactria with the conquest of Bactria by the founder of the Assyrian
power, as related in the Medo-Persian Epos, the fixing of Zoroaster's
date so many thousand years previously must have been taken by the
Greeks from the Persians. In these dates we seem to be dealing with
certain cyclic periods. We learn from Theopompus of Chios, that
according to the doctrine of the Magians, one of the two gods Oromazdes
and Areimanius would reign and the other be subject for 3000 years; for
another 3000 years they would be in conflict, and one destroy the works
of the other, until at length Areimanius would succumb and men become
happy.[144] From this we may with certainty conclude that periods of
3000 years were in use among the priests of Iran to denote certain
spaces of time, and that these cycles form the base of the statements of
the older Greeks, if we can prove the use of such periods in the Avesta
or in the books of the Parsees.
In the fragments of the Avesta which have come down to us we find
invocations addressed to the "time without beginning," "the time that
rules the long periods."[145] But the fact that Yima's reign is fixed
at 1000 years shows that the priests of Iran reckoned by long periods,
and other expressions in the Avesta (p. 33) prove that triple
multiplications were in use,[146] which agrees with the periods given by
Theopompus. If, therefore, the Greeks of the fifth and fourth century
B.C. relate that Zarathrustra lived about 6000 years before their time,
a system must by that time have been current among the priests of Iran
in which two cycles of 3000 years were supposed to have elapsed since
the time of the prophet, and the third cycle had commenced. A book of
the Parsees, the Mainyo-i-Khard, which appears to have been written
towards the close of the empire of the Sassanids,[147] tells us that
Angromainyu made a compact with Auramazda for 9000 winters, and when
these winters were past, Angromainyu would be destroyed, and the
creation and all creatures would be as Auramazda had made them.[148] The
Bundehesh also speaks of a similar compact, but divides the years in a
different manner. All time consists of 12,000 years. In the first 3000
Auramazda reigned alone with the creatures which he had created in an
invisible manner; for the first 3000 of the next 9000 everything went
according to the will of Auramazda; for the second 3000 the will of
Auramazda was crossed by that of Angromainyu, but for the last 3000
Angromainyu will be powerless. The Bundehesh goes into yet further
detail in these matters: in the first 3000 years the heavenly creation
was secure from attack; in the next 3000 Gayo maretan and the ox,
_i.e._ the first man and the first bull, came into existence. After
these 6000 years the enemy arose and slew the first man and the first
bull. The reign of Yima is placed by the Bundehesh in the first
millennium of the new period, but this reign extends only to 716 years,
the first 284 years of the thousand being filled with creatures prior to
Yima. The second millennium of the period is occupied with the reign of
Thraetaona, Manuschithra, Kava Kavata, Uca, Hucrava, and Aurvatacpa, and
the early part of the reign of Kava Vistacpa, whose thirtieth year
coincides with the end of the second millennium.[149] At the beginning
of the third millennium, _i.e._ a thousand years after the death of
Yima, Zarathrustra appears; and the period of more successful opposition
to the evil spirits begins. According to the more ancient conception,
which may still be plainly traced in the Avesta, the world began with
the happy age of Yima; it is owing to later views formed within priestly
circles that earlier creatures such as the first man and first bull are
placed before this period; but it will be shown below that these views
existed when the Avesta was written down. A later book of the Parsees,
the Sad-der-Bundehesh, puts the period of the conflict between the good
and evil deity at 6000 years, and places Zarathrustra exactly in the
middle of it; he was created 3000 years after the period of Gayo
maretan, and 3000 years before his own resurrection.[150] Hence it is
clear that the formation of these cycles rose among the priests of Iran
from the necessity of limiting the period of the old and new law, and of
conflict between the good and evil spirits, and the desire to fix the
date of the more successful repulse of evil which came in with
Zarathrustra. The abbreviation of the period of Yima shows us that the
cycles in the Bundehesh do not throughout agree with those of the
Avesta. But it is sufficient to establish the fact that periods of 3000
years were in use, and that Zarathrustra appeared at the beginning of a
new millennium, in order to understand that the Persians could speak to
the Greeks of millenniums in this sense, and of one or two cycles which
had elapsed since Zarathrustra's time.
The idea and tendency of such a scheme for the history of the world are
easily understood: these periods of 3000 years, which can be increased
or diminished without alteration of the sense, have only a dogmatic
value. We cannot obtain from them any chronological date for the
appearance of Zarathrustra, nor can we obtain such a date by the attempt
to go back from the chronological statements in recent Parsee works to
the older periods. We may leave unnoticed the assertion in the book of
Arda Viraf that the true faith had existed in purity for 300 years down
to the time that Alexander came into Iran (p. 50), which would thus
bring Zarathrustra into the seventh century B.C. The Bundehesh allows
460 years for the reigns of the Sassanids, 246 for the Askanids, _i.e._
the Arsacids, 16 for Alexander, before whom come Darai the son of Darai
with 14 years, Darai Chirazatan with 12, Huma (a queen) with 30,
Vohumano with 112, and Vistacpa with 90,--all subsequent to the
appearance of Zarathrustra.[151] According to this, 996 years elapsed
between Zarathrustra and the fall of the Sassanids, and he would thus,
if we reckon from the battle of Nahavend (640 A.D.), be placed in the
year 356 B.C., in the reign of Artaxerxes Ochus. But even if we alter
the incorrect items in the text of the Bundehesh in accordance with our
better knowledge, we do not arrive at any result which is even
apparently certain. The dominion of the Sassanids, down to the date of
the battle, did not last 460 but only 414 years; on the other hand, the
Arsacids reigned for 476 years, not for 264.[152] The empire of
Alexander, if we add the reigns of the Seleucidae to his own, occupied 80
years instead of 14, and if in the place of the 26 years of the two
Darais of the Bundehesh, who represent the kingdom of the ancient
Achaemenids, we put the old Persian kingdom with 229 years, and add to
these items the numbers given in the Bundehesh for Huma, Vohumano, and
Vistacpa, after the appearance of Zarathrustra, which amount to 232
years, Zarathrustra would have commenced his work 1431 years before the
battle of Nahavend, _i.e._ in the year 791 B.C. But who can guarantee
that Cyrus, the Persian, overthrew the empire of the Medes in the year
when Huma, the supposed daughter of Vohumano, died; or that Huma reigned
for 30 years? How could Vohumano, the grandson of Vistacpa, and son of
Cpentodata (p. 38), have reigned 112 years, and Vistacpa himself 90
years after the appearance of Zarathrustra? Huma is not merely a
doubtful person, she is altogether fictitious. She is said to have been
the mother of Darai Chirazatan, _i.e._ Darius I., and to have been
called Shamirain, _i.e._ Semiramis, but her brother was the first
Sassan, the ancestor of the Sassanids. As the later Arabs and Persians,
including Firdousi, are no better informed,[153] we see clearly that the
remembrance of the Achaemenids had almost entirely died out at the time
when these writings were composed; only the name of Darius remained,
and an attempt was made to connect this name with Vistacpa by two
fictitious names, Vohumano, _i.e._ the good spirit, and Huma. Besides
Vistacpa's son Cpentodata (Isfendyar) and Hutaoca, the wife of Vistacpa,
the Avesta mentions a woman, "the pure Huma,"[154] out of whom this
queen must have been formed. It is clear that the tradition of the East,
like the Avesta, broke off in the generation after Vistacpa, and that in
the Arabian period only the names Darai and Iskander could be placed
between Vistacpa and the Arsacids.
We must attempt to reach the goal by another path. I have already shown
what was the condition of the sacred scriptures in Iran at the date of
Alexander and the Seleucids (p. 55). Even before Hermippus of Smyrna,
Aristotle had taught that the Magians considered that to be the best in
the first instance which was first created, and maintained two
principles, a good and evil deity, Oromazdes and Areimanius.[155]
Theopompus mentioned both these deities and the strife between them, and
when he adds that there would one day be a time when the dead would rise
again, and men would be immortal and able to withstand everything by
their prayers--that after the victory of Oromazdes men would be happy
and need no longer any sustenance, and would cast no shadow[156]--it
will be seen below how definitely and exactly the doctrine of the Avesta
is here reproduced. Hermodorus mentions a series of teachers, who
succeeded the first teacher of the Magians, the "Persian Zoroaster,"
down to the campaign of Alexander of Macedon.[157] With Eudoxus of
Cnidus Zoroaster was the founder of the most beneficent wisdom; the
pupils of Prodicus claimed to be acquainted with the writings of
Zoroaster (p. 53). Plato calls him the son of Oromazdes, and adds that
the heir to the throne was instructed in Magism as well as in the duty
of being true during the whole of his life.[158] The importance which
the Avesta ascribes to truthfulness will become clear hereafter. If the
Greeks of the fourth century could speak of Zoroaster as the teacher of
the Persians, and put him in the closest relation with Auramazda, if
they could reproduce correctly the names of the good and evil spirits
and the main doctrines of the Avesta, it is an inevitable conclusion
that the religion of Zarathrustra must have prevailed in the kingdom of
the Achaemenids.
This result is confirmed by all the further information which we obtain
from the Greeks. In Plutarch the last Darius calls on an eunuch, "to
tell the truth in reverence for the great light of Mithra"; the eunuch
replies that the king has no reason to accuse the evil spirit, and
entreats "Lord Oromazdes," "that he may cause the light of the king to
shine again."[159] Artaxerxes II. was informed by his mother Parysatis
that the Persians had received the law which distinguished good and evil
from god. He swears "by Mithra," and Plutarch tells us how some related
that when Darius, the eldest son of Artaxerxes, who sought his life, was
slain, Artaxerxes went into the court of the palace and cried aloud to
the Persians: "Rejoice, ye Persians, and tell it to others, that the
great Oromazdes has executed judgment on those who imagined crime and
wickedness."[160] In Plutarch, Artaxerxes I. says to Themistocles: "May
Areimanius ever implant such a disposition in my enemies that they may
drive from themselves their best and bravest men."[161] According to
Deinon the Magians prophesied with branches in their hands, sacrificed
under the open sky, and looked on fire and water as the only symbols of
the divinity.[162] Xenophon represents Cyrus as praising the gods and
sacrificing to them every morning according to the instructions of the
Magians.[163] Though Herodotus does not mention either the name of
Zarathrustra or of Auramazda, what he says of the rites of the Medes and
Persians agrees exactly with the rules given in the Avesta. "Temples,
images, and altars," he says, "are not erected by the Persians, because,
as it seems to me, they do not believe like the Hellenes that the gods
have the form and nature of men. They call the whole circle of heaven
Zeus, and offer sacrifice to him after ascending the summits of
mountains. Besides Zeus they have from ancient days sacrificed to the
sun, the moon, the earth, water, winds, and fire, which among the
Persians is a deity:[164] the winds they also charm by songs. When
offering sacrifice they build no altar and kindle no fire, nor pour
libations, nor make any use of flutes, or cakes, or barley meal. If any
one wishes to offer sacrifice he brings the victim to an open space, and
calls on the god, after crowning his tiara with branches of myrtle.
After cutting the animal in pieces, and cooking the flesh, he spreads
out the most delicate grass, chiefly trefoil, and lays the flesh upon
it. The Magian who stands by sings the theogony over it, for such,
according to the Persians, is the nature of the prayer. After some time,
the person who has made the sacrifice carries the flesh away and uses it
for a feast. The Magians, in whose control is the worship by sacrifice,
make it a great object to kill ants, serpents, and other creeping winged
things: dogs and men only do they spare. No Persian may pollute a river,
nor even wash in it, nor will they allow any one else to do so, for they
have a great reverence for rivers. The bodies of the dead may not be
burned; it is said indeed that the corpse of a Persian cannot be buried
till it has been torn by a dog or a bird, and among the Magians this is
an acknowledged practice. It is a meritorious act among the Persians to
have many children, and he who can show the most receives gifts each
year from the king. Each man celebrates the day on which he was born
above all other days. What may not be done, may not be spoken of amongst
the Persians: the most shameful action is lying, and the next to this is
borrowing, for the reason that a man who has debts is generally
compelled to lie. Any one afflicted by the itch or the leprosy may not
come into the cities or mix with other Persians; and it is believed that
such persons have sinned against the sun-god. Lepers from foreign lands
are driven out of the country." When Xerxes came to the Hellespont, and
was about to cross the bridge, Herodotus represents him as praying to
the sun-god, pouring libations from a golden cup, and throwing it with a
golden goblet and a Persian sword into the sea.[165] We shall see
hereafter to what a degree the killing of noxious animals, the reverence
for rivers, the expulsion of lepers, the delight in life and the
increase of life, the exposing of dead bodies, and singing of the
theogony at sacrifices, correspond to the rules and doctrines of the
Avesta. In one point only is Herodotus mistaken: he states that the
Persians worshipped a female deity called Mithra.
From this array of witnesses belonging to the West it follows that the
doctrines of the Avesta, and the religion of Zarathrustra, were current
among the Persians and in Western Iran at any rate after the beginning
of the fifth century B.C., and they must therefore have been in
existence in Eastern Iran at a still earlier date. The inscriptions of
the Achaemenids prove that the doctrine of the Avesta was maintained
among the Persians with even greater clearness and for a period more
ancient. Artaxerxes Ochus prays to Auramazda, Anahita, and Mithra for
their protection, and in like manner Artaxerxes Mnemon prays to
Auramazda and Mithra. In the inscriptions on Mount Behistun, Darius I.,
the son of Hystaspes, styles Auramazda "the greatest of the gods"
(_mathista baganam_). Besides Auramazda, "the rest of the gods" are
repeatedly mentioned, and denoted by the name Baga. Of Auramazda, Darius
and Xerxes say in their inscriptions: "A great god is Auramazda; he has
created the heaven and the earth; he has created man and all that is
good for men." After crushing in the beginning of his reign the
rebellion of nearly all the lands which Cyrus had reduced, Darius
repeatedly records his thanks: "that Auramazda had granted him
assistance; that his army had been victorious by the grace of
Auramazda." He and his successors acknowledge that they have received
their throne and their kingdom from Auramazda; by his grace they are
kings.[166] The reason why Auramazda has assisted him Darius finds in
the fact that he has not been a "liar," and has committed no sin. He
entreats Auramazda to protect the land against the invasion of hostile
armies, against blight, and "the lie" (_drauga_). He asserts that "the
lie" caused the provinces which had revolted to be rebellious, and
declares that the land of Persia, which Auramazda has granted to him,
which is beautiful, rich in horses, and well populated, has no fear of
enemies owing to Auramazda's grace, and his own. He commends his
inscription at Behistun to the protection of his successors, with the
words: "If thou destroyest not this tablet then may Auramazda be thy
friend; may thy descendants be numerous, and thy life be long, and
whatsoever thou undertakest, may Auramazda cause it to succeed. But if
thou destroyest it, may Auramazda smite thee, and thy house perish; and
whatever thou doest, may Auramazda render it of no effect."[167] On his
tomb Darius says: "What I have done I have done by the grace of
Auramazda. O man, this is the prayer of Auramazda; think no evil, leave
not the right way, sin not." The inscriptions of Xerxes regularly end
with the invocation: "May Auramazda protect me, with all the gods; me,
my kingdom, and my work."
As we shall see, the fundamental principle of the religion of
Zarathrustra is that a supreme god stands over all gods, and to him is
ascribed the work of creation. In entire belief in the power of this
supreme deity, whom the Achaemenids invoke by the name which is given to
him in the Avesta, "who has created heaven and earth and all that is
good for men," Darius ascribes to Auramazda victory in battles, the
power of granting or refusing success to the king's undertakings, of
protecting the land against hostile invasions, blight, and lies. To
those who live according to his commands he grants long life and
numerous descendants. The rebellion of the provinces is with Darius the
work of the lie, the lie of him who had given himself out to be the son
of Cyrus, and the lie of those who had claimed to be the descendants of
Nebuchadnezzar and Cyaxares. We have already observed what "the lie"
meant in the Avesta. In the same spirit--the spirit of the principal
rules of the Avesta--Darius adjures his Persians to think no evil, and
not to leave the right path.
Nicolaus of Damascus assures us that the Persians were acquainted with
the sayings of Zoroaster. He and others relate that Cyrus or his father
was called Atradates, _i.e._ given by fire,[168] and that he had given
to the Areians (p. 11), who provided his famished army with sustenance,
the honourable title of Orosangians, i.e. _Huverezanha_ (benefactors).
It is in harmony with the doctrine of the Avesta that Cyrus should be
represented by such a descent or name as the gift and nursling of fire,
and we shall see with what emphasis the Avesta marks and distinguishes
good thoughts, words, and actions. From these facts and the inscriptions
of Darius there can be no doubt that Zarathrustra's doctrine was current
among the Persians at the time of Cyrus. But if it was in force in the
West of Iran in the sixth century B.C. the fact that Herodotus, in his
account of the period during which the Medes obtained the dominion, down
to the time of Cyrus, speaks of no change in religion, either among the
Persians or the Medes, is evidence that this religion existed at any
rate before the time of Phraortes. The statement found in Herodotus that
Deioces had forbidden any one to spit in his presence, reminds us of the
rules of the Avesta, by which no one was allowed to approach the sacred
fire and gods with uncovered mouth, and on the sculptures of Persepolis
the bearer of the fan stands with covered mouth beside Darius. The
seven walls which Herodotus represents Deioces as building round
Ecbatana, the seven tribes of the Persians, remind us of the seven
girdles of the earth in the Avesta; the king of the Persians surrounded
by the six tribal princes is the symbol of Auramazda and the six gods
who are about him.
Hence we may assume that the doctrine of Zarathrustra had reached the
West of Iran at the time when Phraortes united the tribes of the Medes
(about 650 B.C.), and was known among the Medes when they were still
living under their tribal chiefs and paid tribute to Asshur, or, in case
of refusal, were attacked by the Assyrian armies, which, as we
ascertained from the inscriptions of the kings of Asshur, was the case
from the time of Tiglath Pilesar II. to the time of Assurbanipal, _i.e._
from the middle of the eighth to the middle of the seventh century B.C.
A statement in Herodotus seems to lead us still further back. He calls
the Magians a race or tribe of the Medes. According to his narrative
this tribe was in existence in the time of Deioces, _i.e._ about the
year 700 B.C. Herodotus could only speak of the Magians as a tribe or
family when they had become an hereditary order. At that time,
therefore, there must have been among the Medes a priesthood who
perpetuated in their families their worship by sacrifice, their doctrine
and wisdom, as well as their social importance. Like all Greeks,
Herodotus ascribes the discharge of the religious functions among the
Persians and Medes to the Magians, and we find that what Herodotus
quotes of their rites agrees with the rules of the Avesta. The rise and
separation of a peculiar order of priests, their more or less sharply
marked distinction from the remaining orders, can never be the work of a
short space of time, and such separation can only take place when the
worship of the gods requires a knowledge which is not easily accessible
or obtainable, when doctrine has obtained a place by the side of belief,
when ritual has become developed, and particular duties and rules are
prescribed for the life of the priests. When the worship of the gods
requires the use of long and definite prayers, the knowledge of
complicated usages, on which depends the effect of the sacrifices, and
the observation of numerous rules of purification,--such knowledge is
only perpetuated in families of hierophants or priests, or in schools
which take the place of such families. The formation of a distinct
hereditary order on such grounds can hardly have occupied less than a
century from the time when the doctrine, on which it is formed, was
introduced. Hence we may assume that the doctrine known as
Zarathrustra's reached the Medes before the year 750 B.C., _i.e._ before
the date of Tiglath Pilesar II. of Assyria.
Let us hold firmly to the facts that the worship of Auramazda was
current among the Persians about the middle of the sixth century B.C.,
that the same worship was in force among the Medes at least a century
earlier, about 650 B.C., and that if an hereditary priesthood was in
existence about this time among the Medes who performed and conducted
the worship, the doctrine which this priesthood represented must have
been adopted before the year 750 B.C. In this way we obtain a proof that
the doctrine of Zarathrustra was not only in existence in the East of
Iran about the year 800 B.C., but was the dominant creed there, and had
force enough to penetrate to the West, and win over the neighbouring
tribes of the Medes and Persians.
We cannot explain more exactly how the doctrine of Zarathrustra reached
the nations of the West of Iran. Pliny, it is true, exclaims: "Who knows
the Medes, who were taught by Zoroaster, Apusorus, and Zaratus, even by
hearsay, for no memorials of them are left?"[169] According to this the
religion of Zoroaster spread even in the West by the influence of
eminent men among the Medes. But the date of the persons mentioned
cannot be fixed, though Porphyry represents Pythagoras as going to the
Chaldaeans and Zabratus, by whom he was purified from the evil of his
former life, and instructed as to the things from which the disciple
should restrain himself, and about the nature and beginning of all
things,[170] and this Zaratus or Zabratus may be intended for
Zarathrustra himself. Hermodorus tells us that Zarathrustra had been
followed by many Magians as teachers, one after the other, down to the
time when Alexander marched against Persia: these teachers were
Osthanes, Astrampsychus, Gobryas, and Pazates.[171] Others also assert
that Zoroaster was followed "by Osthanes and Astrampsychus."[172] Pliny
observes that so far as he could discover, Osthanes who accompanied
Xerxes in the war against the Hellenes, was the first who had written on
the doctrine of the Magians. The second Osthanes, whom Alexander had
received among his followers, had caused this religion to be of great
importance. From the work of one of these two persons, Philo of Byblus
quotes a passage--the work he calls the Octateuch--and Pliny notes down
apparently some of the doctrines of the first Osthanes. If then there
were men under the Achaemenids in the West of Iran who could write on the
doctrine of Zarathrustra from the beginning of the fifth century B.C.,
we can without hesitation believe the statement that long before this
time there were prophets and teachers of the doctrine among the Medes
and the Persians.
Can we go beyond the result thus gained by our investigation?--that the
doctrine of Zoroaster flourished in Eastern Iran about 800 B.C., and
advanced towards the West from this period; may we assume that at this
date it was already in possession of written monuments, and even that
the fragments of the Avesta which still remain were in existence then?
We must first answer the question whether the use of writing in Iran,
especially in the East, goes back so far.
According to the statements of Herodotus, the West of Iran was not only
in possession of the art of writing by the year 700 B.C., but made
considerable use of it. He tells us that Deioces required complaints to
be sent in to him in writing, and gave out his decisions also in
writing. If processes at law were conducted in writing in Media about
the year 700 B.C., it cannot be surprising that Herodotus should also
inform us that letters passed between Media and Persia about the year
560 B.C.[173] We learn from the Hebrew Scriptures that when Cyrus
allowed the Jews, whom Nebuchadnezzar had removed to Babylon, to return
to their homes, he gave his permission for the restoration of the temple
in writing. This document was afterwards discovered in the archives of
Ecbatana.[174] We know it for a fact that Darius I. gave his orders to
the satraps in writing, and we are acquainted with the seal of Darius by
which they were authenticated. The oldest inscriptions which have come
down to us from the Achaemenids, not to mention a seal of Cyrus from
Senkereh, belong, if not to Cyrus himself, to Darius, and begin about
the last quarter of the sixth century B.C. It is the cuneiform writing
of Assyria and Babylon which forms the basis of the writing in these
inscriptions, but with considerable alterations. The highly complicated
syllabarium of the Eastern Semites is reduced to a phonetic system; we
might almost say to an alphabet of about 40 letters. A change of this
kind can hardly have been made at one stroke. If it was after they
entered into closer combination with Assyria, _i.e._ after their
dependence on the king of Asshur, which began with the accession of
Tiglath Pilesar II. (745 B.C.), that the Medes became acquainted with
the Assyrian system of writing, this must have been completely mastered
before it could be abbreviated and altered, as it was altered by the
Medes, whose changes were adopted by the Persians. The cuneiform writing
of Western Iran, as we find it in the inscriptions of Darius, can
therefore hardly have been established before the year 600 B.C. However
this may be, the facts mentioned prove that the writing of the Assyrians
in the seventh century B.C. was not unknown in the West of Iran. This
would therefore have passed into the East of Iran in its original or
simplified form, either at some earlier period, or when the East came
under the dominion of the Achaemenids. But it did not, and this is a
plain proof that the East, when the cuneiform writing of the West came
in that direction, was already in possession of another kind of writing.
This Eastern mode of writing, the Arian, which rests on an entirely
different basis from the cuneiform, is first known to us from coins and
inscriptions of the third century B.C.; but it certainly would not have
maintained its ground under the Achaemenids against the writing of the
West, and of the rulers, magistrates, and dominant nation, unless it had
been in vigorous use before, this period. We must therefore assume that
the Arian character was in use in the East of Iran a considerable time
before the date of Cyrus, and hence we have no reason to deny the
existence of it in that region in the eighth century B.C., since we must
allow the neighbouring Arians of India to have been in possession of
their written characters from the year 800 B.C. at the least (IV. 155).
If we may assume that the Arian character was in use in the East of Iran
about the year 800 B.C., the prayers and sayings of Zarathrustra might
have been written down about this date, and the doctrine might have
passed on to the West supported by written documents. But the fact that
the prayers might have been written down is in no way a proof that they
were so written.
It is true that at first sight it seems that the part of the law which
has come down to us (the Vendidad) leads to the conclusion that it was
written down long before the Persians gained the dominion over Iran, and
Media became a powerful state under Cyaxares. The book does not mention
the name of the Persians or the Medes, of Ecbatana or Persepolis, while
Bactria is spoken of as the seat of the empire; the most westerly
district mentioned in the Vendidad is Ragha in Eastern Media.[175] If we
add that the book reproaches certain districts in the East, the land of
the Arachoti and others, with deviations from the doctrine of
Zarathrustra, and that Ragha is indeed Zoroastrian but wavering in its
fidelity, we may easily conclude that the Vendidad was written when the
doctrine of Zarathrustra had not as yet thoroughly penetrated the East,
and was still unknown in the West, when it had just reached, but had not
yet completely conquered, the district of Ragha. The Medes were still
dependent on Asshur, living separately according to their tribes,
Ecbatana was not yet the centre and metropolis of Media, and the kingdom
of Bactra was still in existence in the East. This points to a date
about 750 B.C. as the time when this doctrine must have spread widely
over Media; at any rate to a date before the rise of the Median power,
_i.e._ before 650 B.C. This conclusion is not, however, absolutely
certain. The silence of the Vendidad and of the Avesta generally on
Ecbatana and Persepolis, the Medes and the Persians, can be explained in
another though a more artificial manner. The nations and chief cities of
the West were unknown to the tradition of Eastern Iran, and the royal
abodes of the Medes and Persians were not consecrated by the action of
Zarathrustra. In the accounts given by the Greeks of the worship of
these nations, in spite of much agreement, points are found at variance
with the rules of the Avesta, and as a fact certain distinctions did
prevail. The doctrine had arisen in the East, and the priesthood there
was in possession of the purer and more orthodox dogma. If Persia and
Media did not follow this in all respects, it was convenient to be
silent about the differences in the time of the Achaemenids, or if any
one desired to brand them, to mark out the Median Ragha as the seat of
heresy, rather than Pasargadae or Persepolis. This explanation it is true
is somewhat far fetched. The result that the religion known by the name
of Zarathrustra had reached the Medes and Persians by the middle of the
eighth century B.C. is in no way weakened by it, though the assumption
that at this period written documents of this doctrine were in
existence, and that the book of the law of which we have fragments arose
in the first half of the eighth century B.C., is rendered more doubtful
if such a mode of interpretation is admitted.
The forms of language preserved in the Avesta have not survived with
sufficient distinctness to assist us in fixing the time at which it was
written down. As was shown above (p. 65), the manuscripts date from the
later period of the Sassanids; they are written in the later
East-Pehlevi character, and at a time when the old forms must have
undergone changes owing to the language which had come into use in the
mean time, and can in fact be proved to have undergone them. The old
sounds are obviously modified and confounded,[176] so that the language
of the Avesta, when compared with that of the inscriptions of the
Achaemenids, exhibits forms less ancient and fixed, and indeed in some
cases it is more recent than the language of the legends of the
Graeco-Bactrian coins (p. 27). Nor can any certain conclusions be drawn
from the condition of political and social life shown in the Avesta. It
is only the splendour of regal power in general, the old sacrificers,
heroes, and kings that are extolled in it; a sacrificial prayer to
Mithra speaks of the abode of the Arians, where "horse-guiding rulers
govern noble troops;" for the rest we hear only of lords of villages, of
tribes or cantons, and provinces, and of three orders into which the
people are divided. The Vendidad, it is true, reckons by winters and
nights, not by years and days; the amount of fines and punishments is
computed in animals, goats, sheep, oxen, horses, or camels; and these
facts point to an ancient period, but they may have been handed down by
tradition. We also hear of the value of these animals and of money
(_shaeta_).[177] This is the less surprising as the Vendidad speaks of
palaces and pillars and various works of art, and mentions
smelting-ovens and even ovens for making glass. We found that the Greek
princes of Bactria struck square coins, which they would not have done
if this had not been the traditional form in Bactria (p. 28). The
Achaemenids did not strike coins of this kind, and this shape must
therefore have come down from a period anterior to them. The frequent
mention of the physician, on the other hand, ought not to be regarded as
a proof of later composition, for we hear of the physician and his
remedies in ancient poems of the Veda (IV. 35).
In regard to the antiquity of the Avesta, then, we can only build upon
the simple facts that it cannot have been written down for the first
time when the Buddhists found adherents in Bactria (IV. 542), or when
the kingdom of the Greek princes arose in Bactria, or when the Seleucidae
and Alexander, before them, reigned over Iran. It has been proved that
the Avesta was in existence before Alexander overthrew the kingdom of
the Achaemenids. The series of the successors of Zarathrustra, which
western writers could trace backwards from this point--Osthanes II.,
Pazates, Gobryas, Osthanes I., Astrampsychus, Apusodorus--plainly shows
that even under the Achaemenids the West was seriously occupied with
religious questions. As Osthanes I. had written on the doctrine of
Zoroaster about the time of Xerxes (p. 92), it is at least more probable
than not that the Avesta was already in existence at that time. If in
the West there was a series, and as the Greeks point out, a continuous
series, of priestly teachers, round whom naturally pupils and schools
grew up, and after the beginning of the fifth century a theological
literature, similar teachers and schools must have existed long before
in the East, and this greatly strengthens the conclusion drawn from the
contents of the Vendidad, that it must have been written down before the
rise of the Medes. But for any more precise determination of the date of
the Avesta between the two limits obtained--the year 750 B.C., _i.e._
the beginning of the formation of a priesthood in the West and the
contemporary use of writing in the East, and the year 350 B.C.--we are
confined wholly to internal evidence.
Scriptures of such extent as the Avesta is shown to have been, by the
accounts of the Greeks and Arabs, and the list of contents (p. 51), and
the existing fragments, could not have been written down at once or
within a brief space of time. We saw (p. 33) that it set up a religious
canon, which not only regulated the doctrine and the worship, the duties
of priests and laity, but also comprised the law, and in a word all the
relations of life. A codification of this kind is only possible when
belief and doctrine, culture and ritual, have arrived at fixed and
complete formulae, have been arranged in a system and developed, and the
consequences bearing on life, morality, and law have been drawn from
them by an active and influential priesthood. Hence before the Avesta
was written down and collected there must have been a priestly order in
the East, in the circles of which the doctrine and practice went through
this developing, revising, and fixing process. Various sketches, lists
of prayers for certain offerings, collections of rules belonging to this
or that priesthood or school, must have been in existence, and
combinations of the traditional material must have been made, before a
canon comprising the whole wisdom of the priests, and far exceeding in
extent the law of Manu, could have been compiled.
Among the existing invocations of the Avesta we find sacrificial
prayers of a primitive character; but the greater part of the prayers
and thanksgivings are without religious feeling or poetical power, and
very far removed from the richness and abundance, the beauty and
freshness of conception, which streams through the majority of the hymns
of the Veda. There are not wanting _naive_ and poetical pieces which
have obviously been handed down and preserved by their use at
sacrifices, but these are frequently spoiled by later interpolations,
and the form of the whole is generally dry and prosaic. We find but
scanty relics of any vigorous conception of the gods, of a living
mythology; on the whole the mythical element is faded, and the sacrifice
of animals thrown into the background. The greater part of the prayers
receive their value from a certain system and completeness; the object
is to bring forward all the characteristics of the deity to which they
are addressed, and to invoke him by all his names. Thus laudations and
epithets are repeated without end. A good many of the prayers are mere
nomenclatures, and repeat the same forms in varying order. Besides this
tendency, which is far removed from the original simplicity of religious
meditation, a value is ascribed to the repetition of certain prayers.
Some are to be said a hundred, or a thousand times. In the same way the
liturgies are long and full of detail, and sometimes take the form of
responses between the celebrant and the ministering priest; they are
extremely careful to neglect none of the heavenly spirits or genii, or
to injure them by omission, or treat them with less respect than others.
Beside the faded colours of the mythology, the decreasing importance of
animal sacrifice, and the formalism of the prayers, we observe in the
five Gathas, the invocations which alone have preserved the
verse-measure, and present older forms of language than the rest, a
tendency to speculation. Not only are the good and evil spirits combined
under one head, as is always the case in the Avesta, but the Gathas
attempt to resolve the contrast of the beneficial and harmful sides of
nature, of the good and evil spirits, into the reciprocal play of two
fundamental forces; they identify the prosperity and destruction of
nature with moral good and evil, and combine the one with truth, the
other with falsehood. The good spirits are the truth, the evil are the
lie. The life of appearance and of falsehood is distinguished from the
true life, and the service of truth promises life not in this world only
but in the next. It is in harmony with these tendencies to abstraction
that, according to other passages of the Avesta, heaven is filled with a
multitude of the most lifeless personifications of ideas and realities.
Could the doctrine of a new religion in an early period come forward
with such a spiritualised system, with such elevated moral demands, such
abstract conceptions? Could prayers of such a kind have been composed or
written down in a primitive age?
The existing fragment of the book of the law is composed in the form of
a dialogue, and is for the most part filled with conversations which
Zarathrustra carries on with Auramazda. Zarathrustra inquires what is to
be done in certain cases against the evil spirits, the Daevas, on the
commission of certain sins and impurities. What must be done when a
woman is in labour, etc., or when any one has made himself impure by
touching a corpse, or has slain a water-dog (otter)? Is the rain impure
which has fallen on a corpse and then runs off from it, etc.? These
questions Auramazda answers very precisely, and when it is a matter for
expiation and purification, he fixes the number of stripes with the
horse-whip or the whip of the sacred Craosha (Craosha-charana) which the
penitent is to receive. It is a theory and practice of purity, on a
level with the analogous rules in the laws of Manu, and in some points
even more subtle and casuistical. The offences have already been brought
under definite categories, and in like manner the purifications and
punishments fall into a number of distinct classes. Not only are
expiations required for all sins and prescribed down to the minutest
details, but the offences must also be repented of; certain formulae of
confession and repentance are prescribed.
We need not stop to prove that a book of laws in this form could not
have been written down _a priori_. The rules for punishment and
purification must have grown up in long practice, before they could be
put in the mouth of the deity; difficulties and doubts must have been
weighed before solutions could be proposed. The book contains the
dialogues and inquiries which were held in the schools of the priests on
questions of this kind, the practice which prevailed in the schools and
the catechisation of the pupils. The answer is naturally placed in the
mouth of Auramazda, for it was the answer which he once gave to the
question when asked by Zarathrustra. The fragments of the Vendidad are a
catechism, the result of the labour of the priestly schools, a system of
rules and regulations which marks and postulates the same stage of
development for Iran as was reached for the Indians on the Ganges by the
law of Manu. Many periods in the religious life must have been passed
through before the religious consciousness was no longer shocked by the
fact that the supreme deity in person answered petty questions of
ritual, and dictated in the most exact gradation and with regard to
every possible variety of circumstance, the number of stripes required
for the criminals.
This faded mythology and formalised worship, these speculative attempts
and casuistry of law, are accompanied by a completely-arranged scheme of
certain abstract categories already established. Throughout the whole
Avesta runs the division between this world and the next, between the
corporeal and incorporeal world, truth and falsehood, and the triple
distinction of thinking, speaking, and acting, of thought, word, and
deed. And when we further consider that rewards are attached to the
reading of sections of the Avesta, that the "long study" of the
"thoughts of the pure man," "the excellent knowledge, thought, and
conception" are praised and invoked as divine powers, no one will be
inclined to see in the Avesta the product of _naive_ religious feeling,
or the deposit of a priestly civilisation which is as yet in its early
stages.
Still, if we wish to avoid making any false steps in the conclusions to
be drawn from the nature of the Avesta about the time of its
composition, we must bear in mind that it contains some conceptions
which are the exact opposite of the characteristics just noticed. The
myth of Yima, the form of Mithra, the descent of plants, prove older
traits in the Avesta than we find in the Veda; the old gods still occupy
a large space beside Auramazda and the abstract forms of heaven, and
strict unity of system is not yet attained. We must remember also at
what an early date the neighbours of Eastern Iran, the Arians of India,
arrived at meditation and abstraction; how quickly and entirely they
allowed animal sacrifice to pass into the background; with what breadth
and detail they developed the rules for purification; how numerous were
the daily prayers and repetitions, before the religious feeling became
weakened. In the Avesta the time without limit is frequently invoked;
among the Indians the gods of light are even in the oldest hymns of the
Veda the sons of Aditi, _i.e._ of the Eternal or the Infinite. And if
the attitude of the Avesta is for the most part by far more flat and
prosaic than that of the Veda, the Arians of Iran were of a more logical
nature, and the glow of imagination which the land of the Ganges kindled
in their kindred tribes did not exist in Iran. For this reason the
consideration of the character of the Avesta can only lead us to the
result that a period of several centuries must have elapsed between the
rise of the religion named after Zarathrustra and the writing down of
the Avesta; that lists of prayers and rubrics must have been in
existence about the year 800 B.C.; that the extensive books which then
formed the Avesta may have been written in the first half of the period,
which we ascribed to them, extending from 750 to 350 B.C. In any case we
can maintain that the Gathas were composed, and that the Avesta existed
in its essential parts in the East of Iran, before Cyrus put the empire
of the Persians in the place of the empire of the Medes, and all the
various parts were collected together before the "Enlightened" began to
preach on the Ganges, _i.e._ about the year 600 B.C.
We have already remarked the importance which the Achaemenids ascribed to
the possession of Bactria (p. 23); and we were able at any rate to guess
at the civilisation of that district about the year 500 B.C., from the
amount of the tribute imposed upon it by Darius. That the economic
civilisation was not behind the material was shown by indications in the
Avesta. The kingdom which grew up there, as we saw (p. 47), long before
the days of the Medes, and in which about the year 800 B.C. the
doctrine of Zarathrustra was current, succumbed to Cyrus, the great
founder of the Persian empire. If we place the beginning of the doctrine
of Zarathrustra, which first made its appearance there, before the
middle of the ninth century B.C., at which time the armies of
Shalmanesar II. reached the East of Iran, and assume that it came
forward about 1000 B.C., we shall hardly place its rise too high. We
remember that about this time occurred the great change in the religious
conceptions of the Arians in India, the repression and degradation of
the old gods by Brahman. It was an analogous development when the good
and evil spirits of Bactria were combined into unities, and placed under
leaders, when the chief of the deities of light was made the creator of
the heaven and the earth, and surrounded with abstract forms, which
contest the traditional place and honour of the old god. It is the same
religious impulse, the desire to grasp the unity of the divine nature,
the same line of combination that we observed in its beginning and
progress in India, which comes to the surface in the doctrine of
Zarathrustra. We have no reason to contest with the Avesta the fact that
Vistacpa ruled over Bactria when this change took place, or that
Zarathrustra, a man of the race of Haechatacpa, gave the impulse to the
reform, and that the leading idea in it belongs to him. If Vistacpa
ruled over Bactria about the year 1000 B.C. the growth of the Bactrian
monarchy must be placed at least a century before this time, _i.e._
about the year 1100 B.C.
FOOTNOTES:
[118] [Cf. Darmesteter, "Zend-Avesta," Introduct., c. iv. Sec. 40, and c.
iii.]
[119] Plato. "Alcib. I." p. 122.
[120] Diog. Laert. prooem.
[121] Plin. "H. N." 80, 2.
[122] 1, 94.
[123] Justin, 1, 1.
[124] "Numa," c. 4; "Quaest. Sympos." 4, 1. [The reading [Greek:
Zoroastren] is doubtful; cf. Wyttenbach.]
[125] Dio Chrys. 2, 60, ed. Dind.
[126] Euseb. "Chron." ed. Auch. p. 43; cf. Georg. Syncell. p. 167.
[Greek: Batou] after Zoroaster should here be changed into [Greek:
Baktrou] rather than [Greek: Magou].
[127] Arnob. "Adv. Gent." 1, 5.
[128] Euseb. _loc. cit._ p. 35.
[129] Porphyr. "De antro nymph." c. 6.
[130] Ammian. Marcell. 23, 6.
[131] Agathias, 2, 24.
[132] Suidas, [Greek: Magoi, Zoroastres].
[133] Above, p. 17. Georg. Sync. p. 78, 79. Vol. I. p. 241, 247.
[134] Yet with Moses Zoroaster is a Mede, I. p. 87.
[135] Plut. "Pomp." c. 24.
[136] Cf. Von Gutschmid, "Die Sage vom heiligen Georg;" Saechsische
Gesellschaft d. W., 1861, s. 175.
[137] "Farvardin Yasht," 131.
[138] C. 20 in Justi, [c. 20; Sec. 32 West]; cf. "Vend." 19, 15.
[139] C. 30, cf. above, p. 40. [C. 29, Sec. 14, West.]
[140] Strabo, p. 515, derives it from Atropates, whom Alexander made
satrap there.
[141] Still less important than the Bundehesh is the gloss on "Vend." 1,
60. "Many say that Zartusht was from Rak in Atropatan." Ragha is not in
Atropatene.
[142] Spiegel, "Eran," 1, 684 ff.
[143] Plin. "H. N." 30, 2. Diogen. Laert. prooem. The different readings
of 500 years in Suidas and 600 in Diogenes, as compared with 5000 and
6000 in the other MSS., can hardly be maintained against the uniform
evidence of other witnesses.
[144] Plut. "De Isid." c. 47.
[145] "Vend." 19, 33; Spiegel, "Avesta," 3, 9, 201, 206.
[146] "Ashi Yasht," 17; "Vend." 2, 20 ff.
[147] West, "Mainyo-i-Khard," p. x.
[148] West, _loc. cit._ c. 8.
[149] Justi, "Bundehesh," c. 1, 3, 34. [Cf. West's commentary on c. 34.]
[150] Spiegel, "Eran," 1, 507.
[151] Justi, "Bundehesh," c. 34.
[152] If the rise of Arsaces is put in the year 250 B.C. It makes no
difference in the total if we choose the year 248 B.C. for the beginning
of the Arsacids.
[153] Blau, "Z. D. M. G." 18, 686. Von Gutschmid, _ibid._
[154] "Farvardin Yasht," 139.
[155] Aristot. "Metaph." 13, 4. Diogen. Laert. prooem.
[156] Theopom. Fragm. 71, 72, ed. Mueller.
[157] Diogen. Laert. prooem., cf. Suidas, [Greek: Magoi].
[158] "Alcib. I." p. 121.
[159] Plut. "Alex." c. 30.
[160] Plut. "Artax." c. 4, 23, 29.
[161] "Themistocl." c. 28.
[162] Dinon, Fragm. 9, ed. Mueller.
[163] "Cyri Instit." 8, 1, 21.
[164] Herod. 3, 16.
[165] Herod. 1, 101, 131-140; 7, 40, 43, 113, 191; 3, 84.
[166] Inscription of Darius at Elvend in Spiegel, "Keilinscriften," s.
45, 47.
[167] Behistun, 4, 73-80; 56-61; Persop.
[168] Strabo, p. 719; Nicol. Damasc. fragm. 66, ed. Mueller.
[169] Plin. "H. N." 30, 2; 28, 19.
[170] "Vita Pythag." 12.
[171] Diogen. Laert prooem.
[172] Suidas, [Greek: Magoi].
[173] Herod. 1, 100, 124, 125.
[174] Ezra, c. v., vi.
[175] The Nica of the Vendidad is the Eastern Nica, Parthorum Nisaea, not
very far from Merv; above, p. 10, _n._ 1.
[176] Lepsius, "Ueber das ursprungliche Zendalphabet," Abh. B. Akad.
1862, s. 298, 306, 381.
[177] "Vendid." 4, 120; Astad Yasht, 1.