1037 



ZEND-AVESTA. 



ZEND-AVESTA. 



1038 



in which the oldest documents of their religion were composed. 

 | ZoD-A VESTA.] It became current as such in Europe through Auquetil 

 du Perron, who took the word Zend as the name of the language of 

 the Avesta, and Pazend as that of a corrupted dialect of the Zend. 



, ',ew, however, has been shown by modern investigations to rest 

 i'ii a mistaken interpretation of a passage of the ' Ormuzd-Yesht,' and of 

 one taken from the ' Ulema-i-Islain '; for it is now certain that Thomas 

 Hyde, whose work on the religion of the old Persians is the first note- 

 worthy essay on this subject, was quite correct in calling Zend and 

 1 not languages, but books. In confirmation of his view, one 



.; from the Persian Dictionary Burhan-i-Qati will suffice. It 



urns as follows : " Zend is the name of a book which, as Ibrahim 



Zerdusht affirmed, had come down from heaven on his account. 



Others say that it is the name of a book of Abraham ; and others again 



in that Zend and Pazend are two works or parts of this book. 



i-> also the name of a Turanian Vezir of Sohrib, the son of 



lu, who was killed by liustem Pazend is a commentary 



' ii the Zend, aud Zeud is a book of Zerdusht. Some, however, reverse 

 this definition, by saying that Zend is a commentary on the Pazend. 

 Again, others maintain that Zend and Pazend are two books on fire- 



. ;]>, composed by Ibrahim Zerdusht; aud one author says that 



i ! is a translation of the Zend." (Spiegel, ' Grammatik der 

 jirauke,' p. 3.) This passage clearly shows that neither Zend nor 

 i is the name of a language or dialect, but it likewise gives 

 evidence of the difficulty which even learned Persians evinced in ascer- 

 taining the correct meaning of the terms. Nor can we ainrm that it is 

 definitely solved by the present results of Oriental philology. Dr. 

 Friedrich Spiegel, who has translated into German the sacred writings 

 of the Parsees, expresses himself to the following effect (Introduction 

 to' Avesta, die heiligen Schriften der I'arsen,' Leipzig, 1852, p. 45) : 

 " Avesta, or, in its older form, Apestak, means literally the te.cl, and 

 is the only correct designation which the later Parsees use for the text 

 of their sacred writings whenever they do not employ the term din, or 

 ' law,' which word, however, is probably to be taken in a more limited 

 sense. In the invocations of the Yas'na, and elsewhere in the oldest 

 ) } iod, the expression man Art fpento (that is, the holy speech) occurs for 

 the sacnxl writings, and this expression has survived under the form 

 i M.ineer i,|>ent. For the language of this oldest period, the Parsees 

 u*e the expressions, lanyuaye of the Manthra,langua<jc of tltc Ai-eata, 

 d'jf TiutZoul, a word not yet sufficiently explained, 



r ted to designate the commentary on the sacred books, probably 

 the Hu/varesh translation. The language of this translation is railed 

 by the Parsees llun'i'n-eili, from the Zend huzaothra, that is, bonum 

 Kacrilicium habens. In connection with Zend we always meet with 



I, which word seems to mean the commentary on this tr.ins- 

 Ution." 



A v. i'l'jly different opinion on this subject is given by another 



r, whose labours have for many years been devoted to an 

 :ng of the old Parsce writings. In a lecture he has 



iy (on the 1st of March, IStil) delivered at Poona, on the Origin 

 of the Par<ce religion. Dr. II. liaug makes the following state- 



: " 1 have discovered in most of the books now extant, Yas'na, 

 Viaporatu, Vcndidad, and V;i.^lits, all the three classes of the . 

 religi" literature which are spoken of by ancient Mohaia- 



writers and Persian lexicographers, viz., Avesta, that is, 

 ' original text,' Zend, that is, ' commentary,' and I'fuend. that is, 



iiatory notes of the commentary.' The opinion of the Parsee 



that Zend and Pazend are names of languages is wholly wrong. 



three classes may be best discriminated in the YendidAd, or 



code of religious, civil, aud criminal laws, customs, and usages, chiefly 



in its fourth chapter. We find that verse 1 (in \Vestergaards edition) 



sta, being an ancient and scarcely more intelligible law ; 2-10, 

 its Zend, or commentary; 11-16, Pazend, or further explanation of 

 the coimm'iit.iry. I shall treat this subject, as well as many other 

 things fully in my ' Essays on the sacred writings and religion of the 

 I'.ir.iecs,' to be published, as I hope, in the course of this year." 



-liter into any speculation on the different periods of the language 



i'f the Avesta would be premature, after the confession made by the 



/.end scholars, that they are unable as yet to cope with the 



I. -rable difficulties which beset its study. We must, therefore, 



ii' ourselves here to the statement that this language, which as 



how passes by the erroneous name of Zend, is one of the 



;ck, and bears so great and intimate an affinity to 



the Sanskrit of the Vcdas, that without a knowledge of the latter, we 



ibly never have arrived at a correct appreciation of the 



.1; language of the Avesta. The ingenious comparisons be- 



, Ixjth languages made by the celebrated Sanskrit scholar, Eugene 



llurnuuf, in his ' Corninentaire sur le Yacna,' have laid the first solid 



,r present knowledge of Zend, and the place it holds 



.ropean languages is best illustrated in the excellent 



niniar ' of Professor Franz Bopp. 



. D-AVK.STA is the name commonly given to the sacred books 



Parsees, which are ascribed to Zarathustra or Zoroaster; it 



1 be better, however, to call them Avusta, which word means ii.ci, 



"lino!, text, since Zend designates the commentary on this text. 



M tradition tells us that these books originally consisted of twenty - 



i ue nosks or large divisions, but that they were destroyed by Alexander 



the Great, who had all that they contained of medicine and astronomy 



translated into Greek, and the rest burnt. There is much reason to 

 doubt the accuracy of this report; but whether true or not, it is certain 

 that the Grecian conquest was highly detrimental to the old Parsee 

 religion and its sacred texts, and that the restoration of both did not 

 take place before the elevation to the throne of Arcleshir, the first king 

 of the Sassanian dynasty, or about 220 after Christ. He and the kings 

 of his lineage ordered a collection to be made of all that remained 

 of the sacred Parsee texts, and it is this collection which we 

 possess now under the name of Avesta. But not all of the books 

 deemed sacred by the Parsees can strictly speaking be included under 

 this name. It belongs more particularly to the three which are seve- 

 rally called Vendidad, Vispered, and Yashin, whereas the remaining 

 writings are comprised under the denomination of Khorda-Avata, or 

 " small Avesta." 



The latter contains short prayers, and especially the Yashts or 

 Yenhts, hymns addressed to the different genii, on the days which bear 

 their names and "are sacred to them, or on the days of those genii 

 who are considered to be the attendants of the former. 



The Vendidad consists of twenty-two Fargards or sections, which 

 treat of cosmogony, and, moreover, may be called the religious and 

 civil code of the old Parsees. The first Fargard relates how Ahura- 

 Mazda (now called Ormuzd), the good spirit, created the several 

 countries and places sixteen are named excellent and perfect in 

 then- kind, but that AngrS-Mulni/it (now called Ahriman), the evil or 

 black spirit, created in opposition all the evils which infest these 

 worlds. In the second Fargard, Zarathustra (or Zoroaster) bids Yima 

 announce to mankind the sacred law he had taught him ; but Yima 

 refuses compliance with this behest. He then bids him enlarge the 

 worlds and make them prosperous. This time Yima obeys, and carries 

 out the orders given him by Ahura-Mazda. The third Fargard 

 enumerates first the five things which are the most agreeable, 

 then the five things which are the most disagreeable, aud after- 

 wards the five things which convey the greatest satisfaction, to this 

 world. It concludes with questions and injunctions of a kindred sort. 

 The fourth Fargard may be termed the criminal code of the Avesta. 

 It enumerates, in the first instance, various offences which are con- 

 sidered to be so grave as to affect not only the person who commits 

 them but als> his relatives; and then proceeds to define the punish- 

 meuti incurred by the offender. The eight following Fargards contain 

 injunctions in reference to impurities caused by dead bodies. The 

 thirteenth Fargard begins with the description of two kinds of dogs, 

 the one created by Ahura-Mazda, the other by Angro-Mamyu, the kill- 

 ing of the former being a'criminal, that of the latter a meritorious, act ; 

 and the remaining part of the book is devoted to the proper treatment of 

 dogs in general, a subject of much importance in a country apparently 

 much iufested by wolves, and continued- in the fourteenth Fargard, 

 which enumerates also the penalties for injuring dogs. The treatment 

 of young dogs is likewise the subject-matter of the latter part of the 

 fifteenth Fargard, which in its first sections treats of sexual offences, 

 and the bringing up of illegitimate children. The sixteenth Fargard 

 teaches how to treat women in their menses, or when otherwise a3ected 

 with impurities. Impurities caused by the cutting of hairs and trim- 

 ming of nails, are the subject-matter of the seventeenth Fargard. The 

 next Fargard is more of a mixed character ; it treats of various cere- 

 monies, such, for instance, as are to be practised during the night and 

 at sunrise ; and gives injunctions on cleanliness, decency, and moral 

 conduct. The nineteenth Fargard relates how Augro-Maiuyu endea- 

 voured to kill Zarathustra, but how the latter successfully defended 

 himself with the weapons given him by Ahura-Mazda. The evil spirit, 

 it continues, being aware that it had no material power over Zarathustra, 

 then resorted to temptations ; but these tuo were defeated by the 

 prophet, who now resolved to conquer the evil spirit, aud for this 

 purpose addressed to Ahura-Mazda various questions on the rites of 

 purification and the condition of souk after death. The twentieth 

 Fargard contains some information about the first man who uuderst'jod 

 curing disease. The twenty-first Fargard is devoted to the phenomena 

 of the sky and the luminous bodies ; it comprises invocations of the 

 clouds, the sun, the moon, and the stars. The last Fargard relates that 

 Angro-Mainyu having engendered diseases, Ahura-Mazda is compelled 

 to devise remedies against them. In the first place he has reoour.se to 

 Mantkra-iifnta, the sacred word, but it is powerless. He then sends 

 Nairyo sangha to Airyama with the command to produce several useful 

 animals aud things for this purpose ; and the Fargard, evidently a 

 fragment, concludes with relating that Airyama produced nine kinds 

 of male horses, nine kinds of male camels, nine kinds of oxen, nine 

 kinds of small cattle, and nine kinds of pasture ground. 



The form of all these Fargards is nearly always that of a dialogue 

 between Ahura-Mazda and Zarathustra, and the same form is now and 

 then also observed in the two other portions of the Avesta, which 

 differ materially in their contents from those of the Vcudidad. 



Vinjicred and Yas'iia bear prominently a liturgical character. They 

 are invocations of nature, of the deities who are believed to govern its 

 course, of time, seasons, and other objects connected with acts of pious 

 veneration ; they also contain views of creation of a speculative kind ; in 

 short, they are chiefly the religious aud liturgical code of the old Parsee 

 religion, whereas the Vendidad, as observed, is chiefly though not ex- 

 clusively concerned with the regulation of social and daily life. 



The religious belief taught in the Avesta rests on the dualism of the 



