[ 162 ] 



cipher, of which the priests alone had the key*/' and which, conse- 

 quently, has perished with them. 



Concerning Zoroaster himself, the peculiar purity of the original 

 dogmas which distinguished his enlightened sect, and the rapid 

 diffusion of their influence, either by the force of arms or of argu- 

 ment, through nearly the whole of Asia, a diffusion so fortunately 

 introductory (perhaps intended to have been so by a supreme all- 

 ruling Providence, during the blind and continued infatuation of 

 the Jews) to the still purer doctrines of Christianity, in a few cen- 

 turies about to break forth and illumine the Pagan world ; con- 

 cerning that theologue, I say, the tenets which he propagated, and 

 as explained by himself, the innocent symbol which characterized 

 his almost Christian ritual, the FIRE, on which, radiating from 

 the ark of the covenant, the Hebrews themselves were taught to 

 look with a kind of religious awe, as the sublime kebla of their de- 

 votion ; such extensive strictures have already occurred in the pages 

 of the Indian Antiquities, as to preclude all necessity of resuming a 

 subject which otherwise would naturally claim a distinguished place 

 in a work professedly retrospective on the interesting events that 

 anciently took place on the great theatre of Asia. One remarkable 

 fact only, alluded to in a former page-f-, as more immediately con- 

 nected with this period of our history, again presses for notice ; I 

 mean the journey of the Persian sage in company with Hystaspes, 

 probably in disguise, to the woody recesses of the Brahmins in the 

 Superior India, to obtain initiation into the mysteries of their religion 

 and the wonders of their philosophy. This visit of Hystaspes was, 

 probably, the secret cause of the resolution which that monarch 

 afterwards took, to be better acquainted with a country which pro- 

 duced and cherished, in ease and undisturbed retirement, a race of 



* Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 57- 



t See page 277 preceding of the second volume, and the quotation there from Ammianus. 



