1836.] Notes on the Antiquities of Bdmidn. 71 7 



Hystaspes ; while others have deemed it of comparatively modern 

 origin. We are free to confess that we espouse the latter opinion, 

 and the very passages cited in favor of its remote age, we think, are 

 decisive against it. We advert to this subject the more willingly, 

 because we cannot help suspecting the possibility, that the Zenda- 

 vesta was compiled in the court of the sovereigns commemorated at 

 Bdmidn. 



It is worthy of note, that the Brahmans, Buddhists and Mithraists 

 have the same ideas as to the locality of paradise, shewing that they 

 must have acquired them from each other, or from some common 

 source. It is not improbable that the two first adopted them from the 

 last, and it may be conjectured, though it will tell little for the antiquity 

 of the Zendavesta, that Bdmidn may have been clothed with a sacred 

 character, from the very circumstance of its having been made a burial- 

 place of kings — for so the Zendavesta itself commemorates, when it 

 describes Gorotman (Bdmidn or its vicinity) as a terrestrial paradise, 

 and reveals its nature when it figuratively and significantly adds, " the 

 abode of the Supreme Being and the Blessed." There can be no 

 doubt but that the larger idol of Bdmidn is also the more ancient, 

 and with its accompanying caves became the nucleus, around which 

 all the other caves and idols were subsequently and successively 

 formed ; and it is a fair inference that, prior to the construction of the 

 first idol, there was no burial place of kings at Bdmidn, and none 

 worthy of emphatic panegyrism by the author of the Zendavesta. 



The remote antiquity conferred by some antiquarians upon the 

 Zendavesta is not claimed by its author ; and why he should be called 

 Zoroaster who called himself Zerdesht, is only to be accounted for 

 by the desire of theorists to identify him with a celebrated person 

 of that name, who existed, according to authentic history, some 

 centuries before him. Zerdesht so clearly narrates the details of his 

 career, that it is impossible to misunderstand them, and they cannot 

 be more correctly or more concisely represented than in the elegant 

 language of Professor Heeren, one of the most able advocates of 

 the impenetrable antiquity of the Zendavesta. The Professor writes — 

 "The works of Zoroaster (Zerdesht) abound in details relating to his 

 own person, as well as the countries and kingdom, which were the first 

 scene of his career as a reformer. He proves by the clearest geogra- 

 phical data, that his native country was Northern Media, Azerbijan, 

 or the territory between the river Kur or Cyrus and the Araxes, 

 both of which empty themselves into the Caspian. Here he first ap- 

 peared as a legislator and a reformer ; but soon quitting this district, he 

 passed into the countries east of the Caspian into Bactra, the residence 

 5 A 



