ZENDAVESTA. 



hometan perfecutions, where their genius for commerce and 

 induftry, which are their known charafteriftics, procured 

 for them very confiderable fettlements. Concerning the 

 hierarchy of the Parfles, this writer obferves, that their mi- 

 niltcrs of religion are divided into five claiTes, viz. erbeds, 

 mobeds, deftours, deftour mobeds, and dcftouran deftours, 

 or deftours of deftours. An erbed is a perfon who has 

 fubmitted to the purification direfted by the law, who has 

 read, during four days without interval, the Izefchne and 

 the Vendidad, and who is inftrufted in the ceremonies of 

 the worfliip eftablifhed by Zoroafter. If the erbed after- 

 wards continues to read publicly the Zend works, which 

 conftitute the liturgy, and to perform the minifterial func- 

 tions, he becomes a mobed, though he does not uuderftand 

 the Zendavefta ; but if he contents himfelf with ftudying 

 the law, the Zend, and the Pehlvi, or Pt-hlavi, without exer- 

 cifing the minifterial funftions, he is called a deftour. 



The deftour mobed is he who unites the qualifications of 

 the mobed and deftour ; and the deftouran deftour is the 

 principal deftour of a city or province, who decides cafes of 

 confcience, and determines points of law, and to whom the 

 Parfles pay a tithe of their revenues. 



As for thofe Zend writings, which the Parfles attribute 

 to their legiflator, and for which they have the fame 

 Teneration as the Jews have for their Hebrew text, M. du 

 Perron inclines to think, though he does not affirm, that 

 they are really the works of Zoroafter, whofe reputation 

 has been acquired by laws that have fubfifted two thou- 

 fand five hundred years. 



The law, which was either framed or regulated by Zo- 

 roafter, was divided, as we are told by modern authors, 

 into twenty-one nolhs, or parts : feven treat of the cre- 

 ation and hiftory of the world ; feven of morality, and 

 civil and religious duties ; and feven of phyfic and aftro- 

 nomy. Among the Parfles it is an univcrfally received 

 tradition, that Alexander the Great condemned thefe 

 twenty-one volumes to the flames, after having caufed 

 them to be tranflated into Greek. Thofe which efcaped 

 are, the Vendidad, the Izefchne, the Viffpered, the Jefchts, 

 and the Neaefchs, in Zend, and feme other Pehlvic 

 tranflations of ZtMid originals. The Parfles have alfo 

 a great number of prayers, which they call nerengs, and 

 which in general are written in modern Perfic, with 

 Zend charatlers, which they afleft to ufe in all writings 

 that treat of religion, though compofed in modern Perfic. 

 The writings of Zoroafter, which ftill remain, fpeak of 

 the creation of the univerfe, of the terreftrial paradife, 

 and the difpcrfion of mankind ; of the caufe of the re- 

 fpeft paid to fire, of the origin of evil, natural and 

 moral ; of the angels appointed to the government of 

 the univerfe ; of feveral particulars relating to the end of 

 the world, and the refurreftion, &c. &c. They alfo 

 contain prediftions with refpedl to the latter times, fome 

 excellent moral prsjccpts, and a very extenfive ceremo- 

 nial code. 



The Zend, according to Du Perron, is not the name of 

 Zoroafter's writings, but merely of the charafters, though 

 generally ufed to fignify the language itfelf, in which 

 they were written : the language of the original text is 

 called Avefta, and is a dead language, and was entirely 

 unknown to the Parfti^s before the time of Zoroafter, 

 who, he apprehends, brought it from the mountains ; 

 and is totally different from the Pehlvi or ancient Perfic, 

 fpoken in the time of Zoroafter. He farther fuppofes, 

 that the works of Zoroafter, ftill extant in the Pehlvi, 

 were tranflations made into that language during the life 

 ef this legiflator, or foon after his death. 



10 



The Pazend, which Dr. Hyde makes to be the name 

 of a work, is, according to Du Perron, the name of a 

 language, which is a dialeft or corruption of t)ie Avefta, 

 and almoft extindl, except that a few words of it are pre- 

 ferved in the Pehlvic tranflation. The charafters of the 

 Avefta and Pehlvi are different ; the former, which are pro- 

 perly the Zend letters, being much the neateft ; the Pazend 

 has no pecuhar alphabet, but adopts that of the Zend or 

 Pehlvic indifferently. ( On this fubjeft, fee Language of 

 Persia.) For M. du Perron's account of the eighteen 

 MSS. of which he brought duplicate copies with him, and 

 an abftraft of their contents, we muft refer to the Ann. 

 Reg. &c. ubifupra. 



This writer has publiflied a tranflation of the Zendavefta, 

 with remarks and lUuftrations, &c. in 3 vols. 410. at Paris, 

 in 1771. 



The Zend, as fir W. Jones fuggefts (Works, vol. iii. 

 p. 115, 8vo. ), bore a ftrong refemblance to Sanfl<rit, and the 

 Pehlvi to Arabic, being a dialeft of the Chaldaic. SirW. 

 Jones, from a perufal of two vocabularies, exhibited in this 

 work, one in Zend, and another in Pehlvi, and derived from 

 a coUeftion of traditional pieces in modern Perfian, was con- 

 firmed in his opinion concerning the Chaldaic origin of the 

 Pehlvic ; and in perufing the Zend glofl"ary, he was furprifed 

 to find, that fix or feven words in ten were pure Sanflcrit. 

 M. Anquetil, he fays, moft certainly, and the Perfian com- 

 piler moft probably, had no knowledge of Sanlkrit, and 

 could not therefore have invented a lift of Sanflirit words : 

 it muft therefore be an authentic lift of Zend words, which 

 had been preferved in books or by tradition ; and hence it 

 follows that the language of the Zend was at leaft a dialeft 

 of the Sanfkrit, approaching perhaps as nearly to it as the 

 Pracrit, or other popular idioms which are known to have 

 been fpoken in India 2000 years ago. As foon as M. 

 Anquetil pubhftted the above-mentioned work, fir W. 

 Jones immediately difcovered that the work was fpurious, 

 and by no means to be attributed to Zoroafter ; in confe- 

 quence of which he pubhflied in the fame year, " Lettre a 



M. A du P dans laquelle eft compris I'Examen 



de fa Traduction des Livres attribues a Zoroaftre." This 

 letter is contained in the loth volume of his works, ed. 8vo. 

 In Germany this verfion of M. Anquetil has met with more 

 fuccefs, and has not only been tranflated into German, but 

 applied to the purpofes of explaining the New Teltament. 

 This ufe of it has been fuggefted by Michaelis, and exem- 

 plified in the illuftration of the introduftion to St. John's 

 gofpel, and particularly of the term "word," which is ufed 

 in the Zendavefta in the fame fenfe as by St. John and the 

 Gnoftics for the name of a perfon, and determines the pro- 

 per tranflation of Xo^o;. {Michaelis by Marfti, vol. i. p. 161.) 

 Several other pcrfons, befides fir W. Jones, have queilioned 

 the authenticity of the work which M. Anquetil has tranf- 

 lated, or its being a genuine remain of Zoroafter. 



Mr. Richardfon, in his " Diflertation on the Language, 

 Literature, and Manners oftheEaftern Nations," originally 

 prefixed to his Perfian, Arabic, and Englifti Diftionary, 

 1778 (chap. i. feft. 2. ), is very fevere, both on Dr. Hyde 

 and M. du Perron. Thofe fragments of the fuppofed 

 works of Zoroafter, which Dr. Hyde has given us under 

 the title of Sadder, are, he fays, the wretched rhymes of a 

 modern Parfi deftour or prlL-ft, who lived about three cen- 

 turies ago ; whilft the publications of M. Anquetil du 

 Perron carry palpable marks of the total or partial fabri- 

 cation of modern times. The Zend language, he fays, is 

 not genuine ; and M. du Perron has produced no difco- 

 very which can ftamp his publication with authority. 



He adds, the fpecimens of old Perfian in Hyde's Religio 



Veteruui 



