194 



MRS. WALTER MAUNDER, ON ASTRONOMICAL 



Taurus and Gemini, there was negation. The second period of 

 3,000 years under the rule of Cancer, Leo, and Virgo, was " the 

 duration of GayomairZ, with the ox, in the world," that is to say, 

 the world was under the active dominance of the Good Spirit. 

 The reigns of Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius were those when 

 " the adversary wrought his evil work," and his dominance came 

 to an end " at the coming of the religion," that is to say, when 

 Zoroaster brought in his faith.* In the most complete copy of 

 the Bundahis that we have, Sagittarius is the last millennial 

 reign mentioned by name of the sign, and its events are given 

 in detail, these adding up to 1,000 years precisely. Then come 

 a number of details referring to the following millennium, that 

 of Capricornus, mentioning various kings who have been identi- 

 fied with Persian monarchs, and also "Alexander the Euman," 

 and giving the length of the Askanian dynasty as 284 years, 

 another MS. giving it as 290 years. The record of this millen- 

 nium is not rounded off as were those of the millenniums pre- 

 ceding it, but a few words follow, evidently written much later, 

 assigning the rest of the 1,000 years to the Sassanian dynasty. 

 In this addition the writer of it, whoever he may have been, 

 went wrong, for the Askanian dynasty lasted, not for about 300 

 years, but for about 500, but the error would lead us to conclude 

 that the original compiler wrote about the 284th year of the 

 Askanian dynasty, that is about A.D. 40, and that his original 



fully that it was neither studied nor questioned, and it followed that it 

 was misunderstood and misrepresented. At that period the process would 

 have required a considerable time. Now-a-days we can pass through the 

 same stages of accepting, misunderstanding and misrendering scientific 

 facts more rapidly than at the beginning of the Christian era. Printing, 

 steam and electricity in these times speed up the propagation of error as 

 well as of truth. 



* The traditional date of the birth of Zoroaster is about 660 B.C. 

 "The Coming of the Eeligion," when King Vishtasp accepted Zoroaster's 

 preaching and became his patron and protector, must therefore be put 

 not long before the beginning of the sixth century before the Christian 

 era. King Vishtasp — Hystaspes in the Greek — is supposed by some to 

 have been the Hystaspes who was the cousin of Cyrus the Great, and the 

 father of Darius. In any case he must have been of the same family. 

 If he were, indeed, this Hystaspes, the traditional dates must be a few 

 years too early. 



It is true that the tendency of scholars is now to place Zoroaster 

 many centuries earlier, but this is not borne out by the Persian tradition, 

 by the Bundahis, or by the fact that Darius Hystaspis is the first great 

 monarch whose monuments show that he was himself an ardent 

 Zoroastrian. 



