234 RET. PROF. JAMES HOPE MOULTOX,, D.LIT., D.C.L., ETC., ON 



all the ethical shortcomings which are chargeable upon Hinduism 

 and Islam alike. They refuse to accept proselytes ; and they 

 do but little to cultivate intensively a faith which in its 

 primitive purity might be made a real power for the uplifting of 

 its people. They tend to religious indifference, and a great 

 many of them know but little of their own heritage. Under 

 the stimulus of Western interest in and study of their ancient 

 faith, they are improving in this respect ; but secularism of 

 practice is a conspicuous peril among them, as it is in the 

 nominally Christian communities of the West. 



So much of introduction seems demanded, but I pass from it 

 with relief, inasmuch as I can here only speak at second hand : 

 I have never been in India, and have studied the early history 

 of this great religion to the practical exclusion of its later 

 developments. Before I pass to the special heading of this 

 paper, I must add a few words of summary to explain my 

 presuppositions. I do not set these down as objective facts in 

 all cases, for the evidence has been very differently read. The 

 arguments by which I support my own reading have been 

 set forth, first summarily in a little book in the " Cambridge 

 Manuals " series, Early Religious Poetry of Persia, and then 

 with considerable elaboration in my Hibbert Lectures on Eeirly 

 Zoroastrianism. The latter work contains a translation of the 

 primitive classics of Zoroastrianism, the Gdthds or Hymns of 

 Zarathushtra, together with a few Greek texts which contain 

 valuable information for our purpose. To this book I may 

 perhaps refer any present who wish to know on what authority 

 I make sundry statements which are necessarily dogmatic in 

 form because of lack of time. 



I shall keep to the original name of the prophet whom the 

 Greeks and liomans called Zoroaster. Most people probably 

 know the name Zarathushtra from the title of a notorious book 

 by Nietzsche, who took this name in vain, as lie took others 

 that are holier. I need not inform you that Zarathushtra himself 

 never sat for his portrait to Nietzsche, and that if you have 

 read Also sprach Zarathustra you will find nothing in this paper 

 to remind you of that rather fascinating but eminently mis- 

 chievous book. The time of Zarathushtra's mission is much 

 disputed. Parsee tradition dates him 660 to 583 B.C., but 

 opinion seems to be strengthening in favour of an earlier time ; 

 and we shall probably be not far out if we conceive of him as 

 dating back to the tenth century or so. He was possibly a 

 native of Media, but his prophetic activity was much further 

 east ; and the seclusion of his labours in a region very far from 



