the eastern spurs and valleys of the Zagros region, and the still more rugged highlands between the Caspian Sea and the great lakes of Urartu—Urumieh and Van-the district now known as ÂDERBEIDJAN, corrupted from the classic ATROPATÊNE, itself a transformation of an older Eranian name meaning "Dominion of Fire." We have monumental proof that the Eranian branch then already known as MEDES (MADAI) were dislodging the tribes among the eastern ridges of Zagros, and were themselves attacked by the Assyrian arms as far back as the ninth century B.C. under Ramân-Nirari III.,* and were probably mentioned already under that king's grandfather, the great Shalmaneser II. We are further led to suppose that portions at least of the advancing Medes must have passed through or near the territories of various savage and semi-barbarous people in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, the region known to later, classical antiquity as HYRCANIA. All this knowledge enables us to do more than guess at the origin of certain observances prescribed and certain conceptions inculcated in the Vendîdâd, and flowing from no Aryan sources assuredly: the use of the Baresma, the treatment of the dead, the treatment of diseases by conjuring-spells, the exaggerated reverence paid to the elements, the belief in numberless hosts of fiends always on the watch to pounce on men and draw them to perdition. Now all these customs and conceptions, foreign to the Aryan spiritual bent, are in perfect accordance with what we know of the Turanian religious system; * See "Story of Assyria," p. 194. some of them indeed are extremely familiar to us from the texts and spells of Shumir and Accad,— ancient Chaldea,* and the presumption is very strong that the populations of the Zagros and Caspian regions which the Medes, in the course of some three hundred years, dislodged or reduced under their rule, belonged in great part to the division of mankind which the Eranians sweepingly designated as "Turân" (the Yellow Race),† in opposition to themselves. 25. There is nothing unnatural in the fact that the Aryan conquerors should have been influenced by the people amongst whom they came; indeed the contrary would have been rather remarkable, since they were comparatively few in number, and it was no more than sound policy to conciliate the new subjects, whom a military rule unsoftened and unaided by moral influence would surely have been insufficient to keep under control. For the conquerors to impose on them their own religion was the first and most necessary step towards asserting that moral influence, but it was a step which could not be achieved without * See "Story of Chaldea," Chapter III. This presumption would now be considered an established fact but for the violent opposition it has met from the Assyriologist and Semitist, Mr. Halévy, who strenuously denies the Turanian element in the tribes conquered by the Medes and even in ancient ShumiroAccad itself. For a long time Mr. Halévy stood entirely alone; he was, however, joined by the late S. Guyard, and another French scholar, Mr. Pognon, now supports his views. Still this minority, however eminent, will scarcely prevail in the end. Besides, the views held by the two opposing camps are not, in some cases, as irreconcilable as they seem at first sight-at least as respects the Median conquests. numerous concessions to the local, already long established, religions. No new religion, however superior, ever supplants an older one without such concessions; in making them, it grows familiar with the lower standard, and-such is the innate propensity of things to deterioration-inevitably becomes tainted with the very beliefs and practices which it is its loftier mission to abolish. Thus we saw the rudimentary goblin-worship of Shumir and Accad with all its train of degrading superstitions (conjuring, divining, spell-casting, etc.) incorporated into the far higher and nobler religious system of Semitic Babylonia.* Moreover, the Eranians were notoriously fond of novelty and prompt to imitate. 26. This question of Turanian influences traceable in the Avesta, a question so important for the comprehension of what we might call the geological stratification of the religion that grew out of the Gâthic revelation, has been made the object of exhaustive research by Mgr. C. de Harlez, the French translator of the Avesta.† We can do no better than follow his conclusions, point by point, as far as the peculiar character of a popular work will allow. Ist. "The incantations, of which the Vendîdâd supplies a few specimens, assuredly have their origin in Shumir and Turanian Media. Such long and monotonous enumerations as the following recall the Accadian formulas: To thee, O Sickness, I say avaunt! to thee, O Death, I say avaunt! to thee, O Pain, I say avaunt! to thee, O Fever, I say avaunt! to thee, O Disease, I say avaunt! *See "Story of Chaldea," pp. 235-237. "Les Origines du Zoroastrisme." See also the same writer's monumental "Introduction" to his translation of the Avesta. |