ing to admit the divine origin claimed for the Law offered to them, that the best of every religion, being glimpses of eternal truths, opened by the noblest and wisest thinkers of a race, has always been so far above the average standard of the times as to appear to the mass unattainable by the unassisted efforts of the human mind.*

3. The two great Asiatic divisions of the Aryan stock or race, the Hindus and the Eranians, both followed religions which, their priests taught them, were revealed to the founders directly and personally by the Deity. The Hindus treasured a set of books, which they called “VEDA" (i. e., "Knowledge"), as the repository of the Divine Law, while the Sacred Book of the Eranians has long been known under the name of “ZEND-AVESTA." Neither of these religions is extinct. The former is still professed, in a much altered form, by many millions of the inhabitants of India, while the latter has survived, as we saw, in that handful of descendants of Persian emigrants which forms the Parsi community in India, and the daily dwindling remnant of their brethren. in the old country. Between both there are striking resemblances and not less striking differences, as is usually the case between members of one family, be they individuals or nations. But we are, in this volume, directly concerned only with the race which, at the point we have reached, the ever-revolving wheel of history is bringing up to the top, to gather the inheritance of older nations whose greatness is of the past-Assyria, Babylon, and others, lesser in size, power, and influence.

*See "Story of Chaldea," pp. 259, 260.

4. When, on the authority of Anquetil Duperron and his first successors in the field of Eranian research, the title "Zend-Avesta" was universally accepted, and "Zend" given as the name of the language in which the newly found books were written, a misnomer was unconsciously introduced which considerably delayed discoveries and added confusion to an already almost hopelessly obscure subject. In the first place, the title, a compound one, should be "AVESTA-U-ZEND," which may be pretty fairly translated "the Law and Commentary," for "Zend" is not the name of a language at all, but a word, which means "explanation, commentary." In the second place, the books are not written in one uniform language, but in several Eranian dialects of different periods and, probably, different countries. Now that these facts are distinctly understood, it is becoming more and more usual to call the books themselves simply " AVESTA," and the language of the original texts "AVESTAN,”-a name which does not commit to any particular time or country,— while the language in which the Zend or commentary and glosses are written, and which is of far later date, as can easily be proved from inscriptions, has been named "PEHLEVI"-the Persian of the Middle Ages.

5. Pehlevi is a most peculiar language, especially in its written form. Not so much from the difference of the characters, which is not greater than the distance of several centuries would naturally warrant; but at first sight it does not seem to be Persian at all, but rather Semitic. That is, an enor

mous proportion of the words-nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions—are Semitic, while the grammar and construction, i. e., the way of using and arranging those words, are Eranian -a proceeding so anomalous as to make it certain that the result could not possibly ever have been the living language of any nation whatever. The solution of the riddle seems scarcely less strange. It is this that the words which were Semitic to the eye were Eranian in sound; or, to put it more clearly, the reader, in reading to himself or aloud, substituted to each Semitic word its Eranian (or Persian) equivalent. Thus: "king" would be written "malká” (an old Semitic word), and pronounced “Shâh"; “Malkân malkâ," "King of Kings," became "ShâhânShâh"; "gôsht" (meat) was substituted in reading to its Semitic equivalent "bisra," which was the written word. We ourselves do something of the same kind, on a very small scale, when, on meeting, in print or writing, forms like "i. e.," "e. g.," etc.," which stand for the Latin," id est," "exempli gratiâ,' "et cetera," we fluently read the English words, "that is," "for instance," "and so forth," not to speak of the numeral figures (1, 2, 3, etc.), which every language pronounces in its own way. To indulge in the exercise on such a scale as did the readers and writers of Pehlevi-Persian implies a knowledge of two languages, which is rather surprising, and would alone go far towards proving the indebtedness of the younger race of Central Asia to the ancient cultures of the West. For where and in what way, if not by constant contact with old Semitic nations,

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like those of Nineveh, of Babylon, of Aram, could the Persians have acquired such familiarity with a language than which none could be more different from the Eranian speech, as to keep writing in that language and translating it into their own as they read?

6. The written Pehlevi language, therefore, is composed of two very distinct elements, which have also been distinguished by different names. That part of it which is written one way and read another has been called HUZVÂRÈSH, while the purely Persian part goes under the name of PÂZEND. It is clear that it is quite possible for a text to be written entirely in Huzvârèsh or entirely in Pâzend, but neither is usually the case. Only it has been remarked that, the older the text, the more Huzvârèsh it contains, so that it may be said that the most ancient Sassanian writings are nearly all Huzvârèsh, while the latest are almost entirely in Pâzend.

7. From what has been said it is evident that the books which we know under the general name of "Avesta" are composed of parts belonging to very different ages. As the Pehlevi characters differ from the Avestan ones, it is comparatively easy to separate the original text from the Zend, and to assign to the latter its proper time, which is the period of the Sassanian dynasty (226-640 A.D.). Beyond that, every thing is doubt and darkness. It is just the most interesting and important questions to which we have no satisfactory answers. We should like to know: How old is the religion of which the written law has in great part just been recovered? From

which of the countries of Erân did it go forth? Was there really a man of the name of Zarathushtra, who invented and preached it, and when did he live? And did he invent it, or only reform it and put it into shape? When were the texts containing the doctrine, the prayer, and the law, written down? All these points have now for years been the subject of researches, which have arrived at conclusions in a great measure conflicting, and which their authors themselves do not attempt to give out as final. It is not for a book like the present, meant essentially for general readers, to enter into the details and merits of special controversies. It can only present, in the briefest and clearest possible form, such results as are certain and such as appear most probable, most likely to be confirmed in the course. of further study, as being supported by the greatest amount of intrinsic and circumstantial evidence.

8. Most of the Greek and Roman writers whose works, or fragments of them, have come down to us, speak of Zoroaster as of a wise man of the East and teacher of divine things, and also magic, whose existence it occurred to no one to doubt. True, their testimony, taken separately, would not go for much, as neither of these nations was remarkable for great historical sense or critical discernment, and besides, they place him at absurdly varying periods, ranging all the way between 6,000 and 500 B.C. But the unanimity of the testimony establishes a strong presumption in favor of the real existence of such a person, at some time, as yet not to be determined, although so much can be said with certainty even