PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.
PART I.
INTRODUCTION.
§ I.—How the Dabistan first became known—its author—the sources of his information.
It is generally known that sir William Jones was the first who drew the attention of Orientalists to the Dabistán. This happened five years after the beginning of a new era in Oriental literature, the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta by that illustrious man. It may not appear inopportune here to revive the grateful remembrance of one who acquired the uncontested merit of not only exciting in Asia and Europe a new ardor for Oriental studies, but also of directing them to their great objects—MAN and NATURE; and of endeavoring, by word and deed, to render the attainment of languages conducive to the required knowledge equally easy and attractive.
Having, very early in life, gained an European reputation as a scholar and elegant writer, sir William Jones embarked[1] for the Indian shores with vast projects, embracing, with the extension of science, the general improvement of mankind.[2] Four months after his arrival in Calcutta,[3] he addressed as the first president of the Asiatic Society, a small but select assembly, in which he found minds responsive to his own noble sentiments. A rapid sketch of the first labors of their incomparable leader, may not be irrelevant to our immediate subject.
In his second anniversary discourse,[4] he proposed a general plan for investigating Asiatic learning, history, and institutions. In his third discourse, he traced the line of investigation, which he faithfully followed, as long as he lived in India, in his annual public speeches: he determined to exhibit the prominent features of the five principal nations of Asia—the Indians, Arabs, Tartars, Persians, and Chinese. After having treated in the two following years of the Arabs and Tartars, he considered in his sixth discourse[5] the Persians, and declared that he had been induced by his earliest investigations to believe, and by his latest to conclude, that three primitive races of men must have migrated originally from a central country, and that this country was Iran, commonly called Persia. Examining with particular care the traces of the most ancient languages and religions which had prevailed in this country, he rejoiced at “a fortunate discovery, for which,” he said, “he was first indebted to Mir Muhammed Hussain, one of the most intelligent Muselmans in India, and which has at once dissipated the cloud, and cast a gleam of light on the primeval history of Iran and of the human race, of which he had long despaired, and which could hardly have dawned from any other quarter;” this was, he declared, “the rare and interesting tract on twelve different religions, entitled the Dabistan.”[6]
Sir William Jones read the Dabistán for the first time in 1787. I cannot refrain from subjoining here the opinion upon this work, which he communicated in a private letter, dated June, 1787, to J. Shore, esq. (afterwards lord Teignmouth); he says: “The greatest part of it would be very interesting to a curious reader, but some of it cannot be translated. It contains more recondite learning, more entertaining history, more beautiful specimens of poetry, more ingenuity and wit, more indecency and blasphemy, than I ever saw collected in a single volume;[7] the two last are not of the author’s, but are introduced in the chapters on the heretics and infidels of India.[8] On the whole, it is the most amusing and instructive book I ever read in Persian.”[9]
We may suppose it was upon the recommendation of sir William Jones, that Francis Gladwin, one of the most distinguished members of the new Society, translated the first chapter of The Dabistán, or “School of Manners,” which title has been preserved from due regard to the meritorious Orientalist, who first published the translation of a part of this work. The whole of it was printed in the year 1809, in Calcutta, and translations of some parts of it were published in The Asiatic Researches.[10] It is only at present, more than half a century after the first public notice of it by sir W. Jones, that the version of the whole work appears, under the auspices and at the expense of the Oriental Translation Committee of Great Britain and Ireland.
Who was the author of the Dabistán?—Sir William Jones thought it was composed by a Muhammedan traveller, a native of Kachmir, named Mohsan, but distinguished by the assumed surname of Fání, “the Perishable.”
Gladwin[11] calls him Shaikh Muhammed Mohsin, and says that, besides the Dabistán, he has left behind him a collection of poems, among which there is a moral essay, entitled Masdur ul asas, “the source of signs;” he was of the philosophic sect of Súfis, and patronised by the imperial prince Dara Shikoh, whom he survived; among his disciples in philosophy is reckoned Muhammed Tahir, surnamed Ghawri, whose poems are much admired in Hindostan. Mohsan’s death is placed in the year of the Hejira 1081 (A. D. 1670).
William Erskine,[12] in search of the true author of the Dabistán, discovered no other account of Mohsan Fání than that contained in the Gul-i-Râana, “charming rose,” of Lachmi Narayán, who flourished in Hyderabad about the end of the 18th or the beginning of the 19th century. This author informs us, under the article of Mohsan Fání, that “Mohsán, a native of Kachmir, was a learned man and a respectable poet; a scholar of Mulla Yakub, Súfi of Kachmir; and that, after completing his studies, he repaired to Delhi, to the court of the emperor Shah Jehan, by whom, in consequence of his great reputation and high acquirements, he was appointed Sadder, ‘chief judge,’ of Allahabad; that there he became a disciple of Shaikh Mohib ulla, an eminent doctor of that city, who wrote the treatise entitled Teswich, ‘the golden Mean.’ Mohsan Fání enjoyed this honorable office till Shah Jehân subdued Balkh; at which time Nazer Muhammed Khan, the Wali, ‘prince,’ of Balkh, having effected his escape, all his property was plundered. It happened that in his library there was found a copy of Mohsan’s Diwán, or ‘poetical Collection,’ which contained an ode in praise of the (fugitive) Wáli. This gave such offence to the emperor, that the Sadder was disgraced and lost his office, but was generously allowed a pension. He retired (as Lachmi informs us) to his native country, where he passed the rest of his days without any public employment, happy and respected. His house was frequented by the most distinguished men of Kachmir, and among the rest by the governors of the province. He had lectures at his house, being accustomed to read to his audience the writings of certain authors of eminence, on which he delivered moral and philosophical comments. Several scholars of note, among whom were Taher Ghawri (before mentioned) and Haji Aslem Salem, issued from his school.” He died on the before mentioned date. “It is to be observed that Lachmi does not mention the Dabistán as a production of Mohsan Fání, though, had he written it, it must have been his most remarkable work.”
Erskine goes on to recapitulate some particulars mentioned in the Dabistán of the author’s life, and concludes that it seems very improbable that Mohsan Fání and the author of the Dabistán were the same person. In this conclusion, and upon the same grounds, he coincides with the learned Vans Kennedy.[13]
Erskine further quotes,[14] from a manuscript copy of the Dabistán which he saw in the possession of Mulla Firuz, in Bombay, the following marginal note annexed to the close of chapter XIV.: “In the city of Daurse, a king of the Parsis, of the race of the imperial Anushirván, the Shet Dawer Huryár, conversed with Amír Zulfikar Ali-al-Husaini (on whom be the grace of God!), whose poetical name was Mobed Shah.” This Zulfikar Ali, whoever he was, the Mulla supposes to be the author of the Dabistán. Erskine judiciously subjoins: “On so slight an authority, I would not willingly set up an unknown author as the compiler of that work; but it is to be remarked that many verses of Mobed’s are quoted in the Dabistán, and there is certainly reason to suspect that the poetical Mobed, whoever he may be, was the author of that compilation.”
“To this let it be added, that the author of the Dabistán; in his account of Mobed Serosh, says[15] that one Muhammed Mohsan, a man of learning, told him that he had heard Mobed Serosh give three hundred and sixty proofs of the existence of God. This at least makes Muhammed Mohsan, whoever he may be, a different person from the author of the Dabistán.”
I cannot omit adding the following notice annexed to the note quoted above: “Between the printed copy and Mulla Firuz’s manuscript before alluded to, a difference occurs in the very beginning of the work. After the poetical address to the Deity and the praise of the prophet, with which the Dabistán, like most other Muselman works, commences, the manuscript reads: ‘Mohsan Fani says,’ and two moral couplets succeed. In the printed copy, the words ‘Mohsan Fani says,’—which should occur between the last word of the first page and the first word of the second—are omitted. As no account of the author is given in the beginning of the book, as is usual with Muselman writers, Mulla Firuz conjectures that a careless or ignorant reader may have considered the words ‘Mohsan Fáni says’ as forming the commencement of the volume, and as containing the name of the author of the whole book; whereas they merely indicate the author of the couplets that follow, and would rather show that Mohsan Fani was not the writer of the Dabistán. This conjecture, I confess, appears to me at once extremely ingenious and very probable. A comparison of different manuscripts might throw more light on the question.”
Concerning the opinion last stated, I can but remark, that in a manuscript copy of the Dabistán, which I procured from the library of the king of Oude, and caused to be transcribed for me, the very same words: “Mohsan Fani says,” occur (as I have observed in vol. I. p. 6, note 3), preceding a rabaâ, or quatrain, which begins:
“The world is a book full of knowledge and of justice,” etc. etc.
These lines seem well chosen as an introduction to the text itself, which begins by a summary of the whole work, exhibiting the titles of the twelve chapters of which it is composed. As the two copies mentioned (the one found in Bombay, the other in Lucknow) contain the same words, they can hardly be taken for an accidental addition of a copyist. I found no remark upon this point in Mr. Shea’s translation, who had two manuscript copies to refer to. Whatever it be, it must still remain undecided, whether Mohsan Fani was there named only as the author of the next quatrain or of the whole book, although either hypothesis may not appear destitute of probability; nor can it be considered strange to admit that the name of Mohsan Fani was borne by more than one individual. I shall be permitted to continue calling the author of the Dabistán by the presumed name of Mohsan Fani.
Dropping this point, we shall now search for information upon his person, character, and knowledge in the work itself. Is he really a native of Kachmir, as here before stated?
Although in the course of his book he makes frequent mention of Kachmir, he never owns himself a native of that country. In one part of his narrative, he expressly alludes to another home. He begins the second chapter upon the religion of the Hindus (vol. II. p. 2) by these words: “As inconstant fortune had torn away the author from the shores of Persia, and made him the associate of the believers in transmigration and those who addressed their prayers to idols and images, and worshipped demons * * * *.” Now we know that Kachmir is considered as a very ancient seat, nay as the very cradle, of the doctrine of transmigration, and of Hinduism in general, with all its tenets, rites, and customs; and that from the remotest times to the present it was inhabited by numerous adherents of this faith; how could the author, if a native of Kachmir, accuse inconstant fortune for having made him elsewhere an associate of these very religionists with whom, from his birth, he must have been accustomed to live? The passage just quoted leaves scarce a doubt that the shores of Persia, from which he bewails having been torn, were really his native country.
When was he born?
He no where adduces the date of his birth; the earliest period of his life which he mentions, is the year of the Hejira 1028 (A. D. 1618):[16] in this year the Mobed Hushíar brought the author to Balik Nátha, a great adept in the Yoga, or ascetic devotion, to receive the blessing of that holy man, who pronounced these words over him: “This boy shall acquire the knowledge of God.” It is not stated in what place this happened. The next earliest date is five years later, 1033 of the Hejira (A. D. 1623).[17] He says that, in his infancy, he came with his friends and relations from Patna to the capital Akbar-abad, and was carried in the arms of the Mobed Hushíar to Chatur Vapah, a famous ascetic of those days. The pious man rejoiced at it, and bestowed his blessing on the future writer of the Dabistán; he taught him the mantra, “prayer,” of the sun, and appointed one of his disciples to remain with the boy until the age of manhood. We have here a positive statement: in the year 1623 A. D., he was “in his infancy,” and carried “in the arms of his protector.” Giving the widest extension to these expressions, we can hardly think him to have been either much older or younger than seven or eight years: not much older, for being in some way carried in the arms of the Mobed; nor much younger, having been taught a hymn to the sun, and he might have been a boy of three years when he received the first-mentioned blessing from Balik Natha. We may therefore suppose him to have been born about the year 1615 of our era, in the tenth year of the reign of the emperor Jehangir. We collect in his work fifty-three dates relative to himself between the year 1618 and 1653. From 1627 to 1643, we see him mostly in Kachmir and Lahore, travelling between these two places; in 1643, he was at the holy sepulchre, probably at Meshhad, which appears to be the furthermost town to the West which he reached; from 1634 to 1649, he dwelt in several towns of the Panjab and Guzerat; the next year he proceeded to Sikakul, the remotest town in the East which he says he has visited; there he fell sick, and sojourned during 1653, at which epoch, if the year of his birth be correctly inferred, he had attained his thirty-eighth year. We have no other date of his death than that before stated: if he died in 1670, it was in the eleventh year of the reign of Aurengzéb, or Alemgir. Mohsan Fani would therefore have passed his infancy, youth, and manhood mostly in India, under the reigns of the three emperors, Jehangír, Shah Jehan, and Aurengzeb.[18] It was the state of religion, prevailing in those days in Hindostan that he describes.
From his earliest age he appears to have led an active life, frequently changing his residence. Such a mode of life belongs to a travelling merchant or philosopher, and in our author both qualities might have been united, as is often the case in Asia. Mohsan Fani, during his travels, collected the diversified and curious materials for the Dabistán; he observed with his own eyes the manners and customs of different nations and sects. He says himself at the conclusion of his work: “After having much frequented the meetings of the followers of the five before-said religions,” Magians, Hindus, Jews, Nazareans, and Muselmans, “the author wished and undertook to write this book; and whatever in this work, treating of the religions of different countries, is stated concerning the creed of different sects, has been taken from their books, and for the account of the persons belonging to any particular sect, the author’s information was imparted to him by their adherents and sincere friends, and recorded literally, so that no trace of partiality nor aversion might be perceived: in short, the writer of these pages performed no more than the task of a translator.” This declaration, even to a severe critic, may appear satisfactory. Sir William Jones called him[19] a learned and accurate, a candid and ingenious author. A further appreciation of Mohsan Fani’s character is reserved for subsequent pages. We can, however, here state, that he sought the best means of information, and gives us what he had acquired not only from personal experience, which is always more or less confined; not only from oral instruction, which is too often imperfectly given and received; but also from an attentive perusal of the best works which he could procure upon the subject of his investigation. Of the latter authorities which the author produces, some are known in Europe, and we may judge of the degree of accuracy and intelligence with which he has made use of them. Of others, nothing at all, or merely the name, is known. This is generally the case with works relative to the old Persian religion, which is the subject of the first chapter, divided into fifteen sections.
The authorities which he adduces for this chapter are as follow:
1. The Amighistan (vol. I. pp. 15. 26. 42), without the name of its author.
2. The Desátir (vol. I. pp. 20. 21. 44. 65), an heaven-bestowed book.
3. The Darai Sekander (vol. I. pp. 34. 360), composed by Dáwir Háryar.
4. The Akhteristan, “region of the stars” (vol. I. pp. 35. 42).
5. The Jashen Sadah, “the festival of Sadah” (the 16th night of January) (vol. I. pp. 72. 112).
6. The Sárud-i-mastan, “song of the intoxicated” (vol. I. p. 76. vol. II. p. 136): this and the preceding work composed by Mobed Hushíar.
7. The Jam-i-Kai Khusro, “the cup of Kai Khusro,” a commentary upon the poems of Azar Kaivan, composed by Mobed Khod Jai (vol. I. pp. 76. 84. 119.)
8. The Sharistan-i-Danish wa Gulistan-i-binish, “the pavilion of knowledge and rose-garden of vision” (vol. I. p. 77. 89. 109), composed by Farzanah Bahram.
9. The Zerdusht Afshar (vol. I. p. 77), work of the Mobed Serosh, who composed also:
10. Nosh Daru, “sweet medicine” (vol. I. p. 114); and
11. The Sagangubin, “dog’s honey” (vol. I. p. 114).
12. The Bazm-gah-i-durvishan, “the banquetting-room of the durvishes” (vol. I. pp. 104. 108), without the name of the author.
13. The Arzhang Mani, “the gallery of Mani” (vol. I. p. 131).
14. The Tabrah-i-Mobedi, “the sacerdotal kettle-drum” (vol. I. p. 123), by Mobed Paristar.
15. The Dadistan Aursah (vol. I. p. 131).
16. The Amízesh-i-farhang (vol. I. p. 145), containing the institutes of the Abadiah durvishes.
17. The Míhín farush (vol. I. p. 244).
18. The Testament of Jamshid to Abtin (vol. I. p. 195), compiled by Farhang Dostúr.
19. Razabad, composed by Shídab.
20. The Sányál, a book of the Sipasians (vol. II. p. 136), containing an account of a particular sort of devotion.
21. The Rama zastan of Zardusht (vol. I. p. 369 and vol. II. p. 136).
22. Huz al Hayat (vol. II. p. 137), composed by Ambaret Kant.
23. The Samrad Nameh, by Kamkar (vol. I. p. 201).
Besides other writings of Zertusht, in great number, which the author has seen.
These works are most probably of a mystical nature, and belong to a particular sect, but may contain, however, some interesting traditions or facts of ancient history. Of the twenty-three books just enumerated, a part of the third only is known to us, namely, that of the Desátir.
[1] In April, 1783.
[2] He landed at Calcutta in September, 1783.
[3] In January, 1784.
[4] Delivered in February, 1785.
[5] In February, 1789.
[6] The works of sir William Jones, with the life of the author, by lord Teignmouth, in 13 vols. Vol. III. p. 110. 1807.
[7] I shall hereafter give some explanations upon this subject.
[8] There appears in the printed edition no positive ground for the opinion above expressed; we find, however, frequent repetitions of the same subject, such as are not likely to belong to the same author; we know, besides, that additions and interpolations are but too common in all Oriental manuscripts.
[9] The Persian text, with the translation of the first chapter, appeared in the two first numbers of the New Asiatic Miscellany. Calcutta, 1789. This English version was rendered into German by Dalberg, 1809.
[10] These translations are mentioned in the notes of the present version.
[11] New Asiatic Misc., p. 87.
[12] Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, vol. II. p. 374.
[13] Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, vol. II. pp. 243-244.
[14] Ibid., pp. 375-376.
[15] See the present Transl., vol. I. pp. 113-114. A mistake is here to be pointed out: at p. 114, l. 11, the name of [Kaivan] has been substituted for that of Mobed Serosh.
[16] See vol. II. p. 137.
[17] See vol. II. p. 145.
| Jehangír reigned from | 1605 | to | 1628. | |
| Shah Jehan | — | 1628 | — | 1659. |
| Aurengzeb | — | 1659 | — | 1707. |
[19] The Works of sir W. Jones, vol. IV. pp. 16 and 105.
§ II.—Discussion on the Desatir.
This word was considered to be the Arabic plural of the original Persian word dostúr, signifying “a note-book, pillar, canon, model, learned man;” but, according to the Persian grammar, its plural would be dosturán, or dostúrha, and not desátir. From this Arabic form of the word an inference was drawn against the originality and antiquity of the Desátir; but this of itself is not sufficient, as will be shown.
Other readings of the title are Dastánir, in one passage,[20] and Wasátir[21] in two other places of Gladwin’s Persian text, and the last also in a passage of the printed edition.[22] The first is not easily accounted for, and is probably erroneous; but the second is found in the index of the printed edition,[23] under the letter و, vau, and explained: “the name of the book of Mahabad;” it cannot therefore be taken for a typographical error, and is the correct title of the book, as I now think, although I formerly[24] preferred reading Desátir. It is derivable from the Sansrcit root वाश् wás, “to sound, to call,” and therefore in the form of wasátis or wasâtir (the r and s being frequently substituted for the visarga) it signifies “speech, oracle, precept, command.” It is also in connection with the old Persian word wakshur, “a prophet.” Considering the frequent substitution in kindred languages of ba for va, and ba for bha, it may also be referred to the root भाष bhasha, “to speak,”[25] which, with the prepositions pari and sam, signifies “to explain, expound, discourse.” Hence we read in the Commentary of the Desátir the ancient Persian word basátir[26] (not to be found in modern Persian vocabularies), which is there interpreted by “speculations,” in the following passage: “the speculations (basátir) which I have written on the desátir.”
I shall nevertheless keep, in the ensuing Dissertation, the title Desátir, because it is generally adopted. Besides, in the Mahabádian text, the vau, و, frequently occurs for the Persian dál, د, thus we find وادن, wáden, for دادن, dáden, “to give;” and wárem, وارم, for dárem, دارم, “I have;” but I am aware that the two letters, so similar in their form, may be easily confounded with each other by the copyist or printer.
The extract from the Desátir contained in the Dabistán was thought worthy of the greatest attention by sir William Jones, as before mentioned; nay, appeared to him “an unexceptionable authority,” before a part of the Desátir itself was published in Bombay, in the year 1818, that is, twenty-four years after the death of that eminent man.
The author of the Dabistán mentions the Desátir as a work well known among the Sipasians, that is, the adherents of the most ancient religion of Persia. According to his statement, the emperor Akbar conversed frequently with the fire-adorers of Guzerat; he also called from Persia a follower of Zerdusht, named Ardeshir, and invited fire-worshippers from Kirman to his court, and received their religious books from that country; we may suppose the Desátir was among them. So much is positive, that it is quoted in the Sharistan chehar chemen, a work composed by a celebrated doctor who lived under the reigns of the emperors Akbar and Jehangír, and died A. D. 1624. The compiler of the Burhani Kati, a Persian Dictionary, to be compared to the Arabic Kamus, or “sea of language,” quotes and explains a great number of obsolete words and philosophic terms upon the authority of the Desátir: this evidently proves the great esteem in which this work was held. Let it be considered that a dictionary is not destined for the use of a sect merely, but of the whole nation that speaks the language, and this is the Persian, considered, even by the Arabs, as the second language in the world and in paradise.[27]
It is to be regretted that Mohsan Fani did not relate where and how he himself became acquainted with the Desátir. I see no sufficient ground for the supposition of Silvestre de Sacy[28] and an anonymous critic,[29] that the author of the Dabistán never saw the Desátir. So much is certain, that the account which he gives of the Mahabádian religion coincides in every material point with that which is contained in that part of the sacred book which was edited in Bombay by Mulla Firuz Bin-i-Kaus.[30]
This editor says in his preface (p. vi): “The Desátir is known to have existed for many years, and has frequently been referred to by Persian writers, though, as it was regarded as the sacred volume of a particular sect, it seems to have been guarded with that jealous care and that incommunicative spirit, that have particularly distinguished the religious sects of the East. We can only fairly expect, therefore, that the contents should be known to the followers of the sect.” Mulla Firuz employs here evidently the term sect with respect to the dominant religion of the Muhammedan conquerors, whose violent and powerful intolerance reduced the still faithful followers of the ancient national religion to undergo the fate of a persecuted sect. But we shall see that the doctrine of the Desátir is justly entitled to a much higher pretension than to be that of an obscure sect.
Whatever it be, Mulla Firuz possessed the only manuscript of the work then known in Bombay. It was purchased at Isfahan by his father Kaus, about the year 1778, from a bookseller, who sold it under the title of a Gueber book. Brought to Bombay, it attracted the particular attention of Mr. Duncan, then governor of Bombay, to such a degree, that he began an English translation of the work, which was interrupted by his return to England. The final completion of the version was owing to the great encouragement which sir John Malcolm gave Mulla Firuz in consequence of the high opinion which sir William Jones had publicly expressed of the Dabistán, the author of which drew his account of the ancient Persian dynasties and religions chiefly from the Desátir. There is an interval of one hundred and thirty-three years[31] between the composition of the Dabistán and the fortuitous purchase of the manuscript copy of the Desátir, by Kaus in Isfahan; as it would be assuming to much to suppose that the latter is the same from which Mohsan Fani drew his information, we can but admit that the agreement of both, in the most material points, affords a confirmation of each respective text.
The great Orientalist Silvestre de Sacy, on reviewing the Desátir,[32] says: “We are in a manner frightened by the multitude and gravity of the questions which we shall have to solve, or at least to discuss; for every thing is here a problem: What is the age of the book? Who is its author? Is it the work of several persons; or the divers parts of which it is composed, are they written by one and the same author, although attributed to different individuals, who succeeded each other at long intervals? The language in which it was written, was it, at any epoch, that of the inhabitants of Persia, or of any of the countries comprised in the empire of Iran? Or is it nothing but a factitious language, invented to support an imposture? At what epoch were made the Persian translation accompanying the original text, and the commentary joined to this translation? Who is the author of the one and the other? Are not this translation and this commentary themselves pseudonymous and apocryphal books; or may not the whole be the work of an impostor of the latter centuries? All these questions present themselves in a crowd to my mind; and if some of them appear to be easily answered, others offer more than common difficulties.”
Well may a person, even with far greater pretensions than mine can be, hesitate to attempt the discussion of a subject which frightened the illustrious Silvestre de Sacy; but as the Desátir is one of the principal sources from which the author of the Dabistán drew his account of the Persian religion and its divers sects—a considerable part of his work—I cannot dispense with presenting the subject in the state in which the discussions hitherto published, by very respectable critics, have left it. If I venture to offer a few remarks of my own upon it, it is only in the hope of provoking further elucidations by philologers who shall examine the Mahabadian text itself, and by arguments drawn from its fundamentals decide the important question—whether we shall have one language more or less to count among the relics of antiquity?
Instead of following the order in which the questions are stated above, I will begin by that which appears to me the most important, namely: “the language in which the Desátir is written, is it nothing but a factitious language invented to support an imposture?”
The forgery of a language, so bold an imposture, renders any other fraud probable; through a false medium no truth can be expected, nor even sought. But, in order to guard against the preconception of a forgery having taken place, a preconception the existence of which may, with too good a foundation, be apprehended, I shall first examine, as a general thesis, whether the invention of a language, by one individual or by a few individuals, is in itself probable and credible. I shall only adduce those principles which have received the sanction of great philologers, among whom it may be sufficient to name baron William Humboldt, and claim the reader’s indulgence, if, in endeavoring to be clear, I should not have sufficiently avoided trite observations.
Tracing languages up to their first origin, it has been found that they are derived from sounds expressive of feelings; these are preserved in the roots, from which, in the progressive development of the faculty of speech, verbs, nouns, and the whole language, are formed. In every speech, even in the most simple one, the individual feeling has a connection with the common nature of mankind; speech is not a work of reflection: it is an instinctive creation. The infallible presence of the word required on every occasion is certainly not a mere act of memory; no human memory would be capable of furnishing it, if man did not possess in himself instinctively the key, not only for the formation of words, but also for a continued process of association: upon this the whole system of human language is founded. By entering into the very substance of existing languages, it appears evident that they are intellectual creations, which do not at all pass from one individual to others, but can only emerge from the coexisting self-activity of all.
“— — That one the names of things contrived,
And that from him their knowledge all derived,
‘Tis fond to think.”[33]
As long as the language lives in the mouth of a nation, the words are a progressive production and reproduction of the faculty to form words. In this manner only can we explain, without having recourse to a supernatural cause, how millions of men can agree to use the same words for every object, the same locution for every feeling.
Language in general is the sensible exterior vestment of thought; it is the product of the intelligence, and the expression of the character of mankind; in particular it may be considered as the exterior manifestation of the genius of nations: their language is their genius, and their genius is their language. We see of what use the investigation of idioms may be in tracing the affinities of nations. History and geography must be taken as guides in the researches upon tongues; but these researches would be futile, if languages were the irregular product of hazard. No: profound feeling and immediate clearness of vivid intuition act with wonderful regularity, and follow an unerring analogy. The genesis of languages may be assimilated to that of works of genius—I mean, of that creative faculty which gives rules to an art. Thus is it the language which dictates the grammar. Moreover, the utmost perfection of which an idiom is susceptible is a line like that of beauty, which, once attained, can never be surpassed. This was the case with some ancient tongues. Since that time, mankind appear to have lost a faculty or a talent, inasmuch as they are no more actuated by that urgency of keen feeling which was the very principle of the high perfection of those languages.
Comparative philology, a new science, sprung up within the last thirty years, but already grown to an unforeseen perfection, has fixed the principles by which the affinities of languages may be known, even among the apparently irregular disparities which various circumstances and revolutions of the different nations have created. This would have been impossible, if there did not exist a fundamental philosophy of language, however concealed, and a certain consistency, even in the seemingly most irregular modification of dialect, for instance, in that of pronunciation. But, even the permutation of letters in different and the most rude dialects, has its rules, and follows, within its own compass, a spontaneous analogy, such as is indispensable for the easy and common practice of a society more or less numerous. Thus sounds, grammatical forms, and even graphical signs of language have been subjected to analysis and comparison; the significant radical letters have been distinguished from the merely accidental letters, and a distinction has been established between what is fundamental, and what is merely historical and accidental.
From these considerations I conclude:
First—That the forgery of a language is in itself highly improbable;
Secondly—That, if it had been attempted, comparative philology is perfectly capable of detecting it.
Taking a large historical view of this subject, we cannot suppress the following reflection: The formation of mighty and civilized states being admitted, even by our strictest chronologers, to have taken place at least twenty-five centuries before our era, it can but appear extraordinary, even after taking in account violent revolutions, that of so multitudinous and great existences, only such scanty documents should have come down to us. But, strange to say, whenever a testimony has escaped the destruction of time, instead of being greeted with a benevolent although discerning curiosity, the unexpected stranger is approached with mistrustful scrutiny, his voice is stifled with severe rebukes, his credentials discarded with scorn, and by a predetermined and stubborn condemnation, resuscitating antiquity is repelled into the tomb of oblivion.
I am aware that all dialectical arguments which have been or may be alleged against the probability of forging a language, would be of no avail against well-proved facts, that languages have been forged, and that works, written in them, exist. We may remember the example adduced by Richardson[34] of a language, as he said, “sufficiently original, copious, and regular to impose upon persons of very extensive learning,” forged by Psalmanazar. This was the assumed name of a an individual, whom the eminent Orientalist calls a Jew, but who, born in 1679, in Languedoc or in Provence, of Christian parents, received a Christian, nay theological education, as good as his first instructors, Franciscans, Jesuits, and Dominicans could bestow. This extraordinary person threw himself at a very early age into a career of adventures, in the course of which, at the age of seventeen years, he fell upon the wild project of passing for a native of the island of Formosa, first as one who had been converted to Christianity, then, as still a pagan, he let himself be baptized by a Scotch minister, by whom he was recommended to an English bishop; the latter, in his pious illusion, promoted at once the interests of the convertor, and the fraud of the neophyte.[35] This adventurer who was bold enough, while on the continent, to set about inventing a new character and language, a grammar, and a division of the year into twenty months, published in London, although not twenty years old, a translation of the catechism into his forged language of Formosa, and a history of the island with his own alphabetical writing, which read from right to left—a gross fiction the temporary success of which evinces the then prevailing ignorance in history, geography, and philology. But pious zeal and fanaticism had changed a scientific discussion into a religious quarrel, and for too long a time rendered vain the objections of a few truly learned and clear-sighted men; until the impostor, either incapable of supporting longer his pretensions or urged by his conscience, avowed the deception, and at last became a truly learned good and estimable man.[36] We see this example badly supports the cause of forged languages.
In 1805, M. Rousseau, since consul-general of France at Aleppo, found in a private library at Baghdad a dictionary of a language which is designated by the name of Baláibalan, interpreted “he who vivifies,” and written in Arabic characters called Neshki; it was explained in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. The unknown author of the dictionary composed it for the intelligence of mysterious and occult sciences, written in that language. The highly learned Silvestre de Sacy had scarce been informed of this discovery, when he sought and found in the Royal Library, at Paris, the same dictionary, and with his usual diligence and sagacity published a short but lucid Notice of it.[37] What he said therein was sufficient for giving an idea of the manner in which this language participates in the grammatical forms of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Silvestre de Sacy, as well as M. Rousseau, have left it uncertain whether the language be dead or living; by whom and at what period it was formed, and what authors have made use of it. The former adds, that some works written in Baláibalan are likely to be found in the hands of the Súfis of Persia.
This language deserves perhaps a further examination. All that is positive in the just-adduced statement of the two great Orientalists may be said of any other language, which is not original but composed, as for instance the English or the Dutch, of more than one idiom. We can but admit that, at all times an association of men for a particular purpose, a school of art, science, and profession may have, has, and even must have, a particular phraseology. Any modification of ancient, or production of new, ideas, will create a modified or a new language; any powerful influence of particular circumstances will produce a similar effect; this is a spontaneous reproduction, and not the intentional forgery of a language.
Such a forgery, even if it could remain undetected, which it cannot in our times, would but furnish a curious proof of human ingenuity, to which no bounds can be assigned; but the true and sole object of a language could never be attained by it; because, never would a great number of independent men be disposed, nor could they be forced, to adopt the vocabulary, grammar, and locutions of a single man, and appropriate them to themselves for the perpetual expression of their inmost mind, and for the exchange of their mutual feelings and ideas.[38] To effect this, is a miracle ascribed to the Divinity, and with justice; being the evident result of the Heaven-bestowed faculty of speech, one of the perpetual miracles of the world.
Of this a prophet must avail himself who announces to the world the important intelligence of a heavenly revelation. The great purpose of his sacred mission implies the widest possible proclamation of his doctrine in a language generally intelligible, which a forged language never can be. If, as was surmised,[39] the Desátir be set up as a rival to the Koran, it must have been written in a national language for a nation; the Persians owned as theirs the Mahabadian religion, the identical one which history, although not under the same name, attributes to them in remote ages, as will result from an examination of the doctrine itself.
Considering the knowledge required, and the difficulties to be overcome in forging a language in such a manner as to impose, even for a time, upon the credulity of others, we shall conclude that nothing less than direct proof is requisite for establishing such a forgery as a real fact. Now, what arguments have been set forth for declaring the language of the Desátir to be nothing else than “an artificial idiom invented to support an imposture?”
Silvestre de Sacy says:[40] “It is difficult indeed, not to perceive that the multiplied relations which exist between the Asmáni, ‘heavenly,’ and Persian languages are the result of a systematic operation, and not the effect of hazard, nor that of time, which proceeds with less regularity in the alterations to which language is subjected.”
I must apologise for here interrupting this celebrated author, for the purpose of referring to what nobody better than himself has established as a peremptory condition of existence for any language, and what he certainly never meant to deny, but may perhaps here be supposed to forget—namely, that a language is not “the effect of hazard,” and although “not the result of systematic combination,” yet, as an instinctive creation, shows surprising regularity, and that an evident rule predominates in the alterations which time produces in languages.
Silvestre de Sacy proceeds: “The grammar of the Mahabadian language is evidently, for the whole etymological part, and even (which is singularly striking) in what concerns the anomalous verbs, traced from (calquée sur) the Persian grammar, and as to the radical words, if there be many of them the origin of which is unknown, there is also a great number of them in which the Persian root, more or less altered, may be recognised without any effort.”
Erskine examined, without the least communication with the French critic, the Mahabadian language, and says:[41] “In its grammar it approaches very nearly to the modern Persian, as well in the inflection of the nouns and verbs, as in its syntax.” Norris[42] takes the very same view of it.
These highly respectable critics published their judgment upon the Mahabadian language before the comparison of several languages with the Sanscrit and between each other had been made by able philologers, creators of the new science of comparative philology. According to the latter, the proofs of the real affinity of language, that is, the proofs that two languages belong to the same family, are to be principally and can be properly deduced, from their grammatical system. Thus, for instance, the forms of the Greek and Latin languages are in several parts nearly identical with the Sanscrit, the first bearing a greater resemblance in one respect, the latter in another; the Greek verbs in mi, the Latin declension of some nouns appear, to use the expression of the illustrious author, “traced from each other (calqués l’un sur l’autre).” These two languages seem to have divided between them the whole system of the ancient grammar, which is most perfectly preserved in the Sanscrit. This language itself is probably, with the two mentioned, derived from a more ancient language; we meet in them three sisters recognised by their striking likeness. This, although more or less weakened and even obliterated in some features, remains upon the whole still perceptible in a long series of their relations: I mean in all those languages which are distinguished by the name of Indo-germanic, to which the Persian belongs.
But, in deciding upon the affinity of languages, not only the grammatical forms are to be examined, but also the system of sounds is to be studied, and the words must be considered in their roots and derivations. The three critics mentioned agree that the language of the Desátir is very similar to the Persian or Deri, not only in grammar, but also in etymology; a great number of the verbal and nominal roots are the same in both. This similarity would, according to comparative philology, lead to the conclusion that either the one is derived from the other, or that both proceed from a common parent; but nothing hitherto here alleged can justify the supposition of invention, forgery, or fabrication of the so-called Mahabadian language.
We continue to quote the strictures of Silvestre de Sacy: “There is however a yet stronger proof of the systematic operation which produced the factitious idiom. This proof I derive from the perfect and constant identity which prevails between the Persian phraseology and that of the Mahabadian idiom. The one and the other are, whenever the translation does not degenerate into paraphrase or commentary, which frequently happens, traced from each other (calqués l’un sur l’autre) in such a manner that each phrase, in both, has always the same number of words, and these words are always arranged in the same order. For producing such a result, we must admit two idioms, the grammar of which should be perfectly alike, as weil with respect to the etymological part as to the syntax, and their respective dictionaries offering precisely the same number of words, whether nouns, verbs, or particles: which would suppose two nations, having precisely the same number of ideas, whether absolute or relative, and conceiving but the same kind and the same number of relations.”
If what we have already stated be not unfounded, the last quoted paragraph, which the author calls “a yet stronger proof of the systematic operations which produced the factitious idiom” must be acknowledged not to have the weight which he would attribute to it. If the Mahabadian and Persian be languages related to each other, “a perfect and constant identity of phraseology between them both,” if even so great as it is said to be, is not only possible, but may be fairly expected in the avowed translation of the Desátir into Persian. Such identity is most religiously aimed at in versions of a sacred text. Need I adduce modern examples of translations which, in point of phraseological conformity with their original, may vie with the Persian version of the Mahabadian text? The supposition that two nations have the same number of ideas, absolute or relative, is far from being absurd: it is really the fact with all nations who are upon the same level of civilisation; but the present question is of the writings of the same nation, which, possessing at all times a sort of government and religion fundamentally the same, might easily count an obsolete language of its own among the monuments of its antiquity.
On that account, we cannot see what the former arguments of the critic gain in strength by the addition: “that the perfect identity of conception falls in a very great part upon abstract and metaphysical ideas, in which such a coincidence is infinitely more difficult than when the question is only of objects and relations perceptible to the senses.”—A great similarity is remarked in all forms of thinking. Little chance of being contradicted can be incurred in saying, that the fundamental ideas of metaphysics are common to all mankind, and inherent in human reason. The encyclopedian contents of the Dabistán, concerning the opinions of so many nations, would furnish a new proof of it, were this generally acknowledged fact in need of any further support.
Silvestre de Sacy acknowledges that the Asmáni language contains a great number of radical words, the origin of which is not known. Erskine says:[43] “It is certainly singular that the language in which the Desátir is written, like that in which the Zend-Avesta is composed, is no where else to be met with. It is not derived from the Zend, the Pehlevi, the Sanscrit, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, or any other known language.” * * * * * * The basis of the language, and the great majority of words in it, belong to no known tongue. It is a mixture of Persian and Indian words. A few Arabic words occur.” Norris[44] also found that a great part of the language appears to have little resemblance to any other that was ever spoken. A judgment, so expressed, might induce an impartial mind to ascribe originality to at least a part of the Asmáni language; which would naturally render the other part less liable to suspicion, inasmuch as it would have been not less difficult to execute, but less easy to conceal, a partial than a total forgery. Nevertheless it so happens that the dissimilarity from any other, as well as the similarity to one particular idiom, are both equally turned against the genuineness of the language in question: where dissimilarity exists, there is absolute forgery—where similarity, an awkward disguise!
Erskine continues: “The Persian system it is unnecessary to particularise; but it is worthy of attention that, among the words of Indian origin, not only are many Sanscrit, which might happen in a work of a remote age, but several belong to the colloquial language of Hindustán: this is suspicious, and seems to mark a much more recent origin. Many words indeed occur in the Desátir that are common to the Sanscrit and to the vulgar Indian languages (the author quotes thirty-four of them); many others might be pointed out. But the most remarkable class of words is that which belongs to the pure Hindi; such I imagine are the word shet, ‘respectable,’ prefixed to the names of prophets and others (twenty-four are adduced). Whatever may be thought of the words of Persian descent, it is not probable that those from the Hindustaní are of a very remote age; they may perhaps be regarded as considerably posterior to the settlement of the Muselmans in India.”
Strongly supported by the opinion of respectable philologers, I do not hesitate to draw a quite contrary conclusion from the facts stated by Erskine. It should be remembered that, in the popular or vulgar dialects are often found remains of ancient tongues, namely, roots of words, locutions, nay rules of grammar which have become obsolete, or disappeared in the cultivated idioms derived from the same original language. It was not without reason that the illustrious William Humboldt recommended to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland,[45] to examine, on behalf of general Oriental philology, the different provincial dialects of India. Even the gibberish of gypsies is not to be neglected for that purpose.[46]
Thus, if we are not greatly mistaken, the very arguments alleged to show that the Mahabadian language is an invention or forgery, lead rather to a contrary conclusion. Duly sensible of the great weight of authority which opposes the result of my inquiry, I sought an explanation of the severe judgment passed upon the Desátir, and venture to surmise that it was occasioned by the certainly extravagant claim to a heavenly origin and incredible antiquity which has been attached to this work. Such pretensions, taken in too serious a light, can but hurt a fixed, if not religious, belief. Every nation acknowledges but one heavenly book, and rejects every other. Hence arises a very natural, and even respectable pre-conception against all that appears without the limits traced by religion, or mere early habit and adopted system. Thus a severe censure is provoked. To annihilate at once the impertinent pretension to a divine origin, all that ingenuity can suggest is brought forward to prove the book to be a fraudulent forgery; to strip it of the awful dignity of antiquity, it must by any means be represented as the work of yesterday. But error is not fraud, and may be as ancient as mankind itself; because credulous, a man is not the forger of a document. If the Mahabadian language is not that primitive idiom from which the Sanscrit, the Zend, and other languages are derived, it does not follow that it is “a mere jargon, fabricated with no great address to support a religious or philosophical imposture;”[47] if it was not spoken in Iran long before the establishment of the Péshdadian monarchy, it does not follow “that it has at no time belonged to any tribe or nation on the face of the earth.”
However I may appear inclined in favor of the Desátir, I shall avoid incurring the blame of unfair concealment by adding to the names of the great critics above quoted, adverse to this work, the great one of William von Schlegel. I must avow it; the celebrated author declares the Desátir,[48] intimately connected with the Dabistán, to be “a forgery still more refined (than that of the Brahman who deceived Wilford),[49] and written in a pretended ancient language, but fabricated at pleasure.” As he, however, presents no arguments of his own, but only appeals in a note to the articles written by Silvestre de Sacy and Erskine, there is no occasion here for a further observation concerning this question. As to von Schlegel’s opinion upon the Dabistán, I reserve some remarks upon it for another place.
General arguments, opposed to general objections, may produce persuasion, but are not sufficient for establishing the positive truth concerning a subject in question. It is necessary to dive into the Mahabadian language itself for adequate proofs of its genuineness. I might have justly hesitated to undertake this task, but found it already most ably achieved by baron von Hammer,[50] in whom we do not know which we ought to admire most, his vast store of Oriental erudition, or the indefatigable activity, with which he diffuses, in an unceasing series of useful works, the various information derived not only from the study of the dead letter in books, but also from converse with the living spirit of the actual Eastern world. This sagacious reviewer of the Desátir, examining its language, finds proofs of its authenticity in the nature of its structure and the syllables of its formation, which, when compared to the modern pure Persian or Derí, have the same relation to it as the Gothic to the English; the old Persian and the old Germanic idioms exhibit in the progress of improvement such a wonderful concordance and analogy as can by no means be the result of an ingenious combination, nor that of a lucky accidental coincidence. Thus, the language of the Desátir has syllables of declension affixed to pronouns, which coincide with those of the Gothic and Low German, but are not recognisable in the modern form of the Persian pronouns. This is also the case with some forms of numerical and other words. The Mahabadian language contains also a good number of Germanic radicals which cannot be attributed to the well-known affinity of the German and the modern Persian, because they are no more to be found in the latter, but solely in the Desátir. This has besides many English, Greek, and Latin words, a series of which baron von Hammer exhibits, and—which ought to be duly noticed—a considerable number of Mahabadian words, belonging also to the languages enumerated, are sought in vain in any Persian dictionary of our days! Surely, an accidental coincidence of an invented factitious language, with Greek, Latin, and Germanic forms would be by far a greater and more inexplicable miracle, than the great regularity of this ancient sacred idiom of Persia, and its conformity with the modern Deri. It is nevertheless from the latter that the forgery is chiefly inferred.
Moreover, the acute philologer, analysing the Mahabadian language by itself, points out its essential elements and component parts, that is, syllables of derivation, formation, and inflexion. Thus he adduces as syllables of derivation certain vowels, or consonants preceded by certain vowels; he shows certain recurring terminations to be syllables of formation for substantives, adjectives, and verbs; he sets forth particular forms of verbs, and remarkable expressions. All this he supports by numerous examples taken from the text of the Desátir. Such a process enabled him to rectify in some places the Persian translation of the Mahabadian text.
I can but repeat that my only object here is to present the question in the same state that I found it; and am far from contesting, nay, readily admit, the possibility of arguments which may lead to a contrary conclusion. Until such are produced, although not presuming to decide, I may be permitted to believe that the language of the Desátir is no forgery; I may range myself on the side of the celebrated Orientalist mentioned, who, ten years after the date of his review of the Desátir (ten years which, with him, are a luminous path of ever-increasing knowledge), had not changed his opinion upon the language of the Desátir, and assigns to it[51] a place among the Asiatic dialects; according to him, as it is more nearly related to the new Persian than to the Zand and the Pehlevi, it may be considered as a new intermediate ring in the hermetic chain which connects the Germanic idioms with the old Asiatic languages; it is perhaps the most ancient dialect of the Deri,[52] spoken, if not in Fars, yet in the north-eastern countries of the Persian empire, to wit, in Sogd and Bamian. When it ceased to be spoken, like several other languages of by-gone ages, the Mahabádian was preserved perhaps in a single book, or fragment of a book, similar in its solitude to the Hebrew Bible, or the Persian Zend-Avesta.
At what epoch was the Desátir written?
The epoch assigned to it, according to different views, is the sixth[53] or the seventh[54] century of our era, even the later time of the Seljucides, who reigned from A. D. 1037 to 1193. The latter epoch is adopted as the earliest assignable, by Silvestre de Sacy, who alleges two reasons for his opinion: the one is his belief that the new Persian language, in which the Desátir was translated and commented by the fabricator of the original or Mahabadian text did not exist earlier; the second reason refers to some parts of the contents of the Desátir. I shall touch upon both these questions.
It is useless to discuss what can never be ascertained, who the author of the Desátir was. But this work would be unintelligible without the Persian translation and commentary. Silvestre de Sacy asks: “Are not this translation and this commentary, themselves pseudonymous and apocryphal books, and is not the whole, perhaps, the work of an impostor of the last century?” In answering this, I shall be guided by the baron von Hammer, who wrote his review of the Desátir before he had seen that of the Journal des Savans, but, after having perused the latter, declared that he had nothing to change in his opinion. Although the commentator, to whom the honor of being the inventor of the Mahabadian language is ascribed, follows in the main the ancient text word for word, and substitutes commonly a new for the obsolete form of the term, yet frequent instances occur (some of which baron von Hammer adduces) which prove that the interpreter did not clearly understand the old text, but in place of the true meaning gave his own arbitrary interpretation. The proper names even are not always the same. Besides—and this is most important—the doctrines contained in the Desátir and in the Commentary differ from each other. In the books of the first Mahabadian kings we find the fundamental ideas of the Oriental philosophy, such as it was before its migration from Asia to Europe; but in the commentary we perceive the development of the Aristotelian scholastic, such as it formed itself among the Asiatics, when they had, by means of translations, become acquainted with the Stagirite. We shall revert to this subject hereafter. Whatever it be—the discrepancies between the original text and the interpretation, as they would certainly have been avoided by the author of both, prove that they are the works of two different persons, probably with the interval of a few centuries between them.
The Persian translator and commentator is said to be the fifth Sassan, who lived in the time of the Persian king Khusro-Parviz, a contemporary of the Roman emperor Heraclius, and died only nine years before the destruction of the ancient Persian monarchy, or in the year 643 of our era. It must be presumed that the five Sassans, the first of whom was a contemporary of Alexander, 323 years before Christ, were not held to be immediate successors to each other, but only in the same line of descent; otherwise an interval of 946 years, from Alexander to Parviz, comprehending the reign of thirty-one Arsacides and twenty-two Sassanian princes, would be given to no more than five individuals, which absurdity ought not to be attributed to the commentary of the Desátir. In general, so common is it with Asiatics to deal with names of celebrity as if they were generic names, that it is very frequently impossible to be positive about the true author of a work. There appears in the present case nothing to prevent us from placing the translator and commentator of the Desátir (whether a Sassan or not) in the seventh century of our era.
The translation and commentary of the Desátir are written in what the best judges consider as very pure Persian, though ancient, without any mixture whatever of words of Arabic or Chaldean origin, and conformable to the grammatical system of modern Persian. But when was the latter formed?—As the opinion upon this epoch involves that upon the age of the composition itself, I shall be permitted to take a rather extensive historical view of this part of the question.
Setting aside the Mahabadian kings mentioned in the Desátir and Dabistán, we know that Gilshah, Hoshang, Jamshid (true Persian names) are proclaimed by all Orientalists as founders of the Persian empire and builders of renowned cities in very remote times. This empire comprised in its vast extent different nations, speaking three principal languages, the Zand, Pehlevi, and Parsi. Among these nations were the Persæ, “Persians,” properly and distinctively so called. We are informed by Herodotus[55] that there were different races of Persæ, of whom he enumerates eleven. Those who inhabited originally Fars, Farsistan, Persis,[56] a country double the extent of England, and gave their name to the whole empire, certainly spoke their own idiom, the Parsi or Farsi. A national language may vary in its forms, but never can be destroyed as long as any part of the nation exits; can we doubt that the Persians who, once the masters of Asia, although afterwards shorn of their power, never ceased to be independent and formidable, preserved their language to our days?
We may consider as remains of the oldest Persian language, the proper and other names of persons, places and things mentioned by the most ancient historians; now, a number of such words, which occur in the Hebrew Bible,[57] in Herodotus, and other Greek authors, are much better explained from modern Persian than from Zand and Pehlevi. In the Armenian language exist words common to the Persian, none common to the Pehlevi;[58] therefore, in very remote times Persian and not Pehlevi was the dominant idiom of the Iranian nations with whom the Armenians were in relation. More positive information is reserved for posterity, when the cuneiform inscriptions upon the monumental rocks and ruins, to be found in all directions within the greatest part of Asia, shall be deciphered by future philologers, not perhaps possessing greater talent, but better means of information from all-revealing time than those of our days, who have already successfully begun the great work—Grotefend, Rask, St. Martin, Burnouf, Lassen, etc.
Let us now take a hasty review of a few principal epochs of the Persian empire, with respect to language, beginning only from that nearest the time, in which Persia was seen and described by Herodotus, Ctesias, and Xenophon, not without reference to the then existing national historical records. Khosru (Cyrus) the Persian King, placed by the Occidentals in the seventh century before our era,[59] having wrested the sceptre from the hands of the Medes, who spoke Pehlevi, naturally produced the ascendancy of his national idiom. This did not sink under his immediate successors, Lohrasp and Gushtasp. Although under the reign of the latter, who received Zardusht at his court in the sixth century B. C.,[60] the Zand might have had great currency, yet it certainly declined after Gushtasp, as his grandson Bahman, the son of Isfendiar, favored the cultivation of the Parsi.[61] This language was perfected in Baktria (the original name of which country is Bákhter, “East,” an old Persian word) and in the neighboring Transoxiana; there the towns Bamian, the Thebes of the East, and Balkh, built by Lohrasp and sanctified by Gushtasp’s famous Pyræum, besides Merv and Bokhára, were great seats of Persian arts and sciences. The Parsi, thus refined, was dominant in all the royal residences, which changed according to seasons and circumstances; it was spoken at the court of the Second Dara (Darius Codomanus), and sounds in his own name and that of his daughters Sitára (Statira), “star,” and Roshana (Roxana), “splendor,” whom the unfortunate king resigned with his empire to Alexander.[62] This conqueror, intoxicated with power, endeavored to exterminate the Mobeds, the guardians of the national religion and science; he slew many, but dispersed only the majority. From the death of Alexander (323 B. C.) to the reign of Ardeshir Babegan (Artaxerxes), the founder of the Sassanian dynasty (200 A. D.), a period of more than five centuries is almost a blank in the Persian history; but when the last-mentioned king, the regenerator of the ancient Iranian monarchy, wishing to restore its laws and literature, convoked the Mobeds, he found forty thousand of them before the gate of the fire-temple of Barpa.[63] Ammianus Marcellinus, in the fourth century of our era attests, that the title of king was in Deri, “court-language,” yet the Pehlevi was spoken concurrently with it during the reigns of the first twelve Sassanian princes, until it was proscribed by a formal edict of the thirteenth of them, Bahram gor, in our fifth century. Nushirvan and Parviz, in the sixth century, were both celebrated for the protection which they granted to arts and sciences. We have on record a school of physic, poetry, rhetoric, dialectics, and abstract sciences, flourishing at Gandi sapor, a town in Khorasan: the Persian must have then been highly cultivated. We are now in the times of Muhammed; were they not Persian, those Tales, the charm of which, whether in the original or in the translation, was such, that the Arabian legislator, to counteract it, summoned up the power of his high-sounding heaven-inspired eloquence, and wrote a part of the Koran against them? If he himself had not named the Deri as the purest dialect of the Persian, what other language could we believe he admired for its extreme softness so much as to say, that the Almighty used it when he wished to address the angels in a tone of mildness and beneficence, whilst he reserved the Arabic for command?[64] Such a fact, or such a tradition, presupposes a refined, and therefore long-spoken language. After Muhammed’s death, his fanatic successors attempted to bury under the ruins of the Persian empire even the memory of its ancient religion and language—but they did not succeed: the sacred fire was saved and preserved beyond the Oxus; it was rekindled in Baktria, that ancient hearth of Persian splendor; there poetry and eloquence revived, but could not raise their voices until princes of Persian origin became lieutenants of the Mohammedan khalifs. It was under Nasr, son of Ahmed the Samanian, in the beginning of our tenth century, that Rudigi rose, the first celebrated new Persian poet, but he found, he did not create the language, more than Homer created Greek, Dante Italian, or Spenser English. A great author, in whom the genius of his nation is concentrated, does no more than aptly collect into a whole the idiom which exists every where in parts, and elicit its pre-existing resources. Thus under his pen the language can appear to spring up with all its beauties—as Minerva, equipped in armour, sprung forth from the head of Jupiter.
Such being the historical indications relative to the Persian language, we cannot participate in the doubts of Silvestre de Sacy, nor find Erskine[65] just in disdaining even to make a comment upon the credibility of the hypothesis “that the Persian language was completely formed in the age of the latter Sassanians.” It would be rather a matter of wonder that the Parsi, related to the most ancient and most cultivated language in the world, should not have been much sooner fitted for the harmonious lays of Ferdusi!—a matter of wonder indeed, that the Persians, who taught the Arabs so much of their religion—heaven and hell, should have remained behind them in the refinement of their idiom!—that they, who could scoff at the Tazis as eaters of lizards, should not have possessed, in the seventh century, a language to contend with that people, who themselves possessed celebrated poets long before Muhammed![66]
It is for ever regrettable that overpowering Muhammedism should have spoiled the original admirable simplicity of one of the softest languages in the world, by the intrusion of the sonorous but harsher words of Arabic, and imposed upon us the heavy tax of learning two languages for understanding one; but, as the translation of the Desátir is free from words of an Arabic or Chaldean origin, should we not fairly conclude, that it was executed before the Muhammedan conquest of Persia? So did Norris, and so Erskine—I can but think—would have done, if his judgment and penetration, usually so right and acute, had not been prepossessed by the idea of an imposture, which he had assumed as proved or self-evident, whilst this was the very point of contestation. Thus, “the very freedom from words of foreign growth, which the learned natives consider as a mark of authenticity, appeared to him the proof of an artificial and fabricated style.”
If even there are some Arabic words to be found in the text and the translation of the Desátir, this affords no fair inference that these works had not been composed before the Arabs conquered Persia, because those words might have come from Pehlevi, in which there is a mixture of Arabic, and there are also Persian words in the Koran; most naturally, as there subsisted from times immemorial relations between Persia and Arabia.
What I have said will, if I am not mistaken, sufficiently justify the conclusion, that the Persian idiom could in the seventh century have attained the regularity and form of the present Persian, such at least, as it appears in the Commentary of the Desátir, not without a very perceptible tincture of obsoleteness.
I need scarce remark that the title asmáni, “heavenly,” belongs exclusively to the superstitious admiration with which the Desátir is viewed. Nor are its fifteen books to be taken for sacred works of so many prophets who succeeded each other after such long intervals of time; yet nothing prevents us, as I hope to show, from believing some parts of them very ancient. Neither are these of the same antiquity. Thus, prophecies which are certainly interpolations made after the events, occur in them, not otherwise than in the Indian Puránas, the fundamental parts of which are nevertheless now admitted to be as ancient as the Vedas themselves. We find in the two last books of the Desátir are mentioned: the contest between the Abbasides and the descendants of Ali; the adoption of Muhammedism by almost the totality of Iran; inimical sects, and the power of the Turcomans superseding that of the Arabs; the latter parts must certainly have been composed after the taking of Bagdád by Hulogu in 1258 of our era. The fifteenth book of the Desátir is probably apocryphal.
As to the doctrine of the Desátir, Erskine says:[67] “I consider that the whole of the peculiar doctrines, ascribed to Mahabad and Hoshang, is borrowed from the mystical doctrines of the Persian Súfis, and from the ascetic tenets and practices of the Yogis and Sanyasis, of India who drew many of their opinions from the Vedanta-school.” But this involves the great historical question, concerning the origin of Súfism and the whole Indian philosophy, which is by some (not without foundation) believed to have been spread throughout a great part of Asia. It is quite gratuitous, I may say, to regard them “as having had no existence before the time of Azar Kaivan[68] and his disciples in the reigns of Akbar and Jehanguir, and as having been devised and reduced into form between 200 and 300 years ago in the school of Sipasi-philosophers.” Nor can I admit as better founded the following insinuations of the same ingenious critic: “Nor shall I inquire whether many of the acute metaphysical remarks that abound in the commentary and the general style of argument which it employs have not rather proceeded from the schoolmen of the West, than directly from the Oriental or Aristotelian philosophy.” To this may be answered: It is highly problematic, whether the translator of the Desátir ever knew any schoolman of the West, but it is certain that he, as an Asiatic and a Persian, knew the Oriental philosophy, the fundamentals of which were preserved in the first books of the Desátir, as we have already said; but the commentator could but participate in the modification, which the ancient doctrine had undergone in his age, after its return from the West to the East, in translations of Greek philosophical works into Asiatic languages. Thus, in the Desátir and its commentary—I borrow the words of baron von Hammer:—“We see already germinating the double seed of reason and light, from which sprung up the double tree of rational and ideal philosophy,”[69] which spread its ramifications over the whole world, and lives and flourishes even in our times.
The commentator was no ordinary man: living, as we may believe, in the first half of the seventh century, he possessed the sciences of his learned age; flourishing under the reign of king Khosru Parviz, who professed the ancient Persian religion in his letter to a Roman emperor of the East,[70] and tore to pieces Muhammed’s written invitation to adopt Islam[71]; in this yet unshaken state of national independence, the fifth Sassan preserved pure his creed and style from the influence of the Arabian prophet. The translator and commentator of the Desátir says of himself:[72] “I too have written a celebrated book under the name of Do giti, ‘the two worlds’, full of admirable wisdom, which I have derived from the most exalted intelligence, and in the eminent book of the famous prophet, the King of Kings, Jemshid, there is a great deal, concerning the unity which only distinguished Asceties (Hertasp) can comprehend, and on the subject of this transcendant knowledge I have also composed a great volume Pertú están, ‘the mansion of light,’ which I have adorned by evidence deduced from reason, and by texts from the Desátir and Avesta, so that the soul of every man may derive pleasure from it. And it is one of the books of the secrets of the great God.”
This is a most important declaration. The commentator considered the Desátir and the Avesta as sources of delight TO ALL MEN. And he was right. The doctrine of the former work now under consideration is found every where, not denied either by the ancients or moderns; it is the property of mankind. As such, “it does not belong to any particular tribe or nation:” in which point, although in quite another sense, we agree with Erskine, but we may dissent from the learned author, when he taxes it to be “a religious or philosophical imposture, which needed the support of a fabricated language.” After careful examination, I must conscientiously declare, I discover no imposture aimed at by any artifice; there was no secret to be concealed; nothing to be disguised; the Mahabadian religion is as open as its temple, the vault of heaven, and as clear as the lights, flaming in their ethereal attitudes; its book is a sort of catechism of Asiatic religion; its prayer a litany of Oriental devotion, in which any man may join his voice.
Thus have I endeavored, to the best of my power, to exhibit faithfully what has hitherto been alleged for and against the authenticity of the book, which is one of the principal authorities of the Dabistán. If the author of this latter work was, as the often-quoted ingenuous author supposes, “in strict intimacy with the sects of enthusiasts by whom the Desátir was venerated, and whose rule it was,” we may so much the more rely upon the truth of his account concerning such a religious association. If he professed the new religion, which the emperor Akbar had endeavored to found, as this was a revival of the ancient Persian religion, we may reasonably presume, that he would have searched, and brought to light writings concerning it which were concealed, neglected, or little known; he would have cautiously scrutinized the authenticity of the documents, and conscientiously respected the sacred sources of that faith, which, after a careful examination of all others, deserved his preference; nothing justifies the supposition, that he would forge any thing himself, or countenance, or not be able to detect, the forgery of others. However this be, Mohsan Fani’s character will be best known by the perusal of his work; after a rapid synopsis of its contents, to which I will now proceed, I shall be permitted to point out, as briefly as possible, some of the merits and defects conspicuous in his composition.
[20] See note, vol. I. p. 20.
[21] Ibid., p. 44.
[22] Calcutta edition, p. 30, line 6.
[23] See vol. I. p. 534.
[24] Ibid., p. 65.
[25] M. Eugène Burnouf, to whose most valuable judgment I had the pleasure to submit the question, prefers the derivation from bhásh, because this word in Zend would be wâsh, as the Zend w represents exactly the Sanscrit bh, which aspiration did not exist in the ancient idiom of Bactrian Asia. This sagacious philologer hinted at a comparison with the Persian usta, or awesta, upon which in a subsequent note.
[26] See the Persian text of the Dasátir, p. 377.
[27] Tableau de l’Empire ottoman, by M. d’Ohson, t. II. p. 70.
[28] Journal des Savans, février 1821, p. 74. The Persian passage which de Sacy quotes, and in which there is Destánir for Dasátir, is taken from the text published by Gladwin, and not from the printed Calcutta edition.
[29] See Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies, vol. VIII., from July to Dec. 1819, p. 357.
[30] The Desátir, or sacred writings of the ancient Persian prophets in the original tongue; with the ancient Persian version, and commentary of the fifth Sasan; published by Mulla Firuz Bin-i-Kaus. Bombay, 1818. Mulla Firuz is supposed to possess the only copy of the Desátir extant. He allowed sir John Malcolm to take a copy of it, which, by some accident, was lost by Doctor Leyden—(See Transact. of the Lit. Soc. of Bombay, pp. 342 and 349).
[31] Mohsan Fani marks the time of his composing the Dabistan (vol. II. p. 50) to be the year of the Hejira 1055 (A. D. 1645).
[32] See Journal des Savans, No. for January, 1821, p. 16.
[33] Lucretius, book V., Transl. of Dr. Creech:
“— — putare aliquem tum nomina distribuisse
Rebus, et inde homines didicisse vocabula prima
Desipere est.”
[34] Richardson’s Dictionary, preface, lxvii.
[35] This man, who never told his true name, was from the age of fifteen to seventeen a private teacher—then passed for an Irishman—went to Rome as a pilgrim with a habit stolen from before an altar where it was lying as a votive offering of another pilgrim—wandered about in Germany, Brabant, Flanders—indolent, abject, shameless, covered with vermin and sores—entered the military service of Holland, which he left to become waiter in a coffee-house in Aix-la-Chapelle—enlisted in the troops of the elector of Cologne. He acted all these parts, with those above-mentioned, before he was baptised under the name of George, by a Scotch clergyman, and, having learned English, passed over to England to be protected by Compton, the lord-bishop of London. At the expense of the latter, he studied at Oxford—became a preceptor—chaplain of a regiment—fell back into indolence, and lived upon alms.—(See A New and General Dictionary, London, 1798, vol. XII; and Vie de plusieurs Personnages célèbres des Temps anciens et modernes, par C. A. Walckenaer, membre de l’Institut, tome II. 1830.)
[36] This change took place in his thirty-second year—he learned Hebrew and became an honest man, esteemed by Samuel Johnson; he wrote eleven articles in a well-known work, the Universal History, and his own Life at the age of seventy-three years; the latter work was published after his death, which happened in his eighty-fourth year, in 1763.
[37] See Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits, vol. IX. pp. 365-396.
[38] I am here applying to the forger of a language what Lucretius, in continuation of his above quoted verses ([p. xxx]), urges against the belief that a single individual could ever have been the inventor of human speech.
[39] By Norris, Asiatic Journal, vol. IX., November, 1820, p. 430.
[40] Journal des Savans, February, 1821, pp. 69-70.
[41] See Transact. of the Lit. Soc. of Bombay, vol. II.: “On the Authenticity of the Desátir, with remarks on the Account of the Mahabadi Religion contained in the Dabistan,” by William Erskine, esq., p. 360.
[42] The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies, Novemb. 1820, p. 421 et seq.
[43] The work quoted, p. 360.
[44] The Asiatic Journal, November, 1820, p. 421 et seq.
[45] An Essay on the best means of ascertaining the affinities of Oriental languages, by baron W. Humboldt, in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. II. part I. p. 213.
[46] Colonel Harriot on the Oriental Origin of the Gypsies. Ibid., 518.
[47] Erskine, loco cit., p. 372.
[48] See Réflexions sur l’Étude des Langues asiatiques, adressées à sir James Mackintosh. Bonn, 1832, pp. 51-52.
[49] See Asiatic Researches, vol. VIII. Lond. ed. 8. p. 254.
[50] See Heidelberger Jahrbücher der Literatar Vom Jänner te Juni 1823, Nos 6. 12. 13. 18. 20.
[51] See Journal asiatique, tome XII. juillet 1833, pp. 24-26.
[52] Ibidem, pp. 20-21. Deri was spoken on the other side of the Oxus, and at the foot of the Paropamisus in Balkh, Meru, in the Badakhshan, in Bokhara and Bamian. The Pehlevi was used in Media proper, in the towns of Rai, Hamadan, Ispahan, Nehawend, and Tabriz, the capital of Azar bíján.—Beside the Deri and Pehlevi, Persian dictionaries reckon five other dialects, altogether twelve dialects, of ancient and modern Persian.
[53] Tholuck. Sufismus, sive Theosophia Pantheistica, p. 111.
[54] Norris, Asiatic Journal, November, 1820, p. 430.
[55] Clio, lib. I.
[56] In the Bible it is called Paras, or Faras, and reckoned as extensive as Great and Little Armenia, or as Hungary, Transylvania, Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia together.—(See Gatterer’s Weltgeschichte IIter Theil, Seite 9.)
[57] In the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.
[58] See Observations sur les Monumens historiques de l’ancienne Perse, par Étienne Quatremère. Journal des Savans, juin et juillet 1840, pp. 347-348.
[59] The Orientals place him in the tenth century B. C.
[60] According to Richardson (see the preface of his Dict., p. vi), the Farsi was peculiarly cultivated by the great and learned, above 1200 years before the Muhammedan era, i. e. above 600 years B. C., which epoch is commonly assigned to Gushtasp’s reign.
[61] See Hammer’s Schöne Redekünste Persiens, Seite 3 et seq.
[62] Strabo, who flourished in the beginning of the Christian era, and drew his information mostly from the historians of Alexander, refers probably to the time of the Macedonian conquest, when he says (xv. 2, § 8, fol. 724, edit. Cas.): that the Medians, Persians, Arians, Baktrians, and Sogdians spoke almost the same language. This probably was that of the then leading nation, the Persian.
[63] Hammer, loc. cit., p. 7.
[64] Works of sir W. Jones, vol. V. p. 426, Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay, vol. II. p. 297.
[65] Loco cit., p. 363.
[66] See the preface to the most valuable work Le Divan d’Amro’lkais, par le baron Mac Guckin de Slane, Paris, 1837, pp. viii and ix. The learned author confirms that celebrated Arabian poems existed before the introduction of the Muhammedan religion, which, for a certain time, averted the Arabs from the cultivation of poetry and history. We shall here add (which would have been more appropriately placed in the note upon Amro’lKais, in vol. III p. 65, and will correct the same) that this poet (see loc. cit., p. xvi et seq.) flourished at an epoch anterior to Muhammed, and died probably before the birth of that extraordinary man.
[67] Loco citato, p. 372.
[68] See vol. I. pp. 87 et seq.
[69] Heidelberger Jahrbücher, loc. cit. Seite 313.
[70] The Dabistán (see Pers. text, Calcutta edit., p. 69, and English transl., vol. I. p. 145) quotes verses containing this profession, addressed by Khosru Parviz to a Roman emperor, whose name, however, is not mentioned. During the reign of this Persian king, two emperors ruled in the East, namely, Mauritius, whose daughter Parviz married, and Heraclius, by whom he was defeated towards the end of his life. I found it probable, but had no authority to assert (see vol. I. p. 145, [note 2]), that the above-stated profession was made to Mauritius; but those verses by themselves deserve attention, as they establish the adherence of Parviz to the religion of Hoshang, in contradiction to several historians, according to whom he adopted Christianity: this assertion seems founded upon his great attachment to the celebrated Mary, or Chirín, his Christian wife, and daughter of a Christian emperor, the said Mauritius.
[71] Muhammed, when informed of the ignominious reception which the Persian king gave to his letter and ambassador, said: “God will tear his empire, as he tore my letter, to pieces.”—(Herbelot.)
[72] The Desátir, p. 99.
PART II.
SYNOPSIS OF THE DYNASTIES, RELIGIONS, SECTS, AND PHILOSOPHIC OPINIONS, TREATED OF IN THE DABISTAN.
§ I.—THE FIRST RELIGION—THE DYNASTIES OF MAHABAD, ABAD AZAR, SHAI ABAD, SHAI GILIV, SHAI MAHBUL, AND YASAN.
Mohsan Fani exhibits the remarkable notions, dogmas, customs, and ceremonies of twelve religions, and their various sects, without giving more of their origin and genesis than the names of their founders. The very first principle of all religion is referred, by some, to a primitive Divine revelation; by others, to a natural propensity of the human mind to superstition. However this may be, history confirms the suggestions of psychology, that admiration was one of the principal sources of religious feelings; how should man not be struck with the glories of the sky? Therefore, the adoration of stars was one of the most ancient religions. It needed no prophet: it is “the poetry of heaven,” imprinted in eternal characters of fire upon the ethereal expanse. Prometheus, enumerating the benefits which he bestowed upon untutored barbarians, says:[73]
“— — — At random all their works
Till I instructed them to mark the stars,
Their rising, and, a harder science yet,
Their setting.”[74]
According to all traditions, astronomy was one of the first sciences cultivated by men.[75] The stars not only occasioned the institution, but also served to announce the regular return, of religious feasts; thus they became, as called by Plato, “the instruments of time,” men were at once induced and taught by religion to count months and years. Astronomy, in her feast-calendars, consecrated upon an altar the first fruits of her labors.
Upon the star-paved path of heaven man was conducted to the sanctuary of the supreme Being. In general, the first feeling of “the Divine (το θεῖον),” seizing the human mind with its own supernatural power, elevated it at once above the material concerns of the nether world; thus, sublime ideas of the Deity, the universe, and the immortality of the soul preceded the invention of many arts and sciences relative to the comforts of social life. This is confirmed by the account, contained in the Dabistán, of the most ancient religion of the Persians, which is founded upon transcendental ideas of the Divinity: “Except God himself, who can comprehend his origin? Entity, unity, identity are inseparable properties of this original essence, and are not adventitious to Him.” So the Desátir, with which the Dabistán generally so fully agrees, that we can scarce doubt that the author of the latter had the former before his eyes.
No sooner has man acquired the consciousness of mental freedom, than he endeavors to expand beyond himself the first vague feeling of the Divine; not satisfied to admire all exterior marvel, he desires to understand and to name its interior moving cause: this is something immaterial; it is a soul, such as acts in himself. Among the ancient Iranians, the “first creation of the existence-bestowing bounty” was the intellectual principle, called Azad Bahman, “the first intelligence;” he is also the first angel; from him other spirits or angels proceed. Every star, every heavenly sphere has its particular intelligence and spirit or angel. In the lower region, each of the four elements owns its particular guardian; vegetables, minerals, animals have their protecting angels; the conservative angel of mankind is Farun Faro Vakshur. It is not without reason, that this religion was called “the religion of light.” As the supreme Being
“Sow’d with stars the heav’n thick as the field.”[76]
So also he peopled the vast extent with the “sons of light, the empyreal host of angels,” who not only moved and governed the celestial orbs, but also descended into the elemental regions to direct, promote, and protect his creation. Not a drop of dew fell without an angel. The Hindus and Greeks animated universal nature; the Persians imparadized the whole creation by making it the abode of angels. Hence demonology in all its extent. But, “among the most resplendent, powerful, and glorious of the servants who are free from inferior bodies and matter, there is none God’s enemy or rival, or disobedient, or cast down, or annihilated.” This important passage of the Desátir[77] I shall have occasion to refer to hereafter.
Human souls are eternal and infinite; they come from above, and are spirits of the upper spheres. If distinguished for knowledge and sanctity, while on earth, they return above, are united with the sun, and become empyreal sovereigns; but if the proportion of their good works bore a closer affinity to any other star, they become lords of the place assigned to that star; their stations are in conformity with the degrees of their virtue; perfect men attain the beatific vision of the light of lights, and the cherubine hosts of the supreme Lord. Vice and depravity, on the contrary, separate souls from the primitive source of light, and chain them to the abode of the elements: they become evil spirits. The imperfectly good migrate from one body to another, until, by the efficacy of good words and actions, they are finally emancipated from matter, and gain a higher rank. The thoroughly-depraved descend from the human form to animal bodies, to vegetable, and even to mineral substances.
So far we see the well-known dogma of transmigration ingeniously combined with the Sidereal religion. Here is exhibited a singular system of heavenly dominion, maintained by every star, whether fixed or planetary, during periods of many thousand years. A fixed star begins the revolution, and reigns alone, the king of the cycle, during a millenium, after which, each of the fixed and planetary stars becomes its partner or prime-minister for a thousand years; the last of all is the moon, for a millenium. Then the sovereignty of the first king devolves to the star which was its first associate. This second king goes through the same course as the first, until this becomes for a thousand years his partner, and then his period is also past. The same is the course of all other stars. When the moon shall have been king, and all stars associated with it and its reign too past, then one great period shall be accomplished. The state of the revolving world recommences, the human beings, animals, vegetables, and minerals, which existed during the first cycle, are restored to their former language, acts, dispositions, species, and appearances; the world is renovated, that is to say, forms, similar to those which passed away, reappear. This system, copied from the Desátir,[78] expresses nothing else but the general vague idea of long heavenly revolutions, and periodical renovations of the same order of things in the nether world.
The Dabistán[79] adds a mode of computing as peculiar to the followers of the ancient faith: they call one revolution of the regent Saturn a day; thirty such days one month; twelve such months one year; a million of such years one fard; a million fard one vard; a million vard one mard; a million vard one jad; three thousand jads one vad; and two thousand vád one zád. To these I must subjoin salam, shamar, aspar, radah, aradah, raz, araz, biaraz, that is, eight members of a geometric progression, the first of which is 100,000, and the coefficient 100. But these years are revolutions, called farsals, of thirty common years each. There are besides farsals of Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the moon, a day of each being the time of their respective revolution.
I thought it necessary to repeat these extravagant numbers, because it is by them that the reigns of the first ancient dynasties are measured.[80] The first earthly ruler of the present cycle, who with his wife survived the great period to become the first ancestor of a new innumerable population, was Mahabada. This name seems of Sanscrit derivation.[81] In his reign we find traced the first ground-lines of all human societies; agriculture and the arts of life are invented; villages and cities organised; four classes of society established—priests, warriors, agriculturists, and tradesmen. The names of these classes are in the Dabistán much like those of the four Hindu castes, but the Desátir and the Shahnamah have other denominations, belonging to an ancient Persian dialect,[82] for these divisions, which originated in the indispensable wants of a rising society. This institution connects itself with the principles of social morality: men are bound to each other by the laws of justice and mutual kindness, which is extended even to all innoxious creatures. To Mahabad the Desátir was sent, a celestial code, and his faith was maintained through the whole series of his fourteen successors; the number of whom reminds us of the fourteen Indian Manus; they are said to have reigned six hundred and six trillions of years.
To the Mahabadians succeeded Abad Azar, who soon withdrew from government, and devoted himself to solitude and piety. After him, the hitherto fortunate state of society changed into war, confusion, and anarchy. His son, Jai Afram, was called to the throne, and restored peace and order in the world, giving his name to a new dynasty. After this, four other princely families are named, that of Shai Abad, Shai Giliv, Shai Mahbul, and Yasan.[83] I shall not count the many millions of years during which they ruled; all that is said of their reigns appears nothing but a repetition of the first; a period of peace, order, and happiness is followed by war, disorder, and misery, until a revolution renews the state of things. Such traditions of a progress and regress in virtue and happiness, and of repeated changes from one condition to another, are not destitute of general truth. The moral is not, more than the physical world, exempt from revolutions. These, although their date cannot be determined, have left behind them undeniable traces, and without a reference to them, we could not explain so much of the strangeness, incoherence, and heterogeneity in the history of men and nature.
Thus I have slightly sketched the principal features of the religion which prevailed among the first Persian dynasties; these, not mentioned in other historical books, are we know peculiar to the Desátir and Dabistán, which appeared to sir W. Jones an unexceptionable authority for believing the Iranian monarchy “the oldest in the world.” Upon this, W. Erskine remarked:[84] “Shall I be forgiven for saying, that the history of letters seems to me scarcely to afford an instance of a more perverted judgment on historical evidence?” Silvestre de Sacy[85] too “banishes among the most absurd fables the dynasties of the Mahabadians, and of their successors, which sir William Jones, and after him some other Orientalists, have too hastily adopted, and of which they would to-day blush, since their titles have been produced.” More recently, William von Schlegel[86] said: “It would be useless to conceal to the public that that learned man, endowed with talents so rare, was totally deficient in historical criticism:” This was inferred, because he had admitted, and used in some of his considerations, as genuine, a forgery of Wilford’s Pandit. Besides, “he received without diffidence, and even welcomed with enthusiasm, the traditions contained in the Dabistán, a modern Persian book, written with the intention to claim for Persia the pre-eminence over India with respect to the antiquity of religious revelations.”
As to “the intention” mentioned, I hope to be able to justify Mohsan Fani. With respect to the Mahabadian dynasties—the light recently acquired upon the ancient history of Persia, reflect rather favorably upon that part of sir William Jones’s opinion, that this country, in its wide extent, was once the original seat of many nations now settled in distant regions. So much, at least, may be considered as established: 1. that the limits of history are to be removed further back than those before fixed; 2. that in the earliest times primitive nations, related by language to each other, had their origin in the common elevated country of central Asia, and that the Iranians and Indians were once united before their migration into Iran and India.[87] This great fact presents itself, as it were, upon the border of a vast abyss of unknown times.
For these a measure was sought. Hence we meet with extravagant, but perpetually recurring chronological statements. The Mahabadian ages are neither better nor worse, as to accuracy, than the Indian yugs, the Chaldean,[88] or other periods. In order to reduce them to their true value, we must consider them as nothing else than expressions of the ideas which the ancients entertained of the antiquity of the world and human society, in which they cannot be easily refuted, and at least are not absurd. Such ideas originated, when man, curious after his past, had long ceased to be a listless barbarian; but the earliest civilisation is a late product of slow-working time, the memory of which could have been preserved only by monuments. The most ancient of these however are but recent in our historical knowledge, the limits of which are far from being those of antiquity. The duration of ante-historical empires, in printless but extensive spaces of times, escapes research and computation. As men, however, bear with impatience vague and loose ideas, the Persians, as well as other nations, determined the past by numbers formed from the multiplication of some astronomical periods known in early times, as has been observed:[89] this appears to me at once the whole truth and falsehood of those statements. In the utter impossibility to reconcile the discordant data of different nations, we must content ourselves to take up the general ideas and facts in which they all agree, whilst in the particulars they all differ. Thus, in laying down maps of countries little known, we are satisfied with tracing the general direction of some rivers and mountains, and abstain from topographical details.
Προμηθευς δεσμωτης,
— — — — ἄτης γνώμης τὸ πᾶν
Ἔπρασσον, ἔς τε δή σφιν ἀντολὰς ἐγὼ
Αστρων ἔδειξα, τάς τε δυσκρίτους δύσεις.
(v. 457-459).
[74] Transl. by Dr. Potter.
[75] Hyde, who did not know the Dabistán, says (p. 188): that a year, or calendar, of Median invention was introduced in Persia, before Jamshid, that is, according to Ferdusi’s not irrational chronology, earlier than 3429 before our era.
[76] Milton’s Paradise Lost, b. VII. v. 358.
[77] The book of Shet Shai Kiliv, v. 59. p. 56.
[78] Bombay edit. Engl. transl., pp. 19. 20.
[79] vol. I. p. 14. The Bombay Desátir does not mention the revolution of Saturn, and states differently the value of fard, mard, etc., etc.
[80] It is known that in India, and perhaps all over Asia, the number of ciphers not followed by a significative number, is indifferent, and indicates nothing else but magnitude. Thus the Hindus, to determine positively hundreds, thousands, etc., affix the required figure at the end: for instance, to determine 100 rupees to be given, they write 101.
[81] The word is perhaps a form of the Sanscrit Mahábodhi, “a great deified teacher.” In the Burhani Kati we find six significations attributed to the word Abad; these are: 1. cultivated; 2. praise and prayer; 3. exclamation of praise; 4. the name of the Kaba; 5. the name of the first Persian prophet; 6. good and beauteous.
[83] I have (see vol. I. p. 26, [note 1]) derived this name from the Sanscrit yas, “glory, honor.” In Burhan Katii it is interpreted by “what is convenient.”
[84] Loco cit., p. 342.
[85] Journ. des Savans, février 1821, p. 69.
[86] See Réflexions sur l’Étude des Langues orientales, loc. cit., p. 51.
[87] See the development of these ideas in Erdkunde von Carl Ritter, VIIIter Theil; IIIter Buch, West-asien Seiten 105-109, with reference to E. Burnouf Comment. sur le Yacna, pp. 461, 563.
[88] We may be here permitted to call to mind the eras of the Chaldeans, who, according to Berosus, Epigenes, Diodorus of Sicily, Abydenus counted 490,000, 720,000, 473,000, 463,763 years. They are said to have exhibited, before Alexander’s conquest in Asia, historical annals for 150,000 years.
[89] See [p. lxvii].
§ II.—The Peshdadian, Kayanian, Ashkanian, and Sassanian Dynasties—their religious and political institutions.
After the four dynasties mentioned follows the Gilshanian, monarchy, founded by Gilshah, or Kayomers, “the king or form of earth.”[90] We are now upon well-known ground, and hear familiar names of four races: the Péshdadian, Kayanian, Ashkaniun, and Sassanian, to which, altogether, the Dabistán attributes a period of 6024 years, differing considerably from that of other Asiatic chronologers.[91]
Sir William Jones was right when he declared,[92] that “the annals of the Péshdadi (or Assyrian) race must be obscure and fabulous; those of the Kayání family, or the Medes and Persians, heroic and poetic:” annals gathered from oral traditions can be but such as the great Orientalist characterises those of the mentioned dynasties. But it was in his younger years, before he had enlarged his views upon the history of mankind, that he fixed the origin of the Persian monarchy so late as 890 years before our era;[93] afterwards, in India, he refuted his former notions, and ranged more freely in the expanded fields of antiquity. I shall add that Ferdusi places the beginning of Gilshah’s reign 3529 years before Christ, an epoch which receives synchronical confirmation from our daily-increasing knowledge of the antiquity of China, India, Assyria, Egypt, and other states.
The fundamental religion remains the same: a celestial volume called Payman-i-farhang, in perfect accord with the Mahabadian code, is transmitted to Kayomers. So the Dabistán: but, in the Desátir, the four books ascribed to the first four Mahabadian prophet-kings contain the purest deism, and although the foundation of astrolatry and demonolatry may be perceived in the cosmology of the first book, yet these did not form a positive worship, which develops itself in the seven planetary books of the seven subsequent Persian kings, to wit: Kayomers, Siamok, Hushang, Tahmúras, Jamshid, Feridun, and Menocheher. Under these monarchs, a particular worship was rendered to the seven planets, as to mediators between God and men; the description of the forms under which they have been adored, is not, to my knowledge, found in any other book but the Dabistán.
Superstition is certainly as ancient as human nature itself; it is impossible to fix the epoch at which particular opinions and practices originated, such as the eighty-four sitting-postures at prayer; the suppression of the breath for the abstraction of thought; the mystical and fantastical notions upon vision and revelation; and particularly the belief that a man may attain the faculty to quit and to reassume his body, or to consider it as a loose garment, which he may put off at pleasure for ascending to the world of light, and on his return be reunited with the material elements. All these matters are considered as very ancient.
We find in the Dabistán a curious account of Persian sects under different names, such as Abadians, Azur-Húshangians, Jamshaspians, Samradians, Khodaiyans, Radians, Shidrangians, Paikarians, Milanians, Alarians, Shidabians, Akshiyans. The founders of these sects are placed so far back as the reigns of Jamshid and Zohak. Individuals professing the particular creed of each of these sects were living in the time of the author of the Dabistán, who was personally acquainted with several of them, and imparts the information which he had himself received from their lips. He gives with particular care an account of the before-mentioned Azar Kaivan,[94] the chief of the later Abadíans and Azar-Hushangians. The doctrine of these sectaries contained peculiar notions about God’s nature and attributes, and the world; the latter was to some an illusion; God himself but an idea. To others, God was every thing, to be served alone without a mediator between him and mankind; the heavens and the stars were his companions. God was the sun—fire—air—water—earth; he was the essence of the elements: from every one of these divine principles the heavens, stars, and the whole world proceeded. These were some of the fundamental principles of their metaphysical religion.
Their morality appears to have consisted in the acknowledgment of all natural virtues; piety, justice, charity, sobriety; wine and strong drinks were forbidden; above all a tenderness towards all living creatures was recommended; and the severity against those who slew innoxious animals was carried to such an excess, than even sons punished their fathers with death, and fathers their sons, for the slaughter of a sheep or an elk.[95]
Their political constitution appears from the earliest time to have been that of an absolute monarchy: this is the curse attached to Asiatics. The king was to be of a noble descent, and bound to acknowledge the Farhang-Abad, “code of Abad.” All dignities, military and civil, were hereditary from father to son. The royal court and inner apartments appear to have been regulated in much the same manner as they are still in Asia; his cup-bearers and familiar servants, as well as those of his sons, and other nobles, were always females.
The interior administration of cities and villages is sufficiently detailed in the Dabistán. An active police was established, with numerous spies and secret reporters, for the security of government. We are glad to find in such early times hospitals for the relief of the suffering, and caravansaras for the convenience of travellers. Moreover, post-stations of horses and messengers were distributed for the rapid communication of news, from all sides of the vast empire, to the monarch.[96]
Not a little care was bestowed upon the discipline and continual exercise of numerous armies. The military chiefs were distinguished by the magnificent decorations of their persons, horses, and arms, in which they prided themselves. They were bound to treat their soldiers kindly, nay, obliged to produce certificates, from their subordinates, of having behaved well towards them. An order of battle was prescribed, in which they were to encounter the enemy; no plunder after victory was permitted; they never slew, nor treated with violence, a man who had thrown down his arms and asked for quarter.
History may well be referred to religion, which is an ancient intellectual monument, living in the human soul from generation to generation. I have hitherto marked two religious periods: the first, that of the Desátir, through the Mahabadian dynasty; the second, that of Paiman-í-Farhang, prevailing during the Pésh-dadi-race until the middle of the Kayanian reign; I now come to the third.
[90] The first word is pure Persian; the other may be derived from the Sanscrit kaya, “body, form,” and mrita, “earth.”
[91] See vol. I. p. 31, [note 1.]
[92] His Works, vol. III. the sixth Anniversary Discourse, p. 108.
[93] Ibid., vol. XII. p. 399.
[94] See [page 63.]
[95] See vol. I. pp. [181]. [184].
[96] Parasang, Farsang, even in our days a Persian word, is found and determined as a lineal measure of distances in Herodotus, lib. II. V. and VI.
§ III.—The Religion of Zardusht, or Zoroaster.
All religions are said to have deviated from their primitive simplicity and purity, as men advanced in knowledge and civilisation. This is true but in a restricted and distinctive sense, and may be explained, even without yielding to our habit of considering that which is more remote and less known as holier than that which is nearer and better examined. Thus, we may admit that the impressions made upon men in the first stage of expanding reason are stronger and more vivid, the less they are distracted by simultaneous and correlative associations; one great idea is enough to fill their whole mind, and admits of no rival, of no commixture with any thing else; curiosity, versatility, luxuriancy of intellect are not yet known; constancy is a necessity in a small compass of ideas. We have already touched[97] upon the powerful effect which the early perception of the Divine produced upon man: but he soon circumscribed what was too vast or his comprehension in a perceptible object—heaven, sun, fire, to which he offered his adoration; he wanted a visible type or image of the invisible Divinity; but, his means of formation being at first very confined, he contented himself with the most simple representation: he had a symbol, an idol in a grove or cavern, but not yet a Pantheon. Simplicity may be a mere restriction to one object or to few objects; purity, nothing else but homogeneity in good or bad, true or false; we shall not confound them with rationality, which may subsist with multiplicity and mixture. Thus, the adoration of one deified man, one great serpent, one huge stone, is by no means more rational than the worship of numerous generations of gods, the ingenious personification sof multiform nature, ever acknowledged as the genuine offspring of the happy marriage between intellect and imagination. In the absence of arts and riches, worship is rude and destitute of showy accessories. Afterwards, the development of the understanding widens the field of reasoning, the fertility of which may be attested more by the shoot of weeds than by the growth of fruits: error prevails over truth; the increase of manifold resources facilitates and prompts superfetation of exterior religion. Besides, the impressions, by which the first legislator attached his followers to his doctrine, are effaced by time; the first traditions, obscured, confused, and altered; faith is weakened, and an opening made for change in belief, practice, and morals. A change, merely as such, is considered as a corruption by the adherents of the old creed. Finally, revolutions, interior and exterior, deteriorate or destroy religion and civilisation.
These reflexions, with the explanation previously given as to the various notions of which the religions in Asia were composed, will clearly show that, in the course of ages, a reform of astrolatry, pyrolatry, and idolatry, the branches of Sabæism and Mezdaism, became desirable; and Zardusht, or Zoroaster, appeared.
In the notes placed at the bottom of the pages containing Mohsan Fani’s account of Zoroaster,[98] will be found some of the principal results of the investigations which have been made in Europe respecting this legislator. The name of Zoroaster was applied by some to the founder of Magism, or Sabæism; we know also, that he has been identified with many other prophets under different names, among whom is Abraham, called “the great Zardusht,” and Hom, of so extensive a celebrity, that his name is mentioned by Strabo as predecessor of Zoroaster. No wonder that the name of the latter occurs in more or less remote times. According to the Dabistán, he was born in Rai, a town in the province of Jebal, or Irak Ajem, the country of the ancient Parthians, and appeared as a reformer of religion, under the reign of Gushtasp, the fifth king of the Kayanian dynasty, by the Occidental historians generally identified with Darius Hystaspes. Although variously stated, this period is less subject to chronological difficulties than are many others; for, as Eastern and Western historians agree in the epoch of Alexander’s death (321 B. C.), we may from this, as from a fixed point, remount upwards to Gushtasp; we find, according to some Orientals, five reigns in 228 years,[99] and therefore that of the said king, beginning 549 years before our era, whilst, according to the Occidentals, there are ten reigns within 200 years, from Alexander’s conquest of Persia to Darius Hystaspes, whose reign commences in 521 A. D. The discrepancy of twenty-eight years is far from being unexampled, even in more known periods, and may in this case be most easily and plausibly adjusted.[100]
According to a wide-spread tradition, to which I shall have occasion to return, Gushtasp was instructed by Brahmans; pursuant to the Dabistán, his brother Jamasp was the pupil of the Indian Jangran-ghachah (Sankara acharya)[101]. This sage, as soon as he heard of Gushtasp’s listening to Zoroaster, wrote an epistle to dissuade the king from the adoption of the new creed; an interview took place at Balkh between the Persian and Indian sages, and the latter abandoned his religion upon hearing a nosk, or chapter of the Zand-Avesta.[102] This is the name of the work attributed to Zoroaster himself, a part of which was brought to Europe, in the year 1761, by Anquetil du Perron.
The author of the Dabistán mentions the Zand-Avesta, and declares the Mah-Zand to be a portion of the Desátir, and the Zand books in general conformable to the Mahabadian code. The fifth Sassan, the translator and commentator of the Desátir, in a passage above-quoted,[103] joins this work to the Avesta, and is said in the Dabistán to have made a translation of the code of Zardusht.
Great was the sensation caused among the learned of Europe at the first appearance of the works attributed to Zoroaster, published in French by Anquetil du Perron, in 1771. In a note of this volume[104] will be found the names of the principal authors who declared themselves for or against the authenticity of the Zoroastrian books. Among those who combated it, sir William Jones was most conspicuous. Seventy years have since elapsed, and a learned controversy may now be considered as settled, nay, entirely forgotten, in the course of a most eventful historical period. Nevertheless, the Desátir is so closely connected with the Zand-Avesta, that so much having been said of the one, the other should not be lightly discarded. The value and importance of the Dabistán rest chiefly upon the support of the two documents mentioned; on that account I may hope to be pardoned if I here venture to repeat whatever facts and arguments appear to me to have some bearing upon this work. But it was sir William Jones who then roused the whole learned public into lively attention, and, I dare presume, that the subject may by itself at all times excite considerable interest.
I shall quote the very words of lord Teignmouth concerning the French author before mentioned:[105] “Anquetil had published in three quarto volumes an account of his travels in India, the life of Zoroaster, and some supposed works of that philosopher. To this publication he prefixed a Discourse, in which he treated the university of Oxford, and some of its learned members and friends of Mr. Jones, with ridicule and disrespect. From the perusal of his works, Mr. Jones was little disposed to agree with Monsieur du Perron in the boasted importance of his communication; he was disgusted with his vanity and petulance, and particularly offended by his illiberal attack upon the university, which he respected, and upon the persons whom he esteemed and admired. The letter which he addressed to M. du Perron was anonymous; it was written with great force, and expresses his indignation and contempt with a degree of asperity which the judgment of maturer years would have disapproved.”[106]
The letter alluded to contains most severe remarks, not only upon the Zand-Avesta, but also upon Oriental studies in general: these are blows so much more sensible to Orientalists, as they come from a friendly and most revered hand. Such was the ardor of a susceptible mind under the impression of having to vindicate the honor of his friends, that he forgot for a moment the wreath which he had already won in the career of Oriental literature; he had already composed his commentary upon Asiatic poetry, and translated from the original Persian the Life of Nadir-shah; he had then no presentiment of the glory which he was destined to acquire by collecting, under the Indian heaven, the lore of antique Asia. As his French letter, written in a very spirited and brilliant style, can never be read without causing a great impression, I shall be permitted to borrow from the writings of this celebrated author himself some reflexions, which I think necessary for placing in a right point of view Oriental studies in general, and in particular the contents of the Dabistán, inasmuch as these are in some parts founded upon the Zand-Avesta, and in other points of a nature similar to that so much ridiculed in that ingenious satire.
If it were true, that Anquetil was wrong “to affront death for procuring us useless lights—if the writings of Zoroaster are a collection of galimatia—if enlightened Europe had no need of his Zand-Avesta, which he has translated to no purpose, and upon which he uselessly spent eighteen years, a time which ought to have been precious to him——”[107] then any similar attempts which have been or shall be made to procure, in Asia, and to publish ancient historical documents, are equally ridiculous and blamable. It is certainly not the founder of a new era in Oriental literature whom we hear in these words. Nobody knew better than he that, in Asia, the cradle of mankind, we must search for the most ancient documents to restore the lost history of mankind; and if all endeavors were to prove vain and useless, still the merit of having attempted the attainment of a most laudable purpose would remain. It is not unimportant to fix the limits which researches can reach, and beyond which nothing is to be gained; men are benefitted and enriched at once by the saving of time and trouble which preceding attempts teach; and by all the acquisitions which better directions render possible in a new and more profitable career. Should the bold navigators who strive to arrive at the pole never attain their aim, still would their endeavors be worthy of praise; the smallest fragment of a rock, the slightest shoot of a plant, plucked off in the desert of eternal ice, in latitude eighty-eight, would at home be regarded with lively interest, and navigation have not a little gained in aid of other more fortunate undertakings.
But, who can like to read “puerile details, disgusting descriptions, barbarous words—Zoroaster could not have written such nonsense—either he had no common sense, or he wrote not the book which Anquetil attributed to him.”[108]
As much has been and may be said of the books attributed to other Asiatic legislators, who were nevertheless revered as sacred during many ages by numerous nations. Until we properly understand the ignorance and habitual ideas of Asiatics, we shall always remain ignorant of what is proverbially called the wisdom of the East. To appreciate the just value of the ancient codes of laws, we ought to represent to ourselves the primitive children of the earth, as Prometheus describes them:
“They saw, indeed, they heard; but what avail’d
Or sight, or sense of hearing, all things rolling,
Like the unreal imagery of dreams,
In wild confusion mix’d! The lightsome wall
Of finer masonry, the rafter’d roof
They knew not; but, like ants still buried, delved
Deep in the earth, and scoop’d their sunless caves.
Unmark’d the seasons chang’d, the biting winter,
The flow’r-perfumed spring, the ripening summer,
Fertile of fruits.”[109]
It will then be felt how important it was to break the savage under the yoke of seemingly puerile practices and customs. In a state which was not unaptly called “the infancy of man,” it was by no means absurd to ensure health by dietetical prescriptions, cleanliness by obligatory ablutions, and decency with convenience by a regulated dress; the koshti, “the girdle,” of Zoroaster was then not so unmeaning as it now appears to us. It was necessary to educate the moral sense by appropriate images, and to occupy conveniently, by fables, symbols, and mythical accounts, the first active faculty of the soul, imagination. Although those men who, as legislators, were elevated above their barbarous age, could in many points but partake in the general imbecility and ignorance of an infant state of society, they have nevertheless, among seemingly childish and absurd precepts, promulgated most luminous truths, better than which none have hitherto been known, even at the most advanced degree of civilisation. Any information above the common understanding of the age is justly called “a revelation,” and every nation has received some from their prophets, by which we have all benefited.[110] We, the youngest sons of science, ought to keep a grateful and reverential remembrance of our elder brothers. Let it be a subject of regret that, by the maintenance of ancient institutions much longer than was required for their intended purpose, the intellectual growth of many Asiatic nations was stopped; thus they now appear made for their laws, whilst their laws were once made for them. After these and similar reflexions, we shall view Zoroaster’s hundred gates, and the remains of his twenty-one nosks, as venerable monuments of an antique civilisation, which ought never to be profaned by derision.
Upon the Zand language, in which Zoroaster’s laws were written, I refer to the great philologers of our days, who have examined it—Rask,[111] Bopp, Burnouf, Lassen, and others: it is one of the most important conquests made in archæology and philology, and this we owe to Anquetil. When Jones[112] treated with such severity the publication of this French author, he could not foresee that he should one day call forth to notoriety the Dabistán, which rests in great part upon the authority of the Desátir, and these very books to which he refused all authenticity. Mohsan Fani, one hundred and twenty years before Anquetil, derived his information probably from other copies of Zoroaster’s works, and knew nothing of Western authors, yet his statements agree with what the latter, before and after our era related, and most particularly with what the French discoverer published of that ancient philosopher. Can it be supposed that all these men of different nations, whose statements have thus coincided during the lapse of more than two thousand years, have “imposed upon themselves, or been imposed upon by others concerning the pretended laws of a pretended legislator?” Anquetil deserved a better name than that of “a French adventurer, who translated the books ascribed to Zoroaster, from the translation of a certain gypsy at Surat, and his boldness in sending them abroad as genuine”[113] was not unsupported by judgment. If there was some folly and foppery to deride in a young man, who spoke of his lilly-rosy cheeks and elegant figure, there was no “imposture” to detect, and too much acerbity shewn in retorting thoughtless indiscretions, exaggerated into “invectives.”
Sir William Jones, when he published the strictures which his antagonist, from pride or moderation, never answered, was but in his twenty-fourth year and under the influence of youthful ardor. Eighteen years after, in a discourse, addressed to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, in 1789, he spoke with more moderation of Anquetil as “having had the merit of undertaking a voyage to India in his earliest youth with no other view than to recover the writings of Zoroaster.” The illustrious president of that Society was not in the position to appreciate Anquetil’s whole character, and died too soon to become acquainted with the brilliant reputation which the youthful voyager acquired in his maturer years as a learned member of the French Academy of Letters, both in his own country and abroad.[114]
The Dabistán informs us, that the Zand-books are of two kinds: the one, perspicuous and without enigmatical forms of speech, is called the Mah-Zand, “great Zand;” the second, abounding in enigmatic or figurative language, is entitled Kah-Zand, “little Zand.” The first, in most points speculative and practical, agrees with the Desátir; the second is intended to prevent philosophy falling into the hands of the ignorant, to whom an enigmatical veil is offered, whilst the sages know the true purport of the pure doctrine. To king Gushtasp, his brother Jamasp, his son Isfendiar, and to Bahman, the son of the latter, were attributed the interpretations of Zoroaster’s religious system, and many ingenious parables which, for their moral sense, may be reckoned among the best specimens of this kind of popular instruction.
This true statement, contained in the Dabistan,[115] corrects the assertion of sir William Jones,[116] that Mohsan Fani affirms “the work of Zartusht to “have been lost.” The learned Orientalist evidently confounds the Mah-zand, which is said to be a portion of the Desátir, with the work of Zartusht. The writer of the Dabistán enumerates[117] the twenty-one nosks or books, of which the Zand was composed; he says:[117] “At present there are fourteen complete nosks, possessed by the Dosturs of Karman; the other seven being incomplete, as, through the wars and dissensions which prevailed in Iran some of the nosks have disappeared, so that, notwithstanding the greatest researches, the nosks have come into their hands in a defective state.” We find it expressly declared in the Dabistán, on the authority[118] of the Dostur who wrote the volume of the Sad dur, “the hundred gates,” that “the excellent faith has been received from the prophet Zartusht.” In a particular section, intitled Enumeration of some advantages which arise from the enigmatical forms of the precepts of Zartusht’s followers, Mohsan not only adduces examples of Zartushtian allegories, but subjoins his own interpretations of them; yet he never affirms, nor even insinuates “the place of Zoroaster’s lost works to have been supplied by a recent compilation.” Nor can we assent to the view, which sir W. Jones takes of the modern literature of the Mobeds, “for whom,” he says,[119] “as they continued to profess among themselves the religion of their forefathers, it became expedient to supply the last or mutilated works of their legislator by new compositions, partly from their imperfect recollection, and partly from such moral and religious knowledge as they gleaned, most probably among the Christians with whom they had an intercourse.”
To settle our judgment upon this subject, we ought to recollect, that languages and precepts may be transmitted from generation to generation by oral instruction, which indeed was once the only possible mode during a long period of time. It was then that memory was so much stronger, as, destitute of all artificial assistance, it depended solely upon itself. We bought the advantage of writing by resigning somewhat of memorial energy; this was the evil, which, according to Plato, Thamus, the Egyptian king, predicted to Theut, the inventor of writing. However this may be, it will appear founded upon reason and history, that religious creeds, which had once been the property of nations, are not easily eradicated by any force, or forgotten under any circumstances; they become living streams of ideas and sentiments, which run uninterruptedly through the ever-renewed races of man, even when these separate from a parent stock. Hence we find, in countries and among nations the most remote from each other, so many notions and customs, the origin of which is lost in the night of time. Shall I mention the Jews, who, throughout the whole world, repeat to-day the same words which they learned more than thirty-three centuries ago? With regard to the Guebres—sir W. Jones might have safely granted a little more confidence to his friend Bahman, his Persian reader, who always named with reverence Zartusht, whose religion he professed, in common with many so called Guebres. For these it was not necessary “to preserve Zoroastrian books, in sheets of lead or copper, at the bottom of wells near Yezd:”[120] this fact, which Bahman used to assert, shows the particular care which had once been taken to guard these sacred documents, the veneration for which most naturally prevented any falsification of their known contents.
We are confirmed, by the author of the Dabistán, that Zoroaster did not change the fundamentals of the ancient religion; only the dualism of the principles, good and bad, not existing, as I have remarked[121] in the Mahabadian religion, was either then first introduced, or only further developed; besides, we see the cycle of 12,000 years fixed, and divided into four periods of 3000 years each; we hear the promise of a Saviour to restore the empire of God promulgated, and the destruction of the world by fire announced: this is at the same time the epoch of the general resurrection, which is one of the most remarkable dogmas of the Zoroastrian religion.
Although this be not destitute of religious observances, yet we find scarce any painful austerity recommended. The twenty-fifth gate of Zoroaster contains the remarkable precept: “Know that in thy faith there is no fasting except that of avoiding sin: in which sense thou must fast the whole year.”[122] The ancient Mahabadian religion, although adulterated before, during, and after Zoroaster’s life, seems to have never lost its grave character and solemnity. In the Zand-books known to us, no trace of temples, altars, or religious symbols exist. Herodotus knew of none; the fire-places were upon a desert place, or upon mountains; the fire upon the ground. Upon the Persian monuments which time has spared, upon the walls of the thousand-pillared palace of Isfahan, and upon those of the Royal tombs we see no idols, but priests and kings, performing the sacrifice of fire before their fervers, “ideals of virtue and sanctity,” and other actions rather of a political than religious character. The pyræa, round and concave, represented the vault of heaven. Nevertheles other accounts permit us to believe, that, by association with other nations; most likely by the introduction of sculpture, architecture, and painting; and, as the Dabistán expressly says, by the use of symbolical language: a superstitious worship of sacred places and symbolic images gained a great ascendancy.
This religion prevailed during the times of the Kayanian kings from Gushtasp to Dara the Second, during more than two centuries. After the conquest of Persia by Alexander, a political and religious revolution took place in this country, and extended to Greece, where, according to the commentary of the Desátir, the creed of the Gushaspians was introduced. This is declared to be a medium between the Illuminated and the Rationalists, perhaps the same which the Dabistán calls the faith of the Beh-dinians, “professors of the better religion.” So much is avowed by Philo, Plinius, and others—and we have reason to lay stress upon this avowal—that at one time the so called barbarians were reckoned to be more wise and virtuous than the Greeks. During the Ashkanian dynasty (from the third century B. C. to the end of the second after our era), the people conformed to the Kah-zand, that is, yielded to the superstition, which the figurative language was apt to suggest. Ardeshir, the first Sassanian, in the beginning of the third century A. D.; endeavored to re-establish the ancient religion; but, after his reign of forty years, the Kah-zand took and kept the ascendancy, until the Persian empire fell before the overwhelming power of the Muhammedans. The Mah-zand was lost during the domination of the intolerant invaders, Greeks, Arabs, and Turks; the Kah-zand still remains in some of its parts, whilst many others were lost in the successive disorders of the state.
The fifteenth and last section of the first chapter treats of Mazdak, who lived in the fifth century of our era. We are informed of the existence of a book, called Desnak, which the author of the Dabistán saw, and which contains the doctrine of this reformer. This was nothing else than the Zoroastrian system about the two principles, Yezed, “God” or “light,” and Ahriman, “agent of evil” or “darkness,” with a few peculiarities which did not destroy the fundamental principles of the original religion. But, it was the ethical part of his doctrine which at first caused a great revolution, and at last the destruction of the teacher and his numerous disciples, Mazdak bade all men to be partners in riches and women, just as they are of fire, water, and grass; private property was not to exist; each man to enjoy or to endure, in his turn, the good and bad lots of this world. To this strange doctrine may be perhaps applied the saying of a great bishop (Bossuet): that “every error is but an abuse of some truth.” To prevent an excessive inequality of fortunes in society was the object towards which celebrated ancient legislators tended, and for which frequently wishes were expressed, reforms projected, and politico-philosophical romances[123] composed by well-meaning and respectable persons. It is therefore to a natural, but dangerous propensity of the human mind, that we ought to refer Mazdak’s bold and for some time too successful attempt, as well as all the doctrines of the same tendency, which before and after him were and will henceforth be proposed.
I have now terminated the general review of what the first chapter of the Dabistán, and the first volume of the English translation contain, concerning the most ancient dynasties, religions, and political institutions of Persia.
[98] See vol. I. p. [211] et seq.
[99] See sir John Malcolm’s History of Persia. Ferdusi counts 304 years from Alexander’s death to the beginning of Gushtasp’s reign; but he assigns to the latter 120, and 112 to that of his successor Bahman Arjer, or Ardishir diraz (Artaxerxes longimanus). These two reigns might have comprised those of several others not mentioned by Ferdusi.
[100] The duration of the whole Kayanian dynasty is stated by the Orientals (see vol. I. p. 31, [note 1] of this work) to be 704 years in 10 reigns; according to Occidental historians, it is only 380 years in 18 reigns. The first statement is evidently erroneous as to the small number of kings, but it is not decided that it is equally so as to the duration of the whole dynasty. The error is more likely to be in the list of the kings than in the whole period of their reigns. May I be permitted to refer to my discussion upon the chronology of the Rajatarangini (vol. II. p. 387)?
[101] Sir William Jones says (Works, vol. III. p. 128): “It was he (Zoroaster)—not as Ammianus asserts, his protector, Gushtasp—who travelled in India, that he might receive information from the Brahmans in theology and ethics.” This is not to be found in the edition of Calcutta, nor in the manuscript of the Dabistán which D. Shea and myself have seen.
[102] Mr. Eugène Burnouf, when he communicated to me his opinion upon the derivation of the word Wasátir (see [p. xxii]), adverted incidentally to that of the term Zand-Avesta, interpreted sometimes “the Zand and the Usta,” and said, that these words are found in perhaps a single passage of the books of Zoroaster, to wit, huzanth vacha vaidhya cha. These two words are applied to mantras (prayers), and seem to signify “which will give life,” or “which are salutary to towns and nations,” and “which are learned.” We recognise the Sanscrit sujantu and vidya.
[105] See Memoirs of the life, writings, and correspondence of sir W. Jones, in his Works, vol. I. p. 190, 8vo., ed., 1807.
[106] See works of sir W. J. vol. X. p. 403 et seq.
[107] See Works of Sir W. J., vol. X. p. 403 et seq.
[108] See works of sir W. J. pp. 413. 432. 437.
[109] De Potter’s Transl. of Æschylus, Prometheus chained. In the Greek origin. v. 447-456.
[110] Voltaire, whose genius sir W. Jones knew how to appreciate, said: “Glorifions-nous de ce que les vérités les plus importantes sont devenues des lieux communs pour les Européens, mais ne nous en moquons pas, et sachons avoir quelque reconnaissance pour les anciens legislateurs qui nous les ont, les premiers, appris.”
[111] See Transact. of the R. A. S. of Great Brit. and Irel., vol. III. part I. p. 524 et seq. Remarks on the Zand language and the Zand-Avesta. This able tract is chiefly a comment upon Erskine’s Memoir On the sacred book and religion of the Parsis, in the Transact. of the Lit. Soc. of Bombay, vol. II. p. 295.
[112] Sir W. J. says (see his Works, vol. III. p. 116) that, according to his conviction, the dialect of the Guebrs, which they pretend to be that of Zertusht, of which Bahman, a Guebr and his Persian reader, gave him a variety of written specimens, is a late invention of their priests. What language does he mean? certainly not that of the Zand-Avesta, of which he speaks in particular, and states (ibid., p. 118) “the language of the Zand was at least a dialect of the Sanscrit, approaching, perhaps, as nearly to it as the Prácrit, or other popular idioms, which we know to have been spoken in India two thousand years ago.”
[113] Sir W. J.’s Works, vol. V. pp. 414-415.
[114] Anquetil composed a number of Memoirs, read to the French Institut and preserved in their printed records. He published, in 1771, three quarto volumes upon his voyages to, in, and from India, and the Works of Zoroaster; in 1798, L’Inde en rapport avec l’Europe; in 1799, La Legislation orientale, ou le despotisme considéré dans la Turquie, la Perse et l’Indostane. An epistle which he placed before his Latin translation of Dara Shuko’s Persian Upanishad, and addressed to the Brahmans of India, contained, as it were, his religious and political testament. He declares his nourishment to have been reduced, like that of an abstemious ascetic, living, even in winter, without fire; and sleeping in a bed without feathers or sheets. His juvenile boast of “personal beauty” was expiated by total neglect of his body, left “with linen unchanged and unwashed;” his aspirations to “a vast extent of learning” had subsided into patient and most persevering studies. But, disdaining to accept gifts and pensions, even from government, he preserved his absolute liberty, and blessed his poverty, “as the salvation of his soul and body, the rampart of morality and of religion; a friend of all men; victorious over the allurements of the world” he tended towards the Supreme Being. Well may virtues so rare efface other human failings of Anquetil du Perron. He died, in his seventy-fourth year, in 1805.—(See Histoire et Mémoires de l’Institut royal de France. Classe d’Histoire et de Littérature anciennes, tome III. 1818.)
[115] See Transl., vol. I. pp. [351-353].
[116] Works, vol. III. p. 115.
[117] Transl. vol. I. p. [275].
[120] Yezd, in central Persia, is the ancient Isatichæ of Ptolemy. It is celebrated on account of the fire-worship of Yezdan (or Ormuzd, as light), there practised, and as the last asylum of the adherents to Zoroaster’s religion, who fled before the Muhammedans. From thence the fire-worshippers sought a refuge in India, and settled in Diu, Bombay, and in the higher valleys of the Indus and the Ganges.
[123] For instance, the Utopia of Thomas Moore, the Oceana of Harrington, the Leviathan of Hobbes, etc., etc.
§ IV.—The Religion of the Hindus.
The theatre upon which the author of the Dabistán begins history from the remotest times, is Persia, without limitation of its extent, probably including Chaldæa. From thence he passes to India, he says little of any other country; nothing at all of Egypt. The delta of this most fertile land, as an alluvial formation of the great river Nile, was necessarily posterior to the existence of inland regions; still its claims to antiquity are very high and not unsupported, to a certain extent, by the best written testimonies and architectural monuments. If I here refer in a cursory manner to its eras,[124] it is to strengthen what was above remarked concerning the general belief of the great age of the world. The ancient religion of Egypt, although connected and conformable in many points with other Asiatic religions, is never alluded to by the author of the Dabistán, probably because in his time the Egyptians had lost even the memory of their ancient history, which very little attracted the curiosity of their masters, the Muhammedans, except perhaps by the medium of the Bible of the Jews, often quoted in their Koran.[125]
I cannot here omit briefly noticing the various opinions of several learned men concerning the comparative antiquity of the Magi, the Egyptian priests, and the Hindu philosophers. Aristotle[126] believed the Magi more ancient than the Egyptians; Diodorus of Sicily[127] believed the Hindus to have never sent nor received colonies, and invented every art and science; Lucian, Philostratus[128], and Eusebius[129] granted anteriority in philosophy to the Hindus over the Egyptians. In our times the learned abbé Mignot established in three Memoirs[130], that the Hindus owed nothing to the Egyptians, and traced the true communications of the former with several nations of Asia and Europe. But sir W. Jones declared in 1785[131], as not ill-grounded, the opinion that Ethiopia and Hindostan were peopled or colonized by the same extraordinary race, or that the Ethiopians of Meroe were the same people as the Hindus. His opinion was reproduced under different forms by Hennel, Wilford, Forbes, Carwithen, among the English, and adopted by L. Langles among the French. I need not dwell upon this opinion, as the grounds upon which it rested are now considered as entirely destroyed. Sir W. Jones himself seems to have abandoned it in 1789,[132] as the Dabistán appeared to him to furnish an unexceptionable evidence, that the Iranian monarchy must have been the oldest in the world, although, he added, it will remain dubious to which of the three stocks, Hindu, Arabian, or Tartar, the first kings of Iran belonged; or whether they sprang from a fourth race, distinct from any of the others; He further states, that no country but Persia seems likely to have sent forth colonies to all the kingdoms of Asia, and that the three races (Indians, Arabs, Tartars) migrated from Iran as from their common country, “the true centre of population, of knowledge, of languages, and of arts; which, instead of travelling westward only, as it has been fancifully supposed, or eastward, as might with equal reason have been asserted, were expanded in all directions to all the regions of the world, in which the Hindu race had settled under various denominations.”
The second chapter of the Dabistán describes, in twelve sections, the religious systems and customs of the Hindus. It is a detailed account, given by a Persian who, as traveller and resident in India during about thirty years, had the best opportunities to collect right information; he shows himself acquainted with the canonical books of this nation; he quotes their Puránas, and other works less known.[133]
The Hindus are, among all nations, most particularly distinguished by a decided turn for metaphysics, which even tinctured the radicals of their language; they have labored more than others to solve, exhaust, comprehend, what is insolvible, inexhaustible, incomprehensible. To give a general notion of their metaphysical theology, I do not say to render it intelligible, would require an extensive treatise. We will now give a few characteristic and leading features of their systems as indicated in the Dabistán.
Some of their theological philosophers made incredible efforts to steer clear of anthropomorphism in their conceptions of the Divinity: their Brahm, in the neuter gender, has no symbol, nor image, nor temple; they generally profess the great principle of emanation of all existences from a common but unknown source. God is the producer of the beginning and end, exhibiting himself in the mirror of pure space. Creation is held to have proceeded from pure space and time. Other Hindu philosophers establish: 1. a primary, subtile, universal substance, undergoing modification through its own energy. This they call Mula Prakritti, “rudimental nature,” no production but the root of all, involving, 2. seven principles, which are productions and productive (that is, intellect, egotism, and five subtile elements); from these seven proceed: 3. sixteen productions (to wit, eleven organs and five gross elements); to these just mentioned twenty-four (namely, Nature, seven principles and sixteen productions); add, 4. the soul, which is neither a production, nor productive, and you have the twenty-five physical and metaphysical categories of the Sankhya philosophy.[134] This strikes us as a very specious methodical arrangement of an abstruse matter, which is not thereby in any degree rendered more intelligible.
We seem to understand something more when, as in the Vedenta philosophy, it is said of the truly-existing Being (God):[135] “that he has exhibited the “world and the heavens in the field of existence, but has nothing like an odor of being, nor taken a color of reality; and this manifestation is called Máya that is, ‘the Magic of God,’ because the universe is his playful deceit, and he is the bestower of imitative existence, himself the unity of reality. With this pure substance, like an imitative actor, he passes every moment into another form. He, manifesting his being and unity in three persons, separate from each other, formed the universe. The connexion of the spirits with the holy Being is like the connexion of the billows with the ocean, or that of sparks with fire.” This is pure idealism; but man will spontaneously break through the shadowy illusion, and grasp at some reality; the trinity of the Hindus became creation, preservation, and destruction (or renovation), the history of nature before their eyes.
I shall here remark, without attempting to explain, the striking contrast in the religion of the same nation between the most subtile metaphysic theology and the grossest idolatry. In the latter, the symbolical representation prevails; it is known, that in its immoderate use they have entirely abandoned the normal proportions of the human form, and by the multiplication of members banished all fitness and beauty. Their plastic and graphic typification of an all-mighty, all-bestowing, and all-resuming God, with its three, four, five heads, so many and more arms, is repulsive; in their poetry he frightens us with innumerable mouths, eyes, breasts, arms, and legs, grinding between his teeth the generations of men, who precipitate themselves into his mouth like rivers into the ocean, or flies into fire.[136]
The psychology of the Hindus is not less abstruse than the rest of their metaphysics. We have already mentioned the soul among the twenty-five categories as neither a production nor productive. The Indian philosophers distinguish spirit and soul, that is, a rational soul and a mere sensitive principle. The first is supposed enveloped with a subtile, shadowy form of the most delicate material ether. Some hold the soul to be incased in three sheaths, the intellectual, the mental, and the organic or vital sheath.[137] According to different views the vital spirit is Máya herself, or an emanation of Máyá, in any case the illusive manifestation of the universe.
This ingenuous conception seems to have taken deep and complete possession of the Hindus; it dominates in their most subtile abstractions, and embodies itself in a thousand forms to their vivid and luxuriant imagination. The Saktians, a sect wedded to sensual materialism, represent Máyá as a Saktí or energy of Siva; she is “the mother of the universe;” “non-entity finds no access to this creator, the garment of perishableness does not sit right upon the body of this fascinating empress; the dust of nothingness does not move round the circle of her dominion; the real beings and the accidental creatures of the nether world are equally enamoured and intoxicated with desire before her.” Above the six circles, into which the Hindus divide the human body, is “the window of life, and the passage of the soul, which is the top and middle of the head, and in that place is the flower of the back of one thousand leaves: this is the residence of the glorious divinity, that is, of the world-deceiving queen, and in this beautiful site reposes her origin. With the splendor of one hundred thousand world-illuminating suns, she wears, at the time of rising, manifold odoriferous herbs and various flowers upon her head, and around her neck: her resplendent body is penetrated with perfumes of divers precious ingredients, such as musk, safran, sandal, and amber, and bedecked with magnificent garments; in this manner, she is to be represented.”[138] Thus we see the poetical imagination of the Hindus, playing, as it were, with abstruseness, materializing what is spiritual, and spiritualizing what is material.
Characteristic of and peculiar to the Hindus, are their conceptions relative to the states of the embodied soul, which are chiefly three: “waking, dreaming, and profound sleep.”[138] In these three conditions the soul is imprisoned, but it may, by virtue and sanctity, break the net of illusion, that is, acquire the consciousness of the illusion which captivates it, and know that, even when awake, man is dreaming: this is the triumph of his perfection.
Such, and other notions, in their development and application, form a system of metaphysics, in which excess and abuse of refined speculations lose themselves in obscurity, contradiction, and absurdity.
Among the Indian sectaries appear the Charvak, who, rejecting the popular religion, follow their own system of philosophic opinions.
Of Buddha and the Buddhists, we are disappointed to find so little in the Dabistán, except the important information that Vichnu, in order to destroy the demons and evil genii, the agents of night, assumed the avatár of Buddha when ten years only of the Dwaparyug remained, that is, 3112 years before Christ. In the section on the tenets held by the followers of Buddha, these religionists are called Jatis or Yatis, a great number of whom are corn-traders and get their livelihood as servants; they are divided in several classes, and do not believe the incarnations of the deity; as to the rest, they have tenets and customs in common with other Indian sects, only distinguishing themselves by a great aversion to Brahmans, and an extreme care of not hurting animal life.
In the whole account, which the Dabistán gives of the various sects and doctrines of the Hindus, we can but remark a frequent confusion of Indian with Muhammedan notions and stories. Indeed, this work having been written in India at a time when, after a sojourn of more than seven centuries, about twenty millions of Muselmans appeared, as it were, lost in the midst of one hundred millions of Hindus, we cannot wonder that a mutual assimilation in opinions and customs took place among individuals of both religions. A remarkable instance of it presents itself in the person of Kabir, renowned in his time for sanctity. After his death, both the Hindus and Muhammedans claimed his corpse for funeral honors; monuments erected to him by each party exist in our days, with the proverbial precept which originated from this event:
“Live so as to be claimed after death to be burnt by Hindus, and to be buried by Muslims.”
The Indian Yogis, Sanyásis, and Vairagis are perpetually confounded with Muhammedan Durvishes, and Sufis, of whom hereafter.
We do not fail to meet with many traces of the ancient Persian astrolatry and pyrolatry among the Indians. Mohsan mentions the Surya-makhan (Sauras), “worshippers of the sun,” and periphrases, as addressed to that luminary, a Sanscrit prayer, which seems to be one of those called gayátri, the holiest verses of the Vedas, kept as mysterious by the Brahmans, and pronounced with the deepest sense of concentrated devotion. In our days, more than one gayátri has been made known.[139] We cannot doubt that (according to the poet)[140]—
“That vast source of liquid light, the ethereal sun, which perpetually laves heaven with ever-renewed brightness,”
was, from the remotest times, the object of adoration in India. The Dabistán mentions also the Chandra-bakhtra, “worshippers of the moon.” Even in our days we find the veneration for the sun, the planets, and fire, openly practised by the Hindus. The worshippers of the latter elements called Sagníkas, are very numerous at Benares;[141] they keep many agni-hotras, “burnt-offerings,” continually blazing; they kindle, with two pieces of sacred wood, called sámi, a fire, never extinguished during their lives, for the performance of solemn sacrifices, their nuptial ceremonies, the obsequies of departed ancestors, and their own funeral pile. There are besides particular worshippers of the wind, water, earth, and the three kingdoms of nature. The latter are called Tripujas, “trinitarians.” We find also Manushya-bhakta, “worshippers of mankind,” who recognise the being of God in man, and believe nothing to be more perfect than mankind; like Channing, a famous American preacher of our days. In short, the worship of personified nature, in its utmost extent, is most evident in what we know of the Vedas, and never ceased to be the general religion of the Hindus.
Not without interest will be read in the Dabistán the account of Nanak,[142] the founder of the Sikh religion and domination. He is there represented as having been, in a former age, Janaka, sovereign of Mithila, and father of Sitá, the wife of Rama. The revolution effected by Nanak, in the middle of the sixteenth century, proves that the Hindus are not quite so unchangeable in religion and customs as is generally believed. It is however to be remarked, that the Panj-ab, the country of the Sikhs, was always considered by the Brahmans as the seat of heterodoxy (probably Buddhism), and blamed for irregularity of manners. Mohsan’s account will be found to add confirmation and a few particulars to that given of Nanak, from the best sources—the generals sir John Malcolm, and John Briggs.
What will appear most valuable in this work is the description of various usages, some of which have never been described elsewhere. The most ancient customs are brought to recollection. Thus, we find stated, on the authority of Maha bharat, that widows could formerly take other husbands—married women, with the consent of their husbands, maintain intercourse with other men—several individuals, of the same race and religion, espouse one wife among them;—in ancient times there existed no such practice as appropriation of husband and wife; every woman being allowed to cohabit with whomsoever she liked; conjugal fidelity was only in later times made a duty. Much of what he describes may be seen, even in our days, in India, where all the degrees of civilisation which the Hindus ever attained, from the lowest to the highest, occur here and there within a small compass of country. So constant are they in good and bad! The whole of antiquity is still living in India, and Herodotus stands confirmed in what appeared most incredible in his narrative by the testimonies of Mohsan Fáni, the reverend abbe Dubois,[143] Ward, and others. The Persian author intersperses his account with anecdotes which characterise in the most lively manner individuals, sects, and tribes. If now and then we must avert our eyes from disgusting scenes of human degradation, more frequently we admire man, even in his errors, for the power and command of the mental over the physical part of his nature. The naked Yogi, who inflicts the most cruel tortures upon himself, wants but a better motive for being justly extolled as a hero of fortitude; death appears to him an habitual companion, into whose arms he sinks without fear; overpowered by malady, he buries himself alive.
We may be astonished at the number of unbelievers among the Hindus of whom we read, and at the licentiousness of their opinions, expressed with a strength which we should think carried to excess.[144] We perceive also that, in contradiction to common belief, in the midst of the seventeenth century, when the Dabistán was composed (1645 A. D.) a numerous class of Indians assumed the name of Muselmans, but it must be remarked, that the Hindus neither endeavor to make, nor easily admit, proselytes: because their religion depends much less upon creed, in which they are latitudinarians, than upon the fixed customs of their castes, the character of which, being derived from birth, cannot be transferred to strangers.[145] We shall see hereafter in what manner Hindus and Muhammedans may be confounded with each other.
So much of India being known in our days, we have the facility of trying the veracity and correctness of the Dabistán concerning this country. Its account will be found, I dare say, rather incomplete in the small compass in which so extensive a subject was inclosed, but not inaccurate in the greatest part of its various statements. Sir W. Jones[146] bears Mohsan Fani the testimony, “that his information concerning the Hindus is wonderfully correct.” Let us compare the account given by him with all that has been published about India by the best instructed Europeans before the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and we shall regret that the Dabistán was brought into notice so late. Whatever it be, the particular views of a Persian, through a medium of education, religion, and custom, so different from that through which we consider India, can but interest us by their novelty, and by themselves add something to our information about the character of Asiatics.
[124] According to Manetho, a high-priest of Heliopolis, the Egyptians counted 53,525 years; they saw twice the sun set where he now rises—they saw (as well as the Chaldeans) the ecliptic perpendicular upon the equator before 39,710 years. Herodotus (lib. II) attributes to them, more moderately, 15,882 historical years.
[125] The history of Joseph, Pharaoh, Moses in Egypt, is often referred to by Muhammed and his followers; they state that the Egyptian king professed a religion unlike that mentioned by Greek authors, with whom the Bible also disagrees. In general, monotheism is adverse to the examination of polytheistical systems, and seldom accurate in the representation of their tenets.
[126] Quoted by Diogenes Laertius, Prœm., p. 6.
[127] Lib. II. p. 113. edit. Wossel.
[128] Vita Apol. c. 6.
[129] Chron. lib. post., n. 400.
[130] Mémoires de Littérature de l’Académie royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, tome XXXI.
[131] Works, vol. III. p. 41.
[132] Ibid., pp. 111. 134.
[133] Such is the Jog-Vasishta, mentioned (vol. II. pp. 28 and 256) as a very ancient book. Sir W. Jones calls it one of the finest compositions on the philosophy of the Vedanta school; it contains the instructions of the great Vasishta to his pupil Rama. Lord Teignmouth says, that several Persian versions of this work exist, and quotes some passages of them, which, compared with the original Sanscrit, were found substantially accurate.
[134] See the detailed table of it, vol. II. p. 122.
[135] Vol. II. pp. 91-92.
[136] See Bhagavad-gita, vv. 16. 23. 28. 29. Schlegel’s ed.
[137] vol. II. p. 24.
[138] See vol. II. pp. 150-151.
[139] That which sir W. Jones quotes (see Works, vol. XIII. p. 367) is, perhaps, most to be depended upon.
[140] Lucretius, V. v. 282:
Largus item liquidi fons luminis, æthereus sol,
Irrigat assiduè cœlum candore recenti.
[141] Sir W. J., Works, vol. III. p. 127.
[142] Vol. II. pp. 246-288.
[143] See Mœurs, Institutions et Cérémonies des Peuples de l’Inde; par M. l’abbé J. A. Dubois, ci-devant missionnaire dans le Meissour. Paris, 1825. This work was first published in the English language, London, 1816. It had been translated from the author’s French manuscript, which lord William Bentinck, governor of Madras, purchased on the account of the East India Company, in 1807. This composition received the approbation of major Wilks, resident of Maissour, sir James Mackintosh, and William Erskine, Esq.; to which I am happy to add the most decisive judgment of the honorably-known Brahman, Ram Mohun Roy, whom I often heard say: “The European who best knew the Hindus, and gave the most faithful account of them, was the abbé Dubois.”
[144] See vol. II. p. 201.
[145] The celebrated Ram Mohun Roy had abandoned all the tenets, but remained as much as possible attached to the customs, of his Brahminical caste.
[146] His Works, vol. IV. p. 16.
§ V.—Retrospect of the Persian and Indian Religions.
I have endeavored to trace the most remarkable features of Persian and Indian religions from among those which are contained in the Dabistán. In them we recognise resemblances, and, in more than one point, even coincidences, which appear not merely taken from each other in the course of time, but rather originally inwoven in the respective institutions. This may be explained, partly by the general probability that nations, passing through the same stages of civilisation, might agree in several parts of religion, politics, and philosophy, and chiefly by the fact, now generally admitted among the learned,[147] that in very remote times, a union of all the Arian nations, among whom the Persians and Indians are counted, existed in the common regions of central Asia. Sir W. Jones[148] goes so far as to say: “We cannot doubt that the book of Mahabad, or Manu, written in a celestial dialect, means the Veda.” William von Schlegel most ingeniously surmises,[149] “that the name of Zand may be but a corruption of the Sanscrit word chhandas, one of the most usual names of the Vedas.” The fourteen Mahabadians are to him: “Nothing else but the fourteen Manus, past and future, of the Brahmanical mythology.”[150] Thus we should have to thank Mohsan Fani for a confirmation of the above-stated historical fact; the Mahabadians were nothing else but Mahabodhis, in good Sanscrit, “great deified teachers;” he would have placed them, as did lately Burnouf, Lassen, and Charles Ritter, somewhere on the highlands of Iran, and he invented nothing.
From the ante-historical dynasties descending to later times, let us consider that, according to respectable traditions,[151] there existed friendly and hostile relations between Iran and Persia in the time of the Iranian king Feridun, 1729 years before our era: he reconducted with an army a fugitive Indian prince, and rendered India tributary. Two other invasions took place under the Persian monarch Manucheher,[152] after which the Indians recovered their liberty. Under Kai Kobad[153] flourished Rustum, who ruled, beside other countries, Sejistan and Kabul, conquered the Panj-áb, and carried war into the bosom of Arya varta. This country was also attacked by Afrasiab, a Turan prince,[154] then possessor of Persia. Ferdusi’s Shah-namah indicates expeditions of Feramurs, a son of Rustum, to India, under the reign of Kai Khosrú. We arrive at the epoch of Gushtasp, who ordered the Indus to be explored, and although he had not, as Herodotus asserts,[155] conquered the Indians, he entertained religious relations with that nation. After Alexander’s conquest of Persia, Sassan, the son of Dara, retired to Hind, where, devoted to the service of God, he died.[156] After a very obscure period of Persian history, Ardeshir, directed by a dream, brought an offspring of Sassan from Kabulistan to Istakhar. We cannot doubt that at all times a communication was open between Iran and India, where Bahram Gor married an Indian princess, and whence Nushirvan received a celebrated book and the game of chess. In our seventh century, the Muhammedan Arabians, driven by the spirit of conquest, turned their arms towards India, but stopped on the borders of the Indus. It was reserved to Muhammedan Moghuls, mixed with Persians, to establish in the midst of India an empire which, after eight hundred years, disjoined by various disorders, fell into the hands of the English.
This rapid sketch is perhaps sufficient to explain any mixture, fusion, and resemblance of Persian and Indian doctrines and institutions, if even we were not disposed to seek their fountain-head in the sacred gloom of the remotest antiquity. Whatever it be, in any case, it will no more be said, that the Dabistán was written “with the intention to claim for Persia the pre-eminence over India, concerning the antiquity of religious revelations.”[157] In fact, Mohsan Fani never explicitly alludes to a comparative antiquity between the Persians and Indians, and implicitly acknowledges the anteriority of the Indian religion over the Zoroastrian, in a part of Persia at least, by relating that Gushtasp was converted from the former to the latter by Zardusht, by whom also the Indian sage, Sankhara atcharya, was vanquished.
After a more accurate examination, the resemblance between the said religions will be found to exist certainly in particular principles and tenets, but not at all in the general character or the spirit of these religious systems. Nothing can be more dissimilar than the austerity of Mezdaism and the luxuriancy of Hinduism in the development of their respective dogmas, and particularly in their worship, as was already observed.[158] We cannot however deny, that not a little of the similarity in the account of different religions belongs to the author of the Dabistán, who most naturally confounded the ideas of his own with those of more ancient times, and used expressions proper to his particular creed when speaking of that of others. Thus he employs very often the term angels for that of divinities, and carries the mania of allegorising, so peculiar to the later Muhammedan Súfis, into his description of the Indian mythology. This sort of substitution, or these anachronisms of expression, are to be remarked in the narrative of other authors, praised for general correctness and veracity; I can here so much the more readily call to mind similar inaccuracies in the accounts which Greek historians, and in particular the philosophic Xenophon, gave of Persia, as I may add, that in many points they agree with our Mohsan Fani.
[147] See above, p. 76.
[148] His Works, vol. IV. p. 105.
[149] Loco cit., p. 69.
[150] Ibid., p. 51. Among the Persians is even found Behesht-i-Gang, and Gang-diz, “the Paradise,” and “the castle of Ganga” (Hyde, p. 170).—Mr. Julius Mohl says (Journal asiatique, mars 1841, p. 281): “Zohac is the representative of a Semitical dynasty, which in Persia took place of the Indian dynasty, and overthrew the entirely Brahmanical institutions of Jamshid.” We see the opinion that Hinduism once resided in Iran daily gaining ground.
[151] The History of Hindostan, etc., by Alex. Dow, 1768, t. I. p. 12 et seq. The same, by J. Briggs, 1829. Introd., ch. p. xiv. et seq.
[152] The Mandauces of Ctesias and of Moses of Chorene. He reigned, according to Ferdusi, B. C., from 1229-1109; according to our chronogers, from 730-715.
[153] The Arphaxad of the Hebrews; the Dejoces of Herodotus; the Arsæus of Ctesias; he is placed B. C. 1075 by the Orientals; 696 years by the Occidentals.
[154] All kings of Turan were called Afrasiáb.
[155] Lib. IV.
[156] See The Desátir, Engl. trans., p. 185.
[157] See before, p. 75.
[158] See [page 102].
§ VI.—The Religion of the Tabitian (Tibetans).
The third chapter of the Dabistán treats of the religion of the Kera Tabitán (Tibitans). The author says that he received his information from a learned man of this sect by means of an interpreter, who did not always satisfy his inquiries; the little he says appears to belong to a class of Buddhistic Hinduism, and not to be destitute of truth.
§ VII.—The Religion of the Jews.
Then follows, in the fourth chapter, a short account of the religion of the Yahuds or Jews. The author derived his notion from a Rabbin converted to Muhammedism, and states nothing which was not really professed by one of the Jewish sects, which, in his summary narration, he does not distinguish. He gives a Persian translation of the first five chapters, and a part of the sixth chapter of the Genesis from the Hebrew original; a comparison of it with several other translations known in Europe, proves its general accuracy; I thought it not altother unimportant to point out the few variations which occur.
§ VIII.—The Religion of the Christians.
It is not without great interest that an European Christian will peruse the fifth chapter, in which a Persian treats of the religion of the Tarsas, that is, “Christians.” Mohsan Fani declares, that he saw several learned Christians, such as the Padre Francis,[159] highly esteemed by the Portuguese in Goa and in Surat. We can scarce doubt, that it was from that father, or some other Roman Catholic missionary, that he received his information; as he portrays particularly the Roman Catholic doctrine, of which, in my opinion, he exhibits a more faithful idea than that which a great number of Protestants entertain, and are wont to express.
Every Christian may be satisfied with the picture of his religion, which, although contracted in a small compass, is nevertheless faithfully drawn by a foreign but impartial hand. Mohsan Fani, in seventeen pages of our translation, states only a few circumstances of the life of Jesus Christ, and a few dogmas relative to him as son of God, and the second person of the holy Trinity. In the account of seven sacraments, the eucharist is characterised in a manner which will not fail to attract attention.[160] Scarce any rites or ceremonies are mentioned; the greatest part of the statement relates to the moral precepts of Christianity, which presents an advantageous contrast with the many absurd and superstitious duties, with which other religions are encumbered. Thus, we find confirmed in the Dabistán that the Pentateuch of the Jews and the Gospel of the Christians were both sufficiently familiar to Muhammedans who had any pretension to learning.
[159] Probably a Portuguese. From him Mohsan Fani might have received the information (see vol. II. p. 307) that an image of St. Veronica is preserved in a town of Spain, probably within the year 1641, before it was known in India that Portugal had freed itself from the domination of Spain, which event took place on the 1st December, 1640. On that account, the father spoke of the peninsular sovereign as still possessor of both kingdoms, and, instead of calling him king of Spain, styled him king of Portugal, from fond partiality for his native country. This remark was suggested to me by the learned viscount of Santarem.—(See Vol. II. pp. 307. 308, note 1.)
[160] See vol. II. p. 315. “The holiest of all the sacraments, as it presents the Lord Jesus under the form of bread, that it may become the power of the soul.” This definition was most likely not that which Mohsan Fani heard from father Francis, but the intelligent Persian might have understood that a strong and lively representation of an object is equivalent to its real presence, which latter words must have been those used, as orthodox, by a Roman Catholic priest.
§ IX.—The Religion of the Muselmans.
The author of the Dabistán, after having treated of the most ancient religions, passes to the comparatively modern religious system of Arabia. The Arabians, although frequently attacked, were never conquered by the Assyrians, Medians, Persians, or Romans; they maintained their political independance, but could not avoid nor resist the religious influence of nations with whom they were, during ages, in various relations. The ancient history of Arabia is lost, like that of many other nations; so much is known of their oldest religion, that it resembled that of the Persians and Hindus: it was the Magism or Sabæism; the stars were worshipped as idols from the remotest times; we read of antediluvian idols. At the time, which we now consider, that is the seventh century of our era, all the then existing religions seemed to be far remote from their original simplicity and purity;[161] idolatry was dominant, and Monotheism preserved and positively professed only in Judaism and Christianity, although likewise corrupted by various kinds of superstition. Followers of both these religions were settled in Arabia, to which region the Jews fled from the cruel destruction of their country by the Romans; and the Christians, on account of the persecutions and disorders which had arisen in the Eastern church.
We see by what facts, circumstances, and notions Muhammed was acted upon, whilst nourishing his religious enthusiasm by solitary contemplation in the cavern of mount Hara, to which he was wont to retire for one month in every year. In his fortieth year, at the same age at which Zoroaster began to teach 600 years before Christ (according to some chronologers), Muhammed, as many years after the Messiah, assumed the prophetic mission to reform the Arabians. He felt the necessity of seizing some safe and essential dogmas in the chaos of Magian, Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian notions; broke all the figures of planets in the temple of Mecca, and declared the most violent war against all plastic, graven, and painted idols; he left undisturbed only the black stone, Saturn’s emblem before, and at the time when the Jewish traditions claimed it for Abraham, and even transported it to heaven. Muhammed preferred the latter to the more ancient superstition; as to the rest, he abhorred the prevailing idolatry of the Sabaians; and blamed the corruption of monotheism in the Jews and Christians. He felt in himself the powerful spirit, and undertook to re-establish the Touhid, “the unity and spiritualism of God;” he preached with enthusiastic zeal the Islam, “devotedness und resignation to God.”
But, in order to found and to expand the great and necessary truths, he knew no other means, but to attach the believers to his own person, and to accustom them to blind obedience to his dictates; he proclaimed: “There is no God but God, and Muhammed is his prophet;” he gave them the Koran, the only holy book, in which his precepts were as many commands proclaimed under the penalty of eternal damnation. In the Muhammedan all spontaneity is stifled; all desire, all attempt to be self-convinced is interdicted; every thing becomes exterior, the religious and civil Code but one.
Muhammed seemed not to know that religion cannot be the gift, as it is not the property, of any single man; it belongs to mankind. Any particular creed lives only by its inherent force, independently of the founder, who retires and leaves nothing behind him but his name as a mere distinction from that of another religion. Every individual action is of little avail, if it does not proceed from the free and pure impulse of the spirit, which must revive in all succeeding generations. This is acknowledged in the Dabistán[162] by giving a very philosophic explanation of the expression prophetic seal, or “the last of prophets:” “That which is reared up by superior wisdom, renders the prophet’s knowledge vain, and takes his color; that is to say: if one hundred thousand prophets like himself realise in themselves the person of superior wisdom, they are possessors of the seal, the last prophets, because it is superior wisdom which is the seal, and they know themselves to be effaced, and superior wisdom existing.” Muhammed, although wise enough to connect himself with other prophets, his predecessors, pretended however to close the series, and to be the last of prophets, or “the seal of prophetism.”
Vain project! immediately after him violent contests arose,
“And discord, with a thousand various mouths.”
Thirty years after his death his family was dispossessed of the Khalifat. This passed to the Moaviyahs, who, residing in Damascus, kept it during 90 years, and then ceded it to the Abbasides, who established their seat at Baghdad. The impulse and development of the Islam was overwhelming during the one hundred and twenty years after the prophet’s death; the mighty spirit of conquest had arisen and was—I shall not say irresistible—but certainly badly resisted by the nations assailed. The Romans and Persians were then hard pressed themselves; on the West by the Goths, on the East by the Huns:—whilst the Greeks had sunk into general luxury and degeneracy; all feebly sustained the attack of hardy and active men, whose native habit of rapine and devastation was then exalted and sanctified by the name of religion, and continually invigorated by rich, splendid, and easy conquests. Thus, the khalifs, who were divided into two great lines, the before-mentioned Abbasides and the Fatimites, extended their empire within 600 years after Muhammed, not only over the greatest part of Asia, but also along the western shore of Africa, Egypt, Spain, and Sicily; threatening the rest of Europe.
After the first labors, came rest, during which the genius of the Arabs turned to persevering study, deep speculation, and noble ambition: this was the scientific age of the Arabs, which began in the middle of our eighth century, and was most conspicuous in the old seats of learning, Babylonia, Syria, Egypt, Persia, and India. But in the numerous schools rose violent schisms and bloody contests between philosophy and religion. In the mean time the khalifs, by becoming worldly sovereigns, had lost their sacred character, and were in contradiction with the principle of their origin. The crusades of the Christians, by reviving their martial energy, maintained for some time the vacillating power of the Khalifs, but their vast and divided empire, assailed by Pagan nations, first in the West in 1211, and forty-seven years afterwards in the East, fell in 1258 of our era. Muhammedism however revived in the barbarous and energetic conquerors, Turks, Seljuks, Albanese, Kurds, Africans, who were drawn into its circle; and science was again cultivated in Tunis, Bulgaria, and India.
I thought necessary to draw this rapid historical sketch, because within its outlines is contained the account of the Muhammedan sects as given in the text of the Dabistán.
Mohsan Fani himself lived in the age of general decline of Muhammedism. He exhibits in the sixth chapter the religion of his own nation: we may expect that he will be true and accurate. He divides the chapter into two sections: the first treats of the creed of the Sonnites; the second, of that of the Shiâhs. These are the two principal sects of the Muhammedans, but divided into a number of others, exceeding that of seventy-three, which Muhammed himself has announced, and consigned, all except one, to eternal damnation. This one was that of the sonnah “the traditional law,” or Jamaât, “the assembly.” The Dabistán explains this religion in a manner which, to Muhammedans, might appear sufficiently clear, in spite of digressions and want of order in the arrangement of the matter; but an European reader will desire more light than is afforded in the text, and feel himself perplexed to understand the meaning of frequent technical terms, and to connect the various notions disseminated in an unequal narrative—now too diffuse, now too contracted. The following are the principal features of the long account of Muhammedism contained in the Dabistán.
Immediately after the promulgation of the Koran, which followed Muhammed’s death, it became necessary to fix the meaning and to determine the bearing of its text. There was one theme in which all agreed: the grandeur, majesty, and beneficence of one supreme Being, the Creator, ruler, and preserver of the world, which is the effulgence of his power. This is expressed in the Koran in such a strain of sublimity as may unite men of all religions in one feeling of admiration. This excellence is an inheritance of the most ancient Asiatic religion. God can but be always the object of boundless adoration, but never that of human reasoning. Hence the Muhammedan sects disagreed about the attributes of God.
The residence assigned, although inconsistently with pure spiritualism, to the supreme Being was the ninth heaven; an eighth sphere formed the intermediate story between the uppermost heaven and seven other spheres, distributed among so many prophets, in the same manner as, in the Desátir, the seven prophet kings of the Péshdadian dynasty were joined to the seven planets which they, each one in particular, venerated. Numberless angels, among whom four principal chiefs, fill the universe, and serve, in a thousand different ways, the supreme Lord of creation. We recognisee the notions of the ancient Persian religion in this, and in the whole system of divine government.
Another subject of violent and interminable dispute was God’s action upon the nether world, principally upon mankind, or God’s universal and eternal judgment, commonly called predestination. This subject was greatly agitated by the Matezalas, Kadarians, Jabarians, and others; they disputed
“Of providence, foreknowledge. will, and fate,
Fix’d fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost.”
Although this subject appears to be connected with the Zoroastrian doctrine of the two principles, “good and bad,” yet it has never been agitated with so much violence in so many particular ways by any religionists as by the Muhammedans.
It has already been observed that, according to tradition, the ancient Persian philosophy was carried in the reign of Alexander to Greece, and from thence, after having been recast in the mould of Greek genius, returned in translations to its original country. We find it expressly stated in the Dabistán, that Plato and Aristotle were acknowledge as the founders of two principal schools of Muhammedan philosophers, to wit, those of the Hukma ashrákín, “Platonists,” and the Hukma masháyín, “Aristotelian, or Peripatetics.” To these add the Súfí’s matsherâin, “orthodox Sufis,” who took care not to maintain any thing contrary to revelation, and exerted all their sagacity to reconcile passages of the Koran with sound philosophy. This was the particular profession of the Matkalmin, “scholastics.” These cede to no other philosophers the palm of mastering subtilties and acute distinctions. They had originally no other object but that of defending their creed against the heterodox philosophers. But they went further, and attacked the Peripatetics themselves with the intention to substitute another philosophy for theirs. It may be here sufficient to call to mind the works of three most celebrated men, Alfarabi, Ibn Sina (Avisenna), and Ghazali, whose works are reckoned to be the best specimens of Arabian and Muhammedan philosophy.[163] They contain three essential parts of orthodox dogmatism: 1. ontology, physiology, and psychology; these together are called “the science of possible things;” 2. theology, that is, the discussion upon the existence, essence, and the attributes of God; as well as his relations with the world and man in particular; 3. the science of prophetism, or “revealed theology.” All these subjects are touched upon in the Dabistán, but in a very desultory manner. I shall add, that the author puts in evidence a sect called Akhbárín, or “dogmatic traditionists,” who participate greatly in the doctrine of the Matkalmin, and in his opinion are the most approvable of all religious philosophers.
The contest for the khalifat between the family of Ali, Muhammed’s son-in-law, and the three first khalifs, as well as the families of Moaviah and Abbas, a contest which began in the seventh century, and appears not yet terminated in our days—this contest, so much more violent as it was at once religious and political, occasioned the rise of a great number of sects. Much is found about Ali in the Dabistán, and even an article of the Koran,[164] published no where else relative to this great Muselman, which his adversaries are said to have suppressed. The adherents of Ali are called Shiâhs.
The Persians, after being conquered by the Arabs, were compelled to adopt the Muhammedan religion, but they preserved a secret adherence to Magism, their ancient national creed, they were therefore easily disposed to join any sect, which was more or less contrary to the standard creed of their conquerors, and bore some slight conformity, or had the least connection with, their former religion. They became Shiâhs.
Among these sectaries originated the particular office of Imám, whose power partook of something of a mysterious nature: the visible presence of an Imám was not required; he could, although concealed, be acknowledged, direct and command his believers; his name was Mahdi, “the director.” This opinion originated and was spread after the sudden disappearance of the seventh Imám, called Ismâil. His followers, the Ismâilahs, maintained that he was not dead; that he lived concealed, and directed the faithful by messages, sent by him, and brought by his deputies; that he would one day reappear, give the victory to his adherents over all other sects, and unite the world in one religion. More than one Mahdi was subsequently proclaimed in different parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe—always expected, never appearing—so that it became a proverbial expression among the Arabs to denote tardiness: “as slow as a Mahdi.” We recognize in this an ancient idea of Zoroaster: he too was to reappear in his sons at the end of 12,000 years; rather late,—but mankind never tire of hope and expectation.
A creed, like that of the Ismâilahs, because founded upon something mysterious, vague, and spiritual, was likely to branch out in most extraordinary conceptions and practices. The Dabistán abounds with curious details about them. Their doctrine bore the character of duplicity: one part was manifest, the other concealed. Their manner of making proselytes was not open; they acted in the dark. They first induced the neophyte to doubt, then to despise his own creed, and at last to exchange it for apparently more sublime truths, until, after having sufficiently emboldened his reasoning faculty, they enabled him to throw off every restraint of authority in religious matters. We see in the Dabistán,[165] the degrees through which an Ismâilah was to pass until he believed in no religion at all.
A most remarkable sect of the Ismâilahs was that of the Almutians, so called from Alamut, a hill-fort in the Persian province of Ghilan. This fort was the seat of Hassan, a self-created Imám, and became the capital of an empire, perhaps unique in the history of the world.[166] An Imám, called by Europeans “the old man of the mountain,” without armies, or treasures, commanded the country around, and terrified a great part of Asia by a band of devoted adherents, whom he sent about to propagate his religion, and to execute his commands, which were frequently the murder of his enemies. The executioners were unknown save at the fatal moment of action; mighty khalifs and sultans met with their murderers among their most intimate servants, or the guardians of their doors, in the midst of crowded public places or in the solitude of their secret bed-chambers. The Fedayis, so were they called, devoted themselves not only to the sacred service of their Imám, but hired their arm also for profane service to foreign chiefs, such as the Christian crusaders. Among Europeans, these Ismâilahs were known under the name of Assassins, which well answered their infamous profession, but is better derived from Hashishah[167], a sort of hemp, from which they extracted an intoxicating beverage for their frequent use. During one hundred and sixty years the Ismâilahs were the terror of the weak and the mighty, until they fell in one promiscuous slaughter, with the khalif of Islámism, under the swords of the ferocious invaders who, issuing from the vast steppes of Tartary, fell upon the disordered empire of the Muhammedans.
The Ismâilahs, and other sects connected with them, professed a great attachment to an Imám, whose lineage was always traced up to Ali through a series of intermediate descendants; but it belonged to the Ali-Ilahians to deify Ali himself, or to believe his having been an incarnation of God.
Another sect, the Ulviahs, also devoted to Ali, maintain that he was united with the sun, that he is now the sun, and having also been the sun before, he was for some days only united to an elemental body. Both these sects reject the Koran.
Here terminates the review of the second volume of the English Dabistán.
[161] See, in what sense, pp. [83-84].
[162] See vol. III. pp. 202-203. See also ibid., p. 229 and note 2.
[163] See upon this subject a recent very ingenious work: Essai sur les Écoles philosophiques chez les Arabes, et notamment sur la doctrine d’Algazzalí, par Auguste Schmölders, docteur en philosophie, Paris, 1842. Dedicated to M. Reinaud, member of the Institute of France, and professor of Arabic.
[164] See vol. II. p. 368.
[165] Vol. II. pp. 404-407.
[166] See vol. II. p. 433 et seq.
[167] See Mémoires géographiques et historiques sur l’Égypte et sur quelques contrées voisines, par Étienne Quatremère, vol. II. p. 504. 1811.
§ X.—The Religion of the Sadikiahs.
The third volume of this work begins with the seventh chapter, upon the religion of the Sadikiahs. It is generally known that, during the life of Muhammed, another prophet, called Musaylima, arose in the country of Yamáma, and dared offer to himself in a letter to the former as a partner of his sacred mission, but was treated as a liar. He had however gained a great number of followers, at the head of whom he was defeated and himself slain in a bloody battle against Khaled, a general of the first Khalif, the very same year as Muhammed’s death. We find in the Dabistán, what appears less generally known, that Musaylima’s sect, far from being entirely crushed after his fall, existed under the name of Sadikias in the seventeenth century of our era, and conformed to a second Faruk, or Koran, to which they attributed a divine origin, and a greater authority than to the first.[168]
Another account, not frequently met with, is contained in the eighth chapter of the Dabistán, concerning Vahed Mahmud, who appeared in the beginning of our thirteenth century, and is by his adherents placed above Muhammed and Ali. Among his tenets and opinions is to be remarked that of an ascending refinement or perfection of elemental matter, from the brute or mineral to that of a vegetable form; from this to that of an animal body; and thence progressing to that of Mahmud.[169] Further, the particular mode of transmigration of souls by means of food into which men, after their death, are changed; such food, in which intelligence and action may reside, becomes continually the aliment and substance of new successive human beings. We were not a little astonished to find these singular opinions agreeing with the information, which Milton’s archangel Raphael imparts to Adam, the father of mankind.[170]
“O Adam, one Almighty is, from whom
All things proceed, and up to him return,
If not depraved from good, created all
Such to perfection, one first matter all,
Indued with various forms, various degrees
Of substance, and in things that live, of life;
But more refin’d, more spirituous, and pure,
As nearer to him plac’d or nearer tending,
Each in their several active spheres assign’d,
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
Proportioned to each kind. So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves
More aery, last the bright consummate flower
Spirits odorous breathes: flow’rs and their fruit,
Man’s nourishment, by gradual scale sublim’d,
To vital spirits aspire, to animal,
To intellectual; give both life and sense,
Fancy and understanding; whence the soul
Reason receives, and reason is her being,
Discursive, or intuitive — — —.”
This sort of hylozoism is more expanded in a particular system of cosmogony of the same Vahed,[171] according to which the materials of the world existed from the very beginning, which signifies from the first appearance of afrad, “rudimental units.” We can never think meanly of this opinion, when we find it coinciding with that of Leibnitz in our seventeenth century, contemporary of Mohsan Fani. According to the celebrated German philosopher,[172] there exists already an entirely organical preformation in the seeds of the bodies which are born, and all souls had always pre-existed in some sort of organized body, and shall after death remain united with an organic whole; because in the order of nature souls are not likely to exist entirely separated from any kind of body. In the eighteenth century Bonnet, a great physiologist, maintained,[173] that all was preformed from the beginning, nothing engendered; all organized bodies were pre-existing in a very small compass in the germs, in which souls may also pre-exist, these indestructible germs may sojourn in such or such a body until the moment of its decomposition, then pass, without the least alteration, into another body, from this into a third, and so on; each of the germs incloses another imperishable germ, which will be developed but in a future state of our planet, which is destined to experience a new revolution.
We see here the very same ideas, without any mutual communication, entertained in the East and the West, in ancient and modern times.
Vahed Mahmud combines his cosmogony with periods of 8000 years, eight of which form a great cycle of 64,000 years, at the completion of which the world is renovated. This sect is said to have been widely spread in the world; in Persia the persecution of Shah Abbas forced them to lie concealed.
[168] Vol. III. p. 1-11.
[169] The Druids, among the ancient Britons, believed the progressive ascent of the soul, beginning with the meanest insect, and arriving through various orders of existence at its human stage. The soul, according to its choice during terrestrial life, progressed, even after death, in good and happiness, or evil and misery; the virtuous could return to earth and become prophets among mankind: in which belief the ancient Britons agreed with the Indian Buddhists.
[170] Paradise Lost, V. v. 470-488.
[171] The Dabistán, vol. III. p. 17.
[172] See his Théodicée, édit. Amsterd. préface, pp. xxviii et seq.
[173] See La Palingénésie philosophique, ou Idées sur l’État passé et sur l’État futur des Êtres vivans, par C. Bonnet, de diverses Académies, Amsterd. 1769, vol. I. pp. 170. 198. 201. 204, etc., etc.
§ XI.—The Religion of the Roshenians.
The ninth chapter of the Dabistán introduces to us Mian Báyezid, who, born in the Panjáb, flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century under the reign of Humayún, the Emperor of India. At first a strict observer of Muhammedism, he abandoned afterwards the exterior practices of this religion, and, devoting his mind to contemplation, assumed with the character of a saint the title of a “master of light;” his followers were called Roshenians, or “enlightened.” His sayings, several of which are quoted in the Dabistán, express sound reason, pure morality, and fervent piety. In the spirit of his nation and time, and for self-defence, he took up arms against the Moghuls. His history and that of his sons is carried to the middle of the seventeenth century, the time of Mohsan Fani.
Muhammed was the permanent type of a prophet, in whom the religious and political character were united. The first Khalifs were all military chiefs and religious men; the Koran furnished the rules of foreign and internal policy, the final decision of every tribunal, the inciting exclamation to combat and carnage, and a prayer for every occasion. The founders of sects were frequently warriors, or, what in Asia is generally the same, highwaymen and plunderers of caravans; such was the just mentioned Miyan Bayezid, and many others. As possessors of empires, they preserved the austere habits of ascetics: they carried a sabre and a rosary, counted their beads and gave order for battle; emaciated by fasts, covered with a woollen mantle, sitting upon the bare ground, they disposed of empires and received the homage of millions of men.
The Mohammedans preserved their religion, as long as they were militant: because all states of mental excitement are apt to support each other. But, in solitary retirement, and in the precincts of schools, the doctrine of Muhammed was put to the test of reason: now began the struggle between religion and philosophy. Fearful to part at once with early impressions and national feelings, attempts to reconcile faith and reason were made; religious philosophers had recourse to allegory, in order to rationalize strange and absurd dogmas and practices; for the literal they substituted a mystical sense; under arbitrary acceptations and interpretations, the foundation of the doctrine itself disappeared, or was confounded with some old dogma renewed, if not one entirely invented: in short, the Muhammedan religion appeared to have survived itself; its presumed period of one thousand years was believed to be completed under the reign of Akbar.
§ XII.—The Religion of the Ilahiahs.
Akbar was the greatest among the Moghul emperors of India. He began in his fourteenth year a reign environed by war and rebellion. After having vanquished all his enemies and established peace and security around him, he turned his attention to religion. He soon found it right to grant unlimited toleration to all religions in his empire. Called the “shade of God,” he took the resolution to realise in himself the otherwise vain title bestowed by slavish flattery upon all sovereigns of Asia, and to imitate, according to his faculties, him who bestows the blessings of his merciful providence on all creatures without distinction. This he declared to his fanatic son Jehangir, who did not conceal his discontent about the building of an Hindu temple in Benares: “Are not,” said Akbar, “five-sixths of all mankind either Hindus or unbelievers? If I were actuated by motives similar to those which thou ownest, what would remain to me but to destroy them all?”
The inquisitive emperor was acquainted with the religious history of the Persian empire; he surrounded himself with men of all religions—Muhammedans of all sects, Hindus, Jews, and Christians, as well as with philosophers free from superstition; he liked to question them all, and to encourage public polemical discussions in his presence. The Sonnites and Shiâhs reviled reciprocally the chief personages of their adherence, the three first khalifs and Ali; Muhammed himself was not more spared than his companions and successors. The errors of their doctrine, the vices of their character, and the irregularities of their conduct were freely exposed, severely blamed, and wittily ridiculed. If Muhammedism was treated in such a manner, other religions could not claim more indulgence. The dramatic form, which Mohsan Fani gives to the religious controversies, is certainly curious; we can scarce suppose his having known the dialogues of Lucian, nor is it in the least probable that a late French author ever saw the Dabistán and took from this book the idea of the twenty-first chapter of his celebrated work, entitled “Problem of religious “contradictions.”[174] The object aimed at by these three authors was the same; but their compositions differ from each other as much as the genius and character of the Greeks, French, and Persians, in whose language each of them respectively wrote. In whatsoever point Mohsan Fani may yield to the Greco-Syrian, or to the French author, he, certainly, I will venture to say, equals them in force, boldness, and sincerity; and perhaps surpasses either in pointed application of truth. His objections are not vague attempts of witticism with the intention to ridicule: they are special and serious, directed to real and patent falsehood or prejudice; he does not fence with imaginary shadowy adversaries, but he strikes a present and tangible foe; his style, never tainted by affectation, is plain and blunt, such as becomes a reformer combating popular superstition. The controversies, the scene of which is placed before the throne, or rather tribunal, of Akbar, obtain the imperial sanction: Muhammedism is condemned.
Indeed, the emperor abrogated several practices of that religion to which he had been devoted in his first years; he confined the cultivation of science, as taken from the Arabs, to astronomy, geography, medicine, and philosophy, and wished to prevent the waste of life in futile and useless studies. At last, in the month of December, A. D. 1579, twenty-six years before his death, he substituted for the common profession of the Muhammedans the new: “There is no God but God, and Akbar his khalif (or deputy).” He received from a great number of Amirs and distinguished persons the voluntary agreement and consent to four conditions, namely, the sacrifice of property, life, reputation, and religion, by entering into the new religious pact, called Ilahi, “divine.” Moreover, he introduced in lieu of the former, a new era, to begin from the death of his father Huinayún, that is from the year of the Hejira 963, (A. D. 1555): it was to be called Ilahi; the months were regulated according to the mode of Irán, and fourteen festivals established in concordance with those of Zoroaster’s religion. It was to this ancient Persian creed, that he gave the preference, having been instructed in its sacred tenets and practices by a learned fire-worshipper who had joined him; and from books which were sent to him from Persia and Kirmán. He received the sacred fire, and committed it to the faithful hands of Abu’l fazil, his confidential minister: the holy flames of Zardusht blazed again upon the altars of Aria, and, after a separation of many centuries, Persians and Indians were reunited in a common worship.
As a proof of Akbar’s expansive mind, directed to all subjects which may interest mankind, I shall mention his having sequestered a number of children, before they could speak, from all communition with the rest of society, in order to know whether they would form a language. After fourteen years of seclusion, it was found that they were dumb: “which made it evident,” says Mohsan Fani, “that language and letters are not natural to man—that language is of a long date and the world very ancient.”[175]
In the third section of the tenth chapter, the author treats of the influences of the stars upon the nether world, a very ancient superstition, common to most nations. Every master of fame is said to have worshipped particularly one of the stars; Akbar also received divine commands with regard to them. We find, in a digression of this section, curious historical details respecting the person of Jangis khan, his adoration of the celestial bodies, epilepsy, and singular superstition of combs. The great conqueror addressed to his sons the most earnest admonitions to remain faithful to the religion of the stars, to which their fortune was attached; but fifty-three years after his death one of his successors and a great part of his nation embraced Muhammedism.
The fourth section of the tenth chapter contains important information upon the administration of India. Akbar was the first of the Moghul emperors who considered India as his native country, and directed his best efforts to the amelioration of its condition. Exalted to the highest rank, not only by his birth, but also by his personal acquirements; assisted, besides, by a train of devoted and enlightened servants, he could promise himself duration of the new religion, which he had fondly labored to found. In vain: it disappeared with him. Private persons, camel-drivers, and robbers, emerging from obscurity, such as Muhammed, and others before and after that Arabian leader, effected more than an emperor, with every possible advantage united in and around his person! Human intellect was perhaps then satiated with religion; its measure was full: it could not receive any more. In fact, after Muhammed a number of sects, but no new religion, arose: in this sense he may, with some appearance of truth, be called the last of prophets, or the Khátim, “the seal of prophetism.”
Akbar died in 1605 A. D., eight or ten years before the birth of the author of the Dabistán. The latter passed his youth and manhood in India, under the reigns of that emperor’s son, Jehangir, and grand-son, Shah Jehan, and great-grandson Aurengzeb; and was in personal connection with the latter’s brother, the religious Darashukoh. Mohsan Fani had therefore good opportunities to be informed of the events of their days. The religion of the Ilahiahs is properly the last of which he treats; for what relates to the religions of the philosophers and Súfis, the subjects of the two last chapters, are rather selections of all creeds and opinions, than particular religions. It will be remembered that sir W. Jones supposed these two last chapters not to have been written by the author of the rest of the Dabistán, which I dare neither affirm nor deny.[176]
[174] Les Ruines, ou Méditations sur les Révolutions des Empires, par M. Volney, député à l’Assemblée nationale de 1789, Paris, 1791.
[175] Thus, our author coincides with lord Monboddo, who showed that language is the slow product of necessity among men linked in society. See his work Of the Origin and Progress of Language, with the motto of Horace:
“Mutum ac turpe pecus — — — —
Donec Verba quibus voces sensusque notarent
Nominaque invenere.”
§ XIII.—The Religion of the Philosophers.
In the eleventh chapter, entitled “Of the religion of the Wise,” we find it repeated that Philosophers were divided into two great classes: “the Eastern and the Western.” The first are the Hushangians, teachers of the Greeks until the time of Plato and Aristotle; it is believed that their philosophy, modified and refined, returned from Greece to Asia, and was received by the Muhammedan scholars to be adapted to their own creed. Then took place a singular mixture and confusion of Siderism, Judaism, Christianity, Muhammedism, and all sorts of philosophic opinions. The cosmology of the Hushangians was preserved. Seven special prophets, Ismâil, Jesus, Joseph, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, and Abraham, inhabit the seven heavens,[177] to begin from that of the Moon, which is the lowest, and rising upwards. If, in general, ten spheres are assumed,[178] they are made the dwellings of so many intelligences. These ideas, so ancient, as we have seen, were not disowned by eminent men in much later times. The great Kepler, and after him Reaumur, believed that intelligences or souls directed the movements of celestial bodies. Philosophers, struck with the marvellous order of nature, were adverse to admitting any mechanism—the very name of which frightened them; they therefore called all occult powers souls or spirits. The same idea is adopted in morality: whatever is praiseworthy is angelic, whatever blamable, satanic. From goodness arises an angel; from badness, a Satan: so said the prophet. Such simple and truth-like ideas were either originally disguised under the vest of fiction; or existing traditions of various origin were afterwards more or less ingeniously interpreted as allegories. Thus, the ordinary names, expressions, tenets, traditions, and practices of the Arabian prophet received symbolic, allegoric, mystic interpretations. The Kabah (the square temple of Mecca), the holy centre of a living, circumambulating world, becomes an emblem of the sun; its famous black stone, hollowed by the kisses of the pious, represents Venus, the bright star on the borders of heaven; paradise, its milk, honey, wine, Tuba (tree of beatitude), Hur and Kasur (nymphs and palaces) allude to intellectual delights; hell, its Zakum (tree of nature), and torments, are explained as unavoidable consequences of depravity. Such interpretations of the Muhammedans seem often to be like their bridge Sirat, which connects heaven and hell, sharp as a razor and thin as a hair. Transmigration, or rather reproduction, is admitted, although not easily reconciled with the resurrection of the same body. The blasts of the trumpet, and the whole scene of the resurrection lose their materialism in a sort of rational allegory. The other world is the destruction and renovation of nature at the completion and renewal of great periods of time, one of which comprised 360,000 solar years. Resurrection is “the wakening from the sleep of heedlessness;” whenever an intellect attained that degree of perfection, it has returned to its origin; it is restored to life; this indubitably happens when nothing material exists: for, “where there is no body, there is no death.”
After having treated in this way the great dogmas of religion, the Muhammedan philosophers found it not more difficult to rationalise every circumstance respecting their prophet, he who obeyed the voice of an invisible speaker. Did Muhammed really split the moon? Not in the least—splitting is penetrating from the exterior into the interior; the fissure of the moon typifies nothing else but the renunciation of the external for the internal, which is “the superior wisdom;” who possessed it more than the prophet (the peace of God be with him!) he, the master of the lunar sphere? This, with the Orientals, is the seat of human intelligence and perfection.[179] One of their greatest scholars, or as they say “the learned of the world,” known to us under the name of Avisenna, undertook to give a reasonable account of Muhammed’s ascent to heaven, and framed a wonderful romance of mystic spiritualism. He terminates by explaining how the prophet, after his return from such a journey, could find his bed-clothes still warm: “He had travelled with his mind, and when he had completed his mental task, returned back to himself, and in less than an eye’s twinkling recovered his former state; whoever knows, understands why he went; and whoever knows not, looks in vain for an explanation.”
We may, not without interest, observe the natural process of the human mind in reviewing and reforming conceptions, the original form of which is not seldom entirely obliterated. The author of the Dabistán does more than satiate the most inquisitive reader with allegoric, now and then very fanciful, interpretations, which he continues, not without repetitions of the same subjects, through the subsequent chapter, upon which I am about to touch. Mohsan Fani, here as elsewhere, fails not to adduce several philosophers of more ancient as well as of his own times. Among the latter is Hakim Kamran, whose free and sound opinions, about the origin of societies and the prophets regulating them, will be read with some interest; as will also the account of the books which Kamran read and explained, whence the state of literature of those times may be inferred.
[177] See (vol. I. p. 293, [note 1]) the seven heavens under particular names, as given in the Viraf-namah, and the explanation of them. The seven prophets above-named are somewhat differently distributed by other authorities. See the notes to Avisenna’s explanation of Muhammed’s ascent to heaven (vol. III. pp. 186. 189). I shall subjoin the distribution of the seven prophet-kings, according to the Desátir, and that of seven Jewish and Christian prophets, according to the notes just referred to:
| Planets: | According to the Desatir. | According to Muhammedan Authorities. | ||
| Saturn, | Inhabited by | Gilshaw. | Inhabited by | Abraham. |
| Jupiter, | — | Siamok. | — | Moses. |
| Mars, | — | Hushang. | — | Aaron. |
| The Sun, | — | Tahmuras. | — | Idris. |
| Venus, | — | Jemshid. | — | Joseph. |
| Mercury, | — | Feridun. | — | Jesus, St. John. |
| The Moon, | — | Minocheher. | — | Adam. |
[178] See the Cosmology of the Desátir, compared with that of the modern Orientals, vol. III. p. 143, note.
[179] According to the Occidental fabulists (see Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, canto XXXIV), the moon holds, in a strait valley between two mountains, all that mortals lose here below: fame, tears and sighs of lovers, lost time, futile designs, vain desires, ancient crowns, all instruments of deceit, treaties, and conspiracies, works of false coiners and knaves, the good sense of every body, is there bottled; all is there except folly, which remains below, and never quits the earth:
Sol la Pazzia non v’è poca, nè assai,
Chè stà quaggiù, nè se ne parte mai.
§ XIV.—The Religion of the Sufis.
We arrive at the last chapter, “Upon the Sufis;” the most abstruse of the twelve, but to which we are well enough prepared by the contents of the former.
Súfism, according to the Dabistán, belongs to all religions; its adherents are known, under different names among the Hindus, Persians, and Arabians; it appears to be nothing else but the rationalism of any sort of doctrine. It could never be the religion of a whole nation; it remained confined to the precincts of schools and societies.
In the work before us we find it stated, that the belief of the pure Súfis was the same as that of the Ashrakians (Platonists): we know what the Muhammedans have made of it. According to the Imám Koshairi, quoted by Jâmi,[180] the Muselmans, after Muhammed’s death, distinguished the eminent men among them by no other title but that of “the companions of God’s apostle.” These were, in the second generation, called Tábáyún, “followers.” Afterwards the Islamites were divided into divers classes; those among them who particularly devoted themselves to the practice of religion, were named “servants of God,” which name was, after the rise of numerous sects, claimed by some from among all the different sectaries. It was then that the followers of the orthodox doctrine, in order to preserve the purity of their faith and the strength of their piety, assumed the name of Súfis, which name became celebrated before the end of the second century of the Hejira, that is, before the year 815 of our era. We may believe one of the greatest scholars of Muhammedism, Ghazáli, who ranged himself among the Súfis of his time towards the end of our eleventh century, when he declares that in their society he found rest in believing one God, the prophet, and the last judgment: this is the faith of the orthodox Súfis.
The assumption of any particular name carries men, who so distinguish and separate themselves from their fellows, much further than they themselves at first intended, particularly when the distinction and separation are founded upon vague and indeterminate notions of metaphysics. Under the impression, that there are secrets upon which their salvation depends, they will stretch reason and imagination to penetrate them. The Súfis are divided, according to their own phraseology,[181] into three classes: “the attracted, the travellers,” and “the attracted travellers;” the last of whom combine the qualities of the two former. I will class them here, with respect to their doctrine and manners, into five orders.
1. The religious Súfis, in general, are occupied with something beyond the limits of our natural consciousness; they exercise to the utmost their inward organ or inner sense, and acquire a philosophic imagination—
“The vision and the faculty divine.”[182]
Such was the prophetic gift of Muhammed, and as long as they adhere to his sayings, they are the orthodox Súfis, whom I have already mentioned.
2. Another order endeavor to comprehend, to fix, and to explain the attributes of God; the holy object sanctifies their efforts; unattainable, it exalts their souls above themselves; incomprehensibility yields to the sacred power of self-intuition; mysterious darkness to celestial light; their intellect, no more terrestrial, “knows its own sun and its own stars;”[183] by continual mental excitement they produce in themselves (according to their own phraseology) a state of intoxication; in the full enjoyment of their liberty, they approach the Supreme Being, and finally fancy an intimate union with their Creator. These are the mystic Sufis.
Man, to express his most fervent adoration of the Divinity, uses the expressions by which he is wont to address the object of his most tender affections; he has but the fire of earth to kindle in sacrifice to heaven; and to elevate his soul to the Supreme Being, he makes wings of the most lively sentiments which he ever experienced, and can excite in himself. The intensity of inward feeling breaks loose in outward demonstrations, gesture, song, and dance—
“Mystical dance, which yonder starry sphere
Of planets, and of fix’d, in all her wheels
Resembles nearest, mazes intricate,
Eccentric, intervolv’d, yet regular,
Then most, when most irregular they seem.”[184]
Such in the poet’s eye is the dance of angels, but less refined must be that of mortals, and really one sort of it strangely contrasts with the usually grave deportment of bearded ample-robed Muselmans, from Muhammed, who gave the example, down to the Durvishes of our days, who, with frantic howls and vehement whirling motions, by ludicrous and unseemly exhibition, destroy the whole gravity of inward intention. Mohsan Fani adduces some instances of dancing, and quotes throughout his work verses of mystical poetry upon Divine love, in glowing expressions belonging to profane passion. It is known how equivocal in their meaning they appear in the works of Jelal eddin Rumi, Sâdi, Hafiz, and others.[185]
3. It was not always vehement enthusiasm which was nourished in the contemplation of one Supreme Being; mysticism, in Súfis of a milder character, became quietism: he to whom all things are one, who draweth all things to one, and seeth all things in one, may enjoy peace and rest of spirit. I have quoted the words of an English bishop, Jeremy Taylor, and might borrow similar passages from a more ancient Christian bishop, Synesius,[186] for expressing a sort of purely spiritual pantheism. But there is another, which seems not to exclude materialism: the great cause from which the infinite series of all material and spiritual existences originates, is enveloped, as it were, with the vest of the universe; never known as to its essence, but always felt in its manifestations; it is
“All in all, and all in every part.”[187]
In short, God is all, and all is God. This appeared not more incomprehensible, but less complicated than any other system to the pantheistical Súfis.
4. After excessive efforts to transcend the limits of his nature, the philosophic inquirer re-enters into himself, and coerces his futile attempts by the precept: “Know thyself.” Having, as it were, recovered himself, and feeling that every thing proceeds from the depth of his mind, he sees himself in every thing; heaven and earth are his own; “he demands from himself whatever he wishes;” for he is every thing; he finds the God whom he sought in himself, in his own heart, and says, “Who knows himself, knows God.” This is religious psychology, the creed of the egotist class of Súfis.
It is a fact which appears incredible, but is too well attested for the admission of a doubt, that Súfis believed themselves to be gods, and adhered to their belief, amid torments, until death.[188] This psychological fact may be explained by considering that, according to Súfism, God is nothing else but an idea of the highest perfection; he, says our author, from whose sight both worlds vanished, who in the steps of right faith arrived at the rank of perfect purity, from truth to truth, became God; that is, he became one with his own idea of perfection, which cannot be disputed to him; his divinity is an illusion, but nothing else to him is the world; it is all and nothing, dependent upon his own creation and annihilation.
V. Transacting as it were directly with the Divine Being, the Súfis throw off the shackles of the positive religion; pious rebels, they neither fast nor make pilgrimages to the temple of Mecca, nay, they forget their prayers; for with God there is no other but the soundless language of the heart. From excess of religion they have no religion at all. Thus is confirmed the trite saying that “extremes meet.” “The perfection of a man’s state,” says Jami, “and the utmost degree to which saints may attain, is to be without an attribute, and without a mark.” The most fervent zeal sinks into the coldest indifference about religion. The author of the Dabistán declares positively,[189] that “whoever says that the Muselmans are above the Christians, does not know the true Being.” But the whole creed of an emancipated (this is the name I give to one belonging to the fifth order of Súfis) uniting in himself the egotist, pantheistic, and mystical Súfi will be found in the following verses of Jelal-eddin Rúmi, before mentioned:
[190]“O Moslims! what is to be done? I do not know myself; I am neither Jew, nor Christian, nor Gueber, nor Moslim; I am not from the East nor from the West; nor from land nor sea; neither from the region of nature nor from that of heaven; not from Hind nor China; not from Bulgaria nor Irak, nor from the towns of Khorassan. I am neither water nor dust, wind nor fire; not from the highest nor deepest, neither self-existent nor created; I am not from the two worlds, no son of Adam, not from hell nor from heaven, nor paradise. He is the first, the last, the interior, the exterior; I know but him, Yahu! Yahu! Menhu! I looked up, and saw both worlds to be one; I see but one—I seek but one—I know but one. My station is without space, my mark without impression; it is not soul nor body; I am the soul of souls. If I had passed one single day without thee, I would repent to have lived one single hour. When one day the friend stretches out his hand to me in solitude, I tread the worlds under my feet, and open my hands. O Shams Tabrizi,[191] I am so intoxicated here that, except intoxication, no other remedy remains to me.”
We know, by the preceding, what the Súfi is not; we shall now learn what he is.
“O Moslims! I am intoxicated by love in the world. I am a believer—an unbeliever—a drunken monk; I am the Shaikhs Bayazid, Shubli, Juneid, Abu Hanifa, Shafei, Hanbeli; I the throne and tent of heaven, from the dust up to the Pleyads; I am whatever thou seest in separation and enjoyment; I am the distance of two bows-length[193] around the throne; I am the Gospel, the Psalter, the Koran; I am Usa and Lat,[194] the cross, the Bál and Dagon,[195] the Kâbah, and the place of sacrifice. The world is divided into seventy-and-two sects, but there is but one God; the believer in him am I; I am the lie, the truth, the good, the evil, the hard and the soft, science, solitude, virtue, faith, the deepest pit of hell, the greatest torment of flames, the highest paradise, Huri, Risvan,[196] am I. What is the intent of this speech? Say it, O Shams Tabrizi! The intended meaning is: I am the soul of the world.”
After having sounded human nature in its depth, and viewed it in its various forms, the Muhammedan philosophers conceived a high idea of man in general, and call him insan kamil, “the perfect man.” He is the reunion of all the worlds, divine and naturaf, universal and partial; he the book, the pure, sublime, and venerable pages of which are not to be touched, nor can be comprehended, but by those who have thrown off the dark veils of ignorance. His soul is to his body what the universal soul is to the great world, which bears the name of “the great man.”
Sir William Jones refers,[197] for a particular detail of Súfi metaphysics and theology, to the Dabistán. These are given with a particular phraseology, for which it is not easy to find corresponding expressions in any European language; and which I have endeavored, to the best of my power, to explain in my notes. A particular signification is attached even to the most common terms, such as state, station, time, duration, existence, non-existence, possibility, presence, absence, testimony, sanctity, annihilation, etc., etc. Besides, we find particular divisions and classifications: different attributions and names of the Deity, the unity of which is to be preserved in all; the division of spirits, prophetism, true and false miracles, revelation, inspiration; four sorts of mankind, as many of life and death; seven degrees of contemplative life, in each of which degrees the Súfi sees a different color; four lights of God; four sorts of manifestations, the sign of which is annihilation, called “the science,” or “positive knowledge.” Further we meet with a metempsychosis for the imperfect soul, and an appearance for the perfect; even with a geography of the invisible, the land of shades in the towns of Jabilkha, Jabilsa, and Barzah, etc., etc.; and, in addition, manifo I pinions of Asiatic philosophy.
Here should be pointed out how Muhammedan or other Súfis may be confounded with the Hindu Yogis or Sanyásis, although in reality distinguishable from each other. The Yajur veda, and other sacred books of the latter inculcate the precept that a man ought to acquire perfect indifference concerning the whole exterior world, and in all places to lay aside the notion of diversity. This is what a Yogi or Sanyasi endeavors to attain: he quits every thing, house, wife, children, even his caste; the world has no more right upon him than he upon the world. In this he agrees with the Súfi; but the latter generally aspires to the divine gift of inspiration, prophetism, mystical enthusiasm, whilst the common state of a Yogi is that of complete impassiveness or torpor.
It is only towards the end of the Dabistán that Mohsan Fani mentions particularly the Sabeans, whose religion was, from the very beginning of the work, treated of under different names of the ancient Persian religions, such as Yezdanians, Jamsaspians, etc., etc.
[180] See Journal des Savans, décembre 1821, pp. 721, 722, art. de Silvestre de Sacy.
[181] The Sálik, Mejezub, and Mejezub Salik. (See A Treatise on Sufism, or Muhammedan Mysticism, by lieutenant J. William Graham. In the Transact. of the Lit. Soc. of Bombay, vol. I. p. 99, 1811.
[182] Wordsworth.
“— — — Solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.”
Æneis, c. VI. v. 641.
[184] Milton’s Paradise Lost, V., v. 620-624.
[185] The two first give their name to the mystic and moral age; from 1203 to 1300; the third to that of the highest splendor of Persian lyrical poetry and rhetoric, from 1300 to 1397 of our era.—(See Schöne Redekünste Persiens Von Joseph Von Hammer, Wien, 1818.)
[186] He was born in Cyrene, in Africa, towards the end of our fourth century, and died, about 430, bishop of Ptolemais.
[187] Cowley.
[188] See vol. III. p. 291 n. 1.
[189] See vol. III. pp. 123 n. 4; 293 n.
[190] I follow the German translation of Baron von Hammer, loco cit., p. 189.
[191] Shams-eddin Tabrisi, whom Jelal-eddin names at the end of nearly all his lyric poems, is said to have been the son of Khuand Ala-eddin, chief of the Assassins (Ismâilahs). He gained a great celebrity as a Súfi and a saint. From Tabriz, from which town he took his surname, he came to Konia; there Jelal-eddin chose him for his spiritual guide, and remained attached to him all his life, which terminated A. D. 1262. Shams-eddin survived him. The tombs of the master and disciple, near each other in Konia, are even in our days objects of veneration to pious Muselmans.
[193] The distance to which Muhammed approached God in heaven.
[194] Two Arabian idols, the Dusares and Allitta of Herodotus.
[195] Syrian deities.
[196] The guardian of paradise.
[197] In his Treatise on the mystical poetry of the Persians and Hindus: vol. IV. of his Works, p. 232.
§ XV.—Recapitulation of the contents of the Dabistan.
Thus I have indicated the principal contents of the Dabistán. Considering the philosophic opinions touched upon, we may remark that truth, although in different times and places variously colored, veiled, sometimes mutilated, often running into falsehood, is nevertheless widely diffused, inasmuch as it reappears in the concurring declarations of the greatest thinkers of all times. Thus, among the notions of the Asiatics, we find implied the sense of the ἐντελέχεια (entelechia) of Aristotle, this untranslatable word,[198] which however can but signify “some continued and perennial motion,[199] activity, moving force, perfection, principle of things”[200]—we find time and space, the necessary substrata of all our notions, as taught by the Kantians—the want of substantial reality in the objects of senses, maintained by the sceptics in general—the prototypes and ideas of the Pythagoreans and Platonists—the necessary connections of all things of the Stoics—the atomic doctrine of Moschus, Leucippus, Democritus, Empedocles, etc.—the universality of sensation and life of the Hermetites—the preformation and pre-existence of the soul, alleged by Synesius, Leibnitz, and others—the successive transformation, transmigration, gradual perfection of beings; the periodical renovation of the world professed by many Greek schools—the palingenesis of Bonnet—the one and the all of Parmenides, Plotinus, Synesius, Spinoza, not to omit the refined Egoismus of Fichte, etc., etc. I shall not proceed further in the enumeration of opinions ascribed in the Dabistán to different sects, and reproduced in the doctrine of celebrated ancient and modern philosophers of Europe. Who will realize that criterion of true philosophy indicated by the great Leibnitz, namely, that which would at once collect and explain the fragments of truth scattered through all, and apparently the most incongruous, systems?
This is perhaps the prize to be gained, not by one mortal, but by a series of generations, in a laborious task, so often interrupted and recommenced, but never abandoned. The struggle of the human mind is without term, but not without aim. We see two principal movers of human intellect—PHILOSOPHY and RELIGION. The one employs reason as a sufficient power for the solution of a solvable problem, which comprehends knowledge, morality, and civilisation. The other distrusts reason, and relies upon a supernatural power for the revelation of a secret, or for the word of an enigma, which relates to a destination beyond the bounds of this world. The philosopher, self-confident, is liable to error for various reasons; but always capable of correction and improvement, in the only possible way, that of self-activity, the virtuous exertions of his faculties towards attainable perfection in his whole condition. The religionist is exposed to deception by his gratuitous faith in superhuman guidance, and, if mistaken, is precluded from regress and improvement by his essential virtue, fidelity; that is, the pious surrender of his soul to a spiritual and mystical sovereignty. The Dabistán shows us more religionists than philosophers; it is the school of sects, or rather that of inveterate superstition, with which, in spite of the correctives which human nature affords to its errors, the general character of the Asiatics remains stamped, from time immemorial to the present day.
Although the twelve chapters of the Dabistán bear the titles of as many religions, the author says himself, at the end of his work, that there are only five great religions—those of the Hindus, Persians, Jews, Nazareans, and Muselmans. He no where mentions the Egyptians nor the Chinese, apparently because, in his times and long before, no trace of the Egyptian religion existed, although it certainly had once occupied a great circle of influence, and because the Chinese creed was known to be Buddhism.
The five religions mentioned constitute indeed so many bases, upon which the whole creed of mankind has been, and remains founded. They comprise, in general, polytheism and monotheism. In all times and places, the religion of the “Enlightened” was distinguished from that of the “Vulgar;” the first as interior, being the product of universal reason, was every where nearly uniform; the second, as exterior, being composed of particular and arbitrary rites and ceremonies, varied according to the influence of the climate, and the character, history, and civilisation of a people. But, in the course of time, no religion remained entirely the same, either in principle or form. Polytheism, by mere simplification, tended to monotheism; this itself, in its awful incomprehensibility, was modified according as it originated, or assumed its notions, from anthropomorphism, hylozoism, spiritualism, or pantheism. Nor did any religion remain simple and pure, as proceeding from only one principle; all religious ideas, elemental, sidereal, allegorical, symbolical, mystical, philosophical, and others were mixed, as well as all sorts of worship interwoven. It is now impossible to range in chronological order their rise and transition into different forms. Still the one or the other of these kinds predominated: thus physiolatry, or “the adoration of personified nature,” in India; astrolatry, or “the worship of stars,” in Arabia and Iran; none of the religions entirely disclaimed monotheism, which was positively and exclusively professed in Judaism, Christianity, and Muhammedanism.
Magism and the three last-named religions were founded or modified by holy personages, or prophets, that is, by individuals whose historical existence in more or less remote times is positively fixed; Hinduism alone acknowledges Manu as an ideal or mythological person, whose laws are however derived from Brahma himself. This may perhaps be assumed as a proof of its remotest antiquity; and India, having been less disturbed by invasions, and conquered in much later times by foreign nations, preserved its institutes complete in their originality. There is scarcely a tenet to be found in any other creed which does not, at least in its germ, exist in the Hindu religion.
It is most remarkable that, although men revered as divine messengers of religion have existed, still the works containing the heaven-sent doctrine are, either not at all or not incontestably, ascribed to them; and in any case devolved upon posterity in a more or less corrupted and mutilated state; so as to entail for ever an inexhaustible subject of dispute, a heavy task for belief, and severe trial of faith. If the Vedas are the best preserved, it is to no general purpose, inasmuch as they are the least known and most obscure. These facts the author of the Dabistán has set in full light, and says,[201] as it were to tranquillise mankind with regard to the multifarious inheritance of their prophets: “The varieties and multitudes of the rules of prophets proceed only from the plurality of names; and as in names there is no mutual opposition or contradiction, the superiority in rank among them is only the predominance of a name. To this I subjoin another passage, although it occurs in connection with another subject:[202] “The time of a prophet is a universal one, having neither priority nor posteriority—neither morning nor evening:” that is, if I understand these words: As the same sun ever shines upon us, so shines the same wisdom of all times, incorruptible in its divine source.
If we take a rapid comparative view of the principal features of the five religions mentioned, we find emanation of all beings, intellectual and material, from one great source, to be the fundamental and characteristic dogma of Hinduism, established and developed in the most explicit and positive manner. The division of supernatural beings in good and bad is adopted in the five religions, but in Magism it is of a somewhat different origin: for Ahriman and his host are not rebellious or fallen good genii; they are an original creation. A primitive innocence and posterior corruption is generally believed; but by the Hindus as coming from riches and abundance, by the other nations as caused by seduction of the bad spirits. The destruction of mankind by a deluge is no part of the Persian creed; it occurs in the Indian as one of the past periodical renovations of the world, which are to be followed by others, and is also admitted by the Persians, whilst the Jews, Christians, and Muhammedans believe a deluge not very ancient, as a punishment of human depravity. Incarnations of the Deity for the benefit of mankind, are believed only by Hindus and Christians; to the latter belongs exclusively the dogma of a propitiatory sacrifice. Human souls, immaterial, have pre-existence according to the Vedas and the Zand-Avesta; in the first, as parts of the Divinity; in the latter, as created in their fervers, or “pre-established ideals” at the beginning of the world. Transmigration is taught in the sacred books of the Hindus and Persians. The immortality of the soul, reserved to future beatitude or damnation, is maintained generally, less positively, by the ancient Jews; the righteous are cheered by the prospect of the same heaven, the wicked threatened by the same punishments, which are held to be eternal by Christians and Muhammedans; the Hindus and Persians place the future life in a long series of purifications or purgatories, leading, howsoever late, finally to heaven, to which, according to the first, the most perfect only are admitted immediately after their terrestrial life, and are not to be born again, except by their own choice. The resurrection with the same body, and the last judgment, are among the most essential tenets of the Magi, Christians, and Muhammedans; the other world is vaguely represented among the ancient Hebrews. It is just to attribute to the Persians exclusively one of the most beautiful personifications that was ever imagined:[203] the soul of the deceased meets at the bridge of eternity an apparition either of an attractive or repulsive form; “Who art thou?” asks the uncertain spirit, and hears the answer: “I am thy life.”
Although the variety and multitude of human conceptions may appear boundless, yet they may perhaps be reduced to a few fundamental principles. In general, there is one object common to all sorts of religion: this is to detach man from gross sensual matters, and to accustom him to hold converse with holy supernatural beings, guides to salvation, omnipresent witnesses of all his actions, remunerators of good, punishers of bad deeds; the belief in such beings, one or more, is in fact the most essential support of morality, which, being fixed in each individual, insures the peace and happiness of all. In short, the most important object of all religion is to ennoble, refine, and sanctify man’s inmost thoughts and feelings, as well as his exterior actions. No wonder, that the same virtues are recommended by all religions.
But, if these virtues be the same as to names, there is a great difference as to their practical application. Thus, the Hindus, tending excessively to the extinction of sensual propensities, and a contemplative life, destroy spontaneity, and produce apathy. The Persians recommend more practical virtues. Both nations, however, as well as the Jews and Muhammedans, are subject to a great number of dietetical and ritual observances, which divert them from useful activity, confine their practical sense, and render inert the innate perfectibility, the most precious prerogative of mankind. Among all the Asiatic nations, considered in this work, theocracy, that is, the junction of the religious and civil laws, doubles the power of despotism, and commands equally the spiritual and material, the present and the future world. The Western Christians were in the course of time fortunate enough to modify the Asiatic morals, to enlarge the circle of civilization, and to open to themselves a boundless prospect of progressive knowledge, morality, and happiness.
Finally, there is one idea common as an adjunct to the five religions of mankind. Common are their failings, common their sufferings, common is also their consolation—hope. Always regretting a purity, simplicity, and independence, supposed to have been lost in the past, because not to be found any where in the present, and never exempt from oppression, men look to the future, and listen gladly to the promise of universal reform and restoration to one rule, which each religionist says, will be his own, to be effected among the Hindus by Kalki, an incarnation of Brahma[204], among the other nations by the reappearance of their respective prophet, Messiah, Mahdi.
“And then shall come,
When the world’s dissolution shall be ripe,
With glory and pow’r to judge both quick and dead,
To judge th’ unfaithful dead, but to reward
His faithful, and receive them into bliss,
Whether in Heav’n or Earth, for then the Earth
Shall all be Paradise.”[205]
[198] Hermelaus Barbaro relates that, finding the interpretation of that word so difficult, he one night invoked the devil for assistance. The old scoffer did not fail to appear, but told him a word still more unintelligible than the Greek. Hermolaus at last brought forth the strange term perfectihabia, which, I think, nobody adopted.
[199] Cicero circumscribes the word: Quasi quandam continuatam motionem et perennem (Tusc. Quæst., I. 10). Budæus translates it efficacia.—(On this subject see Thesaurus Græcæ linguæ ab Henr. Stephano constructus, new edit., Paris, 1838.)
[200] Leibnitz (Op. t. II. p. II. p. 53; t. III. p. 321), after having said, that to the material mass must be added some superior principle, which may be called formal, concludes: “This principle of things, whether we call it entelechia, or ‘force,’ is of no matter, provided we recollect that it can only be explained by the notion of force.”
[201] Vol. III. p. 276.
[202] Ibid., p. 289.
[204] vol. II. p. 24, and Vishnu-purana, transl. of Wilson, p. 484.
[205] Milton’s Paradise Lost, XII. v. 458-464.
PART III.
CONCLUSION.
§ General appreciation of the Dabistan and its Author.
Mohsan Fáni collected in the Dabistán, as I hope to have shown by a rapid review of its principal contents, various important information concerning religions of different times and countries. His accounts are generally clear, explicit, and deserving confidence; they agree in the most material points with those of other accredited authors. Thus, to quote one more instance, the accuracy of his topographic information relative to the marvellous fountain in Kachmir is in the main confirmed by that published by Bernier who had visited the country. Our author enlivens his text by interesting quotations from the works of famous poets and philosophers, and by frequent references to books which deserve to be known. I beg to mention the Tabsaret al âvam, “Rendering quick-sighted the Vulgar,” which he regrets not to have before his eyes. His whole work is interspersed with anecdotes and sayings, characteristic of individuals and sects which existed in his times. To what he relates from personal observation or other sources, he frequently adds reflections of his own, which evince a sagacious and enlightened mind. Thus, he exhibits in himself an interesting example of Asiatic erudition and philosophy.
The Dabistán adds, if I am not mistaken, not only a few ideas to our historical knowledge, but also some features to the picture which we hitherto possessed of the Asiatics. May I be permitted to quote a remarkable instance relative to the latter? We are wont to speak of the inherent apathy and stationary condition of the Muhammedans, as an effect of their legislation. Although this general idea of their character and state be not unfounded, yet it is carried to such an exaggerated degree, that we think them incapable of progress. We may therefore be astonished to find in the work before us[206] a maxim such as this: “He who does not proceed, retrogrades,” and beside a declaration attributed to Muhammed himself: “He whose days are alike is deceived.” Our author, it is true, interprets it in the particular point of view of an orthodox Súfi, who thinks that there is a degree of mental perfection, beyond which it is impossible to rise: this was, he says, the state of Muhammed, the prophet, always the same, from which no ascent nor descent was possible, the perfection of unity with God, higher than whom nothing can be: the blackness beyond which no color can go. With the exception of these fits of mysticism, now and then occurring, it is just to say that Mohsan Fani most commonly leans to the side of progressive reform.
For the just appreciation of his work, I think it necessary to point out another opinion, which, very generally entertained, requires to be considerably modified: I mean that which attributes to the Muhammedans an unrestrained intolerance in religious matters. On that account, I beg to refer directly to the book, which to them always was the sacred source of all rules and precepts of conduct—the Koran. In this astonishing farrago of truth and falsehood, we find here and there a great extent of toleration. In fact, Muhammedism was eclectic in all the religious ideas of its time, Magian, Jewish, and Christian. Muhammed avowed himself to be “a man like every body;”[207] he did not pretend, that “the treasures of God were in his power,” nor did he say “that he knew the secrets of God, neither that he was an angel; no; he thought only to follow what was revealed to him,”[208] so much every body else may say and think, He professed his good-will to Christians, “as inclinable to entertain friendship for the true believers;[209] he exhorted his followers not to dispute, but in the mildest manner,[210] against those who have received the Scripture, and wished to come to a just determination between both parties, that they all worshipped not any but God.”[211]—“Abraham,” said he, “was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but one resigned unto God (Moslim); excellence is in the hand of God; he gives it unto whom he pleaseth.”[212]—Still more; the prophet seems to give a general license to the professors of every religion to observe certain rites about which he prohibits all disputes;[213] nay, he declares: “If the Lord had pleased, verily, all who are in the earth would have believed in general. Wilt thou therefore forcibly compel men to be true believers? No soul can believe but by the permission of God.”[214]
Although the Arabian prophet and his followers too often gave by their conduct a strong denial to these principles, still the existence of them in the Koran was a sanction to all those who were disposed to profess them in words and actions. Such sentiments of religious toleration are in accordance with similar ones expressed in many Christian moral treatises, but in none of the latter do I remember to have read: “that the diversities of religions distributed among nations, according to the exigency of each, are manifestations of the divine light and power, and that these various forms, by which God’s inscrutable essence may be viewed by glimpses, are means of possessing eternal beatitude, whilst here below the acquisition of knowledge is sufficient to insure to mankind the enjoyment of concord, friendship, and agreeable intercourse.”[215]
These appear to be the maxims adopted by the Súfis, and particularly by those among them who, under Akbar, professed to be Ilahians. The creed of this class exists in our days, although the name has not survived. To these we may suppose, if to any, Mohsan Fáni belonged. If we could agree with Erskine that “he was in strict intimacy with the sect of enthusiasts by whom the Desátir was venerated,” we should still be obliged to avow, that his enthusiasm had not in the least influenced his free judgment upon religious matters. His imagination although justly exalted by sublime notions of the Divinity, certainly appears now and then bewildered by the mysterious action of unknown causes; but on other occasions pointing out, in a satirical vein, so many follies, absurdities, and extravagances prevailing among mankind, he seems to laugh at all enthusiasm whatsoever, his own not excepted. In general, there breathes in his words a spirit of independence, which would command attention even among us in the accustomed circle of long-established liberty. His boldness in religious controversy startled even sir W. Jones so much that, in characterising it by the harsh term of blasphemy, the English judge appears for a moment ready to plead for the abettors of popular superstition, who stood confounded before the tribunal of the philosophic Akbar.
I shall however not conceal, that Mohsan Fani sometimes paid tribute to the prevailing ignorance and inveterate prejudices of his time, and above all, to the sovereign power of early impressions; nor that, although in many respects he offers in himself an honorable exception to the general character of his countrymen, he now and then confounds himself with them. Thus, he was far from being above all popular superstition. The Asiatic, from the dawn of his reason, is nourished with the marvellous, trained to credulity, and prepared for mysticism, the bane of practical life; in short, he imbibes from his infancy a superstition from which he never frees himself, always prone to interpret every unusual phenomenon as a miracle. No sort of study enables him to correct his first impressions, or to enlighten his ignorance; natural history and experimental philosophy are not cultivated in Asia. If not an agriculturist, mechanic, tradesman, or soldier, he devotes himself to the intricacies of metaphysics, and very commonly to a contemplative life; he becomes an ascetic. Thus he knows no social life embellished by the refinement of mutual sympathy, nor the noble vocations of a citizen who lives—with more than one life in himself, in others, and in the whole community. Such being the general state of Asia, let us not wonder that Mohsan Fani believed some strange stories of miracles, and viewed with astonishment tricks of jugglers, which he relates with serious credulity, strangely contrasting with his usual good sense, sagacity, and judgment. Thus, he presents to us a man standing on his head with his heels in the air during a whole night; others restraining their breath many hours, and remaining immoveable during two or three days; he speaks of the miraculous effects of austerity, such as being in different places at the same time; resuscitating the dead; understanding the language of animals, vegetables, and minerals; walking on the surface of water, and through fire and air; commanding the elements; leaving and reassuming the body; and the like. But let us not forget that such stories were told elsewhere, and in Europe, even so late as the time in which the Dabistán was written.
Further, although generally moral and judicious in his sentences, grave and austere in his views, fervent and exalted in devout contemplation, our author now and then happens to use the language of ribaldry and indecency, which deserves serious reprobation. We shall however remark that taste, or the sense of propriety in words and expressions among Asiatics differs, as much as their general civilisation, from ours. From religious austerity they banished the elegant arts, as objects of sensuality; but, as they could not stifle this essential part of human nature, they only prevented its useful refinement; they clipt the delicate flower, but left the brute part of it: hence the grossness of their jokes, expressions, and images. “To sacrifice to the graces” is, among them, not understood at all, or thought an abomination. But they cannot be said to violate laws which they do not know; the offence which they give from want of taste and decency, is purely unintentional, and cannot with them have that evil effect which, among us, it would be likely to produce.
As to the general style of the Dabistán—it is only in the original text itself, that it can be justly appreciated. It will perhaps sufficiently appear from our translation that it distinguishes itself favorably among other Oriental works with which it may be compared. The diction is generally free from their usual bombast; it is commonly clear, and when obscure to an European reader, it is so on account of the strangeness and abstruseness of the matter treated. As to form—if judged according to the rules of Western criticism, the work of Mohsan Fani may be found deficient in the distribution and arrangement of matter; there are useless repetitions, incoherences, disorder, abrupt digressions, and excess, sonetimes of prolixity, at others of concision. Although we have reason to praise him for generally naming the source from which he drew his information, still we can but regret, now and then, his not sufficiently authenticating nor explaining the particulars which he relates. Thus we could wish him to have been more explicit concerning the Desátir. Upon the whole, we cannot accuse him of not having performed what, in his time and circumstances, was hardly possible, and what hitherto no Asiatic author has achieved. We ought to keep in mind how much, with respect to the perfection of literary publications, we owe solely to the art of printing, the practice of which, by its own nature, necessitates and facilitates a manifold revision and correction of the text, which otherwise could hardly take place. This alone sufficiently accounts for the frequent defects even of the best manuscript works.
Striking an equitable balance between faults and excellencies, and with particular regard to the abundance of curious, useful, and important information, I shall not hesitate to express my sincere persuasion, that the Dabistán was worthy of the eulogy bestowed by the great Orientalist who first brought it into public notice.
[206] Vol. III. p. 287.
[207] The Koran, ch. XVIII. v. 100.
[208] Ibid., ch. VI. v. 49.
[209] Ibid., ch. V. vv. 86. 88.
[210] Ibid., ch. XXIX. v. 45.
[211] Ibid., ch. III. v. 57.
[212] Ibid., vv. 61. 66. 67.
[213] Ibid., ch. XX. v. 66.
[214] Ibid., ch. X. vv. 99. 100.
[215] See Epilogue.
§ II.—Notice concerning the printed edition, some manuscripts, and the translations of the Dabistan.
It is well known, that the only printed edition of the Dabistán which exists is due to the press of Calcutta. At the end of the work will be found the Epilogue of the editor, Moulavi Nazer Ushruf, a learned Muhammedan gentleman of the district of Juanpur, who was for many years employed in judicial offices in the district of Burdwan, and in the court of Sudder Diwani Adawlet, in Calcutta. These particulars were communicated to me by the favor of the honorable gentleman whose name the said editor mentions in his Epilogue with encomium, the sincerity of which can certainly not be questioned: it was William Butterworth Bayley, at present director and chairman of the Honorable East India Company. It was he, a distinguished Persian scholar, who directed and superintended the edition of the Dabistán. Upon the strength of his authority I am enabled to add, that the printed copy was the result of a careful collation of several manuscript copies of this work. One was obtained from Delhi (as mentioned in the epilogue), and another from Bombay; two or three were in the possession of natives in Calcutta. Although these, as it is more or less the case with all manuscripts, procurable in India, were defective, yet we may believe the assurance given by the editor, that “the doubts and faults have been as much as possible discarded, and the edition carried to a manifest accuracy.” This is confirmed by the fact, that only a few discrepancies from the printed edition were found in two other manuscripts, which were in England at the disposition of the late David Shea for the translation of the first part of the Dabistán. Nor did I find frequent deviations from the printed text in the copy which was transcribed for me in Calcutta from a manuscript, procured from the library of the king of Oude. Mutilated in many places, and imperfect as is this latter, it afforded me nevertheless a few acceptable readings. I was obliged to content myself with the assistance of this only manuscript for the translation, as several circumstances, among which was the lamented death of the earl of Munster, prevented me from obtaining the use of other manuscript copies. All circumtances considered, I do not hesitate to say, that the printed edition of the Dabistán is more correct than any of the manuscript copies which can be found; we have only to regret that its typography, owing to the then imperfect state of the Oriental press in Calcutta, is so irregular, as to be scarce entitled to any preference over the common sort of Persian manuscripts.
The English translation of the Dabistán was begun some time before the year 1835, by David Shea, one of the professors of Oriental languages at Hayleybury. He was in his early years distinguished in the university of Dublin for his classical attainments, and remained devoted to literature in all the various circumstances of his life. It was not for, nor in, India—the great object and school of English students—but in Malta, from peculiar inducement, that, by uncommon application, he acquired the Arabic and Persian languages. After his return to England, having been attached to the Hayleybury college—I should not fail to add to his eulogy by saying, that he had before won the kind interest and recommendation of sir Graves Haughton—and having become a member of the committee of the Oriental Translation Fund, he earned the applause of Orientalists in England, and on the continent of Europe, by his faithful and spirited translation of Mirkhond’s history of the early kings of Persia. Undertaking the translation of the Dabistán, he was undoubtedly preparing to himself a new success, the full realisation of which he was not permitted to enjoy; the last date in his manuscript copy, in which he was wont to mark the progress of his labor, was April 22, 1835. From this day he appears to have withdrawn his hand from the Dabistán, and too soon after—I shall be permitted to use the very words of the author whom he was translating:[216]
“He sought the stores of holy liberty,
A resting place on high, and soar’d from hence
Beyond the bounds of heaven, earth, and time.”
It was in the beginning of the year 1837 that I was honored by the earl of Munster, the vice president of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, with the proposal of completing and editing the English Dabistán. Having already several years before been occupied with the same work whilst pursuing my Indian studies, I was so much the more prompted to accept the proffered honor. Engaged however as I then was in publishing my French translation of the first six books of the Rajatarangini from the Sanscrit, I could not begin the new work before 1841. This delay was the cause of my being deprived of the desired honor and satisfaction of presenting my translation to the earl of Munster, who while in the full enjoyment of life, welcomed with a benevolent interest every contribution, however small, to the general diffusion of Oriental history and literature; he had accepted in Paris my Dedication a short time before his death; it remains to me to consecrate, with a profound feeling of regret and veneration for departed worth, the English Dabistán to his memory.
I took charge of the manuscript copy of David Shea’s version, which had been carried to page 201 of the printed Calcutta edition.[217] In this there were only a few omissions to be supplied, and no other rectifications to be made but those which a second review would have suggested to my learned predecessor himself; his notes, and those which I thought necessary to add, are marked each with the initials of our respective names.
If I found little to change, I had much to imitate in David Shea’s translation—his faithfulness and clearness. By faithfulness I understand not only expressing truly the sense, but also keeping unaltered the words, figures, images, and phrases of the original, as it is in them that the author’s national and individual peculiarity is manifested. This sort of faithfulness may roughen or hamper the phrase, destroy the elegance of style, and even offend good taste, but by it alone we shall not only know, as I have just observed, the genius of the foreign writer, but also satisfy the exigencies of philology, which is one of the main purposes of translations not undertaken as mere exercises of improvable eloquence.
An author will not employ more or other words than those he thinks necessary for being understood by readers of his own nation, religion, school; he writes, for instance, as a Muhammedan for Muhammedans, a Súfi for Súfis. But a translator must do his best for uniting faithfulness with clearness, the indispensable condition of any speech or writing; he must add what is required for illustrating the original text, and thus submit to a charge, now and then heavier than he can bear.
Under the necessity of expounding the translation by notes, I was not actuated by the ambition of being new, but only by that of being as useful as my means permitted, that is, by endeavoring to spare the reader time and trouble to look for dates and biographical notices of the persons, the situation of the places, and the explanation of the technical terms which occur in the text. Orientalists know the difficulty of rendering in a European language the phraseology of the Asiatic theology and philosophy. The Dabistán presents, besides the Sanscrit, a confusion of Arabic and Persian technical expressions; some of them have a very comprehensive signification, and for the sake of clearness must be rendered by different terms in different places; other expressions have at times a particular sense, and are at other times to be taken in the common acceptation; the same terms must be translated by different words, and different terms by the same; finally, the matter treated of is frequently so abstruse in its nature that professed philosophers have not yet been able to agree upon some of the most important questions. I can therefore but apprehend that I may not have thoroughly understood, and must confess that I have not translated, to my own satisfaction, more than one passage relative to Indian doctrines, and to the Muhammedan scholastic philosophy.
The Sanscrit names and terms of Indian mythology, theology, and philosophy are much corrupted by the Persian spelling; I have endeavored to restore them to their original forms. I thought it right to adduce in most cases the Sanscrit, Arabic, or Persian word at the same time in Roman as well as Devanagari, or Arabic characters, with its interpretation. I followed the rule proposed by sir William Jones for writing oriental words in Roman characters, as often as I took these words from a Sanscrit, Persian, or Arabic text; but from works written in a European language, I was generally obliged to copy the spelling of Oriental names: on which account, in my notes, a regretable inequality of orthography could not be avoided.
The Dabistán not only touches upon most difficult points of science and erudition, but also comprises in its allusions and references nearly the whole history of Asia. In observing this, I am necessarily at the same time pointing to the many deficiencies which will be found in my attempts to comment and illustrate so comprehensive and diversified a text. The best advantage which a man obtains at the termination of an arduous work, is to have enabled himself to make it better, if he could begin again; but he can but humbly submit to the decrees of an all-ruling power, which bestows upon each mortal only a certain measure of faculties and of time.
Desirous to fulfil my task to the best of my abilities, I did not neglect to consult every translation of any part of the Dabistán which had been published. I have already mentioned, in this preface,[218] that Gladwin edited the Persian text of a part of the first chapter with an English version which was worthy of his reputation as an excellent Orientalist. Every thing that came from the pen of the late doctor Leyden deserved attention. I had before my eyes his translation of chapter IX., on the religion of the Roshenian.[219] I did not neglect the abridged interpretation of the religious controversies held before Akbar, given in form of a dialogue by the learned and ingenious Vans Kennedy.[220] I perused with due regard the explanations which the illustrious Silvestre de Sacy furnished of some passages of the Dabistán[221] since this work became known to him in 1821, as well as the remarks cursorily made upon it by some Orientalists.
I did not fail also to profit by the advantages which my residence in Paris, and my connections with distinguished cultivators of Oriental literature, could afford me on behalf of my translation. It is my duty to acknowledge the services which I received from the kindness of M. Garcin de Tassy, professor of Hindostanee, whose intimate acquaintance with Arabic and Persian literature in general, and with Muhammedan theology in particular, is attested by several esteemed works which he has published. The many Arabic passages, disseminated in the Dabistán, have mostly been revised, interpreted, and referred to the Koran, by him. M. Eugène Burnouf, professor of Sanscrit, is never in vain consulted concerning that part of ancient philology in which he has acquired a most particular and eminent distinction. I also constantly experienced the most friendly readiness to tender me information, when required, in M. Julius Mohl and baron Mac Guckin de Slane, as well as in M. Reinaud, professor of Arabic, attached to the Royal Library, a most distinguished conservator and most complaisant communicator of the valuable manuscripts under his special charge. I beg these honorable gentlemen to receive my sincerest acknowledgments.
[217] In the English transl. to vol. II. p. 85.
[219] See As. Res., vol. XI. pp. 406-420; Calcutta quarto edit.; and vol. III. pp. 26-42 of this work.
[220] See Transact. of the Bombay Lit. Soc., vol. II. pp. 242-270, and vol. III. of this work, p. 50 et seq.
[221] See Journal des Savans, février 1821, Review of the Desátir; and December, 1821, and January, 1822, Review of Thulok’s work upon Súfism.