The Zend-Avesta, or sacred books of the Pārsīs, is really a collection of various fragments. The first part, which may be called the Avesta proper, contains the Vendīdad, the Visparad and the Yasna. The Vendīdad is a compilation of religious lore and mythological tales, the Visparad is a collection of litanies for the sacrifice, while the Yasna, too, is composed of litanies, but it also contains five hymns or Gāthas written in a different dialect, which is older than the language of the greater part of the Avesta.
These three books are found in manuscripts in two different forms. Sometimes either of them is found alone or accompanied by a Pahlavī translation, or the three are mingled together according to the requirements of the liturgy.
The second portion of this work is generally known as the Khorda-Avesta, and is composed of short prayers, which are recited not only by the priests but by all the faithful, at certain moments of the day, month or year, and in the presence of the different elements. It is also customary to include in the Khorda or small Avesta, the Yaśts or hymns of praise to the several Izads or Yazatas.
The sacredness of the Avesta is to a certain extent reflected upon a work called the Bundehesh, which was written in Pahlavī, or mediæval Persian, during the Sassanian age. According to the Pārsī traditions the bulk of Zoroastrian literature was formerly much greater than now. It is claimed that the Vendīdad is the only survivor of the twenty-one Nosks or books which formed the primitive Avesta revealed by Ormazd to Zoroaster, and also that the eighteen Yaśts were originally thirty in number, there having been one for each of the Izads who preside over the thirty days of the month. The classic authors agree with the Pārsīs in the statement that the early books of the Zend-Avesta were much more extensive than at present, the sacred literature of the Zoroastrians having suffered heavy losses in consequence of the ravages of the Persian empire by Greeks and Arabians. It appears from the third book of the Dīnkard that at the time of Alexander’s invasion there were only two complete copies of the sacred books, one of which was traced upon skins in golden letters and deposited in the royal archives at Persepolis, where it was burned by Alexander[[147]] while the other having been placed in another treasury fell into the hands of the Greeks, and was translated into their language. The Arḍā-Vīrāf-nāmak mentions only one copy of the Avesta, which was deposited in the archives at Persepolis and burned by Alexander; it also mentions the fact that he killed many of the priests and nobles. Both of these accounts were written, it is true, long after the events they describe, so they merely represent the tradition which had been handed down from one generation to the next, but as they were written before the Arabian conquest[[148]] they cannot have confounded the ravages of Alexander with those of the Mohammedans, and their accounts are freely confirmed by classic writers.[[149]]
AGE OF THE ZEND-AVESTA.
There is no data by which the age of the Zend-Avesta may be definitely determined. It is certain, however, that as the Zend is later than the Sanskṛit, so also the Avesta is later than the Vedas. It is also certain that this work is not the product of any one generation, as several centuries have intervened between the dates of the earliest and latest portions. The Gāthas which form the earliest portion of the work, are written[written] in the old Āryan metre, but the favorite deities of the Hindūs are absent from the Gāthas, although they reappear in various forms in the later portions of the Avesta. It is evident that the migrating tribes, in consequence of their separation from their brethren in Īrān, soon became estranged from them, and their most favored gods fell slowly into neglect or disfavor. Considerable time must have been required for the accomplishment of so great a change. The oldest portions of the Avesta may therefore fall a few centuries this side of the hymns of the Ṛig-veda, while the oldest portions of the later Avesta may be placed at a period somewhat later than Darius.[[150]] We have a right to suppose that the hymns and other portions of the Avesta which were then in existence were gathered together and committed to writing about the time of Darius, and according to Dr. Oppert’s rendering of the Behistun inscription, the Persian king says: “By the grace of Ormazd, I have made the writings for others in the Āryan language, which was not done before; and the text of the law and the collection.... I made and wrote, and I sent abroad; then the old writings among all countries I restored for the sake of the people.”[[151]] Thus Darius claims to have restored the writings that had been destroyed or injured by the Magian revolt, but the word Avesta had not yet become a technical term;[[152]] it was the care of Darius that gave it a fixed and restricted sense. Five centuries afterwards, during the Sassanian period, these books were again gathered, either from scattered manuscripts or from oral traditions, and the later Avesta took a definite form in the hands of Adarbad under King Shapur II,[[153]] who, like another Diocletian, aimed at the extirpation of the Christian faith. Mazdeism having been shaken by the Manichean heresy, a definite form was thus given to the religious code of Īrān, and it was then promulgated as the sacred law of the nation. We may conclude, therefore, that even the most modern portions of the Avesta cannot belong to a later date than the fourth century of the Christian era.
As the Pārsīs are the ruins of a people, so also their sacred books represent the ruins of a religion. There has been no other great belief in the world that left such poor monuments of its fallen splendor. Yet great is the value of the Avesta, and the belief of the few surviving Pārsīs, in the eyes of the historian, as they present to us the last reflex of the ideas which prevailed in Īrān during the five centuries which preceded and the seven which followed the birth of Christ. By the help of the Pārsī religion and the Avesta, we are enabled to go back to that momentous period in the history of literature which saw the blending of the Āryan mind with the Semitic, and thus opened the second stage of Āryan thought.[[154]]
MANUSCRIPTS.
The recovery of the manuscripts of the Zend-Avesta, and the translation of them proved to be a herculean task for Orientalists, and more than one valuable life has been given largely to this work. For an hundred years this great problem has cost tireless effort, for its solution demanded as much pioneer work as the deciphering of the cuneiform inscriptions of the ancient kings.
We are largely indebted to Anquetil Duperron, the young Frenchman who was so fearless in his enthusiasm that he enlisted[[155]] as a private soldier in order to secure a passage to India, and spent six years in that country collecting the manuscripts of the Avesta, and in trying to obtain from the Dastūrs a knowledge of their contents. But his was pioneer work, and his translation of the Avesta, which was made with the assistance of Dastūr Dārāb, was by no means trustworthy; it was in fact a French translation of a Persian rendering which had itself been made from a Pahlavī version of the Zend original.[[156]]