The perishable materials used for this purpose, as the bark of trees, skins, papyrus, unbaked clay, etc., have furnished but few remains of this form of writing, but that it existed and was in extensive use at this date, there are unmistakeable evidences.
It is not impossible that the works of Zoroaster may have been so written in the old Bactrian, as Darius Hystaspes states in the Median text of the Behistun inscription, that he has made a book in the Aryan language which before him did not exist.
“The text of the divine law (Avesta)—the prayer and the translation.” “And then this ancient book was restored by me in all nations and the nations followed it.”
The inscription of King Asoka, at Kapur di giri on the northern and western confines of India, is evidently a survival of this ancient script.
About 500 B. C., the Punjaub was invaded by the Persians under Darius, and during the remaining period of the Achæmenian kings continued a satrapy of Persia. After the conquests of Alexander, and later, of the decline of Greek rule, this province was restored to India. About 251 B. C., Asoka, then king of India, an earnest and devout believer in Buddha, ordered certain edicts to be inscribed in various parts of his empire. These are known as the fourteen edicts of Asoka.
The type of the alphabetic character employed in the various localities differs. Those used at Kapur di giri are in a cursive script from the Aramean, and are often designated “the Bactrian alphabet,” from its close relationship to these early Iranian forms.
Of this, Dr. Taylor says:
“The Kapur di giri record must be regarded as an isolated monument of a great Bactrian alphabet, in which the Zoroasterian books and an extensive literature were in all probability conserved.”
[5]. This use of the word Zend is incorrect as referring to the language in which the works of Zoroaster appear. There is no Zend language.