But you will say, perhaps, that Moshan Fani’s authorities were, in a great measure, floating, and dependent upon histories of a merely oral stamp, which—wanting as they do, the impress of lettered perpetuity, and subject, as they are, to variation, both of curtailment and of addition, besides the colour of depreciation or enhancement, which they must furthermore undergo, according to the nature of the successive media through which they pass,—cannot, after repeated transfusions, retain much similarity with the original truth, nor afford to a rational and thinking mind, however they may gratify selfish or national love, much stability for conviction or satisfactory acquiescence?
To the first I shall reply that it seems not correct, as the manuscripts by which he was guided appear still in existence; and this was not without its influence on Sir John’s own scepticism, when he declares, that “the doubtful authority of this work has received some support from the recent discovery of a volume in the ancient Pahlivi, called the Dussadeer, or Zemarawatseer, to which its authors refer.”
Then, as to the vanity alluded to, the compiler may well be acquitted of any, as being of a different creed, and proverbially intolerant, he could not, did not truth oversway, have felt much communion of pleasure in celebrating the glories of a defunct religion. And though I concede that that species of information, which arises from the traditions of successive races of men, cannot be so satisfactory as that which is stereotyped in alphabetic characters; nay, that, according as it diverges from its first outlet, it is likely to diverge also from exactness; still I do insist, that the prevalence of those traditions, wherever they occur, argues some alliance with fact and reality; just as idolatry itself, in all its ramifications, is but the corrupt transmission of original pure religion.
CHAPTER XV.
The objections against the Dabistan being thus superseded, and the idea of its being an “invention”[213] having never crossed anyone’s thoughts, I shall now give a bird’s-eye view of its tenour in Sir John’s own summary thereof.
“It has been before observed,” says he, “that the idolatrous religion which Mohsin Fani ascribes to the ancient Persians, bears no resemblance to the worship of the Hindoos: it seems nearest that which was followed by a sect of Sabians, who, we are told, believed in God, but adored the planets, whom they deemed his vicegerents, that exercised an influence over all created things in the world. This sect of Sabians were said to follow the ancient Chaldeans, and to inherit their skill in astronomy, a science built upon the same foundation as the adoration of the planets.[214] And this leads us to remark, that the very title of the work from which Mohsin Fani gives an account of this worship, appears more like that of a treatise upon astrology, than upon religion. He calls it Akheristan, or the region of the stars. It is, however, impossible to enter into any minute comparison of the religion he ascribes to the ancient Persians, and the sect of Sabians that have been noticed, because we have only a very general account of the tenets of the latter.”
As to the impossibility here complained of, it is obvious that there is none: whoever has digested even the early part of this essay will own it was but ideal. With this I should have contented myself, but that I feel called upon to correct another misconception, which the above may have produced.
That Sabaism meant idolatry in the way there insinuated, I utterly and altogether repudiate. It was the religion of the early Greeks before their degenerate mythology had loaded it with so many absurdities;[215] and that it was so, is evident from the term in their language, which expresses “to worship,” viz. σεβομαι, an evident derivation, from which is anglicised, Sabaism.[216] The object of this religion was the host of heaven, meaning the sun, moon, and stars. The names assigned to the reputed idols, viz. Uranus, i.e. Heaven, and Gea, i.e. Earth, with the energies of the sky and nature typified under the names of the “Cyclops” and “Giants,” incontrovertibly demonstrate the truth of this position.