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.