Avesta.—Sprung from the same ancient Aryan tongue as the Sanscrit of India, and distinguished by the same richness of inflection, is Avesta, the earliest language of Persia, still preserved to us in the Persian Scriptures known as the Avesta. The Veda and the Avesta have been described as “two rivers flowing from one fountain-head;” and beyond a doubt the Vedic Aryans and the Avesta-speaking Persians were originally one community, conversing in a common tongue.
The Avesta was first made known to Europeans by a French orientalist; Anquetil Duperron (ongk-teel’ deu-pa-rong’), who went to India for the express purpose of discovering the sacred books of the Parsees. With great difficulty he at length possessed himself of the much-desired Avesta manuscripts, and in 1771, after long and patient effort, he gave his countrymen men the first translation of the Avesta into a European tongue. The language has since been carefully studied, and in our own day has at last been mastered. Time wrought many changes in it; the Persian of Xerxes’ reign differed much more from the Avesta of antiquity than our present language does from the English of Chaucer. Further modifications and the introduction of Arabic elements have made modern Persian still more unlike the ancient vernacular.
The sacred writings of Persia just referred to are among the oldest and most important in the whole range of Indo-European literature. They contain the doctrines of Zoroaster, or Zarathushtra, the Bactrian sage who reformed the religious system of his country. (See Jackson’s Avesta Series, Part I.)
Zoroaster is believed to have flourished about 1400 B.C. Nothing is known of his life or history. Yet, through more than thirty centuries his influence has been felt; and to-day, though they have dwindled to perhaps 150,000 souls, his followers constitute a thrifty and intelligent population in India and Persia. These Parsees, or Fire-worshippers (called by the Mohammedans Guebres, or infidels), still burn the eternal fire, kindled as they believe from heaven, not for idolatrous worship, but as an emblem of Ormazd, the Almighty source of light. They are descendants of those Zoroastrians whom Darius and Xerxes launched against Europe in the mightiest armies ever raised by man, threatening to plant their purer faith amid the ruined shrines of Greece. (Read Haug’s “Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis.”)
At a later date, when the Caliph Omar converted Persia to Mohammedanism with the sword (641 A.D.), their forefathers clung to the ancient faith, and found an asylum across the Indus or in the deserts of their native land.
The Avesta (sacred text) contains the only existing monuments of a once extensive literature. It is divided into distinct parts, made up of separate pieces and fragments, which, repeated orally from generation to generation, were probably collected and reduced to writing in their present form many centuries after the period of Zoroaster. The compositions in question are chiefly professed revelations and instructions to mankind, confessions, prayers to the Supreme Being and various inferior deities, and metrical hymns (Gâthâs), simple and some of them so grand as to be deemed the productions of Zoroaster himself.
Zoroaster is represented in the Avesta as conversing with Ormazd, who, in answer to the inquiries of the sage, reveals his will, and prescribes the moral and ceremonial law. Thus, in the following passage, Zoroaster questions Ormazd:—
“O Ormazd (Ahura Mazda), most holy spirit, creator of existent worlds, righteous One! What, O Ormazd, was the Word (more correctly, Ahuna Vairya, the name of a sacred verse) which you pronounced for me before the heaven, before the water, before the cow, before the tree, before the fire, before the righteous man, before the demons and noxious creatures?”
Then Ormazd replies: “I will tell thee, most holy Zoroaster, what was the Creative Word I pronounced for thee before the heaven, before the water, before the cow, before the tree, before the fire, before the righteous man, before the demons and noxious creatures, before all the universe. Such is the whole of the Creative Word, which, even when unpronounced and unrecited, outweighs a thousand breathed prayers, which are not pronounced, nor recited, nor sung. And he who in this world, O most holy Zoroaster, remembers the whole of the Creative Word, or utters it, or sings it, I will lead his soul thrice across the bridge of the better world, to the better existence, to the better truth, to the better days. I pronounced this Speech which contains the Word and its working, before the creation of this heaven, and before the creation of the earth.
“He is a holy man,” says Ormazd elsewhere, “who constructs upon the earth a habitation in which he maintains fire, cattle, his wife, his children, and flocks and herds. He who makes the earth produce grain, who cultivates the fruits of the fields, he maintains purity; he promotes the law of Ormazd as much as if he offered a hundred sacrifices.”
Avesta Philosophy.—The Avesta seems to recognize one eternal Supreme Being, infinite and omnipotent. This was Ormazd (Spiritual Wise One), whom Zoroaster invokes as the source of light and purity, “true, lucid, shining,” all-perfect, all-powerful, all-beautiful, all-wise.” Opposed to Ormazd was a principle of darkness and evil, called Ah’riman (Angra Mainyu, Sinful-minded). The theory of evolution finds no support in the Avesta, which contains an account of the creation of the universe strikingly like that of Moses. Traditions of the fall of man through the falsehood of Ahriman, and of a universal deluge, are also handed down. (On the Avesta, see Müller’s “Sacred Books of the East,” vols. iv., xxiii., xxxi.)
Zoroaster’s mission was to exhort men to follow the right and forsake the wrong. “Choose one of these two spirits, the Good or the Evil,” he said; “you cannot serve both.”
“Of these two Spirits, the Wicked One chose to do evil; the Holy Spirit, whose garment is the immovable sky, chose what is right, as they also do who faithfully please Ormazd by good works.
“And between these two Spirits, the demons chose not aright. Madness came upon them, so that they chose the Worst Mind, and they went over to the side of wrath to destroy the life of mankind.
“Now then, may we be those who make this life perfect; and may Ormazd and Asha (Righteousness) grant their aid, that he whose faith is altered may become of believing heart.
“For at the final reckoning, the blow of annihilation will come upon falsehood; but they who enjoy a good report will see their hopes fulfilled in the blessed abode of the Good Mind.
“If, O men, ye mark these doctrines which Mazda instituted for your well-being, and that torment will come to the wicked and blessing to the righteous, through these will be your salvation.”—Geldner.
Like Buddha, the Persian reformer raised his voice against the priesthood, and the corruptions which had crept into the national religion. Devil-worship, which had come into vogue as a means of averting the evil supposed to be wrought by wicked spirits, he specially denounced, recognizing in sin the cause of all human sorrow, and urging men to wage uncompromising warfare with the powers of darkness, relying for aid on the Good Spirit. “Give offering and praise,” says the Avesta, “to that Lord who made men greater than all earthly beings, and through the gift of speech created them to rule the creatures, as warriors against the evil spirits.” Fire was invoked as the symbol of Divinity, and the sun as “the eye of Ormazd;” but idolatry Zoroaster and his disciples abhorred.
Ormazd was the rewarder of the good, the punisher of the bad. Those who obeyed him, and were “pure in thoughts, pure in words, pure in actions,” were admitted at death into Paradise, “the House of the Angels’ Hymns,” where all was brightness: the wicked were consigned to a region of everlasting darkness, “the House of the Fiend Deceit.” Of all the religions of human origin, Zoroaster’s, though not free from superstition and cumbrous rites, approaches nearest to the truth. It was gladly accepted by the people, and did much to elevate them and improve their condition. We have thrown into verse the following
HYMN TO ORMAZD.
Persian Inscriptions.—In a flower-clad plain of southwestern Persia, shut in from the outer world by lofty hills, and now dotted with pleasant villages, once stood the great palace of Persep’olis, the wonder of the world for its magnificence—which Alexander, in a fit of drunken fury, reduced to a heap of ruins with his wanton torch (331 B.C.). Yet, though silent and deserted, “the piles of fallen Persepolis" speak to us, not only with their strange sculptures, but also through the inscriptions carved upon them in cuneiform letters, originally adorned with gold.
Not far from these ruins is the famous rock of Behistun, 1,700 feet high, and inscribed with the same arrow-headed, wedge-shaped characters. Some of these, protected from the weather by a varnish of flint, have been wonderfully preserved to the present time.
This mountain-record was set up by Darius I. (516-515 B.C.), who, in the shadow of the palace-walls of Persepolis, was wont to sit upon a throne of gold, canopied by a vine of the same precious metal bearing clusters of priceless gems. It is his triumphal tablet, graven with figures of himself and several conquered princes. It records his victories, asserts his hereditary right to the throne, and enumerates the provinces of his vast empire, in nearly a thousand lines of cuneiform characters—in three different languages, the Persian, Scythian, and Babylonian—that it might be understood by all his subjects.
Here the Persian monarch announces his dignity, while he attributes the glory of it all to the God Supreme:—
“I am Darius, the Great King, the King of Kings, the King of Persia, the King of the dependent provinces, the son of Hystaspes.
By the grace of Ormazd I am King. Ormazd has granted me my empire. The countries which have fallen into my hands, by the grace of Ormazd I have become king of them.
Within these countries, whoever was good, him have I cherished and protected; whoever was evil, him have I utterly destroyed. By the grace of Ormazd, these countries have obeyed my laws. By the grace of Ormazd, I hold this empire.”
Other inscriptions were cut by order of Xerxes, whose royal name and title they formally declare; but there are none of any later date. Cuneiform letters were also employed by other nations, as will be hereafter seen (page 105). Most of the ancient Persian literature was lost during the struggle with Alexander the Great, and subsequent wars and convulsions. (On the cuneiform monuments, see Johnson’s “Oriental Religions: Persia.”)
NOTES ON PERSIAN LITERATURE, ETC.
Ancient Persian records made on leather; parchment the favorite writing material, the high price of papyrus preventing its adoption. Bricks seldom used for inscriptions. A running hand, different from the cuneiform, probably in use among the people for ordinary purposes, as every educated person could undoubtedly write: no trace of this left.
The kings of Persia founders of a library consisting of historical records, state archives, and royal ordinances. “The house of the rolls" at Babylon is mentioned in the book of Ezra as being searched, during the reign of Darius, for a certain volume supposed to contain a decree of Cyrus, providing for the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem.
The old priestly order of Media and Persia, known as Ma’gi; devoted to scientific studies, in which they attained such eminence that they were believed to possess supernatural powers—whence our word magic. The “wise men” of the New Testament by some supposed to be Persian Magi.
The Zoroastrian religion, which was on the wane, restored and maintained in the third century after Christ by the Sassan’idæ, who measured swords successfully with the Roman emperors, and extended the power of Persia. The Avesta translated into Pahlavi, a mixture of Semitic with Iranian elements, in which are preserved most of the details of the traditions, ceremonies, and customs of the ancient faith. The combined text and Pahlavi translation known as Avesta-Zend, or revelation and commentary. (See “Sacred Books of the East,” vol. v.)