INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE ZEND-AVESTA.

The Zend-Avesta is the sacred book of the Parsis—that is to say, the few remaining followers of that religion which reigned over Persia at the time when the second successor of Mohammed overthrew the Sassanian dynasty¹—which has been called Dualism, Mazdeism, Magism, Zoroastrianism, or Fire-worship, depending on whether one focuses on its main tenet, its supreme God², its priests, its supposed founder, or its apparent object of worship. Within a century of their defeat, nearly all the conquered people converted to the faith of their new rulers, either by force, policy, or the attractive power of a simpler creed. But many who clung to the faith of their fathers sought a new home abroad where they could freely worship their old gods, recite their old prayers, and perform their old rites. They eventually found that home among the tolerant Hindus on the western coast of India and in the peninsula of Guzerat³. There they thrived and there they live still, while their co-religionists in Persia are daily thinning and dwindling away⁴.

Just as the Parsis are the remnants of a people, their sacred books are the remnants of a religion. No other great faith has left such meager monuments of its past splendor. Yet, this small book, the Avesta, and the beliefs of that scanty people, the Parsis, are of great value to the historian and theologian. They present the final reflection of the ideas that prevailed in Iran during the five centuries before and the seven centuries following the birth of Christ—a period that produced the Gospels, the Talmud, and the Qur’ân. Persia, it is known, influenced each of the movements that produced or emerged from those three books; she lent much to the early heretics, to the Rabbis, and to Mohammed. Through the Parsi religion and the Avesta, we are enabled to return to the heart of that momentous period in the history of religious thought, which saw the blending of the Aryan mind with the Semitic, thus opening the second stage of Aryan thought.

¹ At the battle of Nihâvand (642 A.D.)
² Ahura Mazda.
³ They settled first at Sangân, not far from Damân; thence they spread over Surat, Nowsâri, Broach, and Kambay; and within the last two centuries they have settled at Bombay, which now contains the bulk of the Parsi people, nearly 150,000 souls.
⁴ A century ago, it is said, they still numbered nearly 100,000 souls; but there now remain no more than 8,000 or 9,000 souls, scattered in Yezd and the surrounding villages (Dosabhoy Framjee, The Parsees).