INTRODUCTION, I.

writes, "but what befits remote ages, and a man philosophizing in the infancy of the world. Such traces of a recent period as they fancy to have found in it are either due to misunderstandings or belong to its later portions. On the whole, there is a marvelous accordance between the Zend-Avesta and the accounts of the ancients with regard to the doctrine and institutions of Zoroaster. Plutarch agrees so well with the Zend books that I think no one will deny the close resemblance of doctrines and identity of origin. Add to all this the incontrovertible argument to be drawn from the language, the antiquity of which is established by the fact that it was necessary to translate a part of the Zend books into Pahlavi, a language which was growing obsolete as early as the time of the Sassanides. Lastly, it cannot be denied that Zoroaster left books, which were, through centuries, the groundwork of the Magic religion, and which were preserved by the Magi, as shown by a series of documents from the time of Hermippus. Therefore, I am unable to see why we should not trust the Magi of our days when they ascribe to Zoroaster those traditional books of their ancestors, in which nothing is found to indicate fraud or a modern hand¹ 'Commentatio prior observationes historico-criticas de Zoroastre ejusque scriptis et placitis exhibens' (Earlier commentary presenting historical-critical observations on Zoroaster and his writings and doctrines). Goettingen, in the Novi Comment. Soc. Reg. 1791.."

Two years afterwards, in 1793, a book was published in Paris which, without directly dealing with the Avesta, was the first step taken to make its authenticity incontrovertible. It was the masterly memoir by Sylvestre de Sacy, in which the Pahlavi inscriptions of the first Sassanides were deciphered for the first time and in a decisive manner. De Sacy, in his researches, had chiefly relied on the Pahlavi lexicon published by Anquetil, whose work vindicated itself thus—better than by heaping up arguments—by promoting discoveries. The Pahlavi inscriptions gave the key, as is well known, to the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, which were in return to put beyond all doubt the genuineness of the Zend language.

Tychsen, in an appendix to his Commentaries, pointed...