ZEND-AVESTA. This article is designed to correct the imprecisions that may be encountered in the article where we accounted for the philosophy of the Parsees in general, and that of Zoroaster in particular. [1] We have M. Anquetil to thank for the new information we have acquired about a subject that is becoming important because of its relationship with the history of the Hebrews, Greeks, Indians, and perhaps the Chinese.

While men cross the seas, sacrifice their tranquility, the society of their family, their friends, and their fellow-citizens, and expose their lives to go pursue riches beyond the seas, it is good to see one who relinquishes the same advantages and runs the same risks for the instruction of his peers and his own. That man is M. Anquetil. [2]

Zend-Avesta is the common name under which are included all the works attributed to Zoroaster.

Five orders of the ministers of the religion of the Parsees, or modern followers of the ancient doctrine of Zoroaster, are distinguished: erbeds, mobeds, destours, destour mobeds, and destours of destours.

Erbid is the name of one who has undergone legal purification, who has read the Izeschne and the Vendidad for four consecutive days without interruption, and who is initiated into the ceremonies of worship ordained by Zoroaster.

If after this sort of ordination the Erbed continues to read in public the works of the Zend that form the ritual, and to exercise sacerdotal functions, he becomes a Mobed; if he does not understand the Zend-Avesta , if he concentrates on study of the law of Zend and Pahlavi, without exercising his functions as minister, he is called a Destour . The Destour Mobed is one who combines in himself the qualities of Mobed and Destour; and the Destour of Destours is the first Destour of a city or province. It is he who decides cases of conscience and difficult points of law. The Parsees pay him a sort of ecclesiastical tithe. In no place on earth are celestial things dispensed for free.

When he reached Surat, M. Anquetil found the Parsees divided into two sects confronting each other with the most furious zeal. Superstition everywhere produces the same effects. [3] One of these sects was called the sect of former believers , the other the sect of reformers . What was at stake among these sectarians who were about to drench the whole country with their blood? Whether the penom , or the 9" square of linen which the Parsees wear over the nose at certain times, was or was not supposed to be placed on the nose of the dying. Quid rides? mutato nomine de te fabula narratur?  [4]

What did this dispute produce? What heresies produce in all religions. You go back to the sources and study them. They leafed through the ancient books of the law of the Parsees. Soon they perceived that the ministers had taken advantage of people’s stupidity to overwhelm them with purifications that were nowhere to be found in the Zend, a book that had been disfigured by a mound of absurd interpretations. One surmises that those who dared reveal these truths to the people were called innovators and impious . To these disputes was added another about the first day of the year. A man of good will would have raised his voice in vain and cried out to them: “Now my brothers, what does it matter on which day the year begins? It will happily begin today or tomorrow provided you love each other and have some indulgence for your various opinions. Do you think Zoroaster would not have ripped up his books if he had thought every word would become a subject of loathing for you?” This man of good will would have been heard only with horror.

M. Anquetil took advantage of these divisions among the Parsees to learn and to buy the works he was lacking. Soon he was able to undertake secretly a translation of all the books attributed to Zoroaster. He arrived at a clear notion of the Parsees’ religion; he entered into their temples, which they call Derimers , and witnessed their worship of fire.

He was caught up with enthusiasm. He started to look at Sanscrit, [5] and turned to procuring the four Vedas. The four Vedas are works which the Brahmins claim to have been composed four thousand years ago by Krishna. They are called the Samaveda , the Rigveda , the Atharvaveda , and the Yajurveda . The first is the most rare. There was a good translation of these books by Abulfazel, minister of Akbar, about two hundred years ago, which M. Anquetil did not neglect. He obtained copies of three Sanscrit dictionaries, the Amerkosch, the Viakkeren, and the Nammala. The first two are for the Brahmins’ use, the last for the use of the Sciouras. He conferred with the principal Destours of the places he visited, and he showed with his infinite labors that there is no comparison to be made between the constancy of a good man in his projects and that of a merchant in his.

He learned from modern authors that the doctrine of Zoroaster had originally been divided into twenty-one parts. There were seven on creation and the history of the world, seven on morality, politics, and religion, and seven on physics and astronomy.

All the Parsees share the tradition that Alexander had the twenty-one books burned after having them translated into Greek. The only ones that could be rescued are the Vendidad, the Izeschné, the Visspered, the Jeschts, and the Neaeschs. They also have an original Pehlvic translation of the Zend and a large number of prayer books, which they call nerengs , with a poem in one hundred twenty verses [6] called the Barzournama on the life of Roustoun, son of Zoroaster; of Ssorab, son of Roustoun; and of Barzour, son of Ssorab.

The remainder of Zoroaster’s works treats of matter, [7] the universe, the terrestrial paradise, the dispersion of humankind, and the origin of the respect which the Parsees have for fire, which they call Athro-Ehoremesdaopothre , son of God. In them he gives an account of the origin of physical and moral evil, the number of angels responsible for governing the universe, a few historical facts, some kings of the first dynasty, and the chronology of the heroes Ssisslan and Zaboulestan. In them one finds predictions, things about the end of the world and the resurrection, excellent moral precepts, and a very extensive treatise on rites and ceremonies. Its style is oriental: frequent repetitions, little coherence, and the tone of exultation and enthusiasm. In the Zend God is called Meniossepeneste , and in Pehlvi Madonnada fzouni, or the being absorbed in its own excellence . The text of the twenty-one parts or nosks of the Parsee legislator is called the Avesta or the world . It is in a dead language completely different from Pahlavi and Persic. The most learned Destours say nothing satisfactory about its origin. They believe in the divine mission of Zoroaster. They assert that he received the law from God himself, after spending ten years at the foot of his throne. M. Anquetil conjectures that he composed it while concealed with a few able priests among distant rocks, a conjecture he bases on the hardness of the style, suited to mountaineers. The alphabet or letters of the Avesta are called Zend . They are neat and simple; their antiquity can be recognized at first glance. He thinks that Pahlavi, a dead language, had been the true idiom of the Parsees, who attribute its invention to Kaio-Morss, the first king of their first dynasty. Its letters are less pure and less neat than the Zend.

Pahzend is an idiom of which there remain only a few words preserved in Pahlavi translations.

Avesta is the language of the times of Zoroaster, which he brought from the mountains; the Parsees did not know it before him. Pahlavi is the language they spoke in his times, and Pahzend is the corrupted Avesta, the usage of which he prescribed to them to distinguish them from the people; Pahzend is to Avesta as Syriac is to Hebrew. Mreod in Avesta means he has said , and it is Meri in Pahzend. The alphabet of Pahzend is composed of Zend and Pahlavi.

The manuscripts are of linen or cotton coated with a varnish on which the slightest mark can be seen.

The Vendidad Sade is an in-folio of 560 pages. The word Vendidad means separate from the devil, contrary to the devil’s maxims, or the object of his hatred. Sade means pure and unadulterated . It is the name given to the Zend books which have no Pahlavi translation accompanying them.

The Vendidad contains, in addition to its own material, the two treatises of Zoroaster called the Izeschne and the Wispered , because the minister who reads the Vendidad is required to read at the same time these two other books which for this reason have been divided into lessons.

The Vendidad properly so called is the twentieth treatise of Zoroaster. It is a dialogue between Zoroaster and the god Ormusd, who responds to the legislator’s questions.

Ormusd is defined in this work as the pure being, he who rewards, the being absorbed in his excellence, the creator, the great judge of the world, he who subsists by his own power.

The work is divided into 22 chapters called fargards ; each chapter ends with a prayer which they call Eschem vohou , pure, excellent. This prayer begins with these words: “He who does good, and all those who are pure, will go to abodes of abundance which have been prepared for them.” The first two chapters, and the fifth and last, contain some historical facts, the basis of the Parsee faith; the rest is moral, political, and liturgical.

In the first chapter, Ormusd relates to Zoroaster how he had created sixteen equally lovely, rich, and happy cities; how Agriman, his rival the devil, was the cause of all evil; and how each of these cities was the capital of an empire of the same name.

In the second chapter, Djemchid, called Semo in Zend, son of Vivenganm, fourth king of the first dynasty of the Parsees, is taken to heaven, where Ormusd puts a golden dagger in his hands, with which he cuts the earth and forms the country Vermaneschne where men and animals are born. Death had no power over this country, which one winter desolated: that winter the mountains and the plains were covered with a burning snow that destroyed everything.

Djemchid, said Ormusd to Zoroaster, was the first to see the supreme being face to face, and produced wonders by my voice which I placed in his mouth. Toward the end of the chapter, Ormusd relates the origin of the world. I created everything in the beginning, he said, I created the light which then illuminated the sun, the moon, and the stars; then the year was but one uninterrupted day; winter was of forty. [8] A strong man begat two children, one male, the other female; these children joined together; then the animals peopled the earth.

The following chapters speak of works agreeable to the earth, or rather to the angel who governs it, such as agriculture, the care of livestock, the burial of the dead, and aid to the poor. A good husbandman, said Ormusd, is as great in my eyes as the man who begets a thousand men, and who recites a thousand Izechnes.

Of the equity of rendering to the rich man the loan he has made, and the crimes called méherderoudis , or work of Deroudi , the devil, opposed to Meher, the angel who gives their fertility to cultivated fields. It is a sin to break one’s word, to violate contracts, and to refuse servants their pay, work animals their food, governors their salary, peasants their pay, the water one has promised to a piece of land.

Of the dead, and the places and ceremonies of their burial, legal purifications, women who give birth before their time. Here Ormusd extols the purity of the Vendidad and speaks of the three rivers Pherat, Ponti, and Varkass.

Of the impurity which death communicates to the earth, to water and to vessels of all kinds.

Of the impurity of women who miscarry, and the dignity of the physician, promising long and happy life to the man who has healed many of the sick. He prescribes first testing remedies on the infidels who worship the spirits created by Ahriman; he pronounces the death penalty against whoever has risked a pernicious remedy without having taken this precaution, and sets the reward which each order of Parsee owes to the physician. He begins with the athorn or priest: he who has healed a priest will content himself with the prayers which the priest will offer for him to Dahman, or he who receives the souls of the saints from the angel Sserosch, and escorts them to heaven.

Of the manner of taking the dead to the Dakme, or place of burial; the ceremony of presenting a dog to the dead to drive away the devil; the prayers to be said for the deceased; the sin of those who fail to do so and defile themselves by approaching or touching the dead body, and the purifications which this defilement requires.

The Parsees have various names for fire, relative to its uses: for cooking, bathing, etc. All types must be present at the Dadgah , the place where justice is dispensed.

He speaks of the place of the sacred fire, the Parsees’ habitual prayer, the necessity for the minister of the law to be pure and actively perform good deeds; of Bahman , the guardian angel, who watches over good and honest judges, and who gives sovereignty to princes so as to succor the weak and the indigent.

To please Ormusd one must be pure in thought, word, and deed. It is a crime deserving of death to seduce the wife or daughter of one’s neighbor, or to commit pederasty. [9] Break off all communion, says Zoroaster, and cut to pieces the man who has sinned and refuses the penal expiation, him who torments the innocent, the magician, [10] the debtor who is unwilling to pay his debt.

He deals with the Destour-Mobed who confers the baraschnom or purification on the defiled; the qualities of the minister, the place of purification, the instruments and the ceremony; natural and moral goods and evils: he relates their origin and progress to man’s wickedness and to neglect of purification.

He says of fornication and adultery that they dry up the rivers and make the earth sterile.

He goes on to exorcisms or prayers that fend off the devils that instigate each crime: they get their principal efficacity from Honover , or name of God; he teaches the prayer which children or parents must say or have said for the dead; he names the dogs whose presence drives away the devil who prowls the earth after midnight; he indicates the way in which they must be fed; it is a crime to strike them; he who kills one of these dogs shall give to the three orders of Parsees, the priest, the soldier, and the laborer, the instruments of their professions; he who has not the means to do so shall dig canals to water the neighboring pastures, and enclose these pastures with fences, or he shall give his daughter or sister in marriage to a holy man.

The crimes for which one is punished with hell are mockery of a minister who preaches conversion to the sinner, the act of making an exorcist dog’s teeth fall out by having him eat something burning hot; frighten a bitch and causing her to abort, and approaching a woman who is menstruating or nursing.

There are precepts on the purification of women, the clipping of the nails and hair, the danger of believing a Destour who wears the penom on his nose, or who has no girdle; this Destour is an imposter who teaches the law of the devil although he assumes the title of minister of God.

In this place it is said that Arhiman revolted against Ormusd and refused to receive his law; and the angel Sserosch, who is guardian of the world and preserves man from the ambushes of the devil, is celebrated.

There follows the story of the war of Ormusd and Ahriman. Ormusd declares that at the world’s end the works of Ahriman will be destroyed by the three prophets who will arise from a seed kept in a small stream, the location of which is clearly specified.

Mention is made in this chapter of eternity, of the soul of God who acts constantly in the world, of purification by cow’s urine, and other such puerilities; [11] of resurrection, of the passage after this life over a bridge that separates earth from heaven, guided by a dog, the common guardian of the flock.

The subject in the following part is the third poeriodekesch or third prince of the first dynasty, who was just and holy, abolished evil, to whom Ormusd gave the Hom , or tree of health; and the tribute of prayer and praise due to the supreme ox and to rain.

The Vendidad ends with the divine mission of Zoroaster. Ormusd sent him with the angel Neriossengul into Irman. Go, he said, to Irman which I have created pure, and which the infernal serpent has defiled, the serpent who is concentrated in evil and is pregnant with death. Thou who hath approached me on the holy mountain where thou hast interrogated me, and where I answered thee: Go take my law to Irman, I will give thee a thousand oxen as fat as the ox of the mountain Sokand on which men crossed the Euphrates at the beginning of time: thou shalt possess everything in abundance. Exterminate the demons and sorcerers, and put an end to the evil they have done. That is the reward I have secretly promised to the inhabitants of Irman who are of good will.

The Izechne is the second book of the Vendidad Sade. Izechne means blessing . This book has twenty chapters, [12] called Ha , by contraction of Hatan , or amen , which finishes each chapter. It is a proper ritual, and that ritual is a sequence of puerilities. [13]

There Zoroaster recommends marriage between first cousins, praises subordination, orders a chief of priests, of soldiers, of laborers and of handicraftsmen, and recommends the care of animals. There is mention of a three-footed ass placed in the middle of the Euphrates; he has six eyes, nine mouths, two ears, and a golden horn; he is white, and is fed by celestial food; a thousand men and a thousand animals can pass between his legs; and it is he who purifies the waters of the Euphrates and waters the seven divisions of the earth. If he starts to bray, the fish created by Ormusd conceive, and the creatures of Ahriman miscarry.

After this ass comes the famous Destour Hom Ised. He is a saint; his golden eye is piercing; he dwells on the mountain Albordi; he blesses the waters and the cattle; he instructs those who do good; his palace has a hundred columns; he promulgated the law on the mountains; he brought from heaven the girdle and the shirt of his faithful; he reads the Avesta unceasingly; it is he who crushed the serpent with two feet and created the bird that gathers the seeds that fall from the tree hom and scatters them upon the earth. When five holy and pious persons are gathered in a single place, I am in their midst, says Hom Ised. [14]

The tree hom is planted in the middle of the Euphrates, and Hom Ised presides over that tree. Hom Ised was also called Zereguone . He left no books; he was the legislator of the mountains.

The Izechne contains again the eulogy of the sun, fire and water, the moon, and the five gah or supplementary days added to the 360 days of their year, which has twelve months composed of thirty days each. It ends with these maxims: “Read the Honover; revere everything that Ormusd does, has done, and will do. For Ormusd has said, worship everything I have created; it is as if you were worshipping me.”

It is not pointless to observe that Zoroaster never spoke of more than two dynasties of Parsees.

The second book of the Vendidad is the Visspered, or the knowledge of everything.

A famous Brahmin of India, attracted by Zoroaster’s reputation, came to see him, and Zoroaster pronounced the Visspered before him. Despite its arrogant title, and the circumstance which produced it, it has little within it that is remarkable. Each class of animals has its Destour; holiness is recommended to the priests, and marriage between first cousins to the faithful.

We shall now survey rapidly the other books of the Brahmins, collecting from them all their more remarkable offerings to us.

The Izeschts are pompous praise of Ormusd. In one of those hymns Zoroaster asks Ormusd what is the ineffable word that diffuses light, gives victory, guides man’s life, disconcerts evildoing spirits, and gives health to both the body and the soul; and Ormusd replies: It is my name. Have my name constantly in thy mouth, and thou shalt fear neither the Tchakar’s arrow, nor his dagger, nor his sword, nor his club. At this reply, Zoroaster prostrated himself and said: I adore the intelligence of God which contains the word, his understanding which mediates it, and his tongue which pronounces it without ceasing.

The Patet is a confession of one’s sins, accompanied by repentance. The sinner, in the presence of fire or the Destour, recites the Jetha ahou verio five times, and addressing God and the angels, he says: I repent in shame for all the crimes I have committed in thought, in word, and in actions; I renounce them and promise to be henceforth pure in thought, in word, and in actions. May God have mercy on me and take my soul and body under his protection, in this world and the next. After this act of contrition, he confesses his sins, of which there are twenty-five kinds.

The Bahman Jescht is a sort of prophecy in which Zoroaster sees the revolutions of the empire and religion, from Gustassp until the end of the world. In a dream he sees a tree come out of the ground and put forth four branches, one of gold, one of silver, one of brass, and one of iron. He sees these branches intertwine; he drinks several drops of a pure water which he received from Ormusd, and divine intelligence fills him for seven days and seven nights. Next he sees a tree bearing fruits, all of different metals. Here is a challenge made to order for commentators.

The Virafnama is the history of the mission of Viraf. The religion of Zoroaster had become obscured; Viraf was sought out to re-integrate it; this prophet had Gustassp’s cup filled seven times with wine, and emptied it seven times. He went to sleep, had visions, awoke, and gave upon awakening the most exact account of them.

In the Boundchesch, or the book of eternity, eternity is the principle of Ormusd and Ahriman. These two principles produce all that is: the good was from Ormusd, and evil from Ahriman. There were two worlds: a pure world, an impure world. Ahriman interrupted the general order. There was a combat; Arhiman was defeated. Ormusd created an ox which Ahriman killed. This ox begat the first man, who was named Gaiomard or Kaio-morts . Before the creation of the ox, Ormusd had formed a drop of water, called the water of health ; then another drop called the water of life . He sprinkled some on Kiao-morts, who suddenly appeared with the beauty, the whiteness, and the strength of a young man of fifteen.

The seed of Kaio-morts shed on the ground produced a tree, the fruits of which contained the natural parts of the two sexes united. From one of these fruits man and woman were born; the man was called Meschia and the woman Meschine. Ahriman came to earth in the form of a serpent and seduced them. Corrupted, they continued in sin until the resurrection; they covered themselves in black garments, and ate the fruit which the devil presented to them.

From Meschia and Meschine were born two couples of males and females, and so forth until a colony crossed the Euphrates on the back of the ox Staresscok.

This book ends with the story of an event that is to precede and follow the resurrection. At this great catastrophe, the mother shall be separated from the father, the brother from the sister, and the friend from the friend; the just shall weep over the damned, and the damned shall weep over himself. Then the comet Goultcher, finding itself in its revolution below the moon, shall fall upon the earth; the earth shall tremble like the lamb before the wolf; then fire shall make the mountains flow like the water of rivers; men shall pass through these burning waters, and be purified; the just man will scarce be touched by them, the wicked shall suffer all their fury, but his torment shall end, and he shall obtain purity and happiness.

Those who desire to learn more may consult the English work intitled The Annual Register, or a view of the history, politics, and literature of the year 1762 . [15] It is from that collection that we have taken the little we have just exposed.

1. See for example the articles Parsis ( Histoire moderne ) and Perses, Philosophie des, both unsigned (the first has been attributed to d’Holbach, the second, to Diderot); Feu sacré and Gaures, both by Jaucourt; and Guèbres, by Boulanger.

2. Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron (1731-1805), an Indian specialist, was to publish his own edition of the Zend-Avesta in 1771. More to the point, he had recently published “A brief account of the voyage to India, undertaken by M. Anquetil du Perron, to discover and translate the works attributed to Zoroaster. Translated from the original, drawn up by M. Perron himself, and read last May before the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris,” and “Mr. Perron’s account of the MSS attributed to Zoroaster, and of the other works relating to the religion of the Parsses, which has been deposited in the king of France’s library,” pp. 101–110 and 110–127 in The Annual Register, or a view of the history, politicks, and literature of the year 1762 – as is acknowledged in the last paragraph of this article. Nevertheless, this article does not constitute a simple and direct transcription of Anquetil’s articles, for there are many ellipses and some paraphrases or interpolations.

3. This and similar comments below, not to mention the quotation from Horace and part of the next paragraph, are interpolations.

4. “You laugh? It is the story about you being told under another name” (Horace, Satires 1, 1, 68–72).

5. Anquetil writes Samskretam .

6. The English original says one hundred twenty thousand verses.

7. Anquetil himself says, “I do not pretend to affirm that they are really the works of Zoroaster; but I would have everyone judge for himself when seeing the opinion of the Parsses” (p. 107).

8. “It does not appear from the original whether this forty is days or years” (Anquetil’s note).

9. User du même sexe que le sien , a euphemism for the bolder expression in the English original which is followed here.

10. “By a magician, the Parsees mean one who has commerce directly or indirectly with the evil principle” (Anquetil’s note).

11. This expression is of course another interpolation, as Anquetil never demeans his sources.

12. Anquetil says seventy-two.

13. See note 11.

14. Cf. the words of Jesus to his disciples: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20, KJV).

15. See note 2.