period, and consisted of a translation of the double “Avesta” into the vernacular
language then in vogue.[18] And as this translation is the only key which the
priests of modern Persia possess to the old creed as taught by Zarathustra, it has
usurped the place of the original Zend, and is now the recognised official
commentary.
But, anciently, the word “Zend” implied something more than a simple
interpretation of the “Avesta,” or sacred texts. That interpretation was the source
of certain new doctrines, the whole of which were considered orthodox, and
designated Zandi-agahi, or Zend doctrines; doctrines which, it can hardly be
doubted, supplied Plutarch and some other of the Greeks with ethical
suggestions. The name Pazend, which frequently occurs in connection with
Avesta and Zend, denotes a further exposition of Zarathustrian teaching, as
contained in the Vendidad, to which we shall shortly refer.
Thus far we have been indebted to Dr. Haug’s account of the origin of the
Zendavesta. His views are confirmed by Westergaard, who asserts that the
sacred books belong to two epochs; that is, that they are written in one age, and
collected and systematised in another, in much the same way as, according to
Wolf, the Homeric poems were produced and assumed their present form. All
the earlier traditions ascribe their origin to Zarathustra; but modern philologists
affirm that they could not have sprung from any single mind, because they
present no defined or self-consistent system of religious belief or moral
economy. Like the hymns of the Vedas, and the strains of the Norse Edda, the
several portions of the Zendavesta, so they say, must have been composed by
different bards, each of whom coloured his particular theme according to the
hues of his lively imagination. This theory, however, though it may have an
element of truth in it, is hardly the whole truth. The Zendavesta is
unquestionably wanting in unity and completeness. But it seems to us that traces
of a dominant mind are everywhere visible; that the various parts are held
together as on a thread by the teaching of Zarathustra himself; and that the
additions made by later and inferior writers are not such as wholly to obscure the
original work.
It is to the celebrated Frenchman, Anquetil Duperron, that the scholars of the
West owe their knowledge of these remarkable books. Happening to see a
facsimile of a few pages written in Zend characters, he resolved on setting out
for India in order to purchase manuscripts of all the sacred books of the
Zarathustrian religion, to acquire a thorough insight into their signification, and
to obtain a knowledge of the rites and religious observances of the Parsees. His