means being limited, he entered himself as a sailor on board a ship of the Dutch
Indian Company, and worked his way out to Bombay in 1754. With money
supplied by the French Government to assist him in his ingenious researches, he
bribed one of the most learned dustoors or priests, Dustoor Darat, or Surat, to
procure the treasures he desired, and to instruct him in the Zend and Pehlvi
languages. As soon as he had acquired the requisite proficiency, he addressed
himself to the task of translating the whole of the Zendavesta into French. This
was in 1759. Returning to Europe, he convinced himself of the genuineness of
his purchases by comparing them with MSS. in the Bodleian Library; and, after
several years of arduous labour, produced the first European version in 1771. At
the outset, the authenticity of his work was challenged both in England and
Germany; but all doubts have been set at rest by the inquiries of Rask and others;
and thus, through the fanciful enterprise of a young Frenchman, the veil has been
lifted which for so long a period shrouded the mysterious religion of the Magi.
We do not, however, possess the whole of the Avesta. It is asserted by an
Arabian writer that Zarathustra himself covered with his verses no fewer than
twelve thousand parchments, and who shall compute the extent of the literature
accumulated by his disciples? Whether this literature perished at the epoch of the
Macedonian conquest of Persia, or whether it was destroyed by Alexander the
Great, or whether it gradually perished as the influence of the Greek philosophy
prevailed over the Zarathustrian theology, it is impossible to determine. The
remains of the sacred books, however, with short summaries of their contents,
have been handed down to us. Originally they were twenty-one in number,
called Nosks, and each Nosk consisting of “Avesta” and “Zend”—text and
commentary. The number twenty-one corresponded to the number of words
composing the “Honovar,” or most sacred prayer, of the Zarathustrians. It is, we
may add, a magical number, being the result of the multiplication of the sacred
numbers, three and seven.
Of these divisions the précis now extant, and collected for the first time by the
Danish scholar Westergaard, comprise the following books: First, the Yasna,
which sets before us the devotions proper to be offered in connection with the
sacrificial ceremonies. This Yasna is divided into seventy-two chapters,
representing the six Yahânhârs, or “seasons” during which Ahura-Mazda, the
Good Principle, created the world. The reader will here note the coincidence
between the six creative seasons of the Magian seer, and the six creative days of
the Hebrew lawgiver. The Yasna consists of two parts, the older of which is
written in what is called the Gâtha dialect, and had acquired a peculiar sanctity