Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 562

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PAHLAVI TEXTS.
prime ministerof Shahpur II (A.D. 309-379); but the Bahman Yast (Chap. I, 5) quotes the Nask as identifying the same age with the reign of an idolatrous race subsequent to the time of Khûsrð Nôshirvân (A.D. 531-579). This example is sufficient to show that the compiler of the extant epitome of the Bahman Yast commentary largely availed himself of his editorial license, and it indicates the difficulty of distinguishing his statements from those of the former editors. At the same time it proves that the epitome could not have been compiled till after Iran had been overrun by a foreign race subsequent to the reign of Khusrô Nôshirvân. It is remarkable that the compiler does not mention any later Sasanian king, that he does not allude to Muhammadanism, and speaks of the foreign invaders as Turanians and Christians, only mentioning Arabs incidentally in later times; at the same time the foreign invasion (which lasts a thousand years) is of too permanent a character to allow of its having reference merely to the troublous times of Nôshirvan's successor.
Perhaps the most reasonable hypotheses that can be founded upon these facts are, first, that the original zand or commentary of the Bahman Yast was written and translated from the Avesta in the latter part of the reign of Khusrô Nôshirvan, or very shortly afterwards, which would account for no later king being mentioned by name; and, secondly, that the epitome now extant was compiled by some writer who lived so long after the Arab invasion that the details of their inroad had become obscured by the more recent successes of Turanian rulers, such as the Ghaznavis and Salgaqs of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It is hardly possible that the epitomist could have lived as late as the time of Gingiz Khân, the great Mongol conqueror (A.D. 1206–1227), as that would bring him within 150 years of the date of the extant manuscript of his work, which has no appearance of being an immediate copy of the original; but the rule of the Salgúqs would certainly have afforded him sufficient materials for his long description of the iron age. The Avesta of the Bahman Yast was probably compiled from older sources (like the rest of the Avesta) during
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