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 68

INTRODUCTION, VIIT.
Ixv
led us to believe that the Avesta is the embodiment and the fusion of two teachings, one of which belonged to the Achaemenian age, whereas the other could not be older ; than the fall of the Greek domination in Iran. One might therefore divide the Avesta. so far as the doctrine goes, into pre-Alexandrian and post-Alexandrian texts. The Vendîdad may be taken as the best specimen of the texts imbued with the pre-Alexandrian spirit, as its general laws are Achaemenian in tone, and a great part of it may be interpreted by means of classical testimonies regarding the Achaemenian age. The Gathas may be taken as the best specimen of the post-Alexandrian spirit, as they are filled with ideas of post-Alexandrian growth.
§ 2. The date of the Gathas, if not exactly determinable, may yet be fixed between rather narrow limits. They can' hardly be older than the first century before our era, or even before Philo of Alexandria ; for the neo-Platonic ideas and beings are found in them just in the Philonian stage. They cannot be dated later than the time of the Scythian kings, Kanishka and Huvishka, who reigned in India between 78 and 130 A.D., and who left on their coins records of many of the Zoroastrian divinities, not only the old elementary ones, like Meipo-Mithra, Telpo— Tighri, Oado— Vâta, Mao-Maungha; but also the new abstract deities, like Oavivda-Vanainti, Oprayvo-Verethraghna, and the Amshaspand Eaopnoap-Khshathra Vairya. If it is assumed that the idea Vohu Mano was inspired by Philo or his school, the Gathas will be thereby ascribed to the first century of our era. It is just the period when we find Vologeses and the first historical mention of an attempt to form a systematic religious code.
The Gathas present therefore this apparent contradiction, that, being the oldest part of the Avesta, they represent, at the same time, the latest growth of the Zoroastrian spirit. ; This is contradictory only to those who in a text confound the date of its composition with the date of the ideas it expresses. The Vendidád may be at the same time later than the Gathas in its composition and older in its material. The writer of the Vendîdåd had the Gathas before his eyes,
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