________________
APRIL, 1881.]
BOOK NOTICES.
123
BOOK NOTICES. Tas SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST, vol. V. PAHLAVI TEXTS, a list of Mobeds who were contemporary with
translated by E. W: WEST. Part I. The Bande hish, Bahman Yasht, and Shayast 16-Shấyaat: Oxford, Claren.
the author or last revisor, and among the don Press, 1880.
names given is that of Zad Siparam, the author The principal efforts of Zoroastrian scholarship of what Dr. West calls a paraphrase of the have been naturally for a long time directed towards Bundahish. Now, according to Dr. West, Zed the Avesta texts, as embodying the older form of Siparam must have had the Bundahish before his Zoroastrism, and being the main source of its
eyes, as he deals with the same subject, often in further development. The Pahlavi language was the same words, but generally in a style more only studied so far as it helped directly to a better involved and obscure, which seems to imply intelligence of the Zend books, and the only Pahlavi that the Bundahish was older than Z&d Siparam's texts much sought after in Europe were the treatment of the same matter. Dr. West draws commentaries on the Avesta and the Bundahish, thence the inference that the writer of the which chanced to be translated in the last century text, as found in Mr. Tahmuras' MS., being by Anquetil Duperron. The bulk of the Pahlavi older than Zäd Siparam, is likely to have merely literature was left to sleep in the dust of libraries, re-edited an old text, with some addition of his and enrtly condemned as modern, worthless, and
own. As Zâd Siparam is known to have been unreadable. There is still & school of Avesta living in the year 881, and as the allusions to the scholars whose motto might be: Pahlvi est, non Arabian dominion found in the Bundahish show legitur. It was not until within the last twenty that it is not anterior to the conquest of years that the full value of the Pahlavi literature Iran, it must have been written between the midat large began to be recognised, chiefly owing to dle of the 7th century and the year 881. Dr. West's the exertions of the late Dr. Martin Haug and main reason for making Z&d Siparam posDr. West, and it is now so well acknowledged that terior to the Bundahish lies in his style; which the able editor of the Sacred Books of the East has makes it difficult to give a definite judgment on his thought it necessary to give a place, and that not inferences, until the text itself is published : still, in a small one, in the collection, to those records of any case, whatever may be the true relation between the later periods of Zoroastrism.
Zad Siparam and the Bundahish, whether he The book before us contains translations of the borrowed from the Bundanish or the reverse, or Bundahish with extracts from Zdd Siparam, the whether both borrowed from a common source, Bahman Yasht, and the Shdyast 14-Shdyast ;-more the identity between the two works is a proof than two-thirds of which texts are still unedited. that the ground-work of the Bundahish, as far
The Bundahish has always been a favourite with as the matter is concerned, is as old as the 9th European scholars, and has already been translat- century. ed thrice, once into French by A. Duperron, and The Bahman Yasht is still unedited, with the twice into German by Windischmann and Justi. exception of a short extract published by Prof. The new translation by Dr. West, though it con- Spiegel. It belongs to that long series of Revelatains not a few improvements on the last, still tions' which were so numerous among the Jews, derives its principal superiority from its represent the Christians and the Persians. Zoroaster is ing a more complete text than the one known in represented in it as receiving from Ormazd an Europe. It appears that the latter is only an account of the future history of Iran from his extract from a much larger work, containing twice own time down to the last days of the world and as many chapters, a copy of which is in the hands the resurrection. It is interesting both as being of Mr. Tahmuras in Bombay. The happy possessor the fullest account yet published of the Parsi of that MS, kindly communicated a few of the theory of the last days of the world and as being extra chapters to Dr. West, and the interest of the a historical work. It alludes to the rule of contents, as here translated, will certainly cause the Turks and Turanians being broken by other all Pahlavi scholars in Europe tojoin with Dr. West fiends, the Kilisidki; as this is a name of the in arging their fellow-scholars in Bombay to have Christians (Neriosengh, Ad Yalna ix, 75; from a lithograph of the whole of the MS. published. KkAnoia), one can hardly help seeing in this an The additional chapters translated by Dr. Westerident allusion to the Crusades, the more so as give us many details of importance on the mytho- the author seems to see in their coming the fulfillogy and legendary history of Iran, and what is ment of an old tradition that the last invaders more, just those data of which the want has made must have red banners, red weapons and red itself most felt up to this time : I mean historical hats; the red cross of the Crusaders may have data on the age of the Bundahish. They contain been an appropriate answer to that expectation.
