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SEPTEMBER, 1881.]
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position between the extreme views of MM. de Harlez and Darmesteter, and is the result of the labours of several scholars, though finally elaborated by Haug in his Essays on the Religion of the Parsis. All three theories agree in considering Zoroastrism as a modification of the ancient IndoIranian faith, whence the Vedic religion also sprang, but they account for the modification in such totally different ways that the reader may safely conclude that the data at present available for form. ing an opinion on the subject are very insufficient.
The old hypothesis, advanced by Haug and others, which may be termed the ancient-schism theory,' was formed to account for the fact that the name of the Zoroastrian god, Ahura, has become the Brahmanical term Asura, applied to demons in the later Vedic literature (although still a title of gods in the earlier part of the Veda), while the usual Brahmanical term for a god (deva) has become the Zoroastrian term for a demon (daeva). To account for this strange metamorphosis, and others of a somewhat similar character, this theory assumes that a schism broke out in the Indo-Iranian religion about the time of the composition of the older Vedic hymns, and that, while the predecessors of the Iranian priesthood remained true to their ancient faith, the Brahmans began to introduce the worship of new gods, or to change the order of precedence of those which already existed, until the schism led to a disruption of the nation, when, under the tuition of Spitama Zarathushtra, the Iranians not only renounced the new-fangled gods and dogmas of the Brahmans, but also adopted many reforms in their older faith. Regarding the age in which Spitama Zarathushtra lived there have been many different opinions. Haug, in his Essays, was inclined to place him before B. c. 1000; but latterly, he thought it more probable that he lived in the time of Cyaxares, about B. c. 600.
Darmesteter's hypothesis, which may be termed the storm-myth theory,' supposes that the whole Indo-Iranian mythology was nothing but an embodiment of men's observations and conceptions of meteorological phenomena and their causes. And that Zoroastrism and Brahmanism are merely two separate developments of this mythology, starting from the same original by different and widelydiverging paths. According to this theory Spitama Zarathushtra, like a host of other legendary beings, was originally only a manifestation of the conflict of the elements in stormy weather.
The hypothesis of M. de Harlez, which may be termed the foreign-influence-reform theory,' goes to the opposite extreme. It rejects all idea of the gradual development of the essential doctrines of Zoroastrism from the ancient Indo-Iranian faith.
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Admitting that such development continued to produce new myths and legends long after the separation of the two races, it assumes that a radical reform, connected with the name of Spitama Zarathushtra, was introduced into the old religion as late as the time of Darius Hystaspes. It further considers this reform as the true origin of Zoroastrism, and attributes it to the influence of foreign religions. Some of the Zoroastrian customs and beliefs it traces to the Turanians (the deadly enemies of the Iranian race); and it points out others so analogous to those of the Jews as to indicate the possibility that Zoroastrism may have borrowed some of its best doctrines from the Jewish captives.
M. de Harlez finds no storm-myth in the Avesta, and, no doubt, many of Darmesteter's conclusions on this point are more the effects of a vivid imagination than of any tangible reality. The Vedic poets used a variety of metaphorical terms in their imaginative descriptions of meteorological phenomena, but it does not follow from this that whenever similar terms are used in the Avesta they are to be taken in the same metaphorical sense. Even in the Veda itself there are probably far fewer storm-myths than it is now the fashion to assume. On the other hand, if the 'storm' has disappeared from the Avesta myths, so i has likewise from nearly all those of modern Hinduism; the poet's metaphors naturally degenerate into legendary tales, and whether such legends refer to actual beings, or to imaginary personifications, can be ascertained only by tracing them back to their primitive source. This is evidently the course that Darmesteter has endeavoured to take, but his enthusiasm has often led him to forget that there are other sources of myths besides elemental storms. M. de Harlez adopts another method, and the chief cause of the difference of his results from those of Darmesteter is that he does not attempt to trace the legends so far back as their primitive source.
To date the origin of Zoroastrism merely from the time of Spitama Zarathushtra is hardly to begin at the beginning. but is rather like commencing the history of England with the Norman Conquest. The Avesta contains far too many vestiges of an earlier form of the religion to admit of their being considered otherwise than as essential components of Zoroastrism, however repugnant they may appear to be to the views attributed to Zarathushtra. himself in the Gathas. It is in such vestiges, however, that relics of storm-myths are most. likely to be discovered, and, therefore, their exclusion from Zoroastrism is an effectual mode of banishing the storm-myth also.
Regarding the separation of the Brahmans from
