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JULY, 1903.]
THE RELIGION OF THE IRANIAN PEOPLES.
287
Magi in the sense of priests does not occur in the Avesta.52 The prevalence, however, even in Media of the Zarathushtrian religion is inferable from the names of two of the most considerable kings, Fravartis and Uvakhshatara (Phraotes and Kyaxeres), names which both connote unmixed MazdoZarathushtrian ideas, to wit," the professor" and "the promoter of growth." And they undeniably held sway in the East and North of Iran, where lay at all events most of the lands which the first Fargard of the Vendidad enumerates as created by Ahura Mazda for his worshippers and provided with all blessings. Moreover, the legendary accounts transfer to Atropatene the birthplace of Zarathushtra. It is admitted on all hands that the service of Mazda was extended as far as Armenia.
We have naturally no records of the religion of the Iranians anterior to the genesis and introduction of Zarathushtrianism. But that it was the same in all the tribes may be considered certain. The Iranians constituted one of the two septs of the Aryans, of which the Indians were the other. And we purpose to show that both originally were adherents of a common worship; wherefrom it directly follows that the ancient religion of the Iranian tribes, apart from loca divergences, was one and the same, being a ramification of the more primitive Aryan faith.
When and whence the Aryans immigrated into Iran, and how thoy diffused themselves over the country is, a problem admitting of no conclusive solution. At first it was held that the opening chapter of the Vendidad furnished a clue to it. In this catalogue of countries, 63 beginning with the lands of the Argan fraternity and ending with the valleys of the Indus and the Rangha or Xexartes, some read a narrative of the exodas of the primordial Aryan settlers in Iran. Others combat this view on diverse grounds, and, inter alia, because of the inclusion in the list of mythical territories. But the latter objection is yet far from substantiated. Aryanom Vaejo, the Aryan stem-land, is decidedly not a fancifal region, notwithstanding that latterly, and also to the glossators of the Fargard, it became a legendary land, the rendezvous of Ahura Mazda, Yima, and Zarathushtra-in other words, a paradige: It is a very real country where the weather is unendarable, and which on that accoant appears to have been abandoned of men. Subsequently the phantasy of latter-day generations came to glorify it. Varena, too, though we are anable to verify its site, is as much or as little imaginary as the ancient countries figuring in the military annals of Egyptian and Assyrian princes, the sitaation of which is obscure to ns. Nor is it to be relegated to the domain of the unreal because it was the theatre of the legends of Thraetona and Azi Dahaka. For in that case Babel, too, were a mythical city, where another passage locates Azi Dahaka's abode. And how many myths of antiquity do not allude to actual and extant places? The explanation above referred to seems to me not so untenable. The apparent anomaly with which the author now and again springs from one end of the land to another confirms me in this hypothesis. Did we but reflect on the regions whose situation is established, we should get a clear notion of the gradual expansion of the nation. Issuing from Airyanem Vaejo, where colonization was first sought, the Aryans settle in the desolate Saghdha, or Sogdiana, and progress onward to the neighbouring Margiana and Nisaca, 56 from the last named to Harrina, the Areia of the Greeks and modern Herat; thence to Vakereta, which is probably Kabul, and to Harakhraiti, the modern Helmend. Between
12 The only passage, Yama 65, 7 (Spiegel, 64, 25), where it is supposed to be found must be interpreted differently. See the Monograph Over de Oudheid vant Avesta, bla. 8.
[Mill's version of the passage is admittedly based on the Pahlavi gloss.- TR.]
o [Of the sixteen lands, nine are identified with certainty. For the rest the Pahlavi commentary is our only guide.-8. B. E. IV. 1 18. Dr. W. Geiger'a Geographaie con Iran in the Grund. Iran. Phil. is a storehouse of oondensed information and completely quotes the literaturo. As regards modern Persia, even in point of geography, Lond Carzon's work stands pre-eminent. - TE.]
Note that here we have obviously to deal with a Colony; the Aryan land is called not Sughdhs, bat Gava which is in Sughdha. The chapter oontains more similar expressions.
4 Nisaea is said to lie between Bakhdhi and Mouru. Literally this is not correot. May it not indicate that it was oolonized by emigrants from both ?
