________________
298
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1909.
forefront, infusing fresh blood into their polytheism. On the other hand, the Zarathushtrian faith has been what we are sooustomed to designste founded in other words, has issued from the gospel of a certain prophet or the combination of a beer and sage, who, in the name of Zarathushtre, apostle of God, proclaimed a new doctrino. It has, therefore, boen evoked by a reformation. (That the movement was a reformation will be discussed in the ensuing chapter.) But that is not the whole solution. The religious innovation of every nation is rooted in the past of the soil, saving when the new teaching is of outlandish origin, like Islam in Persia, Christianity in Germany, or Buddhism in China. Then it stands contrasted with the national creed. It combats it, it endeavours to oust it, but is eventually constrained in order to secure a footing, to respect certain old ineradicable prejudices, traditions, and customs which it seeks, as best it may, to bring in a line with its own. But whatever foreign influence affected the constitution of the Zarathushtrian religious discipline (& question to which we retarn in the sequel) nothing exists in the sacred writings to justify the assumption of its being an exotic in the soil of Iran, or that it grew first among a people other than Iranians. Its religious books are neither wholly nor in part translated from an alien speech. Not a naine of its Ahura, Amesha Spentas or Yazatas, but has an Aryan ring - most of them are, as we shall see further on, quondam popular gods modified. An imported religion bears an aspect totally different.
Now, if the Zarathushtrian religion is called forth by & reformation, this religious upheaval could not have taken place prior to the separation of the Indo-Iranians. It was initiated at a later date. The contrary is at all events advanced in the well-known theory of Martin Haug, which makes the disruption of the East Aryans into Iranians and Indians the result of a religious schism. This view,78 to which now but few scholars adhere, derives its plausibility from the striking circumstance among the two races, that while both have so many religious concepts and practices in common, the gods of the one are the wicked spirits of the other, and, conversely, the intelligences which here are abominated and warred against are there the recipients of adoration. Devas (Dnovas). Asuras (Aburas), were both undeniably names applied to divine beings from times immemorial. The first term was probably generic, betokening all heavenly powers, inclusive of terrestrial potentates; the second was less indiscriminately employed, being reserved for the most exalted ones. It is true that Asura has gradually acquired with the Indian, partiy in the Vedic era, a derogatory significance in that the spirits so styled are hostile to the Devas, who have perpetually to be on their guard against their magic and nefarious arts; with the Iranians Aburs remaiued the name of reverence for their supreme deity, always in a favourable Rense. Again, while the Iudian kept on calling his gods devas, daeva came to be synonymous with the Iranian's drukhsh, "the spirit of falsehood," and was eroployed to exclusively denote the creatures and servants of evil, that the God-fearing Mazdayasnian must combat with all his might. There is no deoying these facts, but the conclusions sought to be educed therefrom do not hold water. More penetrating examination reveals that they must be elucidated in another way. • In the first place, long after the Indians had settled on the banks of the Sarasvati and the Ganges, the word Asura retained its elevated sense. In the hymns of the Rig Veda, the word, with most of its derivatives, is still an honored epithet of the most exalted and the mightiest of the gods of the old East Aryans, and, above all, of the foremost of them, Varuna. Nor is it confined to them. The younger genuine titulary deities of India Indra, Agni, Soma, Rudra - are all spoken of as Asuras. Only occasionally, and for the most part in the later books of the Rk, it is that we have to suspect a reference to wizard spirits inimical to the celestials." And not till we come
16 This hypothests of Martin Hang WM nocepted thirty years ago by me and also by eminent specialista.
19 In the oldest books the name oooars a fow times-II. 30, 4, and VII. 99,5; Oboe in the youngest book-X. 188, 3, where it is assigned to a certain spirit. The 8th book, which is not of the oldest, speaks of the non-daivio Asurau. The three remaining places, where the word is used in the plural of the existences hostile to the Dorme, belong to book 10. They are, 68, 4; 151, 3; and 187. 4. In the derivative Asurahan, Asura-killing, which sometimu wa meet with us an honoriflo epithet, the first member has saturally an unfavourable sigaisonnee. Asura and Awarian denoto w often the divine as the demonino. Then, again, in the compound muradova, the insane dova, applied also to soroerera (VII. 104, 24), dera basa bad sense.
