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152
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
JULY, 1914.
had seen this number 772 8. somewhere and that regarded as the traditional date of the consecration he was anxious for polemical purposes to obtain of the first Indian fire temple, was converted by this faith and credence for the date, by making it fit in caleulator into the initial year of the Kohistán persomehow with the then universally accepted figures egrinations. Last came the date 895 V. Samvat, of the Kissah--Sanjan It is fairly well known which is put forward in a MS, copied by an Udvádá that according to that interesting old account of Dastur in 1816 A.D. It was shown to have been the "Parsi Retreat", the Zoroastrians lived for a indebted for its existence to the ingenuity of some hundred years in Kohistan, for fifteen years in Old arithmetician, who, thinking(as many of us also inust Hormuz and for nineteen at Diu. Now, if the Dastur do) that V. Samvat 772 (A.D. 716) was not only too had followed the Kissah out and out, and added early, but opposed to all the probabilities of the 134 (100+15+19) to A.D. 636—the year of the first case, made his own calculations somewhat thus: decisive victory of the Arabs at Kâdisiya, or A.D. 651.54+100+15+19 = 839 A.D. = 895 V. Samvat. to A.D. 641, the date of fatal field of Nelåvend, Anquetil du Perron was told at Surat in A.D. 1759 or to A.D. 651, the year of the Yazdajird's death, that the Fire Temple was brought from Bansdéh to the total would have been 770,775 or A.D. 785, but in Navsari in V. Samvat 1472 (A.D. 1416 ), and the no case would it have been anything like A.D. 716 statement occurs also in a Persian poem written (772 V. S.). What then was to be done? Why to l about the same time. This date is the simple result go back five years-take A.D. 631 the year of Yazda
of 700-a round number which occurs in a much jird's accession as the starting point, borrow the cock disputed couplet of the Kinadh-having been added and bull story of an astrologer having told Khusruto A.D. 716 (772 V. Samvat,) the apocryphal date of Parviz of the fall of the monarchy from a Musalman the landing. The other figure hociated with the annalist and adopt the inconceivably improbable Navsari Fire Temple 1175 V. Samvat (A.D. 1419) can notion that the Zoroastrians fled from their homes be shewn to have been made up in two ways--ono and took refuge in Kohistan forty-nine years
of which has been already indicated above. The before Yazdajird's accession; A.D. (631-49)-582 +100
| other rests upon an ingenious emendation of the +15+19=716 A.D. =772 V. Samvat. It is needless
disputed line in the Kissdh by which 70 is substitued to state that a date which cannot be made up
for 700 (haftad' for haftsad') combined with without being bolstered up by such a supposition
the two items of a fifty years cycle of wandering must be regarded as absolutely unhistorical. Having
anterior to the Kohistán century, and the substituthus disposd of the earliest date for the arrival at Sanján, the Professor took in hand the latest,
tion of fourteen for twenty-six at the end. A.D viz., 961 V. S. (A.D. 905), which is found in a
651+50+ 100-300+200 + 70+14=1419 A. D.= 1475 V. manuscript written about A.D. 1750. The writer first Samvat. notes that the Atash Beheråm was brought to The Professor summed up by saying that most of Navsari in v. Samvat 1475 (A.D. 1419), and these calculations appeared to have been ex post working backwards first on the line of the Kissah facto made up by combiniag a few generally accepted ---Sanjan and then diverging from it in two
postulates with certain indeterminate items in that particular items, arrives at V. Samvat 777=(A.D. 721) i
way which best brought up some preconceived as the year of the commencement of the Iranian
answer. In short, he maintained that they were wanderjahre, which is by him made to extend to
only speculative results arrived at by persons one hundred and fifty years (including fifty spent in
anxious out of a genuine historical curiosity to different places), instead of the Kissah's century construct, for the satisfaction of their own under. passed in Kohistân. V. S. 777+50+100+15+19+300+ standings, intelligible systems of Parsi chronology, 200+14=1475 V. 8.=1419 A.D. The lecturer then by arranging, altering and modifying the materials proceeded to shew the process by which these two at their disposal according to their personal estimates new items (50 and 14 instead of 26) had been evolv. of the probable and the improbable. ed and traced the first to & peculiar construction At the same time, the Professor emphatically of some lines in the Kissah, and the second to a declared that they were honest attempts for the minor stream of tradition which made fourteen advancement of knowledge, and very much like years only and not twenty-six (14+12) elapee bet- those mutually contradictory and even demonstrably wrap the back of Sanjan and the transportation of false schemes of Kianian, Parthian or Sassinian the fire of Beheram to Navalri. The next thing point- chronology, which were associated with the nan.is of ed out was how 777 V. Samvat, which is by others so many Oriental and European historians.
