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166 LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. should rather say, a decipherment of it has been attempted by several scholars, more particularly by Professor Spiegel and Professor Haug? It has also been referred to by Bunsen in his 'God in History' (vol. i. p. 277, of Miss Winkworth's translation), and I may quote from him what will serve as a living, though imaginary, background for this striking hymn.
Let us picture to ourselves,' he writes, 'one of the holy hills dedicated to the worship of fire, in the neighbourhood of the primeval city of marvels in Central Asia, -- Bactra - “the glorious," now called Balkh, “the mother of cities." From this height we look down in imagination over the elevated plateau, which lies nearly 2000 feet above the level of the sea, sloping downwards toward the North and ending in a sandy desert, which does not even allow the stream Bactrus to reach the neighbouring Oxus. On the southern horizon, the last spurs of the Hindukush, or, as the historian of Alexander terms it, the Indian Caucasus, rear their lofty peaks 5000 feet high. Out of those hills,-the Paropamisus or Hindukush,--springs the chief river of the country, the Bactrus or Dehas, which near the city divides into hundreds of canals, making the face of the country one blooming garden of richest fruits. To this point converge the caravans, which travel across the mountains to the land of marvels, or bring treasures from thence. .... Thither, on, occasion of the peaceful sacrifice by fire, from whose ascending flame auguries were to be drawn, Zarathustra had convened the nobles of the land, that he might per
2 Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsees,' 1862, p. 141.
