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INTRODUCTION.
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common to be considered as applicable only to the Arabs; the other passage is Chap. XVI, 37-48, which describes the advantages of the moderate drinking of wine,' and might be supposed to be written in indirect opposition to the Muhammadan prohibition of such indulgence. In either case the allusion is certainly far too obscure to form a fair basis for argument. On the other hand, Chap. XIII, 13, 14, speaks of the sovereignty of Vistâsp existing in connection with the most powerful sect or form of devotion, which statement might be strained to imply that the government was still orthodox; and the definitions of good and bad government in Chap. XV, 12-39 could hardly have been written after the Arab conquest. The allusion to the continued conflict of the Ardmans and Tūrânians with the Iranians, in Chap. XXI, 23-26, may possibly refer to some troublesome wars carried on by the Greeks and Turks against the Persians in the time of the author, and the late Dr. A. D. Mordtmann has suggested A. D. 580-590 as a probable period for such remarks, but, here again, the allusion is too obscure to be relied on.
Very few of the author's quotations can be identified, but this is no argument for a greater age than eight or ten centuries, as we know, from passages quoted in the Shầyast Lâ-shảyast, Dâdistân-î Dînîk, and other works, that some of the lost Nasks must have been still extant as recently as that. The Avesta is quoted only twice by name, in Chaps. I, 27, XVI, 15; the former passage has not been identified, but the latter may perhaps be from the Pâzag Nask. Several quotations, however, are made from the dînô or
revelation,' a term which, when it refers to writings, is often applied by Pahlavi writers to the Avesta only. Of these passages Chap. XLIV, 18-23 is from the Vendîdâd, Chap. XXI, 24-26 may be from the Kidrast Nask, and six other quotations have not been identified. In other cases the quotations are merely prefaced by the phrase "it is declared.' And of these the passage in Chap. LVII, 24-28 appears to be derived from the Vendîdâd, and that in Chap. II, 155, 156 from the so-called Hâdôkht Nask, while eight other passages are unidentified. In this last class the quota
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