Zend Avesta Part 01

Author(s): James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford

Page 22

INTRODUCTION, I.
xix
Chardin and Richardson, in Germany by Meiners. Richardson tried to give a scientific character to the attacks of Jones by founding them on philological grounds. That the Avesta was a fabrication of modern times was shown, he argued, by the number of Arabic words he fancied he found both in the Zend and Pahlavi dialects, as no Arabic element was introduced into the Persian idioms earlier than the seventh century; also by the harsh texture of the Zend, contrasted with the rare euphony of the Persian ; and, lastly, by the radical difference between the Zend and Persian, both in words and grammar. To these objections, drawn from the form, he added another derived from the uncommon stupidity of the matter.
In Germany, Meiners, to the charges brought against the newly-found books, added another of a new and unexpected kind, namely, that they spoke of ideas unheard of before, and made known new things. 'Pray, who would dare ascribe to Zoroaster books in which are found numberless names of trees, animals, men, and demons unknown to the ancient Persians; in which are invoked an incredible number of pure animals and other things, which, as appears from the silence of ancient writers, were never known, or at least never worshipped, in Persia? What Greek ever spoke of Hôm, of Jemshid, and of such other personages as the fabricators of that rhapsody exalt with every kind of praise, as divine heroes ??'
Anquetil and the Avesta found an eager champion in the person of Kleuker, professor in the University of Riga. As soon as the French version of the Avesta appeared, he published a German translation of it, and also of Anquetil's historical dissertations 8. Then, in a series of dissertations of his own“, he vindicated the authenticity of the Zend
1. A Dissertation on the Languages, Literature, and Manners of Eastern Nations,' Oxford, 1777.
De Zoroastris vita, institutis, doctrina et libris,' in the Novi Commentari Societatis Regiae, Goettingen, 1778-1779.
"Zend-Avesta ... nach dem Franzoesischen des Herrn Anquetil Du Perron,' 3 vols. in 4°, 1776. • Anbang zum Zend-Avesta,' 2 vols. in 4°, 1781.
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