Zend Avesta Part 03

Author(s): L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford

Page 12

EESE LIRPA UNIVERSITY
CALIFORNIA
PREFACE.
It would savour of affectation for me to say very much by way of meeting the necessary disadvantages under which I labour as in any sense a successor of Professor Darmesteter. It is sufficient to state that I believe myself to be fully aware of them, and that I trust that those who study my work will accord me the more sympathy under the circumstances. Professor Darmesteter, having extended his labours in his University, found his entire time so occupied that he was obliged to decline further labour on this Series for the present. My work on the Gathas had been for some time in his hands, and he requested me, as a friend, to write the still needed volume of the translation of the Avesta. Although deeply appreciating the undesirableness of following one whose scholarship is only surpassed by his genius, I found myself unable to refuse.
As to my general treatment, experts will not need to be informed that I have laboured under no common difficulties. On the one hand, it would be extremely imprudent for any scholar not placed arbitrarily beyond the reach of criticism, to venture to produce a translation of the Yasna, Visparad, Åfrînagân, and Gâhs, without defensive notes. The smallest freedom would be hypercriticised by interested parties, and after them condemned by their followers. On the other hand, even with the imperfect commentary which accompanies the Gathas here, the generous courtesy of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press has been too abundantly drawn upon. One does not expect detailed commentaries in this Series. My efforts have therefore been chiefly confined to forestalling the possible assaults of unfair or forgetful critics, and so to spare myself, in so far as it may be possible, the necessity for painful rejoinder.
1 See the Revue Critique, Nov. 26, 1883.
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