ZEND-AVESTA, or rather (as the Pehlvi hooks have it), AVESTA-ZEND, is the name of the sacred writings of the Parsees (q.v.). The word Avesta (avastka) means text, scrip ture; Zend, or Zand, translation or commentary and paraphrase. According to the last researches in this province, it would seem as if only a small portion of the entire collec tion now extant were formed by Avesta, or text, the rest being made up of Zend, or com mentary, without text. The term Zend has indeed changed its meaning repeatedly. From an authoritative interpretation, emanating from the highest source, in time becom ing embodied in the text itself, it came to denote, later, a translation into the native idiom of Persia (the Pehlvi), made by the Zoroastrian priests during the Sassanian period. There is further a special "Zend doctrine" to be noticed, which differs considerably from that contained in the Avesta. A still further explanation of that Zend doctrine is the Pazend, a word often to be met with in connection with Avesta and Zend. Of this we shall further have occasion to speak.
But before proceeding with an elucidation of the contents of these Zend writings, we must devote a brief space to a sketch of their history, or rather of the dif ferent phases the acquaintance with them on the part of the west has undergone. The doctrine of the " Magi," as the ancient world was wont to call the priests of Zoroastrian ism, as well as those of India, Persia, and Babylonia, is first alluded to in Jeremiah, where the chief of the Magi is mentioned among Nebuchadnezzar's retinue. In the New Testament (Matt. ii. 1), Magi come to worship Jesus at Bethlemem. The earliest account among Greek writers is furnished by Herodotus, who, on the whole, seems well enough informed for his time. Besides him, we hear of accounts by Ctesias, the Greek physi cian of Artaxerxes II., by Deinon, Theopompos, and Hermippos. But only fragments from their writings have survived, embedded chiefly in Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius. Pliny, Strabo, Pausanias, Dion ChrysaStomus further enlarged the stores of knowledge, which, more or less trustworthy, may be gathered from independent sources. Omitting later Greek writers, such as Damascius, Theodorus of Mopsuestia, etc., we turn to Armenian writers of the 5th Christian century. Among them we find Eznik and Elimus, from whose records we may gather that the Zoroastrians at their time were split into two parties, the one called 3Iog, the other Zendik; the former inhabiting chiefly the western parts—Media and Persia principally acknowledging the Avesta; while the latter, living principally in the e. (in Bactria), followed the traditional explanations, or Zend proper. To the Arabic writer Masudi (950 A.D.) we owe a comparatively correct account of the sacred book; while Sharastani (1153 A.D.) is perhaps the first among his countrymen who ranks the Zoroastrians with those other professors of Semitic creeds, the Mohammedans, Jews, and Christians, and not among the idolaters and pagans. In this time they were already split into many sects, those who believed in the transmigration of souls, like the Brahmans, Buddhists, etc. As a successfully carried out piece of deception, it is to be noticed that Mohammedan writers, for the most part, seem to countenance the fable palmed upon them during the times of persecution by the Magi, that Zoroaster was identical with Abraham—in which there is not one atom of truth. The nations of modern Europe came into contact with the adherents of Zoro astrianism in the western parts of India, and in the 17th c. some MSS. of their sacred books were brought to England. But no one was able to read them; and Hyde him self, the celebrated Oxford scholar, vas unable to make any use of them when, in 1700, he wrote his learned work op the Persian religion. A. sort of romantic freak first put Europe into the possession of the key to this book, the language of which had been lost for above a thousand years. A. young Frenchman, Anquetil-Duperron, happened to see a few pages that had been copied from a Zend MS. in the Bodleian library, and he in stantly resolved to take himself to India in quest of the original Zend writings. To achieve his purpose, he, being without means, had to go as a sailor on board a ship belong ing tothe French India company, bound for Bombay, iu 1754. The French government however, stepped in shortly afterward, and furnished him both with money to pur chase MSS and with a pension, that he might pursue his studies with greater ease. He prevailed upon several of the dusturs, or learned priests, to introduce him into the mys teries of the holy language and rites, and further to sell him some of the most valuable works couched in it. When he considered himself sufficiently competent in Pell] vi and
Zend, he commenced a translation of the whole Zend-Avesta in French, in 1759. Two years later he returned to Europe; and having convinced himself by a comparison with the Oxford MSS., that those he had acquired of the sacred writings were genuihe, lie went to Paris, where he deposited his treasures-180 MSS. in different oriental lan guages; and published, ten years after leaving India, 1771, the first European transla tion of the Zend-Avesta, to which was added a great deal of supplementary matter, bear ing more or less on the subject. The work created a profound sensation throughout Europe; but, after a while voices began to be heard by no means so favorable as had been anticipated by the bold and persevering discoverer. Apart from the objections raised against the new hook by Immanuel Kant the philosopher, on the score of its not containing any traces of philosophy, a much graver question was ventilated in England —viz., that of its authenticity. It was not that Anquetil was charged with forgery, but the priests, It was said, had found in him a ready dupe. It was principally sir William Jones, who, in a trenchant letter addressed to Anquetil-Duperrou (in French, being, as sir William Jones said, the only language which Anquetil understood—a little), tried to prove the utter untrustworthiness of the whole work. He was aided therein by Rich ardson, the Persian lexicographer, who, from four reasons—neither of which, however, is valid—came to the conclusion that the book was a spurious fabrication. While in France there was but one opinion on the subject—viz., that English scholars were trying to run down the work out of sheer spite and jealousy—the opinions of Germany were rather divided. Some, like Meiners and Tychsen, fully acceded to the proofs arrayed against it; but there arose another renowned German scholar, Klenker, who, in token of his complete and unreserved trust in the genuineness, set about translating Anquetil's French translation into German, adding several appendices, etc., and principally point ing out the now generally-recognized agreement between the more important heads of the doctrines as contained in the book and in the classical writers. Thus matters stood for a long while. In Germany, Anquetil's translation, as rendered by Klenker, became the standard work even for theologians; in England, none any longer thought about it, it having been fully agreed upon by the highest authorities that it was nothing but a clumsy forgery. More than 50 years had elapsed from the appearance of that work, when a Dane, Bask, undertook to look into the matter. Having himself acquired many Zend and Pehlvi MSS. in Bombay for the Copenhagen library, lie wrote (1826) a pam phlet, in which lie first showed not only the close atiiity between the language of the Zend-Avesta and Sanskrit—which had been pointed out by Erskine and others before— and further proved it to be, not a corruption of Sanskrit, but a distinct language. He also proved that modern Persian was derived from Zend, as Italian from Latin—a step which at once removed all doubts about the genuineness of the work, and confirming, however, how, to a certain extent, Anquetil, to whom all praise was due for having been the first pioneer, had, through the absence of the requisite philological aids, been occasionally misled in his version iu the most woful manner. The learned dustur him self—with whom Anquetil communicated only in Persian—though well acquainted with the Parsee traditions, and favoring mostly the general sense of the passages, yet pos sessed no grammatical knowledge whatsoever of the language he pretended to teach. Rask had pointed out the way; Eugene Burnouf followed it. He indeed may be called the founder of Zend philology. For more than 20 years this eminent scholar devoted all his energies to elucidating, commenting, and discussing this language and the sacred writings couched in it, and in publishing texts and translations. In Germany, Olshausem Bopp, Muller, Brockhaus, Spiegel, Haug; in Copenhagen, Westergaard, have been busy ever since in editing and translating either portions of or the entire Zend-Avesta; and though the rediscovery of the language is by no means an accomplished task, yet, thanks to their indefatigable labors in this field,'we are certain that, sooner or later, we shall be in the full possession of all the facts connected with the language and its sacred deposi tory, the Zend-Avesta.