AVESTA, or ZEND-AVESTA, the Bible of Zoroaster, the sacred book of ancient Iran, and holy scripture of the modern Patsis. The exact meaning of the name "Avesta') is not cer tain; it may perhaps signify ulaw,i) or, more doubtfully, The modern familiar designation of the book as Zend-Avesta is not strictly accurate; if used at all. it should rather be Avesta-Zend, like °Bible and as sand signifies °ex planation," ucommentary,D and Avesta u Zand is employed in some Persian allusions to the Zoroastrian scriptures as a designation denoting the text of the Avesta accompanied by the Pahlayi version or interpretation. The story of the recovery of the Avesta, or rather the dis covery of the Avesta, by the enthusiastic young French scholar, Anquetil du Pen-on, who was the first to open to the western world the an cient records of Zoroastrianism, reads almost like a romance. Du Perron's own account of his departure for India in 1754, of his experi ences with the dasturs (or priests) during a seven years' residence among theru, of his various difficulties and annoyances, setbacks and successes, is entertainingly presented in the introductory volume of his work Avesta, Ouvrage de Zoroastre) (1771). This was the first translation of the ancient Persian books published in a European language. Its appearance formed one of those epochs which are marked by an addition to the literary, re ligions or philosophical wealth of our time; a new contribution was added to the riches of the West from the treasures of the East. The field thus thrown open, although worked imper fectly at first, has yielded abundant harvests to the hands of later gleaners. With the growth of knowledge of the language of the sacred texts, we have now a clear idea also of the history of Zoroastrian literature, and of the changes and chances through which with vary ing fortunes the scriptures have passed. The original Zoroastrian Avesta, according to tradi tion, was in itself a literature of vast dimen sions. Pliny, in his (Natural History,' speaks of 2,000,000 verses of Zoroaster; to which may be added the Persian assertion, preserved through Mohammedan writers, that the original copy of the scriptures was written upon 12,000 parchments, with gold illuminated letters, and was deposited in the library at Persepolis. But what was the fate of this archetype? Parsi tradition has an answer. Alexander the Great,—"the accursed Iskander," as he is called,— is responsible for its destruction. At the request of the beautiful Thais, as the story goes, he allowed the palace of Persepolis to be burned, and the precious treasure perished in the flames. Whatever view we may take of the different sides of this story, one thing can not be denied: the invasion of Alexander and the subjugation of Iran caused, indirectly or directly, certain religious decadence which fol lowed upon the disruption of the Persian em pire, and was answerable for the fact that a great part of the scriptures was forgotten or fell into disuse. Zoroastrian tradition, found
in Pahlavi sources, lays at the doors of the Greeks the loss of another copy of the original ancient texts that existed at Samarkand before Alexander's invasion; but has it any account to give of copies of the prophet's works which Scmistic writers say were translated into nearly a dozen different languages. One of these versions was perhaps Greek, as the Pahlavi accounts state, for it is generally ac knowh.dged that in the 4th century u.c. the philosopher Theopompus spent much time in giving in his own tongue the contents of the sacred Magian books.
Tradition is unanimous on one point at least : it is that the original Avesta comprised 21 Narks, or books, a statement which there is no good reason to doubt. The same tradition which was acquainted with the general charac ter of those Nasks professes also to tell ex actly how many of them survived the inroad of Alexander; for although the sacred text it self was destroyed, its contents were lost only in part, the priests preserving large portions of the precious scriptures. These met with many vicissitudes in the five centuries that intervened between the conquest of Alexander and the great, restoration of Zoroastrianism in the 3d century of our era, under the Sissanian dynasty. At this period all obtainable Zoroastrian scrip tures were collected, the compilation was codi fied, and a detailed notice made of the contents of each of the original Nasks, comprising in all some 825 chapters, compared with the portions then surviving. The original Avesta was, it would appear, a sort of encyclopedic work; not of religion alone, but of useful knowledge relating to law, to the arts, science, the professions, and to every-day life. If we may judge from the existing table of contents of these Nasks, the zealous Sassanians, even in the time of the collecting (226-380 A.D.), were able to restore but a fragment of the archetype, perhaps a fourth part of the original Avesta. Nor was this remnant destined to es cape misfortune. The Mohammedan invasion, in the 7th century of our era, added a final and crushing blow. Much of the religion that might otherwise have been handed down to us, despite accursed Iskander's" conquest, now perished through the sword and the Koran. Its loss, we must remember, is in part compensated by the Pahlavi religious literature of Sassanian days.