During the fife centuries after the ravages of Alexander, much, doubtless, had been lost, much forgotten. The Parsi tradition acknowledges this itself when it says above, for example, that the seventh Nask consisted originally of fifty sections, but only thirteen remained 'after the accursed lskander (Alexander)! So says the and so the RivSyats. Like statements of loss are made of the eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh Nasks. The loss in the five centuries from the invasion of Alexander till the time of the Sas sanian dynasty was but small in comparison with the decay that overtook the scriptures from the Sassanian times till our day. The Mohammedan invasion and the inroads made by the Koran proved far more destructive. The persecuted people lost or negleeted many por tions of their sacred scriptures. Of the twenty one Nasks that were recognized in Sassanian times as surviving from the original Avesta, only one single Nask—the nineteenth, the Ven didad—has come down to us in its full form. Even this shows evidence of having been patched up and pieced together. We can, furthermore, probably identify our present book of the Yasna. and Vispered with the Staot Yasht (staota yesnya), or Yasht (yasliya), as it is also ealled. The two fragments. Vt. 21 and 22 (as printed in Westergaard's edition) and Vt. 11, in its first form, are recognized by the MSS. as taken from the twentieth, or Hadhakht Nask. The Nirangistan, a Pahlavi work, contains extensive Avestan quotations, which are believed to have been taken from the Hfisparam, or seventeenth Mask. Numerous quotations in Pahlavi works contain translations from old Avestan passages. The Pahlavi work, Shayast-la-Shayast, quotes briefly from no less than thirteen of the lost Nasks; the Bandahishn and other Pahlavi books give translations of selections, the original Aves ta text of which is lost. Grouping together all the Avesta texts, we may roughly calculate that about two-thirds of the total scriptures have disappeared since Sassanian times.
The'present form of the Avesta belongs to the Sassanian period. Internal evidence shows that it is made up of parts most varied in age and character. This bears witness to the statement that during that period the texts, so far as they had survived the ravages of Alexander, and defied the corrupting influence of time, were gathered together, compiled, and edited. The character of the texts, when critically studied, shows the method that must have been adopted. According to the record of Khai-ro Anoshirvan (A.n. 531-579), referred to above, King Valk hash, the first compiler of the Avesta, ordered that all the writings which might have survived should be searched for, and that all the priests who preserved the traditions orally should con tribute their share to restoring the original Avesta. These texts, as collected, were reedit ed under successive rulers, until, under Shah pahar II. (c.309-379 A.D.), the final redaction was made by his prime minister, Atar-pat Maraspend. It is manifest that the editors used the old texts as far as possible; sometimes they patched up defective parts by inserting other texts; occasionally they may hare added or composed passages to join these, or to com plete some missing portion. In this respect the
textual criticism by means of metrical restoration is most instructive. Almost all the oldest por tions of the texts are found to be metrical ; the later, or inserted portions. are, as a rule, but not always, written in prose. The grammatical test is also useful ; the youngest portions gen erally show a decay of Blear grammatical knowl edge. The metrical Gathas in this respect are remarkably pure. They are, of course, the oldest portion of the text, dating from Zoroaster himself, despite the view of Darmesteter, who wished to bring the date of their completion down to the first Christian Century. The longer Yashts, and the metrical portions of the Yasna, contain much that is very old; in point of time these parts would probably fall but a few cen turies later than the Wallas. The Vendidnd in this respect is most incongruous. Sonic parts of it are doubtless of great antiquity, though corrupted in form ; other parts of it, like the younger portions also of the Vashts, may he quite late. The same is true of formulaic pas sages throughout the whole of the Avesta, and of some of the ceremonial or ritual selections in the Vispered and .Nyaishes, etc. Roughly speaking, the chronological order of the texts would be somewhat as follows: I. Wallas (Vs. 28-53), including (11.) the Yasna Haptanghaiti (Vs. 35-42), and some other compositions, like Vs. 12; Vs. 5S in the Witha dialect. III. Metri cal Vasna and Yashts, Vs. 9-11; Vs. 57, 62, 1)5; Vt. 5, 8, 9, 10. 14, 15, 17, 19; portions of Vd. 2, 3, 4, 5, IS, 19, and scattered verses in the Vispered and Afringans, etc. In such cases it is generally, but not always, easy to discover, by style and language, where old material• failed and the hand of the redactor came in with stupid or prosaic additions. Considerable por tions of our present Avesta, especially the entire Gathas, we may regard as coming directly from Zoroaster himself ; still, additions from time to time must have been made to the sacred canon from his time on till the invasion of Alexan der. The so-called copy of the Zoroastrian Bible, which it is claimed was destroyed by that invader, doubtless contained much that was not directly from the founder of the faith, but was composed by his apostles and later followers. The Parsis, however, generally regard the whole work as coming directly from Zoroaster; this is a claim that even the Avesta itself hardly makes. The Gathas, however, undoubtedly came directly from the Prophet; the Avesta itself al ways speaks of them as 'holy,' ;mid especially cal], them the 'five Gathas of Zoroaster.' We may fairly regard many other portions of the Avesta as direct elaborations of the great teach er's doctrines, just as the Evangelists have elaborated for us portions of the teachings of Christ.