apd, secondly, the idiom in which the cuneiform inscriptions
are written. This last may he supposed to have been the
language of the western parts of Iran, during the reigns of
the Achsemenidee, since the monuments, on which these
inscriptions are engraved, are found in various provinces of
Iran, to the westward of the Great Salt Desert* The Zend
was, probably, coeval with this dialect; but the precise time
and place to which it belongs cannot be determined. It
was, perhaps, the idiom of the northern countries of
Iran, as Azerbaijan, Khorasan, perhaps Balkh or Bactria.
It is indeed not certain that the Zend had not -become
already, in the time of Cyrus, although still used for, literary
compositions, a merely sacerdotal or learned idiom.
This seems not improbable when we advert -id its near
affinity to the language of the Vedas.
In the provinces of Iran, bordering on the west, a new
language was at length formed, by the mixture of Zend
with Syrian, to which the name of-Pehlvi belongs.- - Through
the agency of what causes, or in what time: this became
at length the court language, is unknown. I t ' had,
probably, spread gradually from the more civilised countries
of Babylon and Assyria, into the contiguous parts of Iran,
and had become, the vernacular language, and was so
generally used in the reigns of the Sassanidee, that the Zend
and Persepolitan were no longer understood; so that new inscriptions
or public monuments were written in the' Pehlvi
characters and language.
The Zend is the ancient basis of the modern Persian
dialects. The latter differ from it in having acquired all
the characteristics of modern languages, by the loss of the
inflections and the abbreviations of syncopized or truncated
words, nearly as the French and English differ from the
Latin and Moeso-Gothic.
Section IV.—Remains of ancient Persian Literature,
^ illustrating thé history of the Arian Race.
Very different jopinions have been maintained, both by
older and later writers, on'^the questions, at what period of
time, and in what region, of the East, the writings attributed
tp Zoroaster were composed, and the: system of religion and
mythplogysrwhich:they contain developed. As this inquiry
has an important bearing en the history; of the Iranian race,
and the eastern nations in general,. I shall survey the principal
facts on which the discussion turns, ; ' and shall endeavour
to enable my readers, or such o f, thërn as have not already
directed their attention to the subject* to form an opinion
concerning it.
Paragraph/].— Of the time and place where the Magian
Literature and Mythology were cultivated.'
Our learned', countryman, Hyde, who. first opened the
field*of,the Magian religion^ and, philosophy, placed the.
reputed author^ qf.thiS syjsteip in the reign pf Darius Hystas-
pes. Anquétil du Perron was, of the same opinion, and
even ventured to fix a particular year,;589 B.c^,as the probable
date of the birth of Zoroaster* Kleukpr, the german
translator of the Zendavesta, came, to a similar conclusion,
which was also "espoused by Herder, and Johannes Muller.
Other German writers, apiong whom ^re;-Typhsen and
Heeren, maintained, that the Gushtasp, ^efpre whom Zoroaster
is said to have pronounced the Zendavesta, was not,
as is generally supposed, Darius,fhe son ,.pf Hystaspes, but
the first Cyaxares. The difference between these two opinions
is not, chronologically, Very important, nor does it, involve
any points of much consequence? in history. It is not so
with respect to the hypothesis, of latèr writers, who carry
back the age of Zoroaster to a period anterior to the eom-
* Mem. sur les anciennes langues ç(e la Perse. Par Anquétil du Perron,
Mem. de l’Académie de Pell. Lett, T. 81., item Vie’ de Zoroastre, Zendavesta,
Vol. 2. p. 5.
E. 2 .