SOURCE: “Iranian Traditions” in The Heritage of Persia, World Publishing Company, 1963, pp. 15-52.

[In the following excerpt, Frye reviews the controversy surrounding the dating of Zoroaster and his scriptures, outlines the differences between Zoroaster's teachings and other ancient beliefs, and comments on the influence of Zoroaster on the development of the Iranian epic tradition.]

ZOROASTER AND HIS MESSAGE

Zarathushtra, or Zoroaster, as the Greeks called him, presents many problems, and it is discouraging that after so many years of research we do not know when or where he lived or even precisely his teachings. One may marshal the evidence and conclude that he was not one thing or did not live at a certain period, but positive information about the prophet and his time is conspicuous by its absence. Let us attempt to gather material relating to him, trying to group the less uncertain data first, and finally coming to some tentative conclusions.

It is highly probable that Zarathushtra is not a figment of the imagination and that he did exist. Arguments that he was created to match prophets in other religions, or that the Avesta was a late forgery, are really unacceptable and we only need to follow history to refute them. The form of his name is also plausible among the names one would expect in an ancient society somewhere in Iran. The name Zarathushtra might be explained as ‘he who can handle camels’, although other etymologies have been proposed. In the Avesta we learn about his clan of Spitama and the closely related family of Haechataspa, indeed about his daughter and friends, and from the later Middle Persian commentaries we even learn the names of his father and mother. None of this, however, helps us with the history of Zoroaster, especially his time and place. We must turn primarily to the Gathas, presumably the words of the prophet, and to later sources and general considerations, to aid us in placing Zoroaster in history and geography.

To determine the date of Zoroaster we have no historical data to help us, and we can only say that most probably he lived before the Achaemenid empire. To further determine the time we should look at the evidence of the Gathas, Greek sources, and later Zoroastrian tradition subdivided into the tradition of the Pahlavi books and the tradition as found in Islamic sources. These we should try to bring into harmony, or at least we should come to a probable estimate of his dates from all of them.

The Gathas, ‘verses or poems’, were undoubtedly preserved by memory for centuries before being written down. The seventeen verses or five groups of verses, known collectively as Gatha, belong together by virtue of similarity in metre and archaic language. Certain features of the language of the Gathas and of the Younger Avesta as well are more archaic than corresponding features in Vedic Sanskrit, but this, of course, does not mean that the Gathas are therefore older in time than the Rig Veda, since as a parallel in Altaic languages modern Mongolian in many features is ‘more archaic’ than the oldest Turkish, and Arabic is in the same relation to Hebrew.

Greek sources are not encouraging either. Xanthos of Lydia, the oldest source (fifth century bc) places Zoroaster 600 (or 6,000) years before Xerxes, and other Greek authors are more extravagant. From the classical sources we gain no precision at all, only that Zoroaster lived in great antiquity. Obviously they had no accurate knowledge of his history, but we should explain even this lack. Some of the sources which give numbers in the thousands can be explained as reflecting an Iranian mythical world age number—an eschatological doctrine. Did the Greeks reproduce this, or other extreme dates on Zoroaster, because the Persians fooled them, either intentionally or because they themselves believed it, or was Zoroaster so removed from the West in time or space that a myth about him was all that was known? If the Persians tried to fool the Greeks, then how is it that no indication of the real state of affairs leaked out to the Greeks, and why did the Persians try to fool the Greeks? In answer to the first question, it is unlikely that the Persians could keep true information from the Greeks, and if they did try, it can hardly be explained as pure perversity or a desire to sanctify Zoroaster by a hoary age. What then is the conclusion to draw from the Greek sources? One probably could say that the Greeks got their information from Persians who themselves did not know the date of Zoroaster. From the Greek sources, a date of, say, 1,000 bc might seem a shade more reasonable for Zoroaster than 600 bc, but this is speculative. The burden of bringing more evidence seems to rest on Iranian sources, or the Zoroastrian tradition.

Since the chronology of the ancient Near East before the Achaemenids is mostly based on the Egyptian king lists and anything outside the hieroglyphic-cuneiform cultural areas is hardly datable, it follows that the non-literary Iranians could not be expected to have a chronology of Zoroaster unless they kept genealogical lists like the Hebrews, which apparently was not the case. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the ancient Iranians, even shortly after Zoroaster's death, could not place him chronologically, at least in relation to any of the great events occurring in Mesopotamia or possibly even in western Iran. But later Zoroastrian tradition, followed by Islamic authors such as al-Bīrūnī, gives a precise date for Zoroaster, 258 years before Alexander the Great. Many scholars have rejected this date, while others have accepted it as genuine. Recently an impressive attempt was made to substantiate the date based on the reasonable assumption that the followers of Zoroaster counted the years from a significant moment in the life of the prophet, and when 258 years had passed in the era of Zoroaster, a great calamity occurred, the death of Darius, the last Achaemenid king and the accession to power of Alexander the Great. This would mean 258 years subtracted from 330 bc or 588 bc for the year one of reckoning on the part of Zoroaster's followers. It is interesting to observe that the dating of Buddha is apparently secured in a similar manner by reference to later traditions assigning events in Buddha's life to so many years before the reign of Aśoka. But actually it is only a later tradition and based on an assumed date of the Buddha rather than on Aśoka. One need not be reminded that the date 588 bc, which may have been the date Zoroaster converted King Vishtaspa, when tradition says the prophet was forty-two years old, is based on a number of assumptions which might be criticised. Further tradition says the prophet was seventy-seven when he died, so if one prefers fixed historical dates for Zoroaster based upon reasonable assumptions and late Zoroastrian traditions, then 628-551 bc is the best theory we have. Otherwise, one may prefer to believe that the date is about the eighth or seventh century bc but not determined. If we could find evidence from outside the Zoroastrian tradition, which tradition assumes that the Zoroastrians had a clear ‘era’ reckoning from the time of the prophet, until Alexander so shocked them that they changed their outlook to date their prophet so many years before Alexander, then it would be easier to accept a more precise date for Zoroaster.

It is true that the number 258 is curious, hardly apocalyptic or fitting into an eschatological system. Yet the negative reckoning, so many years before Alexander, presupposes the existence of an era of reckoning from some event in Zoroaster's life by his followers. As far as we know the Seleucid era was the first dating by a fixed year which was widely accepted. On the other hand, the followers of Zoroaster may have been well ahead of their time in adopting an ‘era of Zoroaster’, counting from the date of his conversion of Vishtaspa, possible echoes of which may survive in the Pahlavi book Bundahishn (ed. Anklesaria 240.1) where an era of the ‘acceptance of the religion’ (padīriftan-i dēn) is implied. The Bundahishn, of course, was written over 1,200 years after Alexander, but the mere fact that the apocryphal reign of Vishtaspa is said to have lasted for ninety years after the ‘acceptance of religion’ is a point, together with the number 258, in favour of a ‘Zoroastrian era’. Needless to say, we are still much in the dark.

The homeland of Zoroaster has also raised great controversies which are by no means all resolved. Most scholars now agree that he lived and taught in eastern Iran. Late Zoroastrian tradition placed the prophet in Azerbaijan, but the geographical horizon of the Avesta is limited to eastern Iran, and the transfer of his activities to western Iran at a later date can be explained by political circumstances. It is true that one may fit the mythical geography of the Avesta with the homeland of Airyāna Vaējah, into Azerbaijan, or for that matter elsewhere in Iran, but the geographical picture of the Avesta is not very helpful. One may say, however, that the legends and stories about Zoroaster's activities, not his birth, seem to be more specific when localised in the east than the stories localised in the west. For example, the story of the planting of a cypress tree in Kishmar in Khurasan to commemorate the conversion of Vishtaspa is old and widespread. Another tradition has him born in Raga, mediaeval Rayy, near Tehran, with a hegira to the east where he converts Vishtaspa. Furthermore, there is no apparent reason why Zoroaster should be moved to the east if in fact he lived in the west, while the reverse is more plausible since eastern Iran was subjected to invasion from Central Asia many times and was lost to Iranian rule for long periods. There is a Zoroastrian tradition that the prophet was killed in Bactria, but other traditions place his activity elsewhere in the east. One may guess that he was active in the Herat area with connections south to Seistan, east to Bactria (Balkh) and north to Merv.

Linguistic evidence too would tend to place the prophet in eastern Iran. Historically, one would expect that the Avesta, with its mythology and heroic epic features blending into the general eastern Iranian sagas which we shall shortly discuss, would be composed in a language close to that spoken in the Aryan homeland. That homeland may have been in Transoxiana, or even more to the south in the Herat area. Just as the Indians wherever they went in the subcontinent preserved the Vedic hymns in the old traditional language no matter what changes happened in their various dialects, so the Iranians wherever they went on the Iranian plateau preserved theogonies to Mithra and other Aryan gods. I suggest that the Iranian tribes of Persians, Medes and others, at the time of their wandering to their later homes, recited hymns to the gods similar in content and language, which was the language of the old homeland Airyāna Vaējah. The tribes which went to western Iran gave their tongues to the indigenous population of Elamites, Hurrians or the like, and consequently their dialects began to lose distinctions of grammatical gender and a general breakdown of the languages started. Before this happened, however, a prophet appeared in the east preaching in an archaising, conservative idiom of the dialect possibly of the Herat area, the language of the Gathas. This sounded more lofty and authoritative than the Avestan idiom used everywhere by ‘priests’ praying to Mithra, Ardvisura or other deities. Later when Zoroaster's teachings spread all over Iran other priests simply attached his hymns in the Gathic dialect to the common hymns in Avestan. This probably happened under the Achaemenids, and we shall discuss this later.

To return to the two languages, or better characterised as dialects, Gathic and Avestan, the former the language of the Gathas, the latter the tongue of the ‘Young Avesta’, they would best fit into the area between the central deserts and the mountains of Afghanistan. Since the contents of the Younger Avesta have connections with the eastern Iranian epic traditions, we may say that in content as well as language, both parts of the Avesta point to eastern Iran. This does not mean, however, that the hymns of the Younger Avesta were only recited or sung in eastern Iran. Indeed parts of the Younger Avesta, particularly the Vendidad or Videvdat ‘the anti-demonic law’, may well have been composed in western Iran by the Magi, who seem to have been the priests of the Medes and later of all western Iranians. If this be true then the Magi may have known the Avestan language before Zoroaster. The Magi were probably influenced in ritual and practices by the indigenous population and by the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia while their counterparts in the east, the zaotars, remained truer to Aryan practices. But this is turning away from Zoroaster himself. Before turning to the historical, or better, epical milieu of eastern Iran at the time of Zoroaster, something should be said about his life and teachings.

We have said that Zoroaster does not appear in a vacuum, for we learn about his family, friends and enemies from the Avesta and from later Zoroastrian tradition.³² Furthermore, as we shall shortly see, the prophet is placed among the epical, pre-historical kings of eastern Iran in an orderly picture of this pre-literary period in the sagas of the people. Because of this order, much, or even most of it may be historical, but we do not know. The age of Zoroaster seems to correspond with the phenomenological characterisation of an age when the gods have descended upon earth bringing an end to mythology, and the beginning of epic, the heroic age of Iran. The family and relations of Zoroaster need not detain us beyond the remark that the names are in general what one would expect in ancient, eastern Iran, though any royal connections among the ancestors of the prophet are suspicious and I for one do not believe them.

Zoroaster was probably a priest of the old Aryan religion, for he calls himself a zaotar (Indian hotar) in the Gathas (Yasna 33.6). Since he retained this ancient word and did not give it a bad sense, one may suppose he retained the old institution of the Aryan ‘priest’ in his new religion. He also retained the old poetic form, for the metre of his Gathas is similar to that of the Vedas. He further exalted the concept of asha, ‘truth’, the rta of India, and further used words in the same sense as in the Vedas. But Zoroaster is more; he is a prophet who preaches a new gospel not accepted by his own people. We obtain glimpses of opposition to him and then the prophet's hegira and chilly reception elsewhere (Yasna 51.12), and finally his acceptance by Kavi Vishtaspa and the success of his preaching. So Zoroaster was a prophet who found favour not at home but among others. In what way did his message differ from ancient beliefs and customs?

One difference between the Gathas and the Rig Veda is the different relation between the worshipper (this is Zoroaster himself in the Gathas) and the deity. The familiar tone of the Gathas strikes one at once, especially in Yasna 44 where the verses begin, ‘I ask you, tell me truly oh Ahura (Mazda)’. The deity is like a partner in discourse with the prophet, and this is new with Zoroaster. His followers too are not neglected, so one senses a possible social base for Zoroaster's preaching. Whether one can distinguish between the followers of Zoroaster as peaceful shepherds with flocks of cattle and his enemies as fierce nomads who steal and slaughter the cattle of their foes is perhaps reading too much into the words of Zoroaster. What stands out in the teaching of the prophet is the dualism of Good and Evil and the great importance of man as an arbiter between them. Whether he raised his dualism as a protest against existing monotheism is uncertain, but most people would agree that he was first and foremost a prophet with high ethical ideals and persuasive ideas. With which ideas did Zoroaster move the hearts of his contemporaries? Study of the Gathas led the latest translator to the following remarks.³³

‘He took over belief in the Ahuras from his predecessors. It is likely he transformed that belief; perhaps even created the name Ahura Mazda and interpreted the Ahuras as personifications of the qualities of Ahura Mazda. But it was hardly possible with such theological discussion to set an entire people in religious motion. The favoured position of asha, which was also honoured by Zoroaster's opponents, is not new, nor is veneration of the cow, which Zoroaster already had ascribed to Fryana, the mythical ancestor of Kavi Vishtaspa. Perhaps even the dualism in substantial points had already been worked out by Zoroaster's predecessors. What is then the distinctive concept which Zoroaster brought out above all the cow-centred Magi and Brahmins, and which made him one of the great world founders of a religion? It is really the knowledge of the directly imminent beginning of the last epoch of the world, in which Good and Evil would be separated from one another, which he gave to mankind. It is the knowledge that it lies in every individual's hand to participate in the extirpation of Falsehood and in the establishing of the kingdom of God, before whom all men devoted to the pastoral life are equal, and so to re-establish the milk flowing paradise on earth.’

Zoroaster's teachings must have made a great impression on his followers so that they memorised his sayings and passed them on to their children. There may have been prose explanations of the concise verses of Zoroaster like the commentaries on the sayings of Buddha, but unfortunately these Gathic commentaries have not survived, which makes our present understanding of the Gathas very difficult. Yet the power and intensity of feeling in the verses may be sensed even in translation, as for example Yasna 44.3-4:

This do I ask Thee, Oh Lord, tell me
truly;
Who is the creator, the first father of Righteousness?
Who laid down the path of the sun and stars?
Who is it through whom the moon now waxes now
wanes?
All this and more do I wish to know, Oh Wise
One.
This do I ask thee, Oh Lord, tell me truly;
Who holds the earth below and the sky as well
from falling? Who (created) the waters and the
plants?
Who harnesses the (two) coursers to wind and
clouds?
Who, oh Wise One, is the creator of Good Mind?

SAGAS OF THE EAST

The Persians are a people with an epic tradition which is surely very old. There are many problems in tracing the legends in the New Persian Shahname, or book of kings, back to Parthian, Achaemenian or Aryan times, and the changes or layers in various stories throughout the ages are almost impossibly difficult to determine. One may, however, come to some general conclusions which would serve to clarify the role of the epic in pre-Islamic Iran.

Mythology is intimately bound up with the beginning of epic literature, for the former is concerned with the acts of the gods, and the latter with the heroic deeds of men. Just as later bards wove various stories of different dates with little regard to chronology into a unified epic, so the earlier priests recited hymns to the gods, and they, or associates, composed stories about the gods. As in the mythology of Japan where the descendants of the Sun goddess came to earth and ruled it, so in ancient Egypt and elsewhere the rulers are of divine origin. One may suppose that the undivided Aryans had a mythology but not yet an epic. After the separation of Indians and Iranians the new contacts of both, the former in the subcontinent and the latter in western Iran and Mesopotamia, may well have changed the outlooks of these people, now in more settled, more secure surroundings, to a more prosaic or pragmatic Weltanschauung which the heroic life which engenders epics lacked. In one place, however, the Aryan homeland, conditions propitious to the development of the epic continued. I suggest that circumstances and milieu were more favourable to the flowering of the epic in eastern Iran and Central Asia than elsewhere in the area covered by Iranians. It is inherently probable that the Iranians wherever they went had a common mythology, for even with the Indians there are parallel myths and names, such as the Iranian Yima and Indian Yama, an earthly first king or king of the dead, Iranian Thraetaona, Indian Traitaná, and others. Now it may well be, as some scholars have argued, that a common Indo-European eschatology engendered common stories and motifs in the later oral literature of some of the daughter languages, but few of these languages have an epic tradition. Persian is one and the Shahname is recited by countless people even today. The beginning of an epic tradition in Iran probably coincided with the appearance of the prophet Zoroaster which event surely influenced the later development of the epic. If there had been no Zoroaster the epic might have developed as in India or among the Germanic peoples, or it might have died out under the rule in Iran of the Greeks or later the Arabs. If Zoroaster had appeared about the time of Christ and had been so willed he might have destroyed the old mythology and the epic with it. These are all ‘ifs’ and one may suppose that Zoroaster appeared at a time and place which almost insured his inclusion in a developing epic. For the Iranian epic, as found in the Shahname and other variations of it, can be said at least to be in harmony with the Zoroastrian religion as it developed, if it were not actually ‘Zoroastrianised’, as is most likely.

Much has been written about the place of origin of local epic traditions or of various motifs in an all-Iranian epic tradition. This has led to a general conclusion about the Iranian epic, that it is really composed of two epic traditions, but there is some difference about the classification or nomenclature of these two traditions. One scholar called them the mythical tradition and the tradition of the eastern Iranian rulers, or the ‘religious’ and the ‘national’ traditions.³⁴ Another postulates a ‘Zoroastrian’ and a ‘nomadic’ epic tradition.³⁵ The main problem here, I believe, is the different history of the epic in eastern and western Iran and its accretion by the addition of various local cycles. I have already proposed that all Iranians had a common mythology but not a common epic, at least not until the rule of the eastern Parthians spread over all of Iran. There is no evidence that stories of the eastern rulers or kavis were sung or recited in western Iran under the Achaemenids. Presumably there were local ‘epics’ about the ancestors of local rulers, but the inclusion of Zoroaster in the particular cycle of the kavis of eastern Iran probably helped to make that cycle the basis for the earlier part of the all-Iranian epic of later times. Furthermore, the stories of the eastern kavis may well have been more exciting and more heroic than others elsewhere, for any epic is primarily concerned with heroic deeds, religion being secondary.

One may suppose then that the Iranian epic was basically an eastern cycle of stories, the ‘legendary’ ancient history of eastern Iran with the prophet Zoroaster included in it as part of that history. There may have been stories in western Iran similar to some in the east in the time of the Achaemenids, such as the love story of Zariadres and Odatis, told by the Greek, Charles of Mytilene, but this proves nothing about the borrowing of motifs from east by west. Generally speaking, unless proper names can be traced as borrowed forms, the possibility of a common heritage or parallel development of story themes must always be present. One scholar has convincingly shown that the Kayanian cycle stories were not generally known everywhere in Iran until the Parthians spread them and the Sasanians collected them and recorded them.³⁶ Of course, it is very difficult to follow the changes in stories and adaptations from other sources; for example, the attempts of Christensen to attach the Rustam stories in Seistan to the feudal lords of the Suren family and the Godarz tales to the Karen family, both in Parthian times, are plausible but cannot be proved.³⁷ In any case, we may say that the eastern Iranian Kayanian heroic cycle is the main source for the later all-Iranian epic. Since Zoroaster belonged to the Kayanian milieu the Zoroastrian religious leaders adopted the cycle as part of their lore or ancient history. While one may postulate a religious epic cycle and a national, or secular epic cycle, they are so intermingled later that the Shahname could be regarded as both the secular and religious history of the Zoroastrian religion by a Zoroastrian priest in recent times. Obviously the priests were not the only persons who kept the epic alive. Bards and minstrels entertained rulers and aristocracy by reciting epics down the ages. If one is concerned with literature, religion plays an insignificant role in the epic, but if one studies religion then contrariwise the tales are unimportant. That epics existed outside the purview of Zoroastrianism is indicated by an independent cycle, that of the Scythians, represented in a modern form by the legends of the Iranian Ossetes in the north Caucasus. Apparently these Iranians were untouched by Zoroastrianism, for there is no parallel word for ‘demon, evil spirit’, dev, which exists in other Iranian languages. One may consider their Nart tales as an epic and undoubtedly there were other cycles no longer existent. We will return to the epic when discussing the Parthians and Sasanians, but the next matter for consideration here is the historical material in the stories of the Kayanids and other ancient heroes of Iran. …

Notes

1. A. Meillet, Linguistique historique et linguistique générale (Paris, 1921), 15.

2. Cf. J. Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Bern, 1959), 15.

3. Ibid., 62.

4. A. Meillet, ‘La religion indo-européenne’, in op. cit., 323-334. The following remarks follow Meillet to whose general conclusions I, for the most part, subscribe.

5. J. Vendryes, ‘Correspondances entre l'indo-iranien et l'italo-celtique’, Mémoires de la société de linguistique, 20 (Paris, 1918), 272.

6. Meillet, op. cit., 323.

7. The best summary of Dumézil's position can be found in his L'idéologie tripartite des Indo-Européens (Brussels, 1958).

8. E.g. S. Wikander, ‘Germanische und Indo-Iranische Eschatologie’, Kairos, Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft, 2 (1960), 83; ‘Från Bråvalla till Kurukshetra’, Arkiv för Nordisk Filologi, 75 (1960), 183; A. V. Ström, ‘Das indogermanische Erbe in den Urzeit- und Endzeitschilderungen des Edda-Liedes Voluspa’, Akten des X. Internationalen Kongresses für die Geschichte der Religionen (Marburg, 1961).

9. E.g. M. Molé, ‘La structure du premier chapitre du Vidēvdāt’, Journal Asiatique (1951), 283, and J. Duchesne-Guillemin, The Western Response to Zoroaster (Oxford, 1958).

10. G. Redard in Kratylos, i (1956), 144.

11. J. Hertel, Die Methode der arischen Forschung (Leipzig, 1926).

12. The Hittite and Assyrian records are sometimes confusing in their nomenclature, for ‘Hurrian’ and ‘Mitanni’, as well as other designations, seem to be used interchangeably. See now P. Thieme, ‘The Aryan Gods of the Mitanni Treaties’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 80 (1960), 301–317.

13. Cf. M. Mayrhofer, ‘Zu den arischen Sprachresten in Vorderasien’, Die Sprache, 5 (1959), 77-95. Corresponding forms for ‘one’ would be: Aryan ∗aika, Ur-Iranian ∗aika, Indian eka. I propose another line of descent for Avestan and Old Persian from Indo-European ∗oiuo, Aryan ∗aiva, with a ka ending in Old Persian. But ∗aiva-ka=Middle Persian ēvak=New Persian yak is another problem; perhaps a more direct descent ∗aika=yak, as Avestan aēxa=yax ‘ice’ is to be preferred. Varuna presents difficulties, but both ‘Ur-Iranian’ and Aryan forms would be from ∗var-, as an Avestan reconstruction ∗vouruna would parallel Avestan vouru-varu- ‘wide’. Cf. E. P. Hamp, ‘Varuna and the suffix -una’, Indo-Iranian Journal, 4 (1960), 64. Cf. now Thieme (above) 301.

14. Of course we may have a dialect division in Indo-European both ∗oiqo and ∗oiuo influencing the later developments. We follow here Brugmann and the ∗Indo-European-∗Aryan hypothesis although it may require revision.

15. We are concerned here with the cultural-historical data to be gained from the sources rather than with the philological exegesis of the texts or linguistic questions of vocabulary, grammar or syntax.

16. Indicated by Sanskrit krsi- ‘agriculture’, Avestan karšu-, as well as other relevant words. We have suggested above that the Aryans were Indo-Europeans who became nomadic and then reverted to pastoralists-agriculturists when they arrived at their new homes. The other alternative would place the separation of the Aryans from the other Indo-Europeans just at the beginning of their acquaintance with agriculture, which would explain the different agricultural words in Indo-Iranian from other Indo-European languages.

17. Cf. R. N. Frye, ‘Georges Dumézil and the translators of the Avesta’, Numen, 7 (1960), 161 foll.

18. Pokorny, op. cit. 184.

19. Cf. W. Rau, Staat und Gesellschaft im alten Indien (Wiesbaden, 1957), 17.

20. H. Ljungberg, Hur Kristendom kom till Sverige (Stockholm, 1946), 27.

21. P. Thieme, Mitra and Aryaman (New Haven, Connecticut, 1957), 59, 61.

22. Translation after K. Geldner, Der Rig-Veda, 3 (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1951), 384; text ed. T. Aufrecht 2 (Bonn, 1877) 445. Geldner's translation of the third line above by ‘den gleichgewillten (Gegenstand des) Preises, die Keule’, is somewhat over-poetic.

23. H. Berger, ‘Die Burushaski-Lehnwörter in der Zigeunersprache’, Indo-Iranian Journal, 3 (1959), 17. Also Munchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, 9 (1956), 4 foll.

24. I do not accept the theory that the Brahuis are a group of Dravidians who migrated from the Deccan to Makran in historic times.

25. For example, the Aryan dipthong ai is preserved in Avestan, while in Vedic Indian it became e. Cf. A. Meillet, ‘Sur le texte de l'Avesta’, Journal Asiatique (1920), 187 foll., and, Mémoires de la société de linguistique, 18 (Paris, 1913), 377.

26. The classical sources are conveniently assembled in A. V. W. Jackson, Zoroaster (New York, 1898), 152-157. Cf. C. Clemen, Die griechischen und lateinischen Nachrichten über die persische Religion (Giessen, 1920).

27. As explained in many modern writings, for example, in H. S. Nyberg, Die Religionen des alten Iran (Liepzig, 1938), 28.

28. Sources in Jackson, op. cit., 157.

29. The date 258 is considered apocalyptic by Nyberg, op. cit., 33-34, and historical by E. Herzfeld, Zoroaster, i (Princeton, 1947), chapter one.

30. W. B. Henning, Zoroaster (Oxford, 1951), 41.

31. Cf. O. Klima, ‘The Date of Zoroaster’, Archiv Orientální 27 (Prague, 1959), 558. On p. 564 he proposes the date of Zoroaster as 784-707 bc.

32. Cf. Jackson, op. cit., 19-22.

33. H. Humbach, Die Gathas des Zarathustra, i (Heidelberg, 1959), 74.

34. A. Christensen in Handbuch der Altertums- Wissenschaft, Kulturgeschichte des alten Orients, Dritter Abschnitt, Erste Lieferung (Munich, 1933), 217, and his Les Kayanides (Copenhagen, 1932), 69.

35. I. Gershevitch in E. B. Ceadel, Literatures of the East (London, 1953), 56.

36. M. Boyce, ‘Zariadres and Zarēr’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 17 (London, 1955), 474.

37. A. Christenson, Les Kayanides (Copenhagen, 1932), 138. …

Bibliography

The fundamental old work on Indo-European philology is still the five-volume comparative grammar by Karl Brugmann, which has appeared in many editions and in a French translation. It is, of course, much in need of revision but nothing has yet replaced it. The Indo-European comparative dictionary is by P. Walde and J. Pokorny (Berlin, 1928 foll.), in 3 vols. with a revision of it by Pokorny entitled Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Bern, 1959). Needless to say, scholars do not agree on many of its etymologies. This is not the place to list contributions to Indo-European philology by A. Meillet, E. Benveniste, J. Kurylowicz and many others, for ample bibliographies may be found in such journals as Kratylos, Indogermanisches Jahrbuch and Linguistic Bibliography. A good survey of the question of an Indo-European Ursprache, homeland and culture may be found in the article of A. Scherer, ‘Indogermanische Altertumskunde (seit 1940)’, Kratylos, 1 (1956).

The Indo-Europeans in the ancient Near East have been discussed many times, and the latest account by P. Thieme in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 80 (1960), came to my attention after my text was written. It is a good survey of relevant problems.

On Zoroaster one need only add to Zaehner's exhaustive bibliography the book of W. Hinz, Zarathustra (Stuttgart, 1961), which contains a new translation of the Gathas.

Regarding the pre-Islamic epic literature of Iran and the East-Iranian sagas the article by Mary Boyce in the volume on literature of the Handbuch der Orientalistik, ed. B. Spuler (Leiden, 1963), will be the best survey available. For a shorter survey see the article on ‘Iranian Literature’, by I. Gershevitch in E. B. Ceadel, Literatures of the East (London, 1953). The classic study on Firdosi's Shahname is by T. Noeldeke in the Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, 2 (Strassburg, 1904). This may be supplemented by the small book of A. Christensen, Les gestes des rois dans les traditions de l’Iran antique (Paris, 1936). A guide to Pahlavi literature is found in the book of J. Tavadia, Die mittelpersische Sprache und Literatur der Zarathustrier (Leipzig, 1956).

The book Saka-Studien by J. Junge (Leipzig, 1939) is a useful survey of ancient north-eastern Iran but it must be used with caution. The monumental but outdated studies of F. Spiegel, Eranische Altertumskunde, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1871-1878), and W. Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur in Alterthum (Erlangen, 1882) still may be used to orient oneself with profit.

The social structure of the ancient Iranians is discussed by E. Benveniste in ‘Les classes sociales dans la tradition avestique’, Journal Asiatique, 116-134 (1932). The book by A. A. Mazahéri, La famille iranienne aux temps ante-islamiques (Paris, 1938), contains much material, but is to be used with care. Much interesting work has been done by Soviet scholars on ancient class structure and slavery. See various papers presented at the twenty-fifth International Congress of Orientalists in Moscow, 1960, published as separate pamphlets, and also to appear in the general proceedings, especially the articles ‘Indoiranische Kastengliederung bei den Skythen’, by E. Grantovskii, ‘Foreign Slaves on the Estates of the Achaemenid Kings’, by M. Dandamayer and ‘Quelques nouvelles observations sur les documents elamites de Persepolis’ by V. O. Tyurin.