But on the other hand, such orientalists as Sir William Jones, Colonel Vans Kennedy, Mr Thomas, and Mr Romer, and indeed all British oriental scholars, regard both the Zand and the Pahlavi as bastard languages, never spoken, and wholly fabricated by a comparatively modern priesthood, for the express purpose of making the holy books which they wrote comprehensible only by themselves. Such scholars show that the Zand and Pahlavi are built upon a Sanscrit, Arabic, and modern Persian model, and that the Parsee Pahlavi is very different to the Pehlevi of the Sassanian coins, and, in Vol. IV., Transactions of Royal Asiatic Society, Mr Romer supports this conclusion by a number of passages in the various languages referred to. It is also asserted that many words in the Avesta have been borrowed from the Arabic, and others from the Sanscrit tongues, possibly, also, from the Greek. Being unable, from my comparative ignorance of Eastern language, to form a decided opinion on independent grounds, all that I can say is, that it does really seem to be proved that the religious books of the Par-sees are not so ancient as they have been by many supposed to be. The question which next arises for our consideration is, whether such volumes represent the tenets of an ancient faith, or whether they are the fabrication of men who have, possibly in the wreck of an old worship, brought about by war or other calamity, endeavoured to create a new religion out of the relics of one or more old ones. In favour of the antiquity of the Avesta are the facts that the great god, Ahura Mazdao, seems to be almost identical with the Aura Mazda of the Persepolitan inscription of Darius. But in proof of its untruthfulness as a representative of pure Persian tradition, we find the book introducing Devs and Ahuras,--the counterpart of the Devas and Asuras of the Vedas, only reversing their character--we also see Indra mentioned as a devil, whilst Siva and Mitra are introduced as Sharva and Miltra. (Haug's _Essays on the Parsee_, Bombay, p. 230, 1862). If, therefore, we allow that there is some of the old Zoroastrian doctrine to be found in the Avesta, we must equally grant that such teaching has been modified by hatred of a rival faith. Yet herein is another question, viz., Was the antagonism between the doctrines of the Avesta and of the Vedas contemporary with the origin of the two systems, or was the teaching of the Avesta the result of its author's coming into hostile conflict with Vedic teachers, as they possibly might have done after Alexander had opened a highway for intercourse between Persia and Hindostan?