Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 1: Essays on the Science of ReligionMüller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Religion
Chips from a German Workshop, Volume 1: Essays on the Science of Religion
Müller, F. Max (Friedrich Max)
Comparative linguistics; Folklore; Literature -- History and criticism; Mythology; Religions
decipherments of the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achæmenian monarchs
of Persia. Aided by the labours of Burnouf and others, Dr. Haug has at
last succeeded in putting together the disjecta membra poetæ, and we
have now in his Outline, not indeed a grammar like that of Pâ_n_ini
for Sanskrit, yet a sufficient skeleton of what was once a living
language, not inferior, in richness and delicacy, even to the idiom of
the Vedas.
There are, at present, five editions, more or less complete, of the
Zend-Avesta. The first was lithographed under Burnouf's direction, and
published at Paris 1829-1843. The second edition of the text,
transcribed into Roman characters, appeared at Leipzig 1850, published
by Professor Brockhaus. The third edition, in Zend characters, was
given to the world by Professor Spiegel, 1851; and about the same
time a fourth edition was undertaken by Professor Westergaard, at
Copenhagen, 1852 to 1854. There are one or two editions of the
Zend-Avesta, published in India, with Guzerati translations, which we
have not seen, but which are frequently quoted by native scholars. A
German translation of the Zend-Avesta was undertaken by Professor
Spiegel, far superior in accuracy to that of Anquetil Duperron, yet in
the main based on the Pehlevi version. Portions of the ancient text
had been minutely analysed and translated by Dr. Haug, even before his
departure for the East.
The Zend-Avesta is not a voluminous work. We still call it the
Zend-Avesta, though we are told that its proper title is Avesta Zend,
nor does it seem at all likely that the now familiar name will ever be
surrendered for the more correct one. Who speaks of Cassius Dio,
though we are told that Dio Cassius is wrong? Nor do we feel at all
convinced that the name of Avesta Zend is the original and only
correct name. According to the Parsis, Avesta means sacred text, Zend
its Pehlevi translation. But in the Pehlevi translations themselves,
the original work of Zoroaster is spoken of as Avesta Zend. Why it is
so called by the Pehlevi translators, we are nowhere told by
themselves, and many conjectures have, in consequence, been started by
almost every Zend scholar. Dr. Haug supposes that the earliest
portions of the Zend-Avesta ought to be called Avesta, the later
portions Zend--Zend meaning, according to him, commentary,
explanation, gloss. Neither the word Avesta nor Zend, however, occurs
in the original Zend texts, and though Avesta seems to be the Sanskrit
avasthâ, the Pehlevi apestak, in the sense of 'authorised text,' the
etymology of Zend, as derived from a supposed zanti, Sanskrit _gn_âti,
knowledge, is not free from serious objections. Avesta Zend was most
likely a traditional name, hardly understood even at the time of the
Pehlevi translators, who retained it in their writings. It was
possibly misinterpreted by them, as many other Zend words have been at
their hands, and may have been originally the Sanskrit word
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