The History of Antiquity, Vol. 5 (of 6)Duncker, Max
History
The History of Antiquity, Vol. 5 (of 6)
Duncker, Max
History, Ancient
If the Indians have placed the old Arian legend of a golden age on earth
in the days of Yima's reign, they have also, after their manner,
depicted his heavenly kingdom with brighter colours, while among the
Iranians this part of the legend is combined with the heavenly garden
into which Yima receives the men he has selected as the best.
Nevertheless, a reminiscence of Yima's garden has remained beyond the
Indus in the story of the Uttara Kurus, who dwell beyond the holy
mountains to the north.[69]
The most striking variation from the common Arian myth in the Avesta is
the statement that Yima is subordinate to a deity, Auramazda, of whom
the Arians of India knew nothing. The old legend is thus brought within
the sphere of new views, which must have exercised still further
influence upon it. It is Auramazda who places in the hand of Yima the
control, superintendence, and protection of animals and men. It is not
through Yima's own desire, as was certainly the case in the old legend,
but at Auramazda's bidding, that the enclosure is made, and the selected
men, animals, and trees brought into it. The main reason for this change
was the necessity of giving an answer to the question, Why did not the
golden age continue? and if, long after Yima, Zarathrustra proclaimed a
new and better law, why had not Auramazda revealed this law to the
favoured Yima? In order to answer this riddle, the Avesta represents
Auramazda as asking Yima to become "the preacher and bearer of his
doctrine," and Yima refuses to accept this mission. Hence Yima becomes
guilty of a fault, and a reason is given why the golden age, the
thousand years of the reign of Yima, came to an end. Without the good
doctrine, the invasion of evil spirits, and with them of heat and cold,
sickness and death, strife and blight, could not be kept back from the
earth. This trait of the guilt of Yima, which is entirely unknown to the
earlier legend, is carried out still further. According to the prayer in
the Avesta (p. 34) blessing and immortality continued in the kingdom of
Yima, "till he began to love lying speech." When he had rejected
Auramazda's law he cannot himself resist the seduction of evil spirits.
The first offence brings on the second, and this causes the triple loss
of majesty, which at length ends in the fall and violent death of Yima,
an incident already indicated in the Avesta.[70] How this form of the
legend allowed the garden of Yima to be placed on the divine mountain,
and whether the contradiction was removed or not, our fragments do not
enable us to decide.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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