The present Avesta consists of five books. The Gâthâs or hymns alone really claim to have been composed by Zoroaster himself, and this claim is admitted by European scholars who disagree with the Parsis in denying that the other four books are by the same author. They are: the “Yasna,” a ceremonial liturgy, the “Vispered,” a work resembling the “Yasna,” but apparently less ancient; the “Vendîdâd,” which contains the Mazdean religious law, and the “Khordah Avesta,” a household prayer-book for the laity. The original text was written in an Aryan dialect related to Sanscrit; after a time, this tongue was understood by no one but the priests and not much by them; it was decided, therefore, to make a translation, which was called the “Zend,” or “interpretation,” or, as we should say, “the authorised version.” At first Europeans thought that “Zend” meant the original tongue in which the work was written. Curiously enough, the language into which the Scriptures were rendered was not Iranian or Old Persian, but Pahlavi, a _lingua franca_ full of Semitic words, which had been coined for convenience in communicating with the Assyrians and Syrians when they were under one king. Pahlavi was also used for official inscriptions, for coinage, for commerce; it was a sort of Esperanto. The text and the translation enjoyed equal authority, but the former was called “the Avesta of Heaven” and the latter “the Avesta of Earth.” The first fragment of the “Avesta” that reached Europe was a copy of the “Yasna” brought to Canterbury by an unknown Englishman in 1633. Other scraps followed, but no real attempt to translate it was made till the adventurous Anquetil Duperron published in 1771 the version which he had made with the assistance of Parsi priests and which was rejected in unwise haste by Sir William Jones as a _supercherie littéraire_, chiefly on the score that its contents were for the most part pure nonsense, and hence could not be the work of Zoroaster. Germany at once was more just than England to the man who, though he had not succeeded in making a good translation, deserved the highest honour as a pioneer.