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conclusions of the author based upon this idea, and I must confess myself sufficiently heretical to imagine that the influence may have been sometimes in the opposite direction, especially at the time of the Jewish captivity.

In order to trace the monotheism of the Mazda-worshippers to Hebrew influence, it is necessary to suppose that Zarathushtra lived at the latest possible date, some time subsequent to the transportation of the Samaritan Israelites to Media by Shalmaneser (2 Kings xvii. 3-6) about B.C. 721. This hypothesis is not discussed by our author, because he is not considering the origin of the Avesta; but, in his introduction and chronological table (pp. i-iv of the translation), he adopts, as ascertained facts, the views so ably propounded by de Harlez in his Introduction à l'étude de l'Avesta, pp. 158, 159, 199-212. Now, with regard to this hypothesis, I fear that my friends, de Harlez and Casartelli, and myself must agree to differ to a considerable extent. I do not assert that the hypothesis is impossible, but I do say that it rests upon very slender foundations and is open to some objections, more or less serious, which I will briefly mention.

Regarding the era of Zarathushtra we have really not a single historical fact to guide us, because the statements of old writers differ so widely as to be mutually contradictory, and the chronology of the Bundahish (which seems to agree with that current in Sasanian times) is evidently based upon the notion that king Vishtâspa of the Avesta and his namesake, the father of Darius I., were the same individual; that this was a mistaken notion is proved by the genealogies of the two Vishtâspas being totally different. Under these circumstances we ought still to consider Zarathushtra as a prehistoric personage, until his name is discovered (possibly in some Cuneiform text) in connection with something really historical.

In default of history, we have to fall back upon circumstantial evidence of uncertain character. The Hebrewinfluence hypothesis assumes that Zarathushtra lived about a century before Darius I., and that the latest Avesta was completed nearly two centuries after that king began to

reign; thus allowing nearly three centuries for the composition of the whole Avesta. There is, however, an essential difference between the name of the Supreme Being employed in the Persian Cuneiform inscriptions and that used in the Avesta, which renders this assumption doubtful. In the Gâthas, which are acknowledged to be the composition of Zarathushtra and his immediate disciples, the two titles of the Supreme Being, Ahura and Mazda, are not only independent words separately declined, but are also generally used separately, and, even when put together, Mazda usually precedes Ahura. Thus, in the seventeen hymns of the Gâthas we find Mazda 98 times alone, Ahura 47 times alone, Mazda Ahura (often separated by intermediate words to suit the metre) 64 times,' and Ahura Mazda (often similarly separated) only 19 times, or one-twelfth of the whole number of occurrences. It is only natural to suppose, from these facts, that when the Gâthas were being composed, the compound title Ahura Mazda was in the course of manufacture, and only rarely used in its final Avesta form. And, if this were the case, we are hardly justified in imagining the existence of the complete title Ahura Mazda before the time of Zarathushtra. In the later Avesta we only occasionally find Mazda and Ahura alone, or in the form Mazda Ahura, because the new form Ahura Mazda greatly preponderates; still the two words are always independent and separately declined. Turning to the Persian Cuneiform inscriptions, we find a further change, as the name of the Supreme Being has become condensed into the single word Aûramazdâ, of which the former component is indeclinable in about 120 instances. If this change were universal, it might be argued that it was due solely to change of dialect; but there are two instances in which both components are declined, just as in the later Avesta. These two instances were inscribed in the time of Xerxes, and are just sufficient to show that the old form of the name was not yet quite forgotten by all his

1 These first three numbers should be considered as only near approximations to accuracy, but the fourth number is much more certain.

scribes, although disused by their contemporaries and also by their predecessors in the time of Darius. What we may suspect, from this change of form, is that a considerably longer period had elapsed, between Zarathushtra and Darius, than the Hebrew-influence hypothesis assumes; because we have to account for a change which the Avesta did not venture to make in the course of three centuries.

It is also urged that Darius could not have been a Zoroastrian, because he makes no certain allusion to some important Zoroastrian doctrines, and undoubtedly upheld the practice of burying the dead. But, as the inscriptions of Darius are not specially religious, it is merely a matter of opinion how far they might be expected to mention such doctrines, although it may be readily admitted that Darius had not adopted the ceremonial laws of the Vendîdâd. Singularly enough, Zarathushtra himself, who was a teacher of religion, makes no allusion to any similar laws in his Gâthas, the only contemporary record of his opinions; so that we have no real reason for supposing that he objected to the burial of the dead, because when the Vendîdâd states that "Ahura Mazda spake unto Spitama Zarathushtra," or that "Zarathushtra asked Ahura Mazda," it merely expresses the pious belief of some much later writer who thus uses phrases that were still employed by Pâzand writers in postSasanian times. As we have already found some slight reason for supposing that the complete name Ahura Mazda originated in the Gâthas, we may perhaps assume that Darius professed some form of Gâthic Mazda-worship, more or less modified during the long interval that separated him from Zarathushtra's time, but still free from most of the additions and innovations long since introduced, in some districts, by the writers of the later Avesta.

Regarding the probability of the monotheism of Mazdaworship having been suggested by the monotheism of the Samaritan Israelites, we have to consider, not only the idolatrous character of the Samaritans, so forcibly portrayed in the Hebrew Scriptures, but also the extreme difference in disposition between the Jehovah of the Israelites and the

Ahura Mazda of the Iranians; this, however, is a study best made by each individual for himself. These remarks may perhaps be sufficient to warn the reader that the epoch of Zarathushtra is quite as uncertain now as it was two thousand years ago.

E. W. WEST.

JOURNAL

OF

THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY.

ART. IX.-Chinese Antiquity. By HERBERT J. ALLEN,

M.R.A.S.

THE question of the antiquity of the Chinese nation has long exercised the minds of Sinologists, and various are the conclusions arrived at by them on the subject.

Professor Lacouperie has pointed out that the Chinese are offshoots of the Accadian stock. This I am quite ready to admit; but I cannot agree with him in thinking that the early Chinese Emperors can be identified with Babylonian Kings about 2000 years B.C. There are no ancient monuments, inscribed sarcophagi and stones, or contemporary records of other nations, to which, as in the case of some of the ancient people of the world, we can refer in proof of this excessive antiquity; so we are compelled to criticize carefully the evidence handed down to us in the shape of the old Chinese classics.

At the outset of our inquiry we are confronted with the alleged historical fact, that by order of the Emperor Shi Hwangti, in the year B.C. 213, all the old books, with the exception of works on medicine, divination, and agriculture, and "excepting further the copies of works in the keeping of the Board of Great Scholars," were burnt; although Dr. Legge says (Shooking, proleg. p. 15) "those must have shared the common fate, for if they had not done so, the VOL. XXII.-[NEW SERIES.]

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