comparative mythology of the "Avesta" and the "Veda," by showing the
identity of the "Vedic Yama" with the "Avesta Yima," and of Traitana
with Thraetaona and Feridun. Thus he made his "Commentaire sur le Yasna"
a marvellous and unparalleled model of critical insight and steady good
sense, equally opposed to the narrowness of mind which clings to matters
of fact without rising to their cause and connecting them with the
series of associated phenomena, and to the wild and uncontrolled spirit
of comparison, which, by comparing everything, confounds everything.
Never sacrificing either tradition to comparison or comparison to
tradition he knew how to pass from the one to the other, and was so
enabled both to discover facts and to explain them.

At the same time the ancient Persian inscriptions at Persepolis and
Behistun were deciphered by Burnouf in Paris, by Lassen in Bonn, and by
Sir Henry Rawlinson in Persia. Thus was revealed the existence, at the
time of the first Achaemenian kings, of a language closely connected
with that of the "Avesta," and the last doubts as to the authenticity of
the Zend books were at length removed. It would have required more than
an ordinary amount of scepticism to look still upon the Zend as an
artificial language, of foreign importation, without root in the land
where it was written, and in the conscience of the people for whom it
was written, at the moment when a twin language, bearing a striking
likeness to it in nearly every feature, was suddenly making itself heard
from the mouth of Darius, and speaking from the very tomb of the first
Achaemenian king. That unexpected voice silenced all controversies, and
the last echoes of the loud discussion which had been opened in 1771
died away unheeded.

[Footnote 9: A century ago, it is said, they still numbered nearly
100,000 souls; but there now remain no more than 8,000 or 9,000,
scattered in Yazd and the surrounding villages. Houtum-Schindler gave
8,499 in 1879; of that number there were 6,483 in Yazd, 1,756 in Kirman,
150 in Teheran.]

SELECTIONS FROM THE ZEND-AVESTA

THE CREATION[10]

Ahura Mazda spake unto Spitama Zarathustra, saying:--

"I have made every land dear to its people, even though it had no charms
whatever in it: had I not made every land dear to its people, even
though it had no charms whatever in it, then the whole living world
would have invaded the Airyana Vaego. The first of the good lands and
countries