netic system would rather
lead us to suppose a long-continued influence of oral tradition. What
the Zend language might become, if entrusted to the guardianship of
memory alone, unassisted by grammatical study and archaeological
research, may be seen at the present day, when some of the Parsis, who
are unable either to read or write, still mutter hymns and prayers in
their temples, which, though to them mere sound, disclose to the
experienced ear of an European scholar the time-hallowed accents of
Zarathustra's speech.

[Footnote 37: Spiegel states the results of his last researches into
the language of the different parts of the Avesta in the following
words:

'We are now prepared to attempt an arrangement of the different
portions of the Zend-Avesta in the order of their antiquity. First, we
place the second part of the Ya_s_na, as separated in respect to the
language of the Zend-Avesta, yet not composed by Zoroaster himself,
since he is named in the third person; and indeed everything intimates
that neither he nor his disciple Gushtasp was alive. The second place
must unquestionably be assigned to the Vendidad. I do not believe that
the book was originally composed as it now stands: it has suffered
both earlier and later interpolations; still, its present form may be
traced to a considerable antiquity. The antiquity of the work is
proved by its contents, which distinctly show that the sacred
literature was not yet completed.

'The case is different with the writings of the last period, among
which I reckon the first part of the Ya_s_na, and the whole of the
Yeshts. Among these a theological character is unmistakeable, the
separate divinities having their attributes and titles dogmatically
fixed.

'Altogether, it is interesting to trace the progress of religion in
Parsi writings. It is a significant fact, that in the oldest, that is
to say, the second part of the Ya_s_na, nothing is fixed in the
doctrine regarding God. In the writings of the second period, that is
in the Vendidad, we trace the advance to a theological, and, in its
way, mild and scientific system. Out of this, in the last place, there
springs the stern and intolerant religion of the Sassanian
epoch.'--From the Rev. J. Murray Mitchell's Translation.]

[Footnote 38: 'Lectures on the Science of Language,' First Series, p.
95.]

Thus far the history of the Persian language had been reconstructed by
the genius and perseverance of Grotefend, Burnouf