Zend Avesta Part 02

SR No.: 007672
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1883
Total Pages: 2221
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 41 MB

Page 1930

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PAHLAVI TEXTS.
seems to have been used by Xanthus of Lydia (B.C. 500– 450)1 who stated that Zaratûst lived 6000 years before Xerxes, as quoted by Diogenes Laertius, that is, B.C. 6485.
72. Three or four other classical writers mention similar statements, and Jackson points out that these extravagant dates are probably owing to the European writers misunderstanding Persian statements with reference to the pre-existence of Zaratust's Fravashi. It will, in fact, be seen from the synopsis ( 55) that the traditional account is that the spiritual body of Zaratûst was framed together as early as the beginning of the fourth millennium, which occurred B.C. 6630, and this may be accepted as a close approximation to the three dates, B.C. 6347, 6184, and 6485, indicated by the ancient writers, considering that their statements are made in even thousands of years.
73. Pliny also mentions, on the authority of other writers who are not named, that another Zoroaster, a Proconnesian, lived a little before the time of Osthanes who accompanied Xerxes to Greece (B.C. 480). And, so far as time is concerned, this Zoroaster might have been the traditional Zaratûst who died 103 years before this journey of Osthanes.
74. The old statements about Zoroaster or Oxyartes, the Magian king of Bactria in the time of Ninus and Semiramis, can hardly refer to the traditional Zaratûst who is never represented as a king, although the supreme Zarathustra of the Avesta was apparently a ruling priest. The time in which this Bactrian lived is also very uncertain, for though Semiramis has recently been placed about B. C. 800, her position in Albîrûni's tables is certainly 1 200 years earlier.
75. It seems, therefore, that the ancient statements, regarding the date of Zaratust, reported by Pliny and corroborated by a few other classical writers, can be fully explained from the traditional system of chronology used in Pahlavi texts, by identifying the classical Zoroaster of the seventh millennium B.C. with the traditional Zaratûst
1 There are some doubts as to the correctness of these dates.
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