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 1931

INTRODUCTION.
xli
in his ante-natal spiritual state, after he had ceased to be a mere Fravashi, or primary idea, and had become an intelligent, moving, and personal existence, but still a spirit. While the later Zoroaster of Pliny, who flourished before the fifth century B.C., must have lived about the same time as the same traditional Zaratûst after he came into the worldly existence, and may reasonably be identified with him, although Pliny had little information to give about him.
76. It will be noticed that this explanation depends entirely upon the peculiarly artificial system of the traditional chronology, in which the whole of time is assumed to consist of twelve millenniums devoted to different purposes; and if this particular system had not been in use at the time the statements, quoted by Pliny and Diogenes Laertius, were made, those statements could not have been explained as referring to the same individual. But if they do not refer to the same individual, we have only the options of rejecting all the statements, or believing an impossible date to be literally correct ; neither of which decisions would be altogether satisfactory to a judicious mind. The only reasonable conclusion seems to be that the chronology based upon the twelve millenniums was in use in the fifth century B.C., about which time the earliest quoted statement seems to have been made.
77. It will also be observed that this millennial chronology is inextricably associated with the idea of the primeval existence of all good creations in the state of Fravashis. These are described as spiritual existences who remained three millenniums unthinking, unmoving, and intangible (Bd. I, 8); and the next three millenniums they still remained undisturbed by evil, mankind being represented, for that period, by Gâyömard in the world (Bd. XXXIV, 1) and by the spiritual form of Zaratůst in heaven (Dk. VII, ii, 15), while the animals were symbolized by the primeval ox for the same period. Six millenniums, which are half the duration of time, were thus appropriated to Fravashis, spiritual and embodied, probably before the birth of Plato, if we may rely upon classical statements; and it must have
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