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 1937

INTRODUCTION.
xlvii
century A.D., being known from the position of the five extra days in the rectified calendar. We have no evidence of any change of names having been made in this calendar at any time; and only positive and indisputable evidence could be admitted, because reformers of calendars are hardly ever satisfied with mere change of names, and the calendar itself is a permanent witness that no alteration can have been made in any other particular, since the time of Darius.
90. Darmesteter's theory of a late origin for the Avesta having been mentioned, it may be allowable to add, that the likelihood of this theory does not increase upon closer examination. It is a brilliant hypothesis, very carefully prepared to meet ordinary criticism ; but it does not appear to convince Avesta scholars in general, for want of sufficient evidence, as it is very necessary to distinguish carefully between possibilities and probabilities; the former being not admissible as evidence, unless corroborated by positive facts. Its chief use has been in checking the tendency to exaggerate the age of the Avesta, but it seems itself to be an exaggeration in the opposite direction, a returning swing of the ever-restless pendulum of judgment. On the other hand, the traditional age of the religion cannot be fairly considered as exaggerated, for the chief difficulty in accepting it as sufficiently old, is that the nearer our researches penetrate to that time the less real light we obtain.
E. W. WEST. April, 1897.
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