§ III. THE PAHLAWÍ LITERATURE.

The earliest traces of the Pahlawí language (of which, as already pointed out, the apparent mingling of Semitic and Pahlawí legends on coins (B.C. 300—A.D. 695). Íránian words, brought about by the use of the Huzvárish system, is the essential feature) occur, as first pointed out by Levy of Breslau in 1867,* on sub-Parthian coins of the end of the fourth and beginning of the third century before Christ—in other words, soon after the end of the Achæmenian period; and Pahlawí legends are borne by the later Parthian, all the Sásánian, and the early Muham­madan coins of Persia, including amongst the latter the coins struck by the independent Ispahbads of Ṭabaristán, as well as those of the earlier Arab governors. The Pahlawí coin-legends extend, therefore, from about B.C. 300 to A.D. 695, when the Umayyad Caliph 'Abdu'l-Malik abolished the Persian currency and introduced a coinage bearing Arabic legends.

*

The Pahlawí inscriptions date from the beginning of Sásánian times, the two oldest being those of Ardashír and Pahlawí inscriptions. Shápúr, the first and second kings of that illustrious house (A.D. 226-241 and 241-272); and they ex­tend down to the eleventh century, to which belong the inscriptions cut in the Kanheri Buddhist caves in Salsette near Bombay by certain Pársís who visited them in A.D. 1009 and 1021. Intermediate between these extremes are ten signatures of witnesses on a copper-plate grant to the Syrian Christians of the Malabar coast. The grant itself is engraved in old Tamil characters on five copper plates, and a sixth con­tains the names of the twenty-five witnesses attesting it, of which eleven are in Kufic Arabic, ten in Sásánian Pahlawí, and four in the Hebrew character and Persian language.

*

Of the age of the Pahlawí literature, properly so called, we have already spoken (pp. 7-8 supra). It was essentially the Pahlawí literature. Persian literature of the Sásánian period, but was naturally continued for some time after the fall of that dynasty. Thus the Gujastak Abálish námak, to which reference has already been made, narrates a discussion held between an orthodox Zoroastrian priest, Átur-farnbag son of Farrukh-zád, and a heretical dualist (perhaps a Mani-chæan) in the presence of the 'Abbásid Caliph al-Ma'mún (A.D. 813-833), so that the period to which this literature belongs may be considered to extend from the third to the ninth or tenth centuries of our era, at which time the natural use of Pahlawí may be considered to have ceased, though at all times, even to the present day, learned Zoroastrians were to be found who could compose in Pahlawí. Such late, spurious Pahlawí, however, commonly betrays its artificial origin, notably by the confusing of the adjectival termination -ík with the nominal or substantival termination -íh, both of which are represented by -í in Modern Persian.

Of actual written Pahlawí documents, the papyrus-fragments from the Fayyúm in Egypt, which West supposes to date from Pahlawí manuscripts. the eighth century of our era, are the most ancient, and after them there is nothing older than the MS. of the Pahlawí Yasna known as “J. 2,” which was completed on January 25, A.D. 1323. Pahlawí manuscripts naturally continue to be transcribed amongst the Pársís down to the present day, though since the introduction of Pahlawí type, and the gradual publication by printing or lithography of the more important books, the function of the scribe, here as in the case of other Eastern languages, has in large measure fallen into abeyance.

The Pahlawí literature is divided by West, who is certainly Extent and character of the Pahlawí literature. the greatest living authority on it, and who is in this portion of our subject our chief guide, into three classes, as follows:—

1. Pahlawí translations of Avesta texts, represented by twenty-seven works, or fragments of works, estimated to contain in all about 141,000 words.* Valuable as these are for the exegesis of the Avesta, they “cannot be really considered,” in West's words, “as a sample of Pahlawí literature, because the Pársí translators have been fettered by the Avesta arrangement of the words.”

2. Pahlawí texts on religious subjects, represented by fifty-five works, estimated to contain about 446,000 words. This class contains, besides commentaries, prayers, traditions (riwáyats), admonitions, injunctions, pious sayings, and the like, several important and interesting works, amongst which the following deserve particular mention. The Dínkart The Dínkart (9th century). (“Acts of Religion”), “a large collection of information regarding the doctrines, customs, traditions, history and literature of the Mazda-worshipping religion,” of which the compilation was begun in the ninth century of our era by the same Átur-farnbag who appears before al-Ma'mún as the champion of orthodox Zoroastrianism against “the accursed Abálish,” and concluded towards the end of the same century.* The Bundahishn The Bundahishn (12th century). (“The Ground-giving”), an extensive manual of religious knowledge,* comprising, in the fuller recession known as the “Iránian,” forty-six chapters, which appears to have been finally concluded in the eleventh or twelfth century of our era, though the bulk of it is probably a good deal earlier. The Dátistán-i-Díník, or The Dátistán-i­Díník (9th century). “Religious Opinions” of Mánúshchíhar, son of Yúdán-Yim, high-priest of Párs and Kirmán in the latter part of the ninth century, on ninety-two topics, characterised by West as “one of the most difficult Pahlawí texts in existence, both to understand and to translate.” The Shikand-gúmáník Víjár* (“Doubt-dispelling Explana­tion”), a controversial religious work, composed towards the Shikand­gúmánik Víjár. end of the ninth century, in defence of the Zoro­astrian dualism against the Jewish, Christian, Manichæan, and Muhammadan theories of the nature and origin of evil; and described by West as “the nearest approach to a philosophical treatise that remains extant Mainyo-i­Khirad. in Pahlawí literature.” The Díná-i-Mainyo [or Máinóg] -i-Khirad (“Opinions of the Spirit of Wisdom”) contains the answers of this spirit to sixty-two inquiries on matters connected with the Zoroastrian faith. The publication of the Pahlawí text by Andreas (Kiel, 1882), and of the Pázend text with Neriosengh's Sanskrit translation by West (Stuttgart, 1871), who has also published English translations of both texts (1871 and 1885), render it one of the most accessible of Pahlawí works, and as pointed out by Nöldeke in his translation of the Kárnámak-i-Artakhshatr-i-Pápakán , one of the best books for beginning the study of Arda-Víráf Námak. book-Pahlawí. The Arda-Víráf Námak is another very well-known work, accessible in the original (Bombay, 1872) and in English and French translations, and may be briefly described as a prose Zoroas­trian Paradiso and Inferno. It is interesting for the picture it gives of the religious and material anarchy in Persia pro­duced by the invasion of “the accursed Alexander the Roman,” of the Sásánian national and religious revival in the third century of our era, and of the Zoroastrian ideas of the future life. In the latter we can hardly fail to be struck by the analogy between the Chinvat Bridge and the Muhammadan Bridge of Ṣiráṭ, “finer than a hair and sharper than a sword,” to which Byron alludes in the well-known lines—

“By Allah, I would answer ‘Nay!’
Though on al-Sirat's bridge I stood,
Which totters o'er the burning flood,
With Paradise within my view,
And all its houris beckoning through.”

And these houris also seem to find their more spiritual proto­type in the fair maiden who meets the departed soul of the righteous man, and who, on being questioned, declares herself to be the embodiment of the good deeds, the good words, and Mátígán-i­gujastak Abálish. the good thoughts which have proceeded from him during his life. The “Book of the accursed Abálish,” already mentioned more than once, was published by Barthélemy in 1887, with the Pázend and Pársí-Persian versions and a French translation. The Jámásp-námak, known in its entirety only in Pázend and Persian versions, contains some interesting mythological and legendary matter Andaraz-i­Khusraw-i­Kavátán. about the ancient mythical kings of the Persian Epos. The Andaraz-i-Khusraw-i-Kawátán, or dying injunctions of King Núshírwán (Anôshak-rubân, A.D. 531-578) to his people, though of very small extent, deserves mention because it has been taken by Salemann in his Mittelpersische Studien (Mélanges Asiatiques, ix, pp. 242-253, St. Petersburg, 1887) as the basis of a very interesting and luminous study of the exact fashion in which a Pahlawí text would probably have sou??hen read aloud; an ingenious attempt at a critical Pázend transcription.