After the four dynasties mentioned follows the Gilshanian, monarchy, founded by Gilshah, or Kayomers, “the king or form of earth.”* We are now upon well-known ground, and hear familiar names of four races: the Péshdadian, Kayanian, Ashkaniun, and Sassanian, to which, altogether, the Dabistán attributes a period of 6024 years, differing considerably from that of other Asiatic chronologers.*
Sir William Jones was right when he declared,* that “the annals of the Péshdadi (or Assyrian) race must be obscure and fabulous; those of the Kayání family, or the Medes and Persians, heroic and poetic:” annals gathered from oral traditions can be but such as the great Orientalist characterises those of the mentioned dynasties. But it was in his younger years, before he had enlarged his views upon the history of mankind, that he fixed the origin of the Persian monarchy so late as 890 years before our era;* afterwards, in India, he refuted his former notions, and ranged more freely in the expanded fields of antiquity. I shall add that Ferdusi places the beginning of Gilshah's reign 3529 years before Christ, an epoch which receives synchronical confirmation from our daily-increasing knowledge of the antiquity of China, India, Assyria, Egypt, and other states.
The fundamental religion remains the same: a celestial volume called Payman-i-farhang, in perfect accord with the Mahabadian code, is transmitted to Kayomers. So the Dabistán: but, in the Desátir, the four books ascribed to the first four Mahabadian prophet-kings contain the purest deism, and although the foundation of astrolatry and demonolatry may be perceived in the cosmology of the first book, yet these did not form a positive worship, which develops itself in the seven planetary books of the seven subsequent Persian kings, to wit: Kayomers, Siamok, Hushang, Tahmúras, Jamshid, Feridun, and Menocheher . Under these monarchs, a particular worship was rendered to the seven planets, as to mediators between God and men; the description of the forms under which they have been adored, is not, to my knowledge, found in any other book but the Dabistán.
Superstition is certainly as ancient as human nature itself; it is impossible to fix the epoch at which particular opinions and practices originated, such as the eighty-four sitting-postures at prayer; the suppression of the breath for the abstraction of thought; the mystical and fantastical notions upon vision and revelation; and particularly the belief that a man may attain the faculty to quit and to reassume his body, or to consider it as a loose garment, which he may put off at pleasure for ascending to the world of light, and on his return be reunited with the material elements. All these matters are considered as very ancient.
We find in the Dabistán a curious account of Persian sects under different names, such as Abadians, Azur-Húshangians, Jamshaspians, Samradians, Khodaiyans, Radians, Shidrangians, Paikarians, Milanians, Alarians, Shidabians, Akshiyans. The founders of these sects are placed so far back as the reigns of Jamshid and Zohak. Individuals professing the particular creed of each of these sects were living in the time of the author of the Dabistán, who was personally acquainted with several of them, and imparts the information which he had himself received from their lips. He gives with particular care an account of the before-mentioned Azar Kaivan,* the chief of the later Abadíans and Azar-Hushangians . The doctrine of these sectaries contained peculiar notions about God's nature and attributes, and the world; the latter was to some an illusion; God himself but an idea. To others, God was every thing, to be served alone without a mediator between him and mankind; the heavens and the stars were his companions. God was the sun— fire—air—water—earth; he was the essence of the elements: from every one of these divine principles the heavens, stars, and the whole world proceeded. These were some of the fundamental principles of their metaphysical religion.
Their morality appears to have consisted in the acknowledgment of all natural virtues; piety, justice, charity, sobriety; wine and strong drinks were forbidden; above all a tenderness towards all living creatures was recommended; and the severity against those who slew innoxious animals was carried to such an excess, than even sons punished their fathers with death, and fathers their sons, for the slaughter of a sheep or an elk.*
Their political constitution appears from the earliest time to have been that of an absolute monarchy: this is the curse attached to Asiatics. The king was to be of a noble descent, and bound to acknowledge the Farhang-Abad, “code of Abad.” All dignities, military and civil, were hereditary from father to son. The royal court and inner apartments appear to have been regulated in much the same manner as they are still in Asia; his cup-bearers and familiar servants, as well as those of his sons, and other nobles, were always females.
The interior administration of cities and villages is sufficiently detailed in the Dabistán. An active police was established, with numerous spies and secret reporters, for the security of government. We are glad to find in such early times hospitals for the relief of the suffering, and caravansaras for the convenience of travellers. Moreover, post-stations of horses and messengers were distributed for the rapid communication of news, from all sides of the vast empire, to the monarch.*
Not a little care was bestowed upon the discipline and continual exercise of numerous armies. The military chiefs were distinguished by the magnificent decorations of their persons, horses, and arms, in which they prided themselves. They were bound to treat their soldiers kindly, nay, obliged to produce certificates, from their subordinates, of having behaved well towards them. An order of battle was prescribed, in which they were to encounter the enemy; no plunder after victory was permitted; they never slew, nor treated with violence, a man who had thrown down his arms and asked for quarter.
History may well be referred to religion, which is an ancient intellectual monument, living in the human soul from generation to generation. I have hitherto marked two religious periods: the first, that of the Desátir, through the Mahabadian dynasty; the second, that of Paiman-í-Farhang, prevailing during the Pésh-dadi-race until the middle of the Kayanian reign; I now come to the third.