chapter I

would now with greater positiveness than before trace to Ibn Moqaffa (ZDMG 59, 803). It did not find a place in the old Pehlevi "_Book of Kings_" because the latter could recognise only the national religion as the right one and could not have taken into consideration Islam, even supposing that the last redaction of the official Sasanian history took place at a time when Muhammadanism had already come into existence. But Firdausi did not at all invent the material of his narrative. He merely compiled it and the major portion of the compilation goes back to the shape which Ibn Moqaffa had given to the ancient tradition (see what I have to say on this in my National Epic of Iran, _Grundriss der iran philogie_). In actuality Ibn Moqaffa was not believed to be a sincere Muslim. He is frequently stigmatised as Zindik or heretic (See _Aghani_ 13.81, 18 ff. 18, 200, 25 ff. Ibn Qotaiba, _Uyun_ 71, 9; further Ibn Khallikan 186, p. 125.)

[The term zindiq probably originally denoted a certain rank among the Manichaeians or a similar religion and was then applied to suit a variety of infidels. The etemology, Aramaic Zaddiqy, has been recognised by Bevan.]

Again the passage does not fit in with the tenor of the entire section. For Burzoe who was at a loss with regard to the physician's art, the main question is, whether he should or should not become an ascetic,--a question which must concern Ibn Moqaffa but little. The suitability of the addenda hardly admits of proof but we may state that Ibn Moqaffa did not simply interpolate but wove them artfully in his text and he might have omitted something here and there.

[Sidenote: Burzoe influenced by Buddhism]

It seems to me highly probable that Burzoe allowed himself to be influenced by the Buddhist romance, the original of which has perished and the best representative of which, is preserved to us in the Arabic _Bilauhar wa Budasf_ (See _Barlaam und Joasaph_ by E. Kuhn). Many a passage of our chapter is strongly reminiscent of the sentences of the romance, for instance, the dangers to the body remind one of those related at p. 53; the four principles or _akhalat_ appear at p. 9, and the parable of the man in the well is common to both. The parable which stands at the close of the chapter is, unless one is greatly mistaken, directly taken from the romance with little modification. It stands in the whole of _Kalila wa Dimna_ isolated, deviates in manner and tendency entirely from the story and also from what has issued from Ibn Moqaffa but is consistent with the monastic predilections of Burzoe. And his appraisement of the life of the recluse does not appear spontaneous but something to which he has laboriously compelled himself. One may surmise that it was really alive only in India. How far it was practised in actual life must remain unproved. We must not omit to mention that Burzoe points out that for an ideal physician his art earns also rich earthly profits.

[Sidenote: English translation of the Introduction a desideratum.]

So far as I know, of this chapter there is no translation in a European language except in the English by Knatchbull which appeared in 1819, which reproduced the imperfect text of de Sacy and is otherwise defective. Wolff did well to omit it in his German translation of _Kalila wa Dimna_ of 1837, for he could not have produced a correct rendering of de Sacy's text which was not completed till 1873 by Guidi.

[Sidenote: Difficulties of translation.]

Even now it is impossible to make a translation of Burzoe's Introduction which can stand the test of philology. We must first see whether with the use of all available manuscripts and a careful collation of other text sources we cannot arrive at a tolerably settled Arabic text. And that is, so far as I can conclude from my not quite insignificant material, not very probable. At all events a searching examination of all the manuscripts in the great Paris library is essential. The various texts of the book are considerably divergent. Arbitrariness and carelessness of transcriber have disfigured Ibn Moqaffa's work of art just because it presently became a favourite book of entertainment. The language at all events remains approximately correct in the manuscripts.

Grammatical mistakes easy of correction are not seldom met with but pure vulgarisms occur only in a few copies like that of Berlin. The numberless variants have not much significance for the translator when it is only a question of synonyms, since for them the same European expression can do duty. And though it is not certain whether in the case of a multitude of non-essential or wholly analogous expressions the shorter or the extended text is the original one, that does not substantially affect the translation. There is scarcely any harm in curtailing the frequent tautology of this chapter. We should be well advised in case of successive synonymous abstract nouns and verbs such as occur frequently in Arabic to translate by a simple expression with an emphatic adjective or adverb. But not seldom the difference becomes great. It is a difficult situation when we are uncertain whether the passage which is found in several manuscripts and not in others is the original one. As a rule we have to decide in favour of the majority but as sometimes we do come across actual interpolations in some, so their existence is not impossible in others, although we can not be positive on the subject.

[Sidenote: A monumental piece of literature.]

The matter would have been less troublesome for me had I been able straight way to declare as the best the tradition of any of the manuscripts familiarly known to me or any old translation. That, however, is not so. I have to judge each case by itself and to proceed eclectically as much as my philological conscience permits. Finally, by means of my rendering I believe I have reproduced the import of this monumental piece of literature without showing absolute partiality to the Arabic document. My rendering is wanting doubtless in the elegance with which Ibn Moqaffa handles the language which in his time had acquired the capacity of treating even abstract subjects with lucidity. May a later hand improve upon my translation!

Only those who attempt it can appreciate how difficult it is to make a tolerable European translation even of an easily intelligible Arabic text. A literal translation would be wooden. We have often to alter the entire construction and to insert all manner of words foreign to the Arabic to make the context clear. On the other hand the translator must avoid employing the same expression in rapid succession, a procedure which is common in Arabic even if we make allowance for the _figura etymologica_ and the like.

[Sidenote: Ibn Qutaiba and Ibn Moqaffa.]

I only know two passages in this chapter which are quoted by Arabic authors. Brockelmann informs me that no quotation from our chapter occurs in the unpublished portion of the _Uyun_ of Ibn Qutaiba. Unless I am mistaken the excerpts in this book from _Kalila wa Dimna_ are not always correct. Ibn Qutaiba was concerned more with the sense than with the phraseology of Ibn Moqaffa.

THE STATEMENT OF BURZOE THE PERSIAN PHYSICIAN IN CHIEF,

Who undertook to transcribe and translate this Indian Book (Kalila wa Dimna).

[Sidenote: Autobiographical.]

My father belonged to the Warrior class, my mother came of an eminent priestly family. One of the earliest boons which the Lord conferred on me was that I was the most favourite child of my parents and that they exerted themselves more for my education than for my brothers. So when I was seven years old they sent me to a children's school.

[This was required to be mentioned in his case inasmuch as it could not have been necessary or usual for a child of distinguished parentage in early Persia to be educated in a public school.]

When I had learnt the ordinary writing I was thankful to my parents and perceived something in knowledge.

[In spite of the wide divergence in the Arabic texts and translations the sense of the original is clear. Note the reference to the difficult nature of the Pehlevi syllabary. Only the Spanish version has a good deal more about the schooling.]

[Sidenote: Appreciation of the healing art.]

And the first branch of science to which I felt inclination was medicine. It had a great attraction for me because I recognised its excellence and the more I acquired it the more I loved it and the more earnestly I studied it. Now when I had progressed sufficiently far to think of treating invalids I took counsel with myself and reflected in the following manner on the four objects for which mankind so earnestly strive. "Which of them shall I seek to acquire with the help of my art, money, prosperity, fame, or reward in the next world"? In the choice of my calling the decisive factor was my experience that men of understanding praise medicine and that the adherents of no religion censure it. I found, however, in medical literature that the best physician is he who by his devotion to his vocation strives only after a reward in the next world; and I resolved to act accordingly and not to think of worldly gain, so that I may not be likened to the merchant who sold for a worthless bead a ruby by which he could have acquired a world of wealth. On the other hand, I found in the books of the ancients that when a physician strives after the reward in the next world by means of his art he thereby forfeits no fraction of his worldly guerdon but that therein he is to be compared with the peasant who carefully sows his plot of ground to acquire corn and who subsequently without further effort gets along with the harvest all manner of vegetation.

[The cultivator along with the harvest gets grass and vegetation which may serve as a pasture for cattle.]

[Sidenote: Burzoe starts practice.]

I, therefore, directed my attention to the hope of securing recompense in the next world by curing the sick and was at considerable pains in the treatment of all the deceased whom I hoped to cure and even such as were past all such hopes, whose suffering I endeavoured at least to alleviate. I personally attended those I could; but where this was not possible I gave the patients the necessary instructions and also sent medicine. And from none of those whom I so treated did I demand payment or other return. I was jealous of none of my colleagues who was my equal in knowledge and who excelled me in repute and riches; although as a matter of fact he was lacking in equity and good manners. When, however, my soul felt inclined to impel me to be jealous of such and to be covetous of a situation like his I met it with severity in the following manner:--

[Sidenote: Burzoe addresses his own soul. The physician's arduous calling.]

[Sidenote: A simile.]

O soul, dost not thou differentiate between what is useful and what is injurious to thee? Dost thou not cease wishing for the acquisition of that which secures for every one a small gain but which entails severe exertion and privation and which, when he must at last relinquish it, procures him much sorrow and severe punishment in the next world? O soul, thinkest thou not of that which succeeds this life and forgettest it because of thy avarice for the things of this world? Art thou not ashamed to live the evanescent terrestrial life in the company of men of feeble intellect and fools? It belongs not to him even who has something of it in his hand: it does not endure with him and only the infatuated and the negligent depend upon it. Desist from this irrationality and bend all thy might, so long as in thee lies, to exert thyself for the good and for divine recompense. Beware of procrastination. Reflect on the fact that our body is destined to all manner of unhappiness and permeated with the four perishable and impure principles which are enclosed in it, which struggle against each other, defeating each other by turn, and thus support life which itself is transient. Life is like a statue with several limbs. When properly adjusted each in its right place, they hold themselves together on a single pivot but which, when the latter is taken off, fall to pieces. O soul, do not deceive thyself owing to intercourse with friends and companions and do not strain thyself after it, inasmuch as this intercourse brings no doubt joy but also much hardship and tribulation and finally ends in separation. It is like a ladle which men use for hot soup, so long as it is new but when it breaks they have done with it--burn it. O soul, allow not thyself to be moved by family and relations to amass property for them so that thyself should perish. Thou shouldst, then, be like fragrant incense which is burnt only for the enjoyment of others. They are like a hair which men cherish so long as it remains on the head but cast it off as impure as soon as it falls. O soul, be steadfast in treating the diseased and give it not up because thou findest that the physician's profession is arduous and people do not recognise its uses and high value. Judge only thyself whether a man who cures in another a disease making him feel once more fresh and whole is not worthy of a great reward and handsome remuneration. This is the case with one who has solicitude for a single individual; how much more then is this so in the case of a medicineman who for meed in the next world thus acts towards a, large number of men, so that they after torturing pains and maladies, which shut them out from the enjoyment of the world, from food and drink, wife and child, feel once more as well as ever before. Who indeed merits larger reward and nobler retribution? O soul, do not put away from thy sight things of the next world because thou hungerest after passing life. For thou, in thy haste to acquire a triviality surrenderest the valuable; and such people are in the position of the merchant who had a house full of aloe wood and who said, "If I were to sell this by weight it would take me too long" and therefore gave it away wholesale for a trifling price.

[Sidenote: Autobiographical]

After thus I had replied to my soul and thereby explained matters to it and guided it aright it could not deviate from truth, yielded to righteousness and abandoned what it was inclined to. Accordingly I continued to treat the sick for the sake of my reward in the next world. This, however, by no means prevented my acquiring a rich portion of earthly goods before my journey to India as well as after my return from the kings, and that was more than I was ambitious of or had hoped for, for a man in my position and my calling.

[Sidenote: Limitations of the healing art.]

Thereafter I again reflected on the healing art and found that the physician can employ no remedy for a suffering patient which so completely cures his disease that it does not attack him again or that he is immune from a worse disorder. While, therefore, I was unaware how I could effect a perfect cure secure against the recurrence of a disease, I saw that on the other hand acknowledge of the next world was a permanent absolute protection against all distempers. Accordingly I conceived a contempt for the healing art and a longing for religious knowledge.

[Sidenote: Uncertainty of religious Verity.]

[Sidenote: Burzoe inquires of religious heads on matters divine: his disappointment.]

When, however, this occurred to my mind it was not clear to me how matters stood with reference to religion. I found nothing in the writings on pharmacy which indicated to me the truest religion. So far as I saw there were many religions and creeds and their adherents were again disunited. Some inherit their religion from their fathers; others are compelled to adhere to it by fear and pressure; others again aim at worldly advantages, enjoyments and renown. Everyone claims for himself the possession of the true and right faith and denounces that of others as false and erroneous. Their views on the world and other problems are entirely conflicting yet each despises the other, is inimical to and censures every other creed. I then resolved to turn to the learned and leaders of every religions community with a view to examining their doctrines and precepts in order possibly to learn to distinguish between verity and nullity and implicity to give my adhesion to the former without altogether accepting as true what I did not understand. So I analysed, investigated and observed, but I found that all those people only held before me traditional notions. Each landed his faith and reviled that of others. It was, therefore, evident to me that their conclusions rested on mere imagination and that they did not speak with impartiality. In none did I find such fairness and integrity that reasonable people could accept their dicta and declare themselves satisfied with them. When I perceived this it was impossible for me to follow any one of the religions and recognised that if I put faith in one of them of which I knew nothing I should fare like the betrayed believer in the following story.

[Sidenote: Anecdote of the credulous burglar.]

Once upon a time a thief set out at night and along with his companions got up on to the roof of the house of a man of opulence. As they entered they awoke the owner who noticed them and perceived that at that hour they were on the roof with evil intent. He awoke his wife and gently said to her, "I see that up on the top of our roof there are thieves. I will pretend to sleep, wake me up in a voice loud enough to be heard by those on the roof and say to me, 'My husband, do tell me how you came by so much wealth and property.' When I make no reply whatever ask me very pressingly again." The woman accordingly asked him as she was ordered so that the house-breakers heard it all. The man replied, "My wife, luck has led you to great prosperity, so eat and drink, keep quiet and do not ask about it, because if I told it to you, some one would easily hear it and get something by it, which neither of us would like." She, however, persisted, "But my husband, do tell me, surely there is no one here to overhear us." "Well then, I will tell you that I have acquired all this wealth and goods by theft." "How did you manage it, when in the eye of the people you are still irreproachably honest and no one suspects you?" "By means of an artifice in the science of thieving: it is so handy and easy that no one can have any suspicion whatever." "How so?" "I used to manage this way: On a moonlight night I would go out with my companions, get up to the roof of the house of the person I wanted to rob as far as the sky light through which the moon shone and then uttered seven times the charm _Sholam Sholam Sholam_. I would then embrace the rays and slide down into the house without any body noticing my intrusion. Then at the other extremity of the moon-beams I again would seven times repeat the magic word and all the money and treasures in the house became visible to me. I could take of them whatever I would. Once more I would embrace the beams and rehearsing again seven times the magic word mount up to my companions and load them with all I had. Next we stole away unscathed."

When the robbers overheard this they rejoiced exceedingly and said: "In this house we have got a spoil which is more valuable to us than the gold which we can get there; we have acquired a means by which God delivers us from fear and we are secure against the authorities." So they watched for a long time and when they had made sure that the master of the house and his wife had gone to sleep the leader of the robbers stepped up to the spot where the light streamed through the hole, spoke Sholam Sholam seven times, clasped the rays with the intention of dropping down along them and fell head foremost on the floor. The husband sprang to his feet with a club and thrashed him to a jelly asking him, "Who are you?" And he replied, "The deceived believer: this is the fruit of blind faith."

[Sidenote: More religious investigation and more despair.]

[Sidenote: A dilemma.]

Accordingly, after I had grown sufficiently circumspect not to credit what might probably lead to my perdition, I started again investigating religions to discover the true one. But I again found no reply whenever I put questions to any one and when a doctrine was propounded to me I found nothing which in my judgment merited belief or served me as a guiding principle. Then I said, "The most reasonable course is to cling to the religion in which I found my fathers." Yet when I sought justification for this course I found none and said to myself, "If that be justification then the sorcerer also had one who found his progenitors to be wizards." And I thought of the man who ate indecently and when he was rebuked for it he excused himself by saying that his ancestors used to feed in the same gross way. Since, therefore, it was impossible for me to keep to the religion of my forbears and since I could find no justification for it, I desired once more earnestly to bestir myself and most carefully to examine the various religions and to consider minutely what they had to offer us. But then suddenly the idea struck me that the end was near and that the world would presently come to a close for me. Thereupon I pondered as follows:--

[Sidenote: Meditation of despair.]

Perhaps the hour of my departure has already arrived before I could wring my hands. My deeds were once still such that I could hope they were meritorious. Now perhaps the prolonged hesitation over my search and investigation would turn me away from the good deeds which I practised formerly, so that my end would not be such as I strove for, and owing to my wavering and vacillation the fate of the man in the following anecdote would overtake me.

[Sidenote: An anecdote: fatal hesitation.]

A certain man had a love affair with a married woman. She had made for him a subterraneous passage opening into the street and its entrance was constructed close by a water jar. This she did for fear lest her husband or some one else should surprise her. Now one day when her paramour was with her word was brought that the husband was standing at the door. The lover hastened to get behind the jar but it had been removed by some one so he came to the woman and said, "I went to the passage but the jar of which you spoke was not there." To which the woman, said "You fool, what have you got to do with the jar? I mentioned it to point to you the way to the passage." "I could not be sure, since the jar was not near the passage, you should not have spoken of it to me and misled me." "Now save yourself, enough of your stupidity and hesitation." "But how shall I go since you spoke to me of the jar and even now confuse me?" Thus he remained there till the master of the house came up and seized hold of and belaboured him, and handed him over to the authorities.

[Sidenote: Burzoe follows good principles common to all creeds.]

[Sidenote: The properties of righteousness.]

Since I was apprehensive of the risks of shilly-shallying I resolved not to expose myself to the danger and to confine myself entirely to such works as all men regard as benevolent and which are consonant with all the religions. I refrained, therefore, from assault, murder and robbery, and guarded myself against incontinence and my tongue from falsehood and all utterance calculated to harm any one, avoided the smallest deception, indecency of language, falsehood, calumny and ridicule and took pains that my heart wished ill of no one and that I did not disbelieve in resurrection and retribution and punishment in the next world. I turned away my mind from wickedness and adhered energetically to good, perceived that there is no better associate or friend than righteousness and that it is easy to acquire it with the help of God. I found that it has more tender solicitude for us than father and mother that it leads to good and gives true counsel like one friend to another, that use does not diminish but rather multiplies it, and that when employed it does not wear out, but is constantly renewed, and becomes more beautiful; that we need not fear that the authorities will snatch it from us, the enemy will rob or miscreants disfigure it, or water drown or fire will consume it, wild beasts attack it or that any thing untoward will happen to it. He who contemns righteousness and its consequences in the next world and permits himself to be seduced from it by a fraction of the sweets of this passing world, he who passes his days with things which do not permit piety to approach him, fares as did to my knowledge the merchant in the following story.

[Sidenote: The careless Jeweller.]

A merchant had many precious stones. To bore a hole through them he hired a man for a hundred pieces of gold a day and went with him to his house. As soon however, as he set to work, there was a lute and the workman turned his eyes towards it. And upon the merchant questioning him whether he could play upon it he replied, "Yes, right well." For he was indeed proficient in the art. "Then take it" said the merchant. He therefore took it and played for the merchant the whole day beautiful melodies in proper tune so that the jeweller left the caset with the precious stones in it and filled with joy kept time, nodding his head and waving his hand. In the evening he said to the jeweller, "Let me have my wages," And when the latter said, "Have you done anything to deserve the wage?" he replied, "You have hired me and I have done what you ordered me to do." So he pressed him till he received his hundred pieces without any deduction, while the gems remained unbored.

[Sidenote: Aversion to pleasures of the world: Buddhistic pessimism.]

The more I reflected upon the world and its joys the deeper grew my aversion towards them. Then I made up my mind entirely to devote myself to the life of the blessed and the anchorite. For I saw that asceticism is a garden the hedge of which keeps off at a distance eternal evils, and the door through which man attains to everlasting felicity. And I found that a divine tranquility comes over the ascetic when he is absorbed in meditation; for he is still, contented, unambitious, satisfied, free from cares, has renounced the world, has escaped from evils, is devoid of greed, is pure, independent, protected against sorrow, above jealousy, manifests pure love, has abandoned all that is transitory, has acquired perfect understanding, has seen the recompense of the next world, is secure against remorse, fears no man, does none any harm and remains himself unmolested. And the more I pondered over asceticism the more I yearned for it so that at last I earnestly thought of becoming an ascetic.

[Sidenote: The trials of an anchorite: the greedy dog.]

But then apprehension came upon me that I should not be able to support the life of a hermit and that the ordinary way in which I had grown up would prove an hindrance. I was not sure that, should I renounce the world and adopt asceticism, I should not prove too feeble for it. Moreover, should I give up such good works as I had previously performed in the hope of salvation, I should be in the position of the dog who with the bone in his mouth was going along a river. He saw his reflection in the water, suddenly dashed forward to seize it and consequently let fall what he had in the mouth without securing what he wanted to get. So I grew uneasy regarding the recluse's life and was afraid lest I should fail to bear it and thought therefore rather to continue the career of my life.

[Sidenote: Worldly Monastic life.]

[Sidenote: A series of similes.]

However, it occurred to me to compare the discomforts and straits of monasticism, which I feared I should be unable to support, with the wants of those who remain in the world. Then it became clear to me that all the joys and pleasures of the world turn to discomforts and bring sorrow. For the world is like salt water. The more one drinks of it the more thirsty one becomes; like a bone found by a dog on which he still sniffs the flavour of flesh, he bites to get at it but only to tear the flesh of his teeth and make his mouth bleed and the more he struggles the more he makes it bleed; like the vulture that has found a piece of flesh, it attracts other birds in a flock so that for a long time it is in trouble and flies till at last, quite exhausted, it drops its prey; like a pot filled with honey and with poison at the bottom, he who eats of it has a short enjoyment but at last death by venom; like a dream which rejoices the sleeper who finds when he awakes his joy vanished; like lightning that brings brilliance for a moment but quickly disappears, he who builds his hope upon it abides in darkness; like the silk worm the more it spins itself into the silk the more impossible it finds to come out.

[Sidenote: More internal struggle.]

After I had pondered thus I once more proposed to my soul to elect asceticism and had yearning for it. Nevertheless I opposed it with: It will not do that I should seek refuge from the world in asceticism when I think of the evils of the world and then again seek refuge in the world from asceticism when I consider the privations and discomforts of the latter. I continued in a state of prolonged vacillation without firm determination like the Kazi of Merv who at first heard one party and decided in his favour and against the other and then heard the other and gave judgment in favour of the latter as against the first. And when again I reflected upon the frightful discomforts and straits of monasticism I said, How trifling it is all in comparison with eternal peace. And then once more thinking of the joys of the world I exclaimed, How bitter and pernicious they are which lead to perpetual perdition and its horrors; how can a man not regard as sweet the little bitterness which is succeeded by sweet that endures and how can a man not regard as bitter a bit of sweet that ends in greater and abiding bitterness? If it was offered to a man that he should live a hundred years but that every day he should be hacked to pieces and should be called to life again the following day and so on, provided that at the close of the century he should be delivered from the torture and pain and be in security and delight, he would account as nothing the whole years. How can a man then not bear the few days of asceticism, the inconveniences of which are succeeded by much that is beautiful? And we know that the entire world bears privation and torment and that man from his origin as foetus till the end of his days is subject to one suffering after another. Moreover, we find the following in books of medicine.

[Sidenote: Man in embryo: his torments till and after death.]

[Sidenote: Tribulations of human existence.]

When the liquid, of which the perfect child is to be built, enters the uterus of the woman, and mixes itself with her liquid substance and her blood it becomes thick and pulpy. Next the liquid is stirred by a wind and becomes like sour milk and later on hard like curdled milk. After a certain number of days the individual members become separate. If it is a man child its face is turned to the back of the mother; if it is a female it is turned towards the belly. In the foetus the hands are on the cheeks and the chin is on the knee. It is all bundled up in the foetus as if it was thrust into a pouch. It breathes through a narrow opening. Each member is bound by a chord. Above it is the heat and the pressure of the mother's womb; below are darkness and constriction. It is tied with a piece of its navel to that of its mother, sucks through it and lives upon her food and drink. In this position it remains in gloom and confinement till the day of birth. When that day comes a wind acquires control of the womb, that child acquires strength to rise, turns the head towards the opening and experiences in this confinement the pain of one forced into a distressing torture. Should it fall to the ground or be touched only by a breath of wind or should it come in contact with one's hands it feels greater pain, than a person that is flayed alive. The new born babe then suffers all manner of torment. When it is hungry it cannot ask for food; thirsty, for drink; when in pain it cannot call for help. Besides it is lifted up, laid down, wrapped up, swathed, washed and rubbed. When it is laid to sleep on the back it cannot turn. Again so long as it is given the suck it is subjected to all manner of other tortures. When it is finally delivered from these, it is liable to those of education and has then to suffer a great deal, the brusqueness of the teacher, the unpleasantness of the instruction, the disgust at writing. Next he has his rich portion of medicine, diet, aches and illnesses. When he has outgrown these, he is troubled with wife, child and property and is pulled about by covetuous ambition and is exposed to the peril of longing and desires. All this while he is menaced by his four internal enemies, gall, blood, bile and wind; and furthermore, mortal poison, snakes that bite, animals of prey and reptiles, the alternation of heat and cold, rain and storm as well as finally the various plagues of age, if at all he survives those. But should he have nothing to fear from all this and were he secure with regard to these calamities, when he thinks of the moment when death must come and he musk give up the world, what a miserable plight is his, at the thought of the hour he has to separate himself from family, friends, and relations and all that is precious on the earth, and when he reflects that there is in store for him after death fearful horrors? Then must he be considered of feeble intellect, neglectful and a suitor for misfortune should he do nothing for his soul, should he not employ all art in behalf of the soul, and should he not renounce altogether the pleasures and errors of the world which till then had seduced him.

[Sidenote: Eulogy of the reigning Monarch.]

[Sidenote: Fallen on evil days.]

[Sidenote: How the world's misery outweighs its joys.]

But this holds especially good of modern times which have become worn out and fragile, which appear pure but are turbid. God has given the king good fortune and success. He is equally circumspect, mighty, magnanimous, profound examiner, upright, humane, liberal, a lover of truth, grateful, of broad comprehension, mindful of right and duty, indefatigable, strenuous, with insight, helpful, serene of mind, intelligent, thoughtful, gentle, sympathetic, kind, one who knows man and things, friend of learning and the learned, of the good and of benevolent people, but severe to the oppressor, not timid, nor backward, dexterous in granting in abundance to his subjects what they desire and averting from them what they do not like. Yet we see that our days are retrogressive in every way. It is as if man were divested of truth, as if that should be absent which one sadly misses and as if the harmful were there, as if the good were withering and the evil flourishing, as if the sinners were proceeding with a smile and the righteous receding in tears; as if knowledge was entombed and irrationality propagated, as if wretched intent was spreading and nobility of thought restricted; as if love was cut off and malice and hatred had become favourites; as if rectitude were divested of prosperity which had betaken itself to the malefactor; as if craftiness were awake and truth were asleep; as if mendacity were fruitful and veracity was left in the cold; as if those in power held before them the duty to act according to their own inclinations and to violate law, as if the oppressed were in dejection and made way for the tyrant; as if greediness on all sides had opened its jaws and swallowed all that was far and near; as if there was no trace left of contentment; as if the wicked had exalted themselves to Heaven and had made the good sink into the ground; as if nobility of mind were thrown from the loftiest pinnacle to most abysmal depths, as if turpitude were in honour and authority and as if sovereignty had been transferred from the exalted to the mean--in fact as if the world in the fullness of its joy were crying, "I have concealed the good and brought the evil to light." When, however, I reflected on the world and its condition and on the fact that man, although he is the noblest and foremost of creatures in it, is still in spite of his eminent position, subject to one misery after another and that this is his notorious peculiarity so that whoever has even a tittle of reason must be convinced that a human being is unable to help himself and to exert for his salvation,--this greatly astonished me, as further consideration told me that he is debarred from salvation only because of the small miserable enjoyments of smell, taste, sight, hearing and feeling of which he may receive a fraction or enjoy a particle but which is insignificant being so transient. He is, however, so much taken up with it that on its account he does not trouble himself for the salvation of his soul.

Then I looked for a similitude for this behaviour of human beings and found the following:

A certain person was fleeing from a danger into a well and suspended himself by clinging to two branches which grew on its edge, his feet striking against something which supported them. When he looked round there were four serpents which were projecting their heads from their holes. As he looked into the bottom of the well he noticed a dragon with its jaws open expecting him to fall his prey. And as he turned his head up to the branches he observed at their roots a black and a white mouse which were ceaselessly gnawing at both. While he was contemplating the situation and casting about for a means of escape he descried near him a hollow with bees that had made some honey. This he tasted and he was so much absorbed in its deliciousness that he no more thought of the condition he was in and that he must devise some contrivance of escape. He became oblivious of the fact that his feet rested against four serpents and that he did not know which would attack him first, forgot that the two mice were without cessation nibbling at the boughs by which he was hanging, and that as soon as they had gnawed them through he would drop into the jaws of the dragon. And so in his heedlessness he yielded to the enjoyment of the meed till he perished.

I compared the well with the world which is brimful of all manner of harm and terrible perils, the four snakes with the four humours which constitute the physical basis of man, but which, should they be excited, prove mortal poison; the branches to life, the black and white mice to night and day which in perpetual alternation consume our lifetime; the dragon with death inevitable; the honey to the particle of joy which man derives from his senses of smell, taste, sight, hearing and feeling, but which makes him oblivious of himself and all his circumstances and decoy away from the path to emancipation. So circumstanced I found myself, and endeavoured to conduct myself with as much rectitude as possible in the hope once again to experience a time when I should acquire a guide for myself and help for my cause. I remained in this stage till I returned from India to my homeland after I had made a copy of this book and a few more.

APPENDIX IV

_THE TRIAL OF AFSHIN._.

_A DISGUISED ZOROASTRIAN GENERAL_.

[Afshin was a Zoroastrian at heart. His trial and condemnation are referred to by Browne, _Literary History of Persia._ I take the account direct from Tabari. It is to be found also in Ibn Athir and Ibn Khaldun. The legal procedure reveals prominently the condition under which professed non-Moslems lived--religious liberty was granted to them. Note that it was possible to chastise ecclesiastical officers like Imams and Muezzins because of their interference with the religious practices of non-Moslems. Observe the part played by a Mobed at a criminal trial conducted according to Muhammadan usages. The Zoroastrian priest, who subsequently embraced Islam, comes forward to give evidence against the most puissant but covert co-religionist of his times.]

It has been related by Harun son of Isa, son of Mansur as follows:--I was present in the house of Muatisim and there were there Ahmad bin Ali Dawud and Ishaq bin Ibrahim son of Masab and Muhammad bin Abdal Maliq al Zayyad. They then brought Afshin who was yet not in rigorous imprisonment, and there were present people who were prepared to cause Afshin to shed tears. There was nobody in the house belonging to any high position except the sons of Mansur, for, the people had left. Those present were Muhammad bin Abdal Maliq al Zayyad and there were Mazyar, the ruler of Tabaristan, the Mobed, and the Marzban son of Urkesh, one of the chieftains of Sughd, and two people from among the Sughdians. Then Muhammad Ibn Abdal Maliq called the two people whose clothes were torn and asked them how they were. They then uncovered their backs which were torn of the flesh. Muhammad turning to Afshin asked "Do you know these?" "Yes, this man is the Mauzzin and this, one is the Imam who made a mosque at Ashrushana, and I struck each of them a thousand lashes, and that was because there was a covenant between myself and the kings of Sughd including a clause to the effect that I should leave each community to its own religion. But these two people attacked a shrine which had images in it, a shrine which was at Ashrushna, and they took out the images and turned the shrine into a mosque. I therefore struck them one thousand lashes for this transgression of theirs."

Then Muhammad asked Afshin, "What is the book which you have got which you have adorned with gold and gems and brocade? Its contents are impious with reference to God?" Afshin replied, "This is a book which I have inherited from my father and it contains the manners of the Persians, and as regards the impiety to which you refer I take advantage of the book in so far as the manners are concerned and I leave all the rest. And I found it bejewelled and as there was no occasion for me to take off the gems I left it as it was just as you have left with yourself the book _Kalileh and Dimneh_ and the _Book of Mazdak_ in your house. For I don't think the book would make me lose my Islam."

Then came forward the Mobed and referring to Afshin said, "This man is used to eating animals that have been strangled and he suggested the eating of it to me alleging that the flesh was more fresh than the flesh of slaughtered animals. And he used to kill a black goat every Wednesday and tearing it up with his sword he would pass through the two halves, and he would then eat the flesh. And one day he told me, 'I have entered this community [Islam] with reference to every detail of theirs which I hate so that I have eaten of olive oil, have ridden on camels, have put on the Arabian shoes, but although I have gone to this extent I have not in any way been injured and no harm has come to me: nor have I had myself circumcised.'"

Then Afshin said "Let me know as regards this man who is speaking these words whether he is a staunch believer in his own religion." Now the Mobed was a Magian who subsequently received Islam at the instance of the Khalif Mutawakkil and repented of his previous belief. They replied, "No."

Afshin then said, "What is the meaning of your adducing the evidence of a man who is not firm in his own faith?" Then turning to the Mobed Afshin said, "Was there between your house and my house any door or any hole through which you could look at me and learn my movements?"

"No," said the Mobed.

Afshin then asked, "Was I not then introducing you into my private affairs and informing you regarding my Persian nationality and my inclination towards it and towards the people of the race?"

"Yes," said the Mobed.

Said Afshin, "Now you are not firm in your own religion, and you are not faithful to your promise when you have revealed the secret confided by me to you."

Then the Mobed withdrew and the Marzban turned up. Afshin was asked whether he knew him, and said "No."

Then the Marzban was asked whether he knew Afshin and said "Yes. This is Afshin."

Afshin was then told that this was the Marzban and the Marzban turning to Afshin said; "Oh cutthroat, why do you prevaricate and shuffle?"

Afshin said, "Oh you long-bearded one, what are you talking?"

The Marzban said "How do people under your jurisdiction address you when they write to you?"

Afshin replied; "Just in the way they used to write to my father and grandfather."

"Then tell us the way."

"No, I won't."

"Do not the people of Ashrushna write to you in such and such a way?"

"Now, does this not mean in Arabic, 'to the high God from his slave so and so?'"

[Ibn Khaldun is here clearer than Tabari. The term used was _Khoday_ which in Persian meant Lord, applicable equally to God and any high dignitary. The original 'Pahlavi' title of the Shahnameh was Khodaynameh.]

"Yes."

Muhammad Ibn Abdal Maliq asked upon this, "Do they tolerate such a thing? For what greater blasphemy would be left to Pharaoh to commit who suggested to his people 'I am your God the Highest.'?"

Afshin replied, "This was the custom of the people in my father's and grandfather's times and it was also the custom with me before I embraced Islam. And then I did not like that I should lower myself before them. For then I should have lost their allegiance and the obedience that they owed me."

Upon this Ishaq Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Musab said, "Fie, fie on you, Hyder."

[Afshin is sometimes referred to as Hyder.]

Then turned up Mazyar the chief of Tabaristan and Afshin was asked whether he knew him. He said "No."

Mazyar was asked if he knew Afshin.

Then they told him that this was Mazyar.

"Yes, I know him now."

"Did you ever have correspondence with him? No."

Then turning to the Marzban they asked, "Did he ever write to you?"

"Yes," said Mazyar, "His brother Khash used to write to my brother Quhyar to the effect that this splendid religion of theirs will have help from nobody except himself, Quhyar and Babak."

[In the sequel Tabari relates how when Afshin's house was searched, after he was starved to death, among other incriminating articles a book was discovered sumptuously bound and bedecked with gems which related, to the old faith of Iran.]

APPENDIX V

_NOELDEKE'S INTRODUCTION TO TABARI_.

[The Arabs have long been credited with maintaining learning and civilisation in general when Europe was slumbering in its dark ages. History as a science was rarely known even to the gifted Hindus. The Arabs cultivated it with peculiar enthusiasm. Wustenfeld has collected the lives of 590 historians, the first of whom died in the year 50, and the last was born in 1061 A.H. But it is now proved beyond all doubt that many of these writers were Persians who employed the Arabic language and that the art of Arab annalists had its root in the archives of the Sasanians. We owe this discovery to Goldziher and Von Kremmer in the first instance, and to Brockelmann, Browne, Blochet and Huart who have done ample justice to the Iranian element in Arab culture. One of the best of these histories is by Tabari. Noeldeke translated in 1879, the portion relating to the Sasanians into German, and added footnotes to his translation, which are a mine of information on pre-Moslem Persia. The introduction which he wrote to his translation is equally valuable especially for the light it throws on the sources of Firdausi. The following is a translation of that German introduction by Noeldeke.

Tabari was a most prolific author and is reported to have written daily forty sheets for forty years. He was of pure Iranian descent G.K.N.]

[Sidenote: Tabari's method.]

Abu Jafar Muhammed bin Jarir born in the winter of 839 at Amul not far from the Caspian Sea in the Persian Province of Tabaristan, hence called Tabari, and who died in Baghdad on the 17th February 923, wrote many,

## partly very large, works in the Arabic language, among them an extremely

voluminous chronicle, which reaches from the creation down to nearly the close of his life. Tabari, mainly occupied with theological tradition, was no man of original research or of historical acumen even in the sense applied to a few other Persian scholars in those centuries. His annals are a compilation, a mass of rich material put together with extraordinary industry. He does not work into unity the various versions in his divergent sources, but simply brings them up in order one after another. But it is just this circumstance which considerably enhances in our eyes the value of the work; for in this way the older reports themselves are preserved more faithfully than if the chronicler had laboured to reconcile them one with the other.

[Sidenote: Abounds in extracts from Arab and Iranian predecessors, but does not mention his sources.]

The principal value of Tabari's compilation consists in the extremely exhaustive presentation of the history of Islam from the first appearance of the Prophet; no other Arabic work in this respect can compare with his. The pre-Islamic history comprises, may be, a twentieth portion of the whole work and gives a very groat deal of what we would rather be without. Of the highest moment, however, is the tolerably detailed section on the history of the Sasanides and their times embodied in it, and whose German translation forms the text of our book. This section goes back partly to good Arabic records and mostly, at least mediately, to very important ancient Persian sources. But the stories from the mythological and historical traditions which appear scattered in Tabari in proceeding sections have a cognate origin. If the criticism of the sources is here very much facilitated on the one hand, because these orientals where they excerpt love to adhere, as far as possible, to the letter of their models or sources, it is on the other, rendered difficult because Tabari does not mention his immediate authorities. Only in reports of theological interest, to which the whole of the history of the growth of Islam belongs, he proceeds to indicate his sources with precision; otherwise he cites at the best an old authority come down to him only obliquely, and in most cases none at all. Throughout the Persian history he never names an authority, barring Hisham, whom he quotes here and there and who was an acknowledged authority in another province of tradition.

[Sidenote: Story of Persia based on indigenous original work.]

[Sidenote: Occasional identity of Firdausi and Tabari.]

The story of Persia from the first mythical Kings to the last of the Sasanides exhibits in Tabari, as in allied Arabic works, a certain similarity of conception and presentation which leads to the assumption of an indigenous original work at least respecting a very large portion. Now the Shahnameh of the great poet Firdausi, a national epic of the kind which no other people possess, while it on one hand, apart from the poetic license indulged in by Firdausi, contains much that is either not found at all or is essentially differently related in Arab writers; on the other, considerably accords with those Arab annalists in the order, in the whole structure, and in the details of the narrative. Indeed the poet often reproduces almost the identical phraseology of the historian. But now since according to both tradition and internal grounds Firdausi's bases were not Arabic books, the coincidence must be explained from a common ultimate source. The original work has been reflected to us in Tabari and other Arabs as well as Firdausi through a series of intermediate texts. To judge by the express statements and suggestions as also by various features in style and phraseology and further by all that we are aware of touching the circumstances of the literature we can say with certainty that, that original work like all other Persian narrative productions of the Sasanides and of the period of Arab conquest was composed in the written, language of this period, the Pahlavi. The most important connected presentment of Persian history in Pahlavi to which our reports go back is no doubt the _Khoday Nameh, i.e.,_ the "Book of Lords" a title which answers to the subsequent Shah Nameh or "Book of Kings."

Hamza mentions that name. The prose introduction to Ferdausi says that the "Book of Kings" was written first of all at the instance of Khushrau I Anoshirwan, but that the complete story was compiled only under Yazdegerd III by the Dihkan Danishwar. This work which it would not be too bold to identify with the _Koday Nameh_ began with the primeval king, Gayomarth, and reached down to the termination of the reign of Khushrau II, surnamed Parwez. Although this introduction to Ferdausi dates but from the fifteenth century, and as for details is disfigured by inaccuracies and fictions, I attach weight to what it indicates respecting the time of its composition. In fact the concord of the narrative in the various sources reaches down to the death of Parwez and then abruptly ceases; while there are no vestiges to demonstrate that the completion of the original work was brought about subsequent to the victory of the Arabs. And the legitimistic nature of the story Is especially in keeping with the times when usurpation and insurrections of all sorts had run their course, and when the people looked forward with, the inauguration of the rule of the youthful grandson, of Parwez, who was crowned at the sacred place where the dynasty took its rise, to an era of prosperity to the ancient monarchy,--a hope which was fearfully crushed with the loss of the battle of Kadisiya towards the close of 637. Again the replies made by the imprisoned king which have been reproduced in different sources suit the times of the Yezegerd who descended from Khusrau II and not Sheroe, Khusrau's brilliant career despite its shady side strongly contrasted with the period ushered in by the patricide. A small piece of writing which depicts the first stormy years of Khusrau's domination in a romantic fashion seems to have arisen about the same time.

I am less certain about the name Danishwar. It was probably an adjective signifying "possessed of knowledge." It was easy for anyone who knew from Firdausi that the landed nobility called the Dihkan constituted the peculiar custodians of national lore to name a "learned Dihkan" as the collector of the stones of kings.

The compilation prepared at the time had undoubtedly drawn upon written documents without which It would have been impossible to give minute

## particulars of a long by-gone past. Besides the brief notices

communicated by the Syrian Sergius to Agathias from the _Basilika apomnemoneiumata_ are in the main in unison with our Arabo-Persian stories. Thus then in Khushro's time there existed a general survey of the history of Persia more or less in an official version. But otherwise there is no need to lay stress on the mention of Khushrau here, for all manner of things beneficial and good are ascribed to this king.

[Sidenote: Nature of the Khoday Nameh.]

The book of kings contains, as we said, the story of Persia from the creation of the world to the fall of the last purely national domination. It made no distinction between wholly mythical, semi-fabulous, and fully historical dynasts, so that the Arabs and Persians who drew upon it never suspected that e.g., Hoshang and Rustam are not such historical persons as Shahpur I and Bahram Chobin. But in the material itself we notice a conspicuous difference. The mythical tales which in their crude nascent forms were already there at the period of the Avesta were in course of time richly developed and under the Sasanides were no doubt universally known. To these were joined ecclesiastical speculation and traditions concerning the genesis of the world, civilisation and the legislation of Zoroaster. There were also several genealogical trees. In all these at the most a few proper names were historical. Of the empires of the Medes and of Persians proper this tradition had no knowledge. It is doubtful if it contained even quite a feeble reflex of the last days of the Achaeminides. On to this ancient autochthonous tradition was immediately joined the story of the last Darius and Alexander emanating from a foreign source, the Greek romance of Alexander. Not more than a few names was all that was preserved of the long period covering the Macedonian and the Parthian supremacy. With the Sasanides the national reminiscences became clearer. Round the founder of the dynasty were accreted, on the one hand, legends wholly fabulous and on the other, such as embodied excellent historical data. But the latter seem to be inadequately represented in the main work, the Khodayname. Again very few particulars were known of the reigns of the succeeding sovereigns down to Yezdegerd I. In the chapters which correspond to those of the old Book of Kings just this want of actual information, it seems, the compilers strove to veil behind rhetorical accounts of scenes of homage done to the rulers, imperial speeches from the throne, etc. For the following ages on there was, in general, good,

## partly very authentic information. But this entire presentment did not

concern itself solely with veracity. The Iranians who from very remote antiquity extravagantly lauded truth, had in reality never any great sense of it. The _Khoday Nameh_ and kindred productions were unfairly biassed and rhetorical. The ornamental and figurative ingredients are indicated even by the Arabic reproductions, though the latter are greatly condensed. A classic testimony to it has been kindly communicated to me by Baron Von Rosen which is a passage from a Petersberg manuscript of _Albayan Wattabyin_ of Jahiz in which the Shuubiya or the Persians, who, though Muslims placed their nation above the Arabs say: "And he who is interested in reason, fine culture, knowledge of ranks, examples and penalties, in elegant expressions and superlative thoughts, let him cast a glance at the _History (more properly the Vitae) of Kings."_ History of the Kings, _Siyar-ul Muluk_, is the title of the Arabic rendering of the Book of Kings in Pahlavi. Compare likewise Hamza's remarks on the works on Persian history. I have laboured to show the partiality of the Persian tradition in the footnotes. The narrative is conceived in a monarchical and legitimistic spirit, but equally all along from the view point of the superior nobility and the clergy. Add to this the exertions to cry up as much as possible the glory of Persia which sometimes produces a strange effect. Moreover, there must have been no lack of contradictions as to facts as well as respecting estimates of personal character which was inevitable owing to the employment of varying sources. Nevertheless a work like this written under the Sasanides and familiar with the state of things obtaining in the empire and more or less of an official nature, must have been an admirable fount of history. There was hardly ever a better presentment of the story of this house than the _Khoday-Nameh_.

[I have translated the entire passage from the since printed text. See p. 170.--G.K.N.]

Since, barring the small book treating of Ardeshir's adventures, no original Pahlavi document in the domain of historical or romantic literature has descended to us and even the Arabic recensions made directly from the original general history in Pahlavi have perished, we are altogether left in uncertainty touching many most important points. We cannot, for instance, ascertain whether alongside of the _Khoday-Nameh_ there existed also other general continuous narrations or whether the deviations, which are for the most part trifling, in some cases of great moment, already existed in the Pahlavi work or are traceable to various recensions of that book. It would not be rash, to assume that some copies of the work contained additional matter taken from other Pahlavi books like the Romance of Bahram. Bahram the high priest of the city of Shapur collected, according to Hamza, more than 20 manuscripts of the _Khoday-Nameh_ and from their divergence made out another independent recension. Musa Ibn Isa Kesravi complains of the variants in the copies of the work; the latter author who speaks of defects in translation has in view only the Arabic redactions. The text, however, of Tabari, at all events and more so a comparison of Tabari and other Arabs with one another and with Firdausi exhibits that entire sections of the History of Kings were already in the Pahlavi original in essentially different shapes. Otherwise, it would not be possible, for instance, that where Tabari offers two different versions, one should harmonise with Eutychius and Ibn Kotaiba (derived from the translation of Ibn Mukaffa) and the other should agree with the Arab Yakubi and often with Firdausi, who goes back to the Pahlavi text not directly but mediately through compositions in modern Persian. It is very important for a knowledge of the history that thus we have at our command all manner of dissonant reports about the Sasanide epoch. But we have to observe all the same that the character and the tendency of the several versions are almost all along consistent and further more that often we have more recensions than one which differ but little and which have one and the same ground-work or prototype. The question whether this difference is older or younger than the _Khoday-Nameh_ has more literary than historical significance.

[Sidenote: Translation of _Khoday-Nameh_ into Arabic. Its general fidelity to the original.]

[Sidenote: The Arabic translation may be pieced together from various sources.]

We should decide all this with much more certainty did we possess but one direct rendering made from the Pahlavi into Arabic. Above all we have to deplore the loss of Ibn Mukaffa's history of Persian Kings which is always assigned the first place among translations of the Persian Book of Kings by Hamza and other authorities. This distinguished man who only late in life exchanged the faith of his forbears for that of Islam, and who never professed the latter with over much zeal, translated a series of Pahlavi writings into Arabic including the _Khoday-Nameh_. He was a courtier, and passed for a good Arabic poet and one of the best rhetorical writers of his time. The famous Wazir Ibn Mukla counted him among "the ten most eloquent men." He must consequently have striven to suit his rendering of the book of Persian kings to the taste of his contemporaries. But we have no sufficient grounds to assume that he introduced arbitrary and material alterations into his translations or even that he greatly elaborated the rhetorical passages of the original text or invested them with an altogether different garb. Such a suspicion is contradicted by the coincidences with other sources which, like Firdausi, are independent of him. There is little probability of Ibn Mukaffa's work being again brought to light in its entirety. But on the other hand, it will indeed be possible to gather together in course of time more and more stray passages belonging to the book; though it is to be feared, unfortunately that these fragments will prove more to be preserved as efforts of rhetoric than because of their intrinsic value. A few extracts of this nature we find in Ibn Kotaiba's _Oyun-al Akhbar_. Among these citations which I owe to the goodness of Rosen, there is one tolerably long on the death of Peroz. Now the same fragment, little curtailed, is in the chronicle of Said bin Batrik or Eutychius, the patriarch of Alexandria. We should, therefore, be inclined from the first to derive other information in Eutychius on the Sasanides from Ibn Mukaffa. And our predisposition is supported by the circumstance that the history of the dynasty as given in a manual by the same Ibn Kotaiba and which is styled _Kitab al Maarif_, brief as it is, betrays as in the instance of the reign of Peroz, all through such an harmony with Eutychius that here two independent authors must necessarily have drawn upon one and the same original; and that original source can be no other than the production of Ibn Mukaffa. The abstract in Eutychius is very unequal being in some parts exhaustive, in others much abridged. The narrations as preserved in Tabari, which correspond to the statements in Eutychius and Ibn Kotaiba and which consequently go back to Ibn Mukaffa, are of a similar nature though Tabari gives in addition other parallel reports. Tabari, however, did not himself use Ibn Mukaffa's work, but for the History of Persia, among other authorities, employed by preference a younger work which represented another version together with excerts from the former. This can be inferred from the fact that the anonymous Codex Sprengers 30, which and Tabari are mutually independent, shows quite the same combination of two main sources and so far as the section in question goes, can be utilised and treated as a new manuscript of Tabari. Both have relied almost to the letter upon the presentment which emanated partly from Ibn Mukaffa and partly from another translator with the only difference that the anonymous writer is oftener more concise than Tabari. Again the version which does not proceed from Ibn Mukaffa is for the most part in accord with the epitome of the story of the Sasanides in the introduction to Yakubi's History of the Abbasides; there the excellent author occasionally subjoins extraneous information. More often than not this presentment is in touch with Ferdausi. I am unable to aver from whom has originated this other recension of the story of the Sasanides. We know indeed the names of a number of persons who redacted the History of Persia, originally in Pahlavi, for Arab readers. But though we can collect a few notices of some of the authors mentioned, we know nothing in particular about them and are completely in the dark about the special nature of their work. All that we can postulate as established is that they wrote posterior to Ibn Mukaffa. The latter is always mentioned in the first place. Muhammad bin Jahm who is regularly cited next after him and bears the surname of Bermaki, was a client of the Barmecides, who came to power a long while after the death of Ibn Mukaffa. Ifc may be supposed that they all laid under contribution the production of their celebrated predecessor. How they individually set about their work, whether perhaps some of them tapped non-Persian tradition; also, how far one or other of them utilized the novels of which there were probably many in Pahlavi--this we are no longer in a position to determine. Again this too remains a mystery whence Tabari came by most of the accounts touching the Persians, which are conspicuous by their absence in the anonymous Codex. To clear this whole ground it would appear to be expedient in the first place to set apart all that for which Ibn Mukaffa directly or indirectly is responsible. This I have done in the footnotes but an advance is possible in this direction. On the other hand, we must keep Ferdausi steadily before our eyes. Whatever in Tabari and other Chroniclers does not issue from Ibn Mukaffa and is not represented in Ferdausi likewise merits special study.

[Sidenote: Direct Sources of Ferdausi.]

[Sidenote: The Persian prose Shahname was not derived from Arabic but Pahlavi.]

A superficial reading of Firdausi would engender the view that he obtained his material partly from Pahlavi books direct and partly from the oral communication of competent renconteurs. That this is only a deceptive illusion we conclude at once from his strong resemblance not only in the main features but also in the details and the order, with Arab writers some of whom were much anterior to him. Firdausi positively knew no Pahlavi and as for Arabic he knew next to nothing. He did employ written sources preponderatingly if not exclusively and these were in modern Persian. His principal authority was, according to the introduction mentioned above, a translation of the old Book of Kings which was prepared by Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak bin Abdullah bin Ferrukh. So far our information is surely trustworthy. For, Biruni testifies to a Shahname by Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak of Tus. According to the introduction, this man was a minister of Yakub bin Laith Saffar, who was commissioned with the work which he accomplished through a certain Sund bin Mansur Mamari with the help of four competent people from Khorasan and Sagistan in 360 A.H. The chronological impossibility involved in the figure is removed by Mohl who emends it to 260. Yakub ibn Laith got a foothold in Khorasan in 253 A.H. and reigned till 265. Still this report involves much that is incorrect. That the uncouth warrior Yakub who was perpetually camping in the battle fields should have possessed a sense for such a literary undertaking is extremely improbable, though not altogether inconceivable. May be, he was actuated by a political design, but Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak did not live under Yakub but flourished two or three generations later. For he is either a brother of Muhammad bin Abdar Razzak of Tus or Muhammad himself. The first surmise has the weight of greater likelihood in that the Strasburg manuscript calls him once Abu Mansur Ahmed and Muhammad had in fact a brother named Ahmed who participated in his political manouvres. Muhammad was the lord of Tus. We hear much about him--how he in the years A.D. 945-960 stood up now for the Samanides, his proper overlords, now for their powerful antagonist Ruknaddin, the Buide, whose capital lay in dangerous proximity to his territory. In those days when an enthusiasm for Modern Persian was strongly awakened the enterprize may most appropriately have been taken in hand. Immediately after the Princes of Khorasan planned to cast this prose work into poetry; and this task was first inaugurated by Dakiki for the Samanides and brought to conclusion by Ferdausi of Tus, countryman of Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak, for Mahamud of Ghazna. The name of the four people who executed the work for the son of Abdar Razzak are all genuinely Persian; which indicates that they were all adherents of the ancient religion and that they had actully a Pahlavi original before them. To transfer an Arabic version into Modern Persian would not have required four men. Moreover, Firdausi's poem occasionally betrays that his sources had not flowed to him through Arabic. Of those men one only is met with again, Shahzan son of Barzin. He is mentioned by Firdausi at the head of his account of the genesis of KALILA WA DIMNA: "Listen to what Shahzan, son of Barzin has said when he revealed the secret." Because this section is an episode which assuredly did not appear in the KHODAY-NAMEH, we may conclude that the prose Shahname on which this Shahzan collaborated, embodied all manner of similar episodes, though Firdausi may have taken several from elsewhere. It is an interesting circumstance that the potentate who had this work prepared by Abu Mansur bin Abdar Razzak, had inserted--so Biruni tell us--a fictitious genealogical tree in it which led up his ancestors to Minochihr. Such things were in those times very common among new men of Persian origin who attained power. We are compensated for the loss of this prose work by at least the epos of Ferdausi which has issued from it.

[Sidenote: Dinawari.]

As the most important of extant Arabic representations of the _Khoday-Nameh_ and the cognate literature we must regard at any rate Tabari I have already touched upon Eutychius, Ibn Kotaiba, and Yakubi. Another old chronicler Abu Hanifa Ahmed bin Daud Dinawari greatly accords with Tabari but presents also much that is peculiar to himself. A closer examination would no doubt reveal that he draws considerably upon romances directly or indirectly and that he is not particularly accurate. Tabari reproduces the conflicting versions of the same incident separately one after another; Dinawari works them up into a single unified narrative.

[Sidenote: Hamza.]

The small book which Hamza Ispahani wrote in 961, contains in brief much independent information on the Sasanides. Hamza treats his materials in a spirit of much more freedom and independence than Tabari, but to us the compiling process of Tabari is far more convenient.

[Sidenote: Masudi.]

Masudi in his "Meadows of Gold" affords us many a supplement to Tabari's narratives derived from reliable Persian sources. But Masudi works very unequally, accepts a good deal that is suspicious provided only it is entertaining, and as regards detail he is by no means over exact.

As an historical authority, the Persian redaction of Tabari, so remarkable in many of its aspects, and achieved by Muhammad Belami or by others under his guidance, has but little value. I designate this work as "Persian Tabari" and have used it in the splendid Gotha manuscript and in Zotenberg's French translation. I have also consulted the Turkish version of Belami in a Gotha Manuscript.

[Sidenote: Tabari more valuable than Firdausi.]

All these writers and others present us collectively a tolerably rich and vivid portrait of Persian tradition of the Sasanide times. But the best comprehensive statement of the story of the Sasanides on the basis of this tradition is furnished us by Tabari, all his shortcomings notwithstanding and despite the pre-eminence which Firdausi's poem possesses as such.

[Sidenote: Ibn Kelbi.]

But in his narrative of this period Tabari had laid under contribution reports which were not of Persian origin. For the history of the Arab princes of Hira, which is so intimately related to that of the Persian empire, Tabari's chief authority was Hisham bin Muhammad called Ibn Kelbi a man who, like his father Muhammad bin Saib Kelbi before him, has rendered, however often modern criticism may take exception to the unscientific system of both the writers, the greatest service in connection with the collection of the scattered information on the history of ancient Arabs. We know of a few of the numerous writings, large and small, of Ibn Kelbi which are enumerated for us in the _Fihrist_ and which probably are at the root of Tabari's chapters. It is quite possible that Tabari borrows many of the secondary sources of Ibn Kelbi. It is surprising that the latter is cited as an authority on the Persian history itself, on the reigns of Ardeshir, Peroz, Khosrau I, Harmizd IV, Khosrau II, and Yazdegerd III. We are not cognisant of any work of his on the History of Persia. But it may be conjectured that occasionally in his history of Arabia he supplied minuter details touching contemporary Persia. An amanuensis of his, Jabala bin Salim, is noticed in the _Fihrist_ as one of the translators from Persian. Ho provided his master with material from Pahlavi books.

For the History of the Arabs of that period Tabari has used a variety of other sources, most prominent among them being Muhammad Ibn Ishak who is better known as the biographer of the prophet. In this section of Tabari's great work mediately or immediately a large amount of diverse information has been brought together.

It is certainly desirable and to be hoped that the criticism of the sources in this domain would make substantial progress. But the point of greatest moment even here is to test every incident or piece of information according to its origin and credibility as I have endeavoured to do in the footnotes.

APPENDIX VI

_LETTER OF TANSAR TO THE KING OF TABARISTAN._

Christensen, by the following reasoning, comes to the conclusion, that it was written somewhere between 557 and 570.

Among the sources of our knowledge of the Sasanian institutions, one of the most important is the letter of Tansar to the king of Tabaristan published and translated by Darmesteter in the _Journal Asiatique_ (1894). The information which it gives on points where we can verify it is so exact that we cannot doubt that the letter was composed in the time of the Sasanians. On the other hand, on the first reading of the epistle I formed the impression that it was a literary fiction dating from the time of Khusro when the tradition made of Ardeshir the model of political sagacity and the founder of the entire organisation of the empire. The letter impressed me as a historical, theological, political and moral dissertation which in the shape of a correspondence between the grand Herbed Tansar and the king of Tabaristan, ill-informed regarding the new state of affairs and hesitating to submit himself to Ardeshir, was calculated to instruct contemporaries. It, therefore, fits in with the entire literature of the _Andarz_ type, which was developed under Khusro and the object of it was the moral instruction of the people. A more minute examination has confirmed me in this view and now I think I am able to affirm positively that the letter was composed under Khusro I. Tansar relates that Ardeshir softened the penalties for crimes against the religion. Formerly, "they used to put to death without hesitation those who set aside the religion of the State. But Ardeshir has directed that the accused shall be arrested and shall be catechised during a year and only if that proves of no effect he shall be killed." As a matter of fact, the rigorous ordinance which awarded the punishment of death for apostacy could not have existed before Parsism became with Ardeshir the State religion. The relaxation of punishment, on the other hand, dates from a much later period, when the standpoint of greater humanity began to be prevalent and when it was attempted to give greater authority to these views by attributing them to the celebrated founder of the dynasty. And we can say the same thing with reference to the less severe punishment for crimes committed against the State and in respect of other things mentioned in the letter. Besides, the tolerance in matters religious and the humanity of Khusro I are well-known.

Now let us look at the incident of succession. According to the letter Ardeshir did not like to choose his successor lest the latter should wish for his death. So, he arranged for the succession in the following manner. The king only left in his royal letters a few counsels or instructions to the grand _Mobed_, the commander-in-chief, and the principal secretary, and after the decease of the king the latter were to proceed to elect a successor from among the royal princes. If they all were not of the same mind the choice should rest with the grand _mobed_ alone. But Aideshir had made a formal notes that he was not going to establish a president thereby, and that "in another age a manner of looking at things different from ours may appear the proper one." In the first place such an arrangement accords ill with the nature of a statesmen like Ardeshir, for we know from Tabari who follows the official chronicle of the times of the Sasanians, that Ardeshir as well as Shapur I and II themselves chose their respective successors. But in the times between Ardeshir II and Kawadh the election of the king was generally in the hands of the noblemen, and the system mentioned by Tansar may well have suited this period and been in harmony with the singular expression ascribed to Ardeshir that the system in question was not a definite one, and that in other periods, other manners might be more convenient. It seems to us that the letter of Tansar was composed at a period when the memory of the system of Ardeshir was still living although it had already been abolished. In other words, it was the time when the kings had gained the power to nominate their successors during their life-time, which brings us to the period between Kawadh and Hormum IV.

The letter makes Ardeshir say "None but the subject kings who do not belong to our House can assume the title of king barring the wardens of the marches of the territory of the Allans and the districts in the west and of Khwarzm." By the oppression 'the warden of the matches' we must understand no doubt the _marzbans_ of the countries established by Khusro.

Finally, the geographical notices permit us to determine in a more exact fashion the time of the origin of the letter.... The letter was consequently, composed after the march of Khusro I towards the East by the destruction of the Hephthahtes, but before the capture of Yemen. that is to say, between 557-570.

Christensen finally notes that Marquart has arrived at the same conclusion, by another way, namely, that the letter is a fiction of the time of Khusro I. (See _Eranshahr_ page 30, note 2).

APPENDIX VII

_Some Arabic authors and the Iranian material they preserve._

_IRANIAN MATERIAL IN THE UYUNAL AKBHAR OF IBN QOTAIBA_.

[_Note,_--Brockelmann's edition of the _Uyunal Akhbar_ is not accessible to me in India. I have carefully examined the first volume of the Cairo Edition and the following will show the wealth of Iranian material comprised in the book.--G.K.N.]

When the Kisra died this was reported to the Prophet who inquired who was going to succeed the dead emperor and when he was told his daughter, the princess Buran, the Prophet declared that the nation could not prosper inasmuch as its affairs depended upon a woman. (p. 11).

[Sidenote: Next-of-kin marriage.]

I have read in the _Book of the Persians_ an epistle written by Ardeshir, son of Babak to his subjects declaring that the ecclesiastical authorities were the upholders of the religion and that the warriors were the bearers of the casque and literature, and were ornaments of the empire and that the agriculturists were pillars of the country. (p. 15). [In the course of the epistle there is a reference to marriage of next of kin, the king exhorting his subjects to _tazauwa-ju-fil qarabayn_.]

[Sidenote: _Kitab Ain_ or the Pahlavi _Ain-nameh._]

[Sidenote: Anushirwan's rule.]

I have read in the _Ain_ that a king of Persia said in his address to his people: "I am only the ruler of people's bodies, not their minds; and I govern with justice, not according to my pleasure; and I safeguard people's property, not their secrets." Furthermore, the Persians say the most efficient of rulers is he who draws the bodies of his subjects to fealty to him through their hearts. When Anushirwan appointed a person to an office he directed his secretary to leave out in the appointment order a space of four lines so that he may fill it up with his own hand, and when the appointment order was brought to him he would write in it "govern the good people by love, and for the common people mix liberty with awe and govern the proletariat with levity." (p. 15).

And it is said in the _Book of the Persians_ that the hearts of the people are the treasuries of the king, so that whatever is put there should be made known to him. (p 17).

[Sidenote: The _Taj._]

And I have read in the _Taj_; Said Aberwez to his son Shiruya who had put him into prison, [and here follow some views relating to the treatment of soldiers.]

And in one of the _Books of the Persians_ it is stated that Ardeshir said to his son, "Oh, my son, the empire and the religion are two brothers which cannot do the one without the other. For the religion is the foundation and the empire is the guardian and whatever has no foundation falls and whatever has no guardian to look after it goes to waste" [And then proceeds to advise him as to the treatment of the nobles, warriors, the clergy, etc. Then are described the five qualities essential in a man occupying a post in the imperial government]

And it is said in the _Taj_ that Aberwez wrote to his son Shiruya from his prison.... (p. 20)

And I have read in the letter ... Aberwez wrote to his son Shiruya, [and here follow instructions regarding the three qualifications necessary in a revenue officer.] (p. 21)

[Sidenote: The _Taj._]

I have read in the _Taj_ that one of the kings of Persia took counsel with his _Wazirs,_ [and here follows a discussion about the necessity of confiding one's secret to one man only and not more.] (p. 25)

[Sidenote: Epistle of Aberwez.]

I have read in the Epistle of Aberwez to his son Shiruya who was imprisoned by him,[here follows the advisability of taking counsel with a certain class of people.] (p. 30).

[Sidenote: Marzbans.]

One of the kings of Persia, when he consulted the Marzbans and they did not give their opinion in a proper way, summoned those who were entrusted with provisioning the Marzbans and punished them. The latter complained that the error was on the part of the Marzbans whereas the punishment was awarded to them and the king replied that was so, and that the Marzbans would not have committed the error unless their minds were not dependent upon their food.

[Sidenote: Buzurjamaher.]

[Sidenote: Books of the Persians.]

[Sidenote: Ideal Persian Secretary]

Says Buzurjamaher, "When you are in doubt as to the propriety of doing one of two things then look out for the one which is nearest to your desires and relinquish it." (p. 23). And it is said in the _Books of the Persians_, [and here follows one of the most frequently repeated injunctions about the strict guarding of one's secrets.] (p. 40.) The Persians were in the habit of saying that the person would be deficient as a writer who was not conversant with the nature of flowing waters, with the digging of canals, with mirage, with the length of days as to

## particular seasons, with the rising of the new moon, and its effects,

with weights and measures, with mensuration, triangles, squares, and measurements of areas involving various angles, with the preparation of channels and bridges and water mills, with the implements of artisans, and with the intricacies of mathematics. (p. 43).

[Sidenote: Mobedan-Mobed]

I have read in one of the _Books of the Persians_ that the _Mobedan-Mobed_ in eulogising the art of writing said etc ... (p. 47).

[Sidenote: Epistle of Aberwez.]

I have read in the Epistle of Aberwez to his son Shiruya. [Then follows an advice about severely punishing even a small piece of dishonesty.] (p, 58).

[Sidenote: The _Taj_.]

I have read in the _Taj_ that Aberwez said to the treasurer [here follows some observations on integrity.]

[Sidenote: Persian sense of justice and equity.]

I have read in the _Ain_ that it behoves the ruler to understand the jurisdiction of rightful justice, of justice which is not equity, of equity which is not justice, and to use his judgment with regard to evidence and eyewitnesses, and to refrain from doubtful matters. Since it is both justice and equity to kill a person for the slaughter of a person, and it is justice without equity to kill a master for the slaughter of a slave, and it is equity without justice to award the same punishment for a crime committed by a sane man as to one who was not in his senses. (p. 88).

And I have read in the _Taj_: Said Aberwez to his chamberlain; [and here follow very interesting instructions regarding the treatment which the chamberlain was to give to the various persons seeking an audience of the king.] (p. 74).

I have read in the _Taj_ [here follows an address of a secretary to a king.]

[Sidenote: Speech from the throne.]

I have read in the _Siyaral Ajam_ [one of the Arabic versions of _Shah Nameh_] that Ardeshir, when he was firmly established on the throne, gathered together his subjects and addressed them with eloquence exhorting them to love and obedience to himself, and warning them against sin and dividing the people into four classes, upon which those present made obeisance and their spokesman addressed the king as follows. [Here follows one of those typical speeches of which we have so many in _Shah Nameh_, and which leaves no doubt that the originals of them were composed in Pahlavi and that they were almost literally translated.]

_JAHIZ._

_KITAB-AL-BAYAN VA-AL-TABAYYIN._

_(Egyptian Edition.)_

## PART I.

The dictum of BUZURJAMEHR: Buzurg, son of Bokhtagan was asked, "Which is the thing which covers indolence." "Aye" he said, "Wisdom, which gives beauty to it." They said, "If a person has got no wisdom?" He said, "Then property, which will cover it." They said, "But if there is no property?" He said, "His friends will earn respect for him." They said, "But if he has got no friends to earn respect for him?" He said, "If a person is indolent then he must preserve silence" They said, "But if he does not observe silence?" He said, "Then sudden death is better for him than that he should remain, in the world of the living." This passage has been repeated at page 123 with a slight difference. There the interrogator is Kisra Anushirvan, and the question is, which thing is the best for a man who is indolent. Buzurg replies, "Wisdom, with which he may be happy." (p, 4.)

There is mention of several authors and books similar to _Kalileh wa Dimneh_ with the names of their authors including Sahal Ibn Harun, Ibn Rayhani, Al Katib. (p. 30.)

Says Ismai: In the alphabet of the Romans there is no _zad_ and among the Persians there is no _tha_. (p. 36)

A longish definition and description of oratory by Ibn ul Mukaffa. (p. 64.)

Ibn Mukaffa again referred to. (p. 65.)

Instances of Arabic poetry in which Persian words and phrases are intermingled _e.g., garden_ for _unuk_ (neck); _av sard_ for cold water, &c. (p. 79.)

[There are several other instances where the Persian words are there, but the copyist and possibly also the editor, do not seem to have understood the Kasida and the editor observes in a marginal note that, the text is corrupt, G.K.N.]

## PART II.

Mention of Sahal Ibn Harun. (p. 37.)

Mention of Persia, (p. 53.)

Mention of Abdallah Ibn Mukaffa. (p. 84.)

Mention of Persia, (p. 92.)

Dicta of Ibn al Mukatia on the dignity of kings and of nobles, (p. 104.)

Reference to Khalid al Kisravi. (p. 105.)

Reference to Ibn al Mukaffa. (p. 109.)

Khalid al Kisrawi. (p. 112.)

Al Hurmuzan. (p. 139.)

On the service of kings. (p. 176.)

## PART III.

The ways of the Shuubiya. (p. 2.)

Reference to Persia. (p. 5.)

Persia and Arabia compared. (p. 7.)

Arabia and Persia compared. (p. 12.)

Arabia and Persia contrasted. The prophets of Ajam. (p, 13.)

Reference to Persia. (p. 44.)

The Persian throne. (p. 77.)

Dicta of Mukaffa. (p. 87.)

Khalid al Barmaki. (p. 110.)

Dicta on Adab of Mukaffa. (p. 135.)

Reference to Barmaki. (p. 174.)

Reference to Barmaki. (p. 170.)

Sahal Ibn-Harun. (p. 185.)

Dictum of Buzurja Meher. (p. 217.)

Madaini quoted. (p. 233.)

Persia referred to. (p. 234.)

## PART III., PAGE 5.

[Sidenote: Value of Zoroastrian literature.]

And we note that the persons most superior with, regard to preaching our sermons are the Persians. And among the Persians the most clever in this respect are the people of Fars, and they are the sweetest in words, and their pronunciation is the most correct. And the most difficult in this respect are the people of Merv. The most eloquent dialect of Persia is the Dari. As regards the Pahlavi idiom, of the people of the country of Ahwaz are the best. And as regards the chantings of the HERBEDS and the songs of the MOBEDS the superiority in this respect lies with the annotators of the Zemzema. And it is said that he who desires to acquire proficiency in the art of eloquence, and to be acquainted with rare expressions, and to be profoundly versed in vocabulary should read the book of Karwand. Moreover, if it is necessary to acquire sagacity and good manners and knowledge of the various interpretations of terms, a knowledge of pleasing expression and agreeable interpretation, one should study the LIVES OF KINGS, since for the Persians this book contains essays and sermons and fine expressions.

HAMZA ISPAHANI.

[Sidenote: Why no authentic history of Iran has survived.]

[Sidenote: A clear reference to the ambiguous Pahlavi script and to the great difficulty of translating from it:]

[Sidenote: Enumeration of the sources of Iranian history.]

There are four dynasties among the kings of Persia and their enumeration is given alone and without any history of the events of their time or the characteristics of the kings of Persia during the protracted period of their sovereignty. They were divided into four groups called the Feshdadiya, the Kayaniya, the Ashghaniya, and the Sasaniya. Their entire chronology is dubious and not certain since it was translated after 150 years from one language into another and from one equivocal set of symbols for figures into another set of symbols, so that there remained nothing for me with reference to a narrative, in these chapters except to bring together the doubtful transcripts. I succeeded in finding eight transcripts and these were the following:--The Book of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia translated by Ibn al Mukaffa, the Book of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia translated by Muhammad Ibn al Jaham al Barmak, the Book of the History of the Kings of Persia which was taken out of the treasury of the Khalif Mamun; the Book of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia which was translated by Zaduya son of Shahuya of Ispahan; the Book of the Reigns of the Kings of Persia which was translated or compiled by Muhammad Ibn al Behram Ibn Mutyan of Ispahan; the Book of the Chronology of the Kings of Persia which was translated or compiled by Heshan Ibn Kasum of Ispahan, the Book of the Chronology of the Kings of the Sasanian Dynasty which was improved upon by Behram son of Mardan Shah, Mobed of the district of Shabur in the country of Fars. And when I had collected together all these works, I compared one with the others and then acquired what was necessary for the writing of this chapter.

[Sidenote: Incorrect translations from Pahlavi.]

And says Abu Mashar, the astronomer:--The majority of their [Iranian] histories are interpolated and corrupt, and there is the corruption because they have come down from a great many years ago and because they have been translated from one writing into another and from one tongue into another and hence there have been mistakes of either excess or defect.

"And the Persians start their assertion from the Book which was brought to them by Zaradusht and which was called Avesta. This is the Book of their religion. It alleges that there have elapsed since the reign of Kayumarth, the father of mankind, down to the reign of king Yazdegerd, 4182 years, 10 months, and 19 days."

[Sidenote: Corrupt texts and faulty translations.]

Says Musa Ibn Isa al Kesravi in his book: I saw the Book which is called the _Khoday Nameh_ and which is the Book which when it was translated from Persian into Arabic was entitled _Kitab al Muluk al Fars._ I carefully examined the copies of this Book and looked through the narratives in them, and I found them in disagreement with each other so that I could not find even two copies which agreed with each other, and this was on account of the doubts in the minds of the translators who turned from one writing into another.

[Sidenote: Mobed Behram the historian.]

And turning back to what I have related in the previous chapter as regards the chronology [of the Persians], I relate what has been stated by Behram son of Mardanshah, _Mobed_ of the district of Shabur in the province of Fars. Says Behram the mobed: I collected together a little over twenty copies of the book called _Khoday Nameh_ and I put together properly the chronology of the kings of Persia from the times of Kayumarth, the father of mankind, till the last days when the empire was transferred from them to the Arabs.

[Hamza describes the dress of the kings according to a book in which they were depicted just before their death. And he gives the buildings which each of them erected, especially the fire-temples they established along with the villages on the produce of which they were to be maintained.]

[Sidenote: Avesta.]

"I have read in the book which has been translated from one of their books called _Avesta_," and so on Hamza proceeds regarding the beginning of creation.

TABARI.

(1st Series, Vol. 2, page 675.)

[Sidenote: Fire-temples in India.]

It is related by historians versed in the antiquities of Arabia and Persia that Bhishtasb, son of Kay Loharasb, when he assumed the crown, said:--To-day we have become sovereign and we shall employ our thoughts, our action, and our knowledge for the acquisition of the good. And it is said that he built in Fars a city called Fasa and he built fire-temples in India, etc., and appointed _herbeds_ to the same. He assigned several dignities to seven of his noblemen in his dominions and appointed each of them to the charge of a district.

[Sidenote: The appearance of Zoroaster.]

[Sidenote: Wars of Iran and Turan.]

Zaradusht son of Isfayman appeared in the thirtieth year of his reign and laid claim to apostleship and endeavoured that his religion might be accepted by the king. The latter refused and then Zaradusht satisfied him. Upon which the king accepted his claim. And he brought to him a Writing which he claimed was a revelation. And the said Writing was inscribed on 12,000 cow hides and they were embellished with gold, and Bishtasp deposited the same in a place in Istakhar called Darbesht and he appointed _herbeds_ in that connection. He prohibited the teaching of it to ordinary people.... [Here follows a passage which is not very clear regarding the difference that arose between the king of Iran and the king of the Turks relating to this new religion which Bishtasb had adopted. The name of the Turk sovereign is given as Khurzasaf.] Now when the messenger arrived with the epistle to Bishtasb there were gathered together the Ahl-bayat[1] and the noblemen of the empire, including Jamasaf the Wise, and Zarrin son of Loharasaf. Then Bishtasb wrote to the king of the Turks a strongly worded reply challenging him to a war and expressing his determination not to withdraw the step that he had taken and saying that that even if he refrained from fighting there would be all the people on both sides who would continue the struggle. On that day there were in the council of Bishtasb his brother Zarrin, and Nastur son of Zarrin, and Isfandiyar and Beshotan, the sons of Bishtasb and all the progeny of Loharasb. On the side of Khorasaf there were Ju Hormaz, and Hudarman his brother, and the Ahl-bayat and Baidarafsh, the magician. In the battle Zarrin was killed which was a heavy blow to Bishtasb and a great booty was taken by his son Isfandiyar, and Baidaraf was killed which was a calamity to the Turks. There was a huge slaughter and Khorsasaf fled. Thereupon Bishtasb returned to Balkh. Now when a number of years had passed after this war a person called Karzam attacked Isfandiyar. There was also an estrangement between Bishtasb and Isfandiyar. Order was issued for his imprisonment in a castle in which there were ladies, Bishtasb then proceeded in the direction of Kerman and Sagistan and proceeded towards a mountain called Tamdar. [The various manuscripts write the word differently and the editors have printed it without the diacritical marks so that it can be read in a variety of ways], for the purpose of teaching the religion and of spreading it there. And he left behind him his father Loharasaf in the city of Balkh and the treasures and the properties along with the harem including Khatus, his queen, were also left with the old man. [As the Editor points out Khatus is the Hutaosa of _Gosh Yast_ 26, and _Ram Yast_ 36[2]]. Now this fact was conveyed by the spies to Khorasaf and when he learnt it he collected an innumerable army and proceeded from his country towards Balkh and Khorasaf thought that this was an opportunity of attacking Bishtasb and his country. Thus when he approached Takhun he sent forward Ju Hormaz, his brother, with a large army and directed him to continue his march till he reached the centre of Bishtasb's country and to invade it and attack the people and the cities. And this was done by Ju Hormaz who shed a large amount of blood and carried off incalculable booty. And Khorasaf followed him and set fire to the archives and slew Lohorasaf and the _herbeds_ and destroyed the fire-temples, _(buyut-an-niran)_ and he took possession of the properties and the treasuries and took two of the daughters of Lohorasaf prisoner and one of them was called Khumay and the other Bazafreh. [This of course is according to Firdousi Beh Afrid]. He captured a great standard which was called Dirafsh Kabyan and he pursued Bishtasb who was fleeing from him.

[Footnote 1: Ahl-bayat, or people of the house, is the Arabic equivalent of the Iranian Visputhra and was applied by Arabs to the superior Persian noblemen.]

[Footnote 2: Here is evidence, on the one hand, that the Arab historians had Iranian histories at their disposal and on the other, that the latter are still reflected in the _yasht_ literature.]

[The historian narrates how Isfandiyar went into the heart of the kingdom of the Turk and reached his capital which was called "Dez Ruin" and he proceeds to say "and being interpreted in Arabic it means the palace of copper." There is further reference to the canals and castles which we can trace to the BUNDEHESH. The struggle between Rustum and Isfandiyar is also described. This is followed by a curious passage regarding Zoroaster.]

DINAWARI.

PAGE 26, CAIRO EDITION.

THE CALL OF ZARADUSHT.

[Sidenote: Rustam and Isfandiyar.]

And it is said that Zaradusht the head of the Magians came to Bishtasb the king and told him, "I am the Apostle of God to you", and gave him the Book which the Magians possess. Then Bishtasb believed in him and accepted his religion which is that of the Magians and exhorted the people of his kingdom to the same and they also accepted it _nolence volence._ And Rustam the Strong, was at that time the Governor of Sagistan and Khorasan, and he was powerful of body and possessed of great vigour. And when this happened it was reported to Kaykobad the king, this, about the admittance of Bishtasb into the Magian religion and his abandoning the religion of their forefathers. Kaykobad became exceedingly angry at this, and said that this was forsaking of the religion of their forefathers who had inherited it from one generation to another. Then the people of Sagistan were gathered together and they wore incited to destroy Bishtasb. And they revolted against him. Upon this Bishtasb called upon Isfandiyar who was the strongest man of his time and said to him, "Oh son, the kingdom will be entrusted to you. But the affairs will not improve except by killing Rustam, and you know his strength and vigour. But you are his match in power and prowess. So do you choose from the army whomever you like and then proceed against him." So Isfandiyar selected 12,000 Persian knights from the forces of his father, and marched against Rustam. And Rustam proceeded towards him between the boundaries or Sagistan and Khorasan. Isfandiyar suggested to Rustam that their armies should be excused from attacking each other, but that they two should engage in single combat and that whoever killed the other should be held to be the victor. Rustam agreed to the proposal and the covenant. Then the two armies stood abide and the two warriors engaged in a duel. Now the Persians have a good deal to say in this matter and that it was Rustam who killed Isfandiyar and that the latter's army returned to Bishtasb and informed him of what had happened to his son Isfandiyar. The king was overwhelmed with grief fell ill and died. And the kingdom, came to the grandson Bahman, son of Isfandiyar, and it is related that soon after Rustam returned to his residence in Sagistan, he died.[1]

[Footnote 1: Note that Dinawari had obviously before him Iranian traditional materials for his history.]

DINAWARI TREATS OF THE FOLLOWING IRANIAN SUBJECTS IN HIS CLEAR AND SUCCINCT FASHION.

The reign of Baywarasaf, Farasiyab; Dhahak, the end of the reign of Minosher and the beginning of the reign of Farasiyab, the reign of Zab son of Budkan and Kaykohad Zab; the reign of Kaykawuys son of Kaykobad, the reign of Kai Khosro, the reign of Lohrasf and the invasion of Bukht Nasar; the reign of Bhishtasb in Persia; the call of Zaradusht, the reign of Bahman Ibn Isfandiyar in Persia and the emancipation of the Jews, the reign of Khumani (Humay) the queen of Bahman; the reign of Dara Ibn Bahman; the war of Dara with Greece; the reign of Darayush; the origin of Alexander; the invasion of Alexander against Dara; the reign of Ardwan; One para. is devoted to the Muluk ut Tawaef, and then regularly follow all the Sasanian kings beginning with Shahan Shah Ardeshir.

IBN AL ATHIR

(Vol. I., PAGE 110 CAIRO EDITION.)

_Account of King Loharasp and his son Bishtasb and the appearance of Zaradusht_.

[Sidenote: Zend and Pazend.]

And we have related that Kai Khosrou, when he was at the point of death, bequeathed the crown to the son of his uncle Loharasp; and when he acquired the sovereignty he got possession of the throne of gold adorned with jewels. For him was built in Khorasan the city of Balkh which was called Husna (charming). He established archives and strengthened the empire by the selection of soldiers and by advancing agriculture. He took taxes for the purpose of wages for his soldiers. At that time the Turks were in great strength and he went down to Balkh to fight them, and he was a favourite with his people and strong in overpowering his vigourous enemies, kind to his well-wishers, and of great intrepidity. He raised great buildings and cut a number of canals, built cities. The kings of India and China and the occident used to pay tribute to him and addressed him in their despatches as their 'Lord' out of fear and respect for him. Subsequently he abdicated the empire and throne and engaged himself in devotion, appointing in succession to him his son Bishtasb to be king. And his reign endured for 120 years. After him Bishtasb became king and in his days appeared Zaradusht son of Sakiman [it should be Safiman, the difference being only that of a dot] who claimed to prophesy and the Magians followed him. And according to what is stated by writers, Zaradusht belonged to Palestine and was a personal servant to one of the disciples of Armaya, the prophet. He was unfaithful to him and told him a lie so that God cursed him and he was afflicted with leprosy and went away to the country of Azarbayjan and there started the religion of Magians. And it is also stated by others that he was a Persian and that he composed a Book and went about with it in the world. But no one knew its meaning. And it was alleged that it was in a heavenly language and was called as such. It was entitled Ashta [this is clearly a misformation of Avesta]. Then he left Azarbayjan and proceeded towards Fars. No one knew what was in the book and no one accepted it. Then he went to India and produced it before the kings there. Next he went to China and Turkey. But no one acknowledged it, and he was driven out from their countries, and started for Farghana whose king prepared to slay him so that he fled from there and bent his steps towards Bhishtasb son of Loharasp; who ordered his imprisonment and he was consequently in captivity for a time. Now Zaradusht wrote a commentary on his Book called the Zend which means interpretation. Next he commented upon the Zend in a book called Bazand, that is, interpretation of interpretation, and therein are various sciences like astrology, astronomy, medicine, etc., with reference to the history of past ages, and the books of the prophets. And in his book is stated,--"Adhere to what I have brought you till the time when there will come to you the man of the red camel," which means Muhammad the Prophet. This was at the beginning of the year 1600 and it was on this account that there has been enmity between the Magians and the Arabs and it has been mentioned in the history of Sabur Dhul Aktaf that this was one of the reasons justifying the raids on the Arabs. But God knows the best.

[Sidenote: The Eternal fire.]

[Sidenote: Royal archives forbidden to the Vulgar.]

Then Bishtasb caused Zaradusht to present himself before him since he was in Balkh. And when he came to him he commenced with his religion. Bishtasb admired it, followed it, and forced his people to embrace it, and slew a large number of them till the rest adopted it. But the Magians assert that he was by origin from Azarbayjan and that he came to the king from the roof of his palace and that there was in his hand a cube of fire with which he played without its injuring him; that whoever took it from his hand did so without hurting himself. He caused the king to follow him and to accept his creed. And he built fire temples in the country and lighted them with that fire. For it is stated that the fires which are in their fire-temples are burning from that fire to this day. But they are telling an untruth since the fire of the Magians was extinguished in all their temples when God sent Muhammad down as his apostle as we shall describe, God willing, in the sequel, as well as the appearance of Zaradusht after thirty years of the reign of Bishtasb. And Zaradusht brought a writing which is alleged to be revelation from God and is inscribed on 12,000 cow hides inlaid with gold. Bishtasb deposited them in a place in Istakhar and forbade the teaching of thorn to the vulgar.

MASUDI.

_Kitab-at-tanbih._

[Sidenote: The Kohan Nameh and the Ain Nameh.]

The Persians have a book called the _Kohan Nameh_ in which are mentioned all the officers of the Persian monarch amounting to 600 and classed according to their respective ranks. This book formed part of the _Ain Nameh._[1] The meaning of Ain Nameh is the 'Book of regulations'. It is a book containing several thousands of leaves and no one can find a copy of it anywhere except among the _mobeds_ and others invested with authority. The mobed of the Persians at the moment of writing this history, that is in the year 364, for the country of Jabal in Iraq and for the countries of Ajam, is Ammad son of Ashwahisht. Before him these countries had for their mobed Isfandiyar, son of Adarbad, son of Anmid, who was killed by Radi at Baghdad in 325.

[Footnote 1: A remarkable passage from this Pahlavi treatise has been embodied in a close Arabic version in Ibn Kutayha's _Uyun-al-Akhbar._ The credit of discovering and translating this unique passage into a European language belongs to M.K. Inostranzev.]

I have seen in the city of Istakhar in Fars in the year 303 in the house of a high noble Persian, a large book in which were set out along with the descriptions of several sciences the histories of the kings of Persia, their reigns and the monuments which they had erected,--fragments which I have not been able to find anywhere else in Persian books, neither in the _Khoday Nameh_, nor in the _Ain Nameh_ nor in the _Kohan Nameh_ or anywhere else.

[Sidenote: Portrait of Sasanian kings taken just before their demise.]

[Sidenote: Persian Imperial archives: Translation into Arabic.]

In this book were pictures of the kings of Persia belonging to the house of Sasan, twenty seven in number, twenty five men and two women. Each of them was represented as at the moment of death, whether old or young with the royal ornaments, with the tiara, hair, beard, and all the features of his face. This dynasty reigned over the country for 433 years one month and seven days. When one of these kings died his portrait was painted and it was deposited in the treasury in order that the living princes may know the features of the dead kings. The representation of every king who was painted as a warrior was in a standing posture; that of every king who was occupied with government affairs was in the sitting posture. To it was joined the biography of each, of them detailing his public and private life together with the important events and facts concerning the most interesting incidents of his reign. The book which I saw was redacted according to the documents found in the treasuries of the kings of Persia and it was completed in the middle of the second Jamada of the year 113. It was translated for Hisham son of Abdal Malik son of Merwan from Persian into Arabic. The first of the kings of this dynasty whom one sees there is Ardeshir. The distinctive colour in his portrait was of a brilliant red. His trousers were of sky-blue and the mitre was green on gold. He held a lance in the hand and he was standing. The last was that of Yezdegerd, son of Shahariyar, son of Kesra Abarvez. His distinctive colour was green. His trousers were sky-blue and his mitre vermillion. He held in his hand a lance and rested the other hand on his sabre. This painting was made with Persian colours which are no longer to be found now-a-days and of gold and silver dissolved and of pulverised copper. The leaves of the book were of a purple colour and of a marvellous tint. It was so beautiful and prepared with such care that I do not know whether it was paper or whether it was thin parchment. (P. 250.)

[Which stands for Pahlavi and not modern Persian.]

[Sidenote: Zoroaster, Avesta, and Avesta Script.]

Zaradusht brought to the king the book of _Avesta_, the name of which in Arabic has received a final _kaf_ and has thus become _Abestak_. The number of chapters of book is twenty one, each chapter comprising 200 leaves. In this book we find a total of sixty vowels and consonants each with a distinct character. Some of these characters are found elsewhere and others have fallen into disseutude. For this script is not confined to the language of the Avesta.

[Sidenote: Extent of Avesta.]

[Sidenote: Persian translation of Avesta.]

[Sidenote: Contents of Avesta.]

Zoroaster invented this writing which the Magians have called Sin Dabireh, that is to say, the 'sacred writing'. He incised his writing into 12,000 cow skins and filled it with gold. It was in the ancient language of Persia of which no one has any knowledge to-day. Only a few portions of its chapters have been translated into the modern Persian. It is this Persian translation which they have in their hands when, they say their prayers. The translation contains fragments like the Ashtad, the Chitrasht, the Aban Yasht, the Hadukht, and other chapters. In the Chitrasht are found the recitals of the origin and the end of the world. Hadukht comprises exhortations.

[Sidenote: commentaries on Avesta.]

Zoroaster composed the commentary on the Avesta which he called the Zend, and which in the eyes of his followers was revealed to him by God. He subsequently translated it from Pahlavi into Persian. Zoroaster, further, prepared a commentary on the Zend and called it Bazend.

[Sidenote: Their destruction.]

The Mobeds and the Herbeds, learned in the science of religion, commented in their turn on this commentary and their work was called the Barideh, and, by others, the Akradeh. After he had conquered the Persian Empire and put to death Dara son of Dara, Alexander burnt them....

[Sidenote: Synopsis of Zoroastrian beliefs.]

Besides the two modes of writing which they owe to Zoroaster, the Persians have five other methods in many of which Nabatian words have been introduced. We have explained all these in our books already cited with quotations of portions regarding the miracles of Zoroaster, the marks and the proof of his revelation, the belief in the five eternal principles which are Ormazd or God, Ahriman which is the same as Satan, the wicked, Kah or time, Jay or space, Homa or the good spirituous liquor, the grounds on which they support these doctrines, the reasons why they render homage to the two luminaries and to other heavenly lights, the distinction which they make between fire and light, their discourses regarding the origin of the human species, on Mashya son of Gayomert, and Mashyana his daughter, and how the Persians trace their geneologies back to these two personages, and finally, other things connected with the exercise of their religion, the practice of their cult and the various places where they have established their fire sanctuaries.

[Sidenote: Confutation of prejudice Moslem theologians.]

Certain Musalman theologians and authors of books on various sects, and several authors who have set before them the task at different times of refuting Zoroastrianism have alleged that it is believed in their religion that from the reflexion of God on himself has issued an evil spirit or the devil and that God, indulgent towards him, has accorded him a certain time during which to tempt mankind. These authors further cite as appertaining to this religion propositions which the Magians themselves have always rejected. I believe that they must have heard these particulars from ordinary people and that they have recorded them as the authentic expression of the followers of the religion of Zoroaster.[1]

[Footnote 1: Our celebrated Arab polyhistor not only does not malign the faith of Zoroaster but proceeds to confute his prejudiced co-religionists who pretended to refute the old faith of Iran.]

SHAHARASTANI.

KITAB AL MILAL VAL NIHAL.

(_Page 112, Bombay Edition. Compare also page 83 of the Egyptian Edition on the margin of Ibn Hazm._)

THE MAGIANS.

These people believe in two Principles as we have already stated; only, that the original Magians were of the belief that it was not possible that there should be two Principles eternal and without beginning, but that the light was without beginning and darkness was only produced; and they were of different views as regards the origin of its rise,--whether it arose from light, since light cannot bring something that was partly evil. How then could the principle of evil or anything else arise since there was nothing at first which participated with light in its production and in its being eternal? Here the error of the Magians becomes apparent. They also assert that the first of persons was Kayumarth, though they sometimes say that he was Zarwan the great, and that the last of the prophets was Zaradusht. The Kayumarthiya assert that Kayumarth was Adam; Kayumarth appears as Adam in the histories of India and Persia. But all the histories are against this.[1]

[Footnote 1: I have constantly referred to Haarbrucker's German translation and to the German passages cited by Gottiel in the Drisseler Volume which was very kindly presented to me by our Prof. A.V.W. Jackson. Gottiel has omitted the sections regarding the Kayumarthiya.]

THE ZARADUSHTIYA.

These are the followers of Zaradusht, son of Budashab who appeared in the time of Bishtasb, son of Lohrasb, the king. His father came from Azarbayjan and his mother from Ray and her name was Doghd. They assert that they had prophets and kings and that they had Kayumarth who was the first king on the earth and that his residence was at Istakhar, that after him came Haushanj, son of Farawal, who descended on India. After him came his son Jam; the king. Then followed prophets and kings among whom was Minochehr. He proceeded to Babel and settled there, and it is related that Musa, (may peace be on him!) appeared in his time. Things continued like this till the sovereignty came to Bishtasb, son of Lohrasb. In his time appeared Zaradusht al Hakim or the Wise....

[Sidenote: Miracles of Zoroaster.]

[Sidenote: Essence of his teachings.]

[Sidenote: His Cosmogony.]

Then the child [Zaradusht] laughed a great laugh which was noticed by all those present, and people contrived so as to put Zaradusht in the way of cattle and the way of horses and in the way of wolves. But each of them stood up to protect him from its own kind. After he had attained to an age of thirty God sent him as his prophet and apostle to his creation, and he turned himself with his calling to king Bishtasb and the latter accepted his creed. His creed consisted in the reverence of God and the non-reverence of Satan, in the obedience to good and in the prohibition of the evil, and in abstaining from unclean things. He said that light and darkness were two original principles which opposed each other antagonistically, and so were Yazdan and Ahriman and that both were the beginning of the created things in the world. That the composition of it was the product of the co-mingling and that the variety of forms were given rise to by means of the various unions, but that God was the creator of light and darkness and of both the prime origins. He was one without a companion, without an opponent, and without anyone who was his like, and that it was not possible to trace to him the existence of darkness in the way in which the Zarwanites trace it, but that good and evil, pure and impure, holy and unholy, were brought forth only by the co-mingling of light and darkness, and had not the two fore-gathered the world would not have come into existence. They were pitched each against the other and they fight each other till light shall overcome darkness, and good evil. And then the good will be liberated and come to its own, and the evil will be hurled down to its own world and that will be the cause of the emancipation. God, the Almighty, however, has in his wisdom compounded and co-mingled them. Sometimes they make out that light is the original principle and express themselves thus: The existence of light is a real existence. Darkness, however, is only a consequence like the shadow of a person. It was alleged that darkness was a thing produced though not created in reality, and that God had produced light and that darkness had come out as a consequence, because contrast was a matter of necessity in existence. Hence the existence of darkness was also essential. And thus it had become a thing created although not as in the first view, as brought out with reference to a man's shadow.

[Sidenote: Zend Ave-ta.]

He [Zaradusht] also had composed a book about which people said that it was revealed to him, namely, the _Zand Awasta_ which divides the world into two parts, Mino or the spiritual and Geti or the corporeal; that is to say, into spiritual and corporeal worlds, or in other words, into mental and physical. And just as the creation is divided into two worlds, so according to him, all that was in the world was again divided into two, namely, _Bakhshis_ [Haarbrucker translates _Bakhshis_ by _gnade_ or favour, but the original Arabic expression is _takdir_ which means _destiny_, and _kunish_ or _deed_, by which are meant pre-destination By God and human action.]

[Sidenote: Zoroastrian Ethics.]

Further, he discussed the duties relating to the religious law and these have reference to the movements of man. He divided them into three parts _Manish, Guyish_ and _Kunish_, meaning thereby belief, speech, and act, and these comprehended all the duties. When in this a man is wanting he is out of obedience and out of creed. But if he conducts himself in these three movements according to the standard of the law and the ordinance he attains to the highest good.[1]

[Footnote 1: Here is an instance where the Arab philosopher and writer hands down to posterity the spirit of Zoroastrianism without prejudice and with precision.]

[Sidenote: Some Miracles explained.]

The Zaradashtiya ascribed to Zaradusht a number of miracles including that while Zaradusht was thrown into prison the forefeet of the horse of Bishtasb entered into its body. When he was set at liberty, the feet of the animal came out. Next, it is said that he happened to pass a blind man at Dinawar and to have told him, "Take the herb", which he described to him "and press its juice into your eye and you will be able to see". This was done and the blind man was restored to his sight. This, however, is to be attributed to his knowledge of the properties of the herb and so it is in no wise a miracle. (Here Gotthiel omits one section on the Saisaniya and the Bihafridiya[1]).

[Footnote 1: The Bihafridiya formed a heresy from Zoroastrianism in the time of the Moslems. The sect furnishes the strongest proof that there was no persecution worth the name in Persia at the time. Not only in those days were the Zoroastrians permitted to follow their own faith but here is a curious pars from Al Biruni which proves that both the original Zoroastrians and the heresy were permitted to flourish side by side under the Khalifs:--"When Abu Moslem came to Nishapur the _mobeds_ and _herbeds_ assembled before him telling him that this man [the founder of the Bihafridi sect] had infected Islam as well as their own [Zoroastrian] religion. So he sent Abdalla to fetch him. He met him in the mountain at Badjeh and brought him before Abu Moslem to put him to death together with such of his followers as he could capture. His followers called the Bihafridians still keep the institutes of their founder and strongly resemble the Zam-Zamis among the Magians." Shaharastani adds that they were the most hostile of God's creatures to the Zamzami Magians. The entire chapter on the Iranian sects in Shaharastani is worthy of careful and deep study. It explains the divergence between the prescriptions of the _Vendidad_ and the practice of the bulk of the Iranians. The _Vendidad_ was, it would appear, the authoritative scripture of one of the sects of Zoroastrianism. At any rate it is not too extravagant to deduce from the careful studies of the Iranian religion by Arab writers that as the teachings of Sakya Muni developed into more Buddhisms than one so there were several creeds with the common designation of Zoroastrianism.]

[Sidenote: The dignity of Mobedan Mobed.]

The Magians and the followers of the Two Principles and the followers of Mani and the other sects which are related to the Magians are known as the adherents of the Great creed or the Great religion. All the kings of Persia were the followers of the religion of Ibrahim, subjects and all those who belonged to the country among them during the reign of each of them followed the religion of their rulers. But these latter relied upon the chief of the ecclesiastics, _Mobed Mobedan_, the sage of sages, and the wisest of men according to whose instructions the kings conducted themselves and without whose judgment they undertook nothing; to him they showed reverence such as is shown to the Khalif of the time.

IBN HAZM.

KITAB AL FASAL FIL MILAL WAL HAWA WAL NAHAL.

(PAGE 112, VOL. 1, EGYPTIAN ED.)

As regards the Magians they believed in the prophetship of Zaradasht....

And as regards Zaradasht it is said that the majority of Moslems believed in his prophetship....

[Sidenote: "Majority of Moslems believed in the Prophetship of Zoroaster."]

And the Book of the Magians and their religious Law were for a long time during their sovereignty in the possession of the _mobeds and_ 23 _herbeds_. Each of the herbeds had a volume which was individual and separate. In it was associated none of the other herbeds and no outsider had any concern with it. Subsequently there was a break on account of Alexander setting fire to their books at the time when he invaded Dara, son of Dara, and they admit with unanimity that a portion of their scriptures to the extent of a third has perished. This has been mentioned by Bashir and Nasik and others of their men of learning....

[Sidenote: History of Zoroastrian Sacred literature.]

And Magians compiled all the scriptures (ayat) regarding the miracles of Zoroaster such as that of the brass which was spread over and melted on his chest and which did not injure him, and the feet of the horse which had penetrated his belly and which were drawn out by him, etc.

[Sidenote: Zoroastrians are _Kitabis_.]

And among those who assert that the Magians are _Ahal Kitab_ are Ali Ibn Talib and Khuzayfa, may God be pleased on these two, and Said Bin Al Musib and Karadah and Abu Thaur and the whole of the sect of the Zahurites. And we have set out the arguments of the validity of this statement in our book entitled the _Isal_ in the chapters on Jehad, Ceremonial Slaughter, and Nikah. And therein is sufficiently proved the validity of the acceptance of Jaziya by the prophet of God from them. For in the clear statement of the Qoran in the last verses of the chapter of _Burat_, God has declared unlawful the acceptance of the Jaziya from _non-Kitabis_....

Now as regards the Magians they admit that the books of theirs in which is incorporated their religion were destroyed by fire by Alexander when he slew Dara son of Dara,--that more than two-thirds of them have perished the remnants being less than a third,--that their religious law was comprised in what has disappeared. Now since this is the condition of their religion, then their claims are void altogether became of the disappearance of the majority of their books; since God does not held responsible any person with reference to anything that has not been entrusted to him.

[Sidenote: Zoroastrians extant scriptures are corrupt.]

And among their books there is one entitled the _Khudhay_ to which they pay great reverence, in which it is related that king Anushirwan prohibited the teaching of their religion in any one of the cities except Ardeshir Khurrah and the religion spread from Datjird. Before this time it was not taught anywhere except Istakhar and it was not proper for anyone to engage in its study except a special class of people. And of the books which remained after the conflagration by Alexander there were 23 volumes and there were appointed 23 _herbeds_, one _herbed_ for each volume. And no herbed transgressed upon the volume of another. And the MOBED MOBEDAN was the superintendent of the whole of those scriptures. Now whatever is in this condition has its contents altered and modified and each of the transcripts is in this state. Hence they are corrupt and do not deserve to be regarded as authentic. Thus whatever is in their books cannot be held to be authentic except by reason of faith alone since there are evident falsehoods in them like the statement that their king mounted on Iblis and rode on him wherever he willed, that man in the beginning originated from a vegetable like grass called Sharaliya, and the birth of Bayarawan Siyawush son of Kay Kawash who built a city called Kangdez between the earth and the heaven and settled therein 80,000 men belonging to the _people of family_, that they are there to this day, and that when Behram Hamawand manifests himself on his bull to restore to them their sovereignty that city will descend to earth and will help him to restore their religion and Empire. Says Abu Muhammed, may God be pleased with him. And every book in which is incorporated a falsehood is invalid and fictitious. It does not come from God. Thus there is corruption in the religion of the Magians just as there is in the religion of the Jews and the Christians to an equal degree.

IBN HAUKAL.

Ibn Haukal has been edited in the _Bibliotheca Geogra phorum Arabicorum_ by De Goege, but as the text is not available the following excerpts from a translation of it made over a century ago by Sir William Ouseley will indicate its importance. He flourished in the middle of the 11th century.

[Sidenote: Fire Temples.]

"There is not any district nor any town of Fars without a fire temple. These are held in high veneration. We shall hereafter minutely describe them. Also throughout Fars there are castles one stronger than another.

[Sidenote: Nirang.]

"There is not any district of this province nor any without a fire temple. One near Shapur they call Kunbud Kaush.... And in the religion of the Guebres it is ordained that 'Omnis Foemina quae tempore gravid it at is aut tempore menstruorum, fornicationem seu adultarium fecerit, pura non erit, donec ad Pyraeum (seu templum Ignicolarum) accesserit (et) coram Heirbed (sacerdote) nuda ferit et urina vaccae se laverit.'

"In the province of Fars, they have three languages--the PARSI, which they use in speaking one to another, though there may be some variations of dialects in different districts yet it is in fact all the same and they all understand the languages of each other and none of their expressions or words are unintelligible; the Pahlavi language which was formerly used in writings; this language now requires a commentary or explanatory treatise; and the Arabic language which at present is used in the Divans or royal courts of justice and revenue, etc.

[Sidenote: Maritime commerce.]

"As to the manners of the people in Fars those who are the chief men and occupy the higher offices in the service of the sovereign are polite and courteous. They have fine palaces and are very hospitable. The people in general, are kind and civil in their manners. The merchants are remarkably covetous and desirous of wealth. I have heard that there was a certain man of Siraj who had forty years at sea never leaving his ship during this time. Whenever he came to a port he sent some of his people on shore to transact his commercial affairs, and when the business was finished he sailed on to some other place. The inhabitants of Siraj devoted their whole time to commerce and merchandise. I myself saw at this place several persons who possessed 4,000 thousand dinars and there were some who had still more and their clothes were those of labourers.

[Sidenote: Parsis in Fars.]

"In Fars there are fire worshippers, Guebres, and Christians and some Jews. And the practices of the Guebres, their fire temples, and their customs and ceremonies and Guebreism or Magism, still continue among the people of Fars and there are not in, any country of Islam so many Guebres as in the land of Fars. It has been their capital or residence."

[Like all other Arab authors Ibn Haukal mentions the celebrated men belonging to each of the provinces he describes. Among the celebrities of Fars are reckoned Hormuz, "Guebre", who in the time of Omar was taken by Abdulla Ibn Omar and put to death; and Salman Farsi who was one of the illustrious men. His piety is celebrated throughout the world. He sought the truth of religion in all quarters only to find it at Medina with the Prophet. In consequence of this Selman became a true believer. Abdulla Ibn Mukaffa also belonged to Fars. In the territory of Istakhar is a great building with statuettes carved in stone and there also are inscriptions and paintings.]

APPENDIX VIII

IBN KHALLIKAN

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

TRANSLATED BY DE SLANE, VOL, I.

_Dehkan_ is a Persian word signifying both a farmer and a historian. It is generally used to designate a person of ancient Persian family possessing hereditary landed property. (P. 77).

_Ispeh Salar._ This word signifies commander of the troops. (P. 228). KATIBS or writers were the persons employed in public offices: the directors, clerks and secretaries in government service were all called katib.

[Sidenote: Nauruz in Baghdad.]

_Khalifs' Nauruz._--This another name for Nauruz Khasa "New Year's day proper," in which it was customary to offer presents to the sovereign. This festival was held on the sixth day of the month of Ferwardin (end of Marob). The old Persian custom of celebrating Nauruz existed at Baghdad under the Abbaside Khalifs. (See P. 203 of this work, see also an anecdote of Ahmed Ibn Yusuf al Khatif in his life of Al Mubarad.) (P. 340).

"In the year 499 Ak Sunkur was directed by the sultan Muhamed to lay siege to Tikrit which was then in the possession of Kaikobad Ibn Hazarasb (about 1125)." (P. 227.)

[Sidenote: Ibn Mukaffa.]

Ibn Khallikan has devoted seven pages to the life of Ibn Mukaffa who is called _the Katib_ and was renowned for the elegance of his style. He was the author of admirable epistles. He was a native of Fars and a Magian. But he was led to the profession of Islam by the uncle of the two first Abbaside Al Safar and Al Mansur. He then became a secretary and was admitted into intimacy. It was related that Mukaffa went to Isa Ibn Ali and said that he was persuaded of the truth of Islam and wished to make a profession of that faith. Isa answered, "Let it be done in the presence of the leaders and chiefs of the people who come here to-morrow." On the evening of that very day he went to dine with Isa, and having sat down he began to eat and to mutter according to the custom of the Magian, "How" said Isa, "he mutters like the Magian although resolved to embrace Islam?" To this Makaffa replied: "I do not wish to pass a single night without some religion." The next morning he made to Isa his solemn profession of Islam. Notwithstanding the eminent merit of Mukaffa he was suspected of infidelity and Al Jahiz states that his religious sincerity was doubted (P. 431). Ibn Kallikan says, "It was Mukaffa who composed the book entitled _Kalileh Wa-Dimneh_. But some state that he is not the author of the work which they say was in Pahlavi, and he translated it into Arabic, and put it in an elegant style. But the discourse at the beginning of the work is by him."

VOLUME II.

Ahmed Ibn Yusuf addressed to Al-Mamun a verse with a present of an embroidered robe on the day of Nauruz. (P. 32).

Al-Marzubani received his surname of Al-Marzubani because one of his ancestors bore the name of Al-Marzuban, a designation applied by Persians to great and powerful men only. This word signifies guardian of the frontier, as we learn from Ibn al Jawaliki's work called Al-muarrab. (P. 68).

A reference to the game of chess which originated in India, and the game of Nerd as invented by the Persian king Ardeshir.

We often come across names like Dhia-ad-Din Abu Said Bahrain Ibn al-Khidr, just as we have Paul Pakiam indicating the bearer of the name was originally Hindu but had adopted subsequently Christianity. (P. 296).

[Sidenote: Nominal converts.]

Abl-Hasan Mihyar Ibn Mirzawaih, a native of Dadam and secretary for Persian language was a Fire-worshipper, but afterwards adopted the Moslem faith. It is said that he made his profession to Sharif ar-Rida who was his professor and under whom he made his poetical studies. It seems, however, the conversion of Mihyar was only nominal. Ibn al-Athir al-Jazari says in his Annals that one Ibn Burhan said to him. "Mihyar, by becoming a Musalman you have merely passed from one corner of hell to another." "How so?" said Mihyar. Ibn Burhan replied: "Because you were formerly a fire-worshipper and now you revile the companions of our blessed Prophet in your verses." (P. 517.)

Ibn Khallikan adds that "Mihyar and Mirzawaith are both Persian names. Their signification is unknown to me."

VOLUME III.

Instances of hybrid compound names, the Iranian component being retained.

Izz ad-Din Kaikaus son of Ghiath ad-Din Kaikhosru. (P. 487).

Ala ad-Din Kaikobad. (P. 489).

Abu Mahfuz Ibn Firuz. (P. 384).

Abu Manzur Al Muzaffar Ibn Abi I-Husain Ardeshir. (P. 365).

Abu Mansur-Sheherdar Ibn Shiruyah. (P. 11).

Sultan ad-Dawlat, Fanakhrosru (which is no doubt equivalent to Panah Khurso.) (P. 278).

The word _abna_ signifies _sons_. It was generally employed to designate persons one of whose parents was an Arab and the other of a foreign race. At the time of Mahomed and afterwards there was in Yeman a great number of _Abna_ whose fathers were Persians and whose mothers were Arabs. (P. 334).

Dress of the Ulema. (P. 273).

Yahya Ibn al Munajjim whose real name was Abban Hasis, the son of Kad, the son of Mahavindad, the son of Farrukhdad, the son of Asad, the son of Mihr, the son of Yezdigerd, the last of the Sasanian kings of Persia.

Story of the onagar with the inscription on its ear written by Bahramgor in the Kufic character. Ibn Khallikan quotes Al Khawarezmi's _Mafatih-al-Ulum._ (P. 85).

[Sidenote: Old castles.]

Istakhri refers to the castle of Jiss in the district of Arrajan about which we have a more exhaustive notice by other writers. "Here lived the Magians," says Istakhri, "and here also are to be found memorials of the past of Persia. The place is strongly fortified. The castle of Iraj is also strongly fortified. The fastnesses which cannot be subjugated are so many that it is not possible to detail them."

Describing the city of Jur Istakhri says that it was built by Ardeshir. "It is said that here water used to be collected as in a lake. The king had taken a vow to build a city and to erect a fire temple at the place where he had defeated his enemy. He had the place drained, and when it was dried he built the city of Jur on the site. The city in its extent is like Istakhr, Sabur, and Darabgird. It had mud walls and moats and many gates, the eastern one being called the gate of Mihr, the western the gate of Bahram, the northern the gate of Hormuz, and the southern the gate of Ardeshir. In the centre of the city is a building with a cupola built by Ardeshir. It is said that it is so high that it commands a view of the city and its surroundings. _High at its top is a fire altar_.[1]" (P. 56).

[Sidenote: Languages of Iran.]

In another portion of his book Istakhri describes the inhabitants as thin, with little growth of hair and of brown colour. "In the colder tracts," he continues, "the people are of a taller stature with a thick growth of hair and very fair. They speak three languages,--the Parsi, which everybody speaks and which is employed in their letters and their literature; the Magians who dwell among them use the Pahlavi in their writings, but it needs for a thorough understanding an explanation in Parsi; and Arabic which is the language used in the correspondence of the Sultan, the Government Boards, the grandees and the Amirs." (P. 67).

[Footnote 1: This goes to confirm the hypothesis of Sir John Marshall that the curious structure with probably a fire-altar at the top excavated by him at Taxila near Rawal Pindi is a Zoroastrian _atash-kadeh_.]

[Sidenote: Tardy Converts.]

In the same place he makes mention of a numerous settlement of the Magians. "Here are," he says, "a goodly number of Magians in the neighbourhood of Istakhr. There is a large stone building with carvings and pillars about which the Persians relate that it is the mosque of Solomon; the son of David, and that it is the work of genii. In bulk it is comparable to the buildings in Syria and Egypt" "In the neighborhood of Sabur is a mountain on which the representations of all the kings, governors, servitors of temples and grand mobeds who were celebrated in the times of the Persian monarchy are to be found. On the pedestals of these figures are engraved the events in connection with and the deeds of these personages." Describing the Karen mountains Itakhri says, "The mountainous region is inaccessible and the inhabitants hold commerce with no one outside. During the Omayad period they persisted in their adherence to Zoroastrianism, and they could not be subjugated, and were worse than the inhabitants of the Koz mountain. But when the Abbasides came to power they embraced Islam. These Magians were extraordinarily brave. Yakub and Amru the sons of Leith, commenced their rule and power here and drew their supporters from these hills." "Mokan," says Istakhri, "contains many villages which are inhabited by the Magians." (P. 71.)

MESOPOTAMIA AND PERSIA IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

IN THE NUZHAT AL KULUB OF HAMD-ALLAH

MUSTAWFI

BY G. Lestrange.

The following fire-temples are mentioned:--At [Transcriber's note: word unreadable] there was an ancient fire temple called Ardahish. (P. 56)

A dragon was slain by king Kaikaushro who then built on the spot a fire temple afterwards known as Dayr Kushid. (P. 69).

Turshid was the chief city of the Kohistan province and near it was the village Kishwaz famous for the great cypress trees planted by Zoroaster as related by Firdausi in the Shah Nameh, (Turner, 1. Macar Vol. 4, line 1061). Near Tushiz were four famous castles one of which was called Arthush Gah or the Fire temple. (P. 80).

Herat was watered by the canals of the river Hari Rud. It had a famous castle called Sham Iram built over the ruins of an ancient Fire temple on a mountain two leagues distant from the city. Mustawfi adds a long account of the town, its markets and its shrines, giving the names of the various canals derived from the Hari Rud. (P. 85).

AL MUQADASI.

(BIBLIOTHECA INDICA)

[Sidenote: Zoroastrians are treated like Jews and Christians.]

The religious bodies which enjoy rights of subjects under the protection of law are four,--the Jews, the Christians, the Majus, and the Sabiah. (P. 67-69).

[Sidenote: Nauruz and Miherjan.]

The worshippers of idols in Sind are not of the Dhimma, nor those under the protection of Islam; it is on this account that they are exempted from the poll tax. _The Majus are counted with the Dhimma; for Omar ordered them to be treated in the same way as the people of the book (the Jews and Christians;_) the fact that we call the followers of one and the same code of doctrines by two names, one of praise and one of blame, does not arise from eulogising or reviling on our part; our object is merely to shew what others think of any sect, and by what names they call them. (P. 7).

THAALIBI.

EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY H. ZOTENBERG.

And Behram was matchless among kings, perfect in manners and facile of tongue. For he used to converse on the days of public assemblies and courtly meetings in Arabic and in matters of receiving petitions and granting of the gifts in Persian, and when giving public audiences he used the Dari language, and when playing polo he used Pahlavi, and Turkish while at war, and when out hunting the language of Zabulistan and in legal matters Hebrew, in questions of medicine the Indian language, in Astronomy the language of the Greeks, and while on voyage he used the Nabatian language and while speaking with women he used the speech of Herat. (P. 555).

That Thaalibi knew the correct distinction between Pahlavi and Persian can be seen from the fact that he says at p. 633 of his history with reference to the book of _Kalileh wa Dimna_ as follows:--When Burzuyeh arrived at the court and presented himself before Anushirwan he recounted to him what had happened to him and announced to him as a happy event that he was in possession of the book. Then he made a present of it to the king. (Anushirwan was charmed with it and he gave the order to translate the book into Pahlavi.) Burzuyeh requested and got from the king the permission to place at the head of the first chapter the king's name, and a notice of his life. And the book remained carefully guarded with the kings of Persia until Ibn Muquaffa translated it into Arabic and Rudaki at the command of Amir Nasr Ibn Ahmad turned it into Persian verse.

Reference to _Kitab al Ain_. (P. 14.)

Reference to the murder and burial of the last Sasanian king, (P. 748.)