zoroastrianism ancient and modern - Hindu Temple of Greater ...

Chapter I
The writer's division of Avesta Scriptures into Periods.
Although the writer has given, in his introduction, assurance of his
"independent inquiry without prepossession in favour of one belief or
another," and of "the impartiality of a scholar," the basic line of
argument adopted by him throughout the book is not at all independent
but simply a borrowed one; and throughout the book leaning on this
main-stone he erects all his partial and favourite views on this very
foundation which is the arbitrary division of Avesta Scriptures into
different Periods of their birth and existence, The division of Avesta
Scriptures into the Gathas and the Later Avesta is very objectionable
and offensive, and it is merely a speculation resulting from the socalled
"linguistic basis". Such a division reflects sheer ignorance of the
Zoroastrian Lore on the part of the writer; and it is merely a repetition
of the worn out view of a few students of the Avesta, based on no
internal nor external evidence, and in the absence of such evidence,
held even by them only as a probability and not as a certainty. When
the writer says in Introduction pp. XXX, XXXI.
“ Decay soon begins in the language in which Zoroaster composed his immortal
hymns, and his successors now write in the Avestan dialect, which replaces the
Gathic……………………..The earliest Zoroastrian documents are the Gathas,
written in the Gathic dialect. * * The most extensive literature on
Zoroastrianism is written in Avestan………………….and that period is called the
“Later Avestan Period”……………..
he simply discloses his utter ignorance of the vast compass of the
original writings of Zoroaster himself, which consisted of 21 Nasks or
volumes, each Nask containing the laws of the universe exhaustively in
its various departments. When we study a summary, even an imperfect
summary extant of the 21 Nasks of
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