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306 AVESTA-NEITHER POST-ZOROASTRIAN NOR PRE-ZOROASTRIAN.
tures, it is not at all logical for the writer to say "Avestan works written
long after the death of Zarathushtra", or that the Avestan Scriptures are
"post-Zoroastrian in form" and “pre-Zoroastrian in substance” and such
other nonsense based on speculative bombardment or ‘pyrology’, the
science of speaking, opining and writing according to the whims and
fancies of the inventor. What purpose does the writer of the book
intend to serve by speculating upon speculated ideas of other people
like him except that of dwindling the community from its right belief
and faith and practice? To say that the Avestan writings are post-
Zoroastrian in form implies that they were written by some unknown
writers ‘very long after the death of the prophet’ and to say that the
Avestan texts are pre-Zoroastrian in substance implies that the
teachings in all Avesta are not given by the prophet himself. In short
the writer means to say that all Avesta texts are Zoroastrian neither in
form nor in substance, but are written by some writers as ignorant of
the Zoroastrian canons as the writer of Zoroastrian Theology himself.
Then in the second place the phrase "Avestan writers" betrays the
writer's total ignorance of the structure of the Avesta Manthra. Avesta
is no ordinary language of everyday communication and intercourse,
and as we have already seen the Avesta Manthra has been composed
on the basic Laws of Staota Yacna for its sound-effect and word-effect
in prayers and rituals. Hence Avesta compositions necessitate a
previous knowledge of all the grand laws of Staota Yacna or the
Science of Attunement in accordance with the colours produced by the
friction of the atmosphere made by articulate sounds. We have
therefore to remember that all the Avesta which is at present extant is
but derived from the 21 Nasks given by Zoroaster, and it is simply a
presumption on the part of the writer of Zoroastrian Theology to use
the phrase 'Avestan writers' which implies more than one person as the
original composer of the Avesta. Moreover the writer has not given
any one name out of these many Avesta writers of his imagining.
There is neither internal nor external evidence to indicate the name of
any one composer of the Avesta and to prove the theory of more than
one writer of the Avesta. The holy