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

14 SPLIT BETWED GATHAS AND LATER AVESTA.
writer of Zoroastrian Theology on the other is this that whereas the
former put dearly before the public both the fact of there being 21
Nasks of Zoroaster and their own speculation, the latter simply tries to
mislead the public by empirically dividing all the Scriptures into
Periods, and stamping dogmatically all the Scriptures as post-
Zoroastrian except the Gathas. It is this empirical attitude adopted by
the writer that invites animadversions on such a book.
Instead of first proving with evidence the division of Scriptures
into Gathic or Zoroastrian, and Later Avestan or Post Zoroastrian and
then basing his arguments on the proved facts, the writer of the book
from the very beginning commits the logical fallacy of begging the
question, and advances his favourite views of advocating the so-called
reform, taking a suitable line of argument as data or hypotheses. This
division according to the writer of Zoroastrian Theology is based on
the distinction between poetry and prose, because it is generally
believed that poetry precedes prose in the progress of human speech.
But even this argument cannot hold good, for we have seen in the
words of Darmesteter that the most important Nask the Stot Yasht
which included the Gathas also contained 33 chapters, of which 22
were metrical and 11 prosaic. If therefore poetry and prose occur
simultaneously in one and the same Nask containing the Gathas, how
can it be logically said that the Gathas were previous in age to the
prosaic part of all the Avesta Scriptures. In fact this demarcation-made
by the philological school without understanding the extent and spirit
of the entire original Zoroastrian Scriptures, -the split between the
Gathas and the later Avesta,-is adyanced only as an argument quite
adapted to their various ulterior objects of promulgating views and
doctrines of their own devising, and suitable to their own modern
social and economic environments.
Hence it is that the learned Dastur Darab P. Sanjana emphatically
says regarding the entire original Scriptures of Zoroaster in the
following words on page xxx Introduction to the Pahlavi Vendidad: -