A literary history of Persia

78 HISTORY OF PERSIAN PHILOLOGY&c.) of the early Arabian geographers, a region havingfor its capital the ancient Ecbatana (Hagmatana of theinscriptions), now called Hamadan. Of this language wehave no remains, unless we accept Darmesteter's view, thatit is identical with the language of the Avesta, or Oppert's,that it is the language which occupies the second place(between the Old Persian and the Assyrian versions)in theAchasmenian trilingual inscriptions. It was in all probabilityvery closely akin to Old Persian, and certain words of itpreserved by writers like Herodotus make itappear likely thatfrom it are descended some of the modern dialects of Persian.Avestic^ the language of the Avesta, often improperly called" Zend," sometimes also termed " Old Bactrian," a mostundesirable name, since it is, as we have seen,Avestic. . .quite as likely that its home was in Atropatene(Azarbdyjan)in the north-west as in Bactria in thenorth-east. In it is written the Avesta, and the Avestaonly of which, however, certain ancient hymnscalled Gdthds;are in a different dialect, much more archaic than that inwhich the remaining portions of the book are composed. Aspecial character, constructed from, but far superior to, thePahlawi script,is used for it.writing The word Avesta canscarcely be traced back beyond Sasanian times, though Oppertbelieves it to be intended by the word abastam in Darius'sBehistun inscription (iv, 64).It appears in Pahlawi asAvlstdk (Darmesteter, Apastd/d, in Syriac as cApastdgd^ inArabic as tAbastdq. Andreas is inclined to derive it fromthe Old Persian upastd ("help, support") and to interpretit as meaning " ground-text." This, at any rate, is itsAvesta " :signification in the term " Avesta and Zend,"which gaverise to the"misleading Zend-" "the Avesta is the original text of theZoroastrian scripture, and the " Zend"is the runningPahlawi "explanation" (translation and commentary) whichgenerally accompanies it. If, therefore, the term "Zend