A literary history of Persia

96 LITERATURES OF ANCIENT PERSIAcarefully distinguished from Hystaspes the father of Darius ";and the period at which he flourishedmay have been anythingfrom B.C. 1000 (Duncker) to B.C. 1400 (Gutschmid).According to the latter, the Zoroastrian scriptures of Achaemeniantimes (if they ever existed) entirelyDarmesteter's i_ j r A i j i.later views perished after Alexander s invasion ;the constructionof the Avesta (of which we now possessa portion only) began in the first century of our era, in thereign of the Parthian Vologeses I (A.D. 51-78), was continuedunder the Sasanians until the reign of Shapur II (A.D. 309-379), and, in its later portion, was largely influenced by theGnosticism of the Alexandrian or Neo-Platonist philosophy ;Media was the home of the Zoroastrian doctrine, and theMedic languageits vehicle or expression ;and the origin ofthe Zoroastrian creed goes back (as definitelystated in suchPahlawi books as the Arda Fir ofN&mak and the Bundahish)only to a period of three centuries or less before Alexander'stime, that to the sixth or seventh is, century before Christ, or,in other words, to a period slightlymore remote than thebeginning of the Achaemenian dynasty.The views advanced by Darmesteter, though they have notcommanded general assent, have nevertheless greatly modifiedGerervJew ( i8^6)those of the other school, notably of Geldner,especially by causing them to pay much greaterattention to the traditions embodied in thePahlawi, Parsi, and earlyMuhammadan writings. ThusGeldner, in the interesting article on the Avesta contributedby him to Geiger and Kuhn's Grundriss (1896), while withholdinghis assent from some of Darmesteter's most revolutionaryviews as to the modern origin of the Avesta in theform known to us, attaches great importance to the Parsitradition ;identifies Zoroaster's King Hystaspes with thehistorical father of Darius ;makes Zoroaster a contemporaryof Cyrus the Great ; fixes, accordingly, the earliest limit orthe Avesta as B.C. 560 ;admits the destruction of the original