A literary history of Persia

THOMAS HYDE 43the Arabic Mah prefixed to certain place-names (p. 424), wasaware ot the existence amongst the Zoroastrians of Persia of apeculiar "gabri" dialect (pp. 364, 429), knew the Huriifi sectas a revived form of Manichaeanism (p. 283), made free use ofthe rare Arabic translation of the Shdh-nama of al-Bundan, andwas acquainted with the so-called Zend character,1and withsuch later Parsi writingsas the Zaratusht-nama, the Sad-dar(of which he gives a complete Latin translation), and thePersian translation of the Book of Arda Viraf.On the other hand he had no knowledge whatever of theAvestic or Pahlawi languages, entirely misunderstood thekn y domeaning of the term Zend Avesta or Avesta vanwidgef Zwdt an endeavoured to l prove that the Oldn eMdLnt Persian inscriptions were not writing at all,butathnlan of!e[a?mere architectural ornamentation. Anquetil duPerron at the end of his Discours Prtliminaireis(pp. cccclxxxix-ccccxcviii) at some pains to prove thefirst of these statements, and points out that throughout Hyde'swork the Zend character merely serves to cloak Persiansentences cited from late Parsi writings. But in fact proof isunnecessary, for Hyde had in his own possession a MS. of partof the Avesta, and was also acquainted with the MS. of theTasna presented to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, by anEnglish merchant named Moodyseventeenth century ;a and isquiteabout the middle of thecertain that he wouldxIt would appear from a remark of Sir W. Jones in the Lettre a.Monsieur A . . . du P . . . hereafter cited (p. 602), that Dr. Hyde causedthe " Zend " characters employed in his book to be cast for his own use.The fount is an excellent one much more artistic than that used in thelatest edition of the Avesta (Geldner's).2See Hyde, op. laud., p. 344 ad calc. The Emmanuel MS. now bearsthe class-mark 3.2. 6., and contains the following inscription in English :"This Booke is called Ejessney, written in the language Jenwista, andcontaines ye Religion of ye Antient Parsyes." A note in German on a loosesheet of paper describes it as a copy of the Yasna, not quite complete,ending ch. 1. 2 (Westergaard), and lacking the last quarter ;not dated ;probably middle of the seventeenth century. Though not old, it is accu-