Fr

ye,
Ri chard
N. ,
The
Heri tage
of Persi a
(The
Worl d
Publ i shi ng Co. ,
Cl evel and&
NewYork) 1963
Frye
i s Professor of I rani an, Harvard
Uni versi ty
p.
18 The
rel i gi on
of the anci ent
I ndo-Europeans has recei vedmuchattenti on
of l ate and controversy
about i t i s ri fe
among schol ars. The
theory of Max
Mul l er and hi s school , whi chproposed that cel esti al
phenomena l ay
behi nd the
myths
andrel i gi on of the
I ndo-Europeans,
i s no l onger acceptedal though
some of
hi s
many
i deas have been, wi th
very
l i ttl e
change.
p. 19
Nei l l et
expressed
i t wel l whenhe sai d that more thanany other hi story,
the
hi story of rel i gi ons hadneedof texts wri tten i nthe l anguage of the
peopl e
under stud, whi chi n effect
precl uded
a
study
of the
rel i gi on
of the I ndo
Europeans.

Footnote 6 A. Mei l l et, ' La
rel i gi on
i nco-7europeenne, ' p.
323 i n
Li ngui sti que hi stori que
et
l i ngui sti que general e (Pari s, 1921)
p.
26 I t i s
hi ghl y probabl e
that Zarathushtra i s not a
fi gment
of the
i magi nati on
and that he di d exi st. Arguments that he was created to match
prophets
i n other
rel i gi ons,
or that the Avesta was a l ate
forgery,
are
real l y unacceptabl e
and we
onl y
needto fol l ow
hi story
to refute themm.
To determi ne the date of Zoroaster we have no hi stori cal data to
hel p
us, and
we canonl y say
that most
probabl y
he l i ved before the Achaemeni d
empi re.
To
further determi ne the ti me we shoul d l ook at the evi dence of the Gathas, Greek
sources, andl ate Zoroastri na tradi ti on subdi vi dedi nto the tradi ti on of the
Pahi avi books andthe tradi ti on as foundi nI sl ami c sources. These we shoul d
try
to
bri ng
i nto
harmony,
or at l east we shoul d come to a
probabl e esti mate of i s
dates fromal l of them,
The Gathas, ' verses or
poems' ,
were
undoubtedl y preservedby memory for cen
turi es before bei ng
wri tten down. The seventeen verses or fi ve
groups
of verses,
known
col l ecti vel y
as Gatha,
bel ong together by
vi rtue of
si mi l ari ty
i nmetre and
archai c l anguage.
Certai n features of the
l anguage of the Gathas andof the
Younger Avesta as wel l are more archai c than
correspondi ng
features i nVedi c San
skri t, but thi s, of course, does not meanthat the
gathas
are therefore ol der i nti me
p. 27 thanthe Ri gVi da, si nce as a
paral l el
i nAl tai c
l anguages
modern
Mongol i an
i n
many
features i s 1more archai c' thanthe ol dest Turki sh, andArabi c i s i n the same
rel ati onto Hebrew
p. 33 Machhas been wri tten about the
pl ace
of
ori gi n
of l ocal
epi c
tradi ti ons or
of vari ous moti fs i n anal l -I rani an
epi c tradi ti on. Thi s has l edto a general
concl usi onabout the I rani an epi c,
that i t i s
real l y composed
of two
epi c
tradi ti ons,
p.
31. but there i s some di fference about the cl assi fi cati on or nomencl ature ofthese two
tradi ti ons.
p.
3 The sources for the I rani an
epi c
are the 4vesta, the Pahl avi books andNew
Persi an or Arabi c works. . . Here warenot concerned wi ththe thi stori cal l versus
the
' rel i gi ous' tradi ti onand
di sengagi ng
el ements of both, because onl y
what was consi dered as anci ent hi story by
the Persi ans i s
germane
to our task of re
constructi ng
the
hi story.
p. l Sl Thth
hi st9ry
of the
devel opment
of the text of the Avesta cannot be traced
wi th
certai nty
but we
may presume
that i nthe Sel nuci d and
earl y
Parthi an
peri od
no
fi xed canon of the text exi sted, rather that vari ous
yvvfl tvttqr
Yashbs were
bei ng
brought together by
vari ous communi ti es i n the
syncreti sti c spi ri t of the age.
over
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