Note 70 — Chapter VI · HOLY BOOKS, OR BIBLES. (continued 3)

There is a complete translation of the Zend-Avesta by Spiegel. It contains useful introductory essays; but in the present state of Zend scholarship the translation cannot be regarded as final. Dr. Haug, in a German treatise, has elucidated as well as translated a small, but very important, portion, of the Zend-Avesta, termed the five Gâthâs. The same scholar has also published a volume of Essays on the Parsee language and religion, which contains some translated passages, and may be consulted with advantage, though Dr. Haug's English stands in great need of revision. Burnouf has translated but a very small part of the Zend-Avesta, in a work entitled "Le Yaçna." Unfortunately Dr. Haug and Dr. Spiegel—both very eminent Zend scholars—are entirely at variance as to the proper method of translating these ancient documents; and pending the settlement of this question, any interpretation proposed must be regarded by the uninstructed reader as uncertain. I cannot refrain from adding an expression of regret that Dr. Haug, to whose labors in the interpretation of these obscure fragments of antiquity we owe so much, should have so far forgotten himself as to fall foul of Dr. Spiegel in a tone wholly unbecoming a scholar and inappropriate to the subject. It is not by this kind of learned Billingsgate that the superiority of his translation to that of his rival, as he evidently considers him, or his fellow-laborer as I should prefer to call him, can be established.