Note 112 — PART II.

Sir W. J. says (see his Works, vol. III. p. 116) that, according to his conviction, the dialect of the Guebrs, which they pretend to be that of Zertusht, of which Bahman, a Guebr and his Persian reader, gave him a variety of written specimens, is a late invention of their priests. What language does he mean? certainly not that of the Zand-Avesta, of which he speaks in particular, and states (ibid., p. 118) “the language of the Zand was at least a dialect of the Sanscrit, approaching, perhaps, as nearly to it as the Prácrit, or other popular idioms, which we know to have been spoken in India two thousand years ago.”