Volume 1 / Part 2 — PART II.

SYNOPSIS OF THE DYNASTIES, RELIGIONS, SECTS, AND PHILOSOPHIC OPINIONS, TREATED OF IN THE DABISTAN.

§ I.—THE FIRST RELIGION—THE DYNASTIES OF MAHABAD, ABAD AZAR, SHAI ABAD, SHAI GILIV, SHAI MAHBUL, AND YASAN.

Mohsan Fani exhibits the remarkable notions, dogmas, customs, and ceremonies of twelve religions, and their various sects, without giving more of their origin and genesis than the names of their founders. The very first principle of all religion is referred, by some, to a primitive Divine revelation; by others, to a natural propensity of the human mind to superstition. However this may be, history confirms the suggestions of psychology, that admiration was one of the principal sources of religious feelings; how should man not be struck with the glories of the sky? Therefore, the adoration of stars was one of the most ancient religions. It needed no prophet: it is “the poetry of heaven,” imprinted in eternal characters of fire upon the ethereal expanse. Prometheus, lxvii enumerating the benefits which he bestowed upon untutored barbarians, says:[73]

According to all traditions, astronomy was one of the first sciences cultivated by men.[75] The stars not only occasioned the institution, but also served to announce the regular return, of religious feasts; thus they became, as called by Plato, “the instruments of time,” men were at once induced and taught by religion to count months and years. Astronomy, in her feast-calendars, consecrated upon an altar the first fruits of her labors.

Upon the star-paved path of heaven man was conducted to the sanctuary of the supreme Being. In general, the first feeling of “the Divine (το θεῖον),” seizing the human mind with its own supernatural power, elevated it at once above the material concerns lxviii of the nether world; thus, sublime ideas of the Deity, the universe, and the immortality of the soul preceded the invention of many arts and sciences relative to the comforts of social life. This is confirmed by the account, contained in the Dabistán, of the most ancient religion of the Persians, which is founded upon transcendental ideas of the Divinity: “Except God himself, who can comprehend his origin? Entity, unity, identity are inseparable properties of this original essence, and are not adventitious to Him.” So the Desátir, with which the Dabistán generally so fully agrees, that we can scarce doubt that the author of the latter had the former before his eyes.

No sooner has man acquired the consciousness of mental freedom, than he endeavors to expand beyond himself the first vague feeling of the Divine; not satisfied to admire all exterior marvel, he desires to understand and to name its interior moving cause: this is something immaterial; it is a soul, such as acts in himself. Among the ancient Iranians, the “first creation of the existence-bestowing bounty” was the intellectual principle, called Azad Bahman, “the first intelligence;” he is also the first angel; from him other spirits or angels proceed. Every star, every heavenly sphere has its particular intelligence and spirit or angel. In the lower region, each of the four elements owns its particular lxix guardian; vegetables, minerals, animals have their protecting angels; the conservative angel of mankind is Farun Faro Vakshur. It is not without reason, that this religion was called “the religion of light.” As the supreme Being

So also he peopled the vast extent with the “sons of light, the empyreal host of angels,” who not only moved and governed the celestial orbs, but also descended into the elemental regions to direct, promote, and protect his creation. Not a drop of dew fell without an angel. The Hindus and Greeks animated universal nature; the Persians imparadized the whole creation by making it the abode of angels. Hence demonology in all its extent. But, “among the most resplendent, powerful, and glorious of the servants who are free from inferior bodies and matter, there is none God’s enemy or rival, or disobedient, or cast down, or annihilated.” This important passage of the Desátir[77] I shall have occasion to refer to hereafter.

Human souls are eternal and infinite; they come from above, and are spirits of the upper spheres. If distinguished for knowledge and sanctity, while on earth, they return above, are united with the sun, and become empyreal sovereigns; but if the lxx proportion of their good works bore a closer affinity to any other star, they become lords of the place assigned to that star; their stations are in conformity with the degrees of their virtue; perfect men attain the beatific vision of the light of lights, and the cherubine hosts of the supreme Lord. Vice and depravity, on the contrary, separate souls from the primitive source of light, and chain them to the abode of the elements: they become evil spirits. The imperfectly good migrate from one body to another, until, by the efficacy of good words and actions, they are finally emancipated from matter, and gain a higher rank. The thoroughly-depraved descend from the human form to animal bodies, to vegetable, and even to mineral substances.

So far we see the well-known dogma of transmigration ingeniously combined with the Sidereal religion. Here is exhibited a singular system of heavenly dominion, maintained by every star, whether fixed or planetary, during periods of many thousand years. A fixed star begins the revolution, and reigns alone, the king of the cycle, during a millenium, after which, each of the fixed and planetary stars becomes its partner or prime-minister for a thousand years; the last of all is the moon, for a millenium. Then the sovereignty of the first king devolves to the star which was its first associate. This second king goes through the same course as lxxi the first, until this becomes for a thousand years his partner, and then his period is also past. The same is the course of all other stars. When the moon shall have been king, and all stars associated with it and its reign too past, then one great period shall be accomplished. The state of the revolving world recommences, the human beings, animals, vegetables, and minerals, which existed during the first cycle, are restored to their former language, acts, dispositions, species, and appearances; the world is renovated, that is to say, forms, similar to those which passed away, reappear. This system, copied from the Desátir,[78] expresses nothing else but the general vague idea of long heavenly revolutions, and periodical renovations of the same order of things in the nether world.

The Dabistán[79] adds a mode of computing as peculiar to the followers of the ancient faith: they call one revolution of the regent Saturn a day; thirty such days one month; twelve such months one year; a million of such years one fard; a million fard one vard; a million vard one mard; a million vard one jad; three thousand jads one vad; and two thousand vád one zád. To these I must subjoin salam, shamar, aspar, radah, aradah, raz, araz, biaraz, that is, lxxii eight members of a geometric progression, the first of which is 100,000, and the coefficient 100. But these years are revolutions, called farsals, of thirty common years each. There are besides farsals of Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the moon, a day of each being the time of their respective revolution.

I thought it necessary to repeat these extravagant numbers, because it is by them that the reigns of the first ancient dynasties are measured.[80] The first earthly ruler of the present cycle, who with his wife survived the great period to become the first ancestor of a new innumerable population, was Mahabada. This name seems of Sanscrit derivation.[81] In his reign we find traced the first ground-lines of all human societies; agriculture and the arts of life are invented; villages and cities organised; four classes of society established—priests, warriors, agriculturists, and tradesmen. The names of these classes are in the Dabistán much like those of the four lxxiii Hindu castes, but the Desátir and the Shahnamah have other denominations, belonging to an ancient Persian dialect,[82] for these divisions, which originated in the indispensable wants of a rising society. This institution connects itself with the principles of social morality: men are bound to each other by the laws of justice and mutual kindness, which is extended even to all innoxious creatures. To Mahabad the Desátir was sent, a celestial code, and his faith was maintained through the whole series of his fourteen successors; the number of whom reminds us of the fourteen Indian Manus; they are said to have reigned six hundred and six trillions of years.

To the Mahabadians succeeded Abad Azar, who soon withdrew from government, and devoted himself to solitude and piety. After him, the hitherto fortunate state of society changed into war, confusion, and anarchy. His son, Jai Afram, was called to the throne, and restored peace and order in the world, giving his name to a new dynasty. After this, four other princely families are named, that of Shai Abad, Shai Giliv, Shai Mahbul, and Yasan.[83] I shall not count the many millions of years during lxxiv which they ruled; all that is said of their reigns appears nothing but a repetition of the first; a period of peace, order, and happiness is followed by war, disorder, and misery, until a revolution renews the state of things. Such traditions of a progress and regress in virtue and happiness, and of repeated changes from one condition to another, are not destitute of general truth. The moral is not, more than the physical world, exempt from revolutions. These, although their date cannot be determined, have left behind them undeniable traces, and without a reference to them, we could not explain so much of the strangeness, incoherence, and heterogeneity in the history of men and nature.

Thus I have slightly sketched the principal features of the religion which prevailed among the first Persian dynasties; these, not mentioned in other historical books, are we know peculiar to the Desátir and Dabistán, which appeared to sir W. Jones an unexceptionable authority for believing the Iranian monarchy “the oldest in the world.” Upon this, W. Erskine remarked:[84] “Shall I be forgiven for saying, that the history of letters seems to me scarcely to afford an instance of a more perverted judgment on historical evidence?” Silvestre de Sacy[85] too “banishes among the most absurd fables lxxv the dynasties of the Mahabadians, and of their successors, which sir William Jones, and after him some other Orientalists, have too hastily adopted, and of which they would to-day blush, since their titles have been produced.” More recently, William von Schlegel[86] said: “It would be useless to conceal to the public that that learned man, endowed with talents so rare, was totally deficient in historical criticism:” This was inferred, because he had admitted, and used in some of his considerations, as genuine, a forgery of Wilford’s Pandit. Besides, “he received without diffidence, and even welcomed with enthusiasm, the traditions contained in the Dabistán, a modern Persian book, written with the intention to claim for Persia the pre-eminence over India with respect to the antiquity of religious revelations.”

As to “the intention” mentioned, I hope to be able to justify Mohsan Fani. With respect to the Mahabadian dynasties—the light recently acquired upon the ancient history of Persia, reflect rather favorably upon that part of sir William Jones’s opinion, that this country, in its wide extent, was once the original seat of many nations now settled in distant regions. So much, at least, may be considered as established: 1. that the limits of history are to lxxvi be removed further back than those before fixed; 2. that in the earliest times primitive nations, related by language to each other, had their origin in the common elevated country of central Asia, and that the Iranians and Indians were once united before their migration into Iran and India.[87] This great fact presents itself, as it were, upon the border of a vast abyss of unknown times.

For these a measure was sought. Hence we meet with extravagant, but perpetually recurring chronological statements. The Mahabadian ages are neither better nor worse, as to accuracy, than the Indian yugs, the Chaldean,[88] or other periods. In order to reduce them to their true value, we must consider them as nothing else than expressions of the ideas which the ancients entertained of the antiquity of the world and human society, in which they cannot be easily refuted, and at least are not absurd. Such ideas originated, when man, curious after his past, had long ceased to be a listless barbarian; but the earliest civilisation is a late product of slow-working time, the memory of which could have been preserved lxxvii only by monuments. The most ancient of these however are but recent in our historical knowledge, the limits of which are far from being those of antiquity. The duration of ante-historical empires, in printless but extensive spaces of times, escapes research and computation. As men, however, bear with impatience vague and loose ideas, the Persians, as well as other nations, determined the past by numbers formed from the multiplication of some astronomical periods known in early times, as has been observed:[89] this appears to me at once the whole truth and falsehood of those statements. In the utter impossibility to reconcile the discordant data of different nations, we must content ourselves to take up the general ideas and facts in which they all agree, whilst in the particulars they all differ. Thus, in laying down maps of countries little known, we are satisfied with tracing the general direction of some rivers and mountains, and abstain from topographical details.

Προμηθευς δεσμωτης,

— — — — ἄτης γνώμης τὸ πᾶν

Ἔπρασσον, ἔς τε δή σφιν ἀντολὰς ἐγὼ

Αστρων ἔδειξα, τάς τε δυσκρίτους δύσεις.

(v. 457-459).

§ II.—The Peshdadian, Kayanian, Ashkanian, and Sassanian Dynasties—their religious and political institutions.

After the four dynasties mentioned follows the Gilshanian, monarchy, founded by Gilshah, or Kayomers, lxxviii “the king or form of earth.”[90] We are now upon well-known ground, and hear familiar names of four races: the Péshdadian, Kayanian, Ashkaniun, and Sassanian, to which, altogether, the Dabistán attributes a period of 6024 years, differing considerably from that of other Asiatic chronologers.[91]

Sir William Jones was right when he declared,[92] that “the annals of the Péshdadi (or Assyrian) race must be obscure and fabulous; those of the Kayání family, or the Medes and Persians, heroic and poetic:” annals gathered from oral traditions can be but such as the great Orientalist characterises those of the mentioned dynasties. But it was in his younger years, before he had enlarged his views upon the history of mankind, that he fixed the origin of the Persian monarchy so late as 890 years before our era;[93] afterwards, in India, he refuted his former notions, and ranged more freely in the expanded fields of antiquity. I shall add that Ferdusi places the beginning of Gilshah’s reign 3529 years before Christ, an epoch which receives synchronical confirmation from our daily-increasing knowledge of the antiquity of China, India, Assyria, Egypt, and other states.

lxxix The fundamental religion remains the same: a celestial volume called Payman-i-farhang, in perfect accord with the Mahabadian code, is transmitted to Kayomers. So the Dabistán: but, in the Desátir, the four books ascribed to the first four Mahabadian prophet-kings contain the purest deism, and although the foundation of astrolatry and demonolatry may be perceived in the cosmology of the first book, yet these did not form a positive worship, which develops itself in the seven planetary books of the seven subsequent Persian kings, to wit: Kayomers, Siamok, Hushang, Tahmúras, Jamshid, Feridun, and Menocheher. Under these monarchs, a particular worship was rendered to the seven planets, as to mediators between God and men; the description of the forms under which they have been adored, is not, to my knowledge, found in any other book but the Dabistán.

Superstition is certainly as ancient as human nature itself; it is impossible to fix the epoch at which particular opinions and practices originated, such as the eighty-four sitting-postures at prayer; the suppression of the breath for the abstraction of thought; the mystical and fantastical notions upon vision and revelation; and particularly the belief that a man may attain the faculty to quit and to reassume his body, or to consider it as a loose garment, which he may put off at pleasure for ascending lxxx to the world of light, and on his return be reunited with the material elements. All these matters are considered as very ancient.

We find in the Dabistán a curious account of Persian sects under different names, such as Abadians, Azur-Húshangians, Jamshaspians, Samradians, Khodaiyans, Radians, Shidrangians, Paikarians, Milanians, Alarians, Shidabians, Akshiyans. The founders of these sects are placed so far back as the reigns of Jamshid and Zohak. Individuals professing the particular creed of each of these sects were living in the time of the author of the Dabistán, who was personally acquainted with several of them, and imparts the information which he had himself received from their lips. He gives with particular care an account of the before-mentioned Azar Kaivan,[94] the chief of the later Abadíans and Azar-Hushangians. The doctrine of these sectaries contained peculiar notions about God’s nature and attributes, and the world; the latter was to some an illusion; God himself but an idea. To others, God was every thing, to be served alone without a mediator between him and mankind; the heavens and the stars were his companions. God was the sun—fire—air—water—earth; he was the essence of the elements: from every one of these divine principles lxxxi the heavens, stars, and the whole world proceeded. These were some of the fundamental principles of their metaphysical religion.

Their morality appears to have consisted in the acknowledgment of all natural virtues; piety, justice, charity, sobriety; wine and strong drinks were forbidden; above all a tenderness towards all living creatures was recommended; and the severity against those who slew innoxious animals was carried to such an excess, than even sons punished their fathers with death, and fathers their sons, for the slaughter of a sheep or an elk.[95]

Their political constitution appears from the earliest time to have been that of an absolute monarchy: this is the curse attached to Asiatics. The king was to be of a noble descent, and bound to acknowledge the Farhang-Abad, “code of Abad.” All dignities, military and civil, were hereditary from father to son. The royal court and inner apartments appear to have been regulated in much the same manner as they are still in Asia; his cup-bearers and familiar servants, as well as those of his sons, and other nobles, were always females.

The interior administration of cities and villages is sufficiently detailed in the Dabistán. An active police was established, with numerous spies and lxxxii secret reporters, for the security of government. We are glad to find in such early times hospitals for the relief of the suffering, and caravansaras for the convenience of travellers. Moreover, post-stations of horses and messengers were distributed for the rapid communication of news, from all sides of the vast empire, to the monarch.[96]

Not a little care was bestowed upon the discipline and continual exercise of numerous armies. The military chiefs were distinguished by the magnificent decorations of their persons, horses, and arms, in which they prided themselves. They were bound to treat their soldiers kindly, nay, obliged to produce certificates, from their subordinates, of having behaved well towards them. An order of battle was prescribed, in which they were to encounter the enemy; no plunder after victory was permitted; they never slew, nor treated with violence, a man who had thrown down his arms and asked for quarter.

History may well be referred to religion, which is an ancient intellectual monument, living in the human soul from generation to generation. I have hitherto marked two religious periods: the first, that of the Desátir, through the Mahabadian dynasty; lxxxiii the second, that of Paiman-í-Farhang, prevailing during the Pésh-dadi-race until the middle of the Kayanian reign; I now come to the third.

§ III.—The Religion of Zardusht, or Zoroaster.

All religions are said to have deviated from their primitive simplicity and purity, as men advanced in knowledge and civilisation. This is true but in a restricted and distinctive sense, and may be explained, even without yielding to our habit of considering that which is more remote and less known as holier than that which is nearer and better examined. Thus, we may admit that the impressions made upon men in the first stage of expanding reason are stronger and more vivid, the less they are distracted by simultaneous and correlative associations; one great idea is enough to fill their whole mind, and admits of no rival, of no commixture with any thing else; curiosity, versatility, luxuriancy of intellect are not yet known; constancy is a necessity in a small compass of ideas. We have already touched[97] upon the powerful effect which the early perception of the Divine produced upon man: but he soon circumscribed what was too vast lxxxiv or his comprehension in a perceptible object—heaven, sun, fire, to which he offered his adoration; he wanted a visible type or image of the invisible Divinity; but, his means of formation being at first very confined, he contented himself with the most simple representation: he had a symbol, an idol in a grove or cavern, but not yet a Pantheon. Simplicity may be a mere restriction to one object or to few objects; purity, nothing else but homogeneity in good or bad, true or false; we shall not confound them with rationality, which may subsist with multiplicity and mixture. Thus, the adoration of one deified man, one great serpent, one huge stone, is by no means more rational than the worship of numerous generations of gods, the ingenious personification sof multiform nature, ever acknowledged as the genuine offspring of the happy marriage between intellect and imagination. In the absence of arts and riches, worship is rude and destitute of showy accessories. Afterwards, the development of the understanding widens the field of reasoning, the fertility of which may be attested more by the shoot of weeds than by the growth of fruits: error prevails over truth; the increase of manifold resources facilitates and prompts superfetation of exterior religion. Besides, the impressions, by which the first legislator attached his followers to his doctrine, are effaced by time; the first lxxxv traditions, obscured, confused, and altered; faith is weakened, and an opening made for change in belief, practice, and morals. A change, merely as such, is considered as a corruption by the adherents of the old creed. Finally, revolutions, interior and exterior, deteriorate or destroy religion and civilisation.

These reflexions, with the explanation previously given as to the various notions of which the religions in Asia were composed, will clearly show that, in the course of ages, a reform of astrolatry, pyrolatry, and idolatry, the branches of Sabæism and Mezdaism, became desirable; and Zardusht, or Zoroaster, appeared.

In the notes placed at the bottom of the pages containing Mohsan Fani’s account of Zoroaster,[98] will be found some of the principal results of the investigations which have been made in Europe respecting this legislator. The name of Zoroaster was applied by some to the founder of Magism, or Sabæism; we know also, that he has been identified with many other prophets under different names, among whom is Abraham, called “the great Zardusht,” and Hom, of so extensive a celebrity, that his name is mentioned by Strabo as predecessor of Zoroaster. No wonder that the name of the latter occurs in more or less remote times. According to lxxxvi the Dabistán, he was born in Rai, a town in the province of Jebal, or Irak Ajem, the country of the ancient Parthians, and appeared as a reformer of religion, under the reign of Gushtasp, the fifth king of the Kayanian dynasty, by the Occidental historians generally identified with Darius Hystaspes. Although variously stated, this period is less subject to chronological difficulties than are many others; for, as Eastern and Western historians agree in the epoch of Alexander’s death (321 B. C.), we may from this, as from a fixed point, remount upwards to Gushtasp; we find, according to some Orientals, five reigns in 228 years,[99] and therefore that of the said king, beginning 549 years before our era, whilst, according to the Occidentals, there are ten reigns within 200 years, from Alexander’s conquest of Persia to Darius Hystaspes, whose reign commences in 521 A. D. The discrepancy of twenty-eight years is far from being unexampled, even in more known periods, and may in this case be most easily and plausibly adjusted.[100]

lxxxvii According to a wide-spread tradition, to which I shall have occasion to return, Gushtasp was instructed by Brahmans; pursuant to the Dabistán, his brother Jamasp was the pupil of the Indian Jangran-ghachah (Sankara acharya)[101]. This sage, as soon as he heard of Gushtasp’s listening to Zoroaster, wrote an epistle to dissuade the king from the adoption of the new creed; an interview took place at Balkh between the Persian and Indian sages, and the latter abandoned his religion upon hearing a nosk, or chapter of the Zand-Avesta.[102] This is the name of the work attributed to Zoroaster himself, a part of which was brought to Europe, in the year 1761, by Anquetil du Perron.

lxxxviii The author of the Dabistán mentions the Zand-Avesta, and declares the Mah-Zand to be a portion of the Desátir, and the Zand books in general conformable to the Mahabadian code. The fifth Sassan, the translator and commentator of the Desátir, in a passage above-quoted,[103] joins this work to the Avesta, and is said in the Dabistán to have made a translation of the code of Zardusht.

Great was the sensation caused among the learned of Europe at the first appearance of the works attributed to Zoroaster, published in French by Anquetil du Perron, in 1771. In a note of this volume[104] will be found the names of the principal authors who declared themselves for or against the authenticity of the Zoroastrian books. Among those who combated it, sir William Jones was most conspicuous. Seventy years have since elapsed, and a learned controversy may now be considered as settled, nay, entirely forgotten, in the course of a most eventful historical period. Nevertheless, the Desátir is so closely connected with the Zand-Avesta, that so much having been said of the one, the other should not be lightly discarded. The value and importance of the Dabistán rest chiefly upon the support of the two documents mentioned; on that account I may hope to be pardoned if I here venture to repeat lxxxix whatever facts and arguments appear to me to have some bearing upon this work. But it was sir William Jones who then roused the whole learned public into lively attention, and, I dare presume, that the subject may by itself at all times excite considerable interest.

I shall quote the very words of lord Teignmouth concerning the French author before mentioned:[105] “Anquetil had published in three quarto volumes an account of his travels in India, the life of Zoroaster, and some supposed works of that philosopher. To this publication he prefixed a Discourse, in which he treated the university of Oxford, and some of its learned members and friends of Mr. Jones, with ridicule and disrespect. From the perusal of his works, Mr. Jones was little disposed to agree with Monsieur du Perron in the boasted importance of his communication; he was disgusted with his vanity and petulance, and particularly offended by his illiberal attack upon the university, which he respected, and upon the persons whom he esteemed and admired. The letter which he addressed to M. du Perron was anonymous; it was written with great force, and expresses his indignation and contempt with a xc degree of asperity which the judgment of maturer years would have disapproved.”[106]

The letter alluded to contains most severe remarks, not only upon the Zand-Avesta, but also upon Oriental studies in general: these are blows so much more sensible to Orientalists, as they come from a friendly and most revered hand. Such was the ardor of a susceptible mind under the impression of having to vindicate the honor of his friends, that he forgot for a moment the wreath which he had already won in the career of Oriental literature; he had already composed his commentary upon Asiatic poetry, and translated from the original Persian the Life of Nadir-shah; he had then no presentiment of the glory which he was destined to acquire by collecting, under the Indian heaven, the lore of antique Asia. As his French letter, written in a very spirited and brilliant style, can never be read without causing a great impression, I shall be permitted to borrow from the writings of this celebrated author himself some reflexions, which I think necessary for placing in a right point of view Oriental studies in general, and in particular the contents of the Dabistán, inasmuch as these are in some parts founded upon the Zand-Avesta, and in other points of a nature similar to that so much ridiculed in that ingenious satire.

xci If it were true, that Anquetil was wrong “to affront death for procuring us useless lights—if the writings of Zoroaster are a collection of galimatia—if enlightened Europe had no need of his Zand-Avesta, which he has translated to no purpose, and upon which he uselessly spent eighteen years, a time which ought to have been precious to him——”[107] then any similar attempts which have been or shall be made to procure, in Asia, and to publish ancient historical documents, are equally ridiculous and blamable. It is certainly not the founder of a new era in Oriental literature whom we hear in these words. Nobody knew better than he that, in Asia, the cradle of mankind, we must search for the most ancient documents to restore the lost history of mankind; and if all endeavors were to prove vain and useless, still the merit of having attempted the attainment of a most laudable purpose would remain. It is not unimportant to fix the limits which researches can reach, and beyond which nothing is to be gained; men are benefitted and enriched at once by the saving of time and trouble which preceding attempts teach; and by all the acquisitions which better directions render possible in a new and more profitable career. Should the bold navigators who strive to arrive at the pole never attain their aim, still would their xcii endeavors be worthy of praise; the smallest fragment of a rock, the slightest shoot of a plant, plucked off in the desert of eternal ice, in latitude eighty-eight, would at home be regarded with lively interest, and navigation have not a little gained in aid of other more fortunate undertakings.

But, who can like to read “puerile details, disgusting descriptions, barbarous words—Zoroaster could not have written such nonsense—either he had no common sense, or he wrote not the book which Anquetil attributed to him.”[108]

As much has been and may be said of the books attributed to other Asiatic legislators, who were nevertheless revered as sacred during many ages by numerous nations. Until we properly understand the ignorance and habitual ideas of Asiatics, we shall always remain ignorant of what is proverbially called the wisdom of the East. To appreciate the just value of the ancient codes of laws, we ought to represent to ourselves the primitive children of the earth, as Prometheus describes them:

It will then be felt how important it was to break the savage under the yoke of seemingly puerile practices and customs. In a state which was not unaptly called “the infancy of man,” it was by no means absurd to ensure health by dietetical prescriptions, cleanliness by obligatory ablutions, and decency with convenience by a regulated dress; the koshti, “the girdle,” of Zoroaster was then not so unmeaning as it now appears to us. It was necessary to educate the moral sense by appropriate images, and to occupy conveniently, by fables, symbols, and mythical accounts, the first active faculty of the soul, imagination. Although those men who, as legislators, were elevated above their barbarous age, could in many points but partake in the general imbecility and ignorance of an infant state of society, they have nevertheless, among seemingly childish and absurd precepts, promulgated most luminous truths, better than which none have hitherto been known, even at the most advanced degree of civilisation. Any information above the common understanding of the age is justly called “a revelation,” and every nation has received some xciv from their prophets, by which we have all benefited.[110] We, the youngest sons of science, ought to keep a grateful and reverential remembrance of our elder brothers. Let it be a subject of regret that, by the maintenance of ancient institutions much longer than was required for their intended purpose, the intellectual growth of many Asiatic nations was stopped; thus they now appear made for their laws, whilst their laws were once made for them. After these and similar reflexions, we shall view Zoroaster’s hundred gates, and the remains of his twenty-one nosks, as venerable monuments of an antique civilisation, which ought never to be profaned by derision.

Upon the Zand language, in which Zoroaster’s laws were written, I refer to the great philologers of our days, who have examined it—Rask,[111] Bopp, Burnouf, Lassen, and others: it is one of the most important conquests made in archæology and philology, and this we owe to Anquetil. When xcv Jones[112] treated with such severity the publication of this French author, he could not foresee that he should one day call forth to notoriety the Dabistán, which rests in great part upon the authority of the Desátir, and these very books to which he refused all authenticity. Mohsan Fani, one hundred and twenty years before Anquetil, derived his information probably from other copies of Zoroaster’s works, and knew nothing of Western authors, yet his statements agree with what the latter, before and after our era related, and most particularly with what the French discoverer published of that ancient philosopher. Can it be supposed that all these men of different nations, whose statements have thus coincided during the lapse of more than two thousand years, have “imposed upon themselves, or been imposed upon by others concerning the pretended laws of a pretended legislator?” Anquetil deserved a better name than that of “a French adventurer, who translated the books ascribed to Zoroaster, from the translation of a certain xcvi gypsy at Surat, and his boldness in sending them abroad as genuine”[113] was not unsupported by judgment. If there was some folly and foppery to deride in a young man, who spoke of his lilly-rosy cheeks and elegant figure, there was no “imposture” to detect, and too much acerbity shewn in retorting thoughtless indiscretions, exaggerated into “invectives.”

Sir William Jones, when he published the strictures which his antagonist, from pride or moderation, never answered, was but in his twenty-fourth year and under the influence of youthful ardor. Eighteen years after, in a discourse, addressed to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, in 1789, he spoke with more moderation of Anquetil as “having had the merit of undertaking a voyage to India in his earliest youth with no other view than to recover the writings of Zoroaster.” The illustrious president of that Society was not in the position to appreciate Anquetil’s whole character, and died too soon to become acquainted with the brilliant reputation which the youthful voyager acquired in his maturer years as a learned member of the French Academy of Letters, both in his own country and abroad.[114]

xcvii The Dabistán informs us, that the Zand-books are of two kinds: the one, perspicuous and without enigmatical forms of speech, is called the Mah-Zand, “great Zand;” the second, abounding in enigmatic or figurative language, is entitled Kah-Zand, “little Zand.” The first, in most points speculative and practical, agrees with the Desátir; the second is intended to prevent philosophy falling into the hands of the ignorant, to whom an enigmatical veil is offered, whilst the sages know the true purport of the pure doctrine. To king Gushtasp, his brother Jamasp, his son Isfendiar, and to Bahman, the son of the latter, were attributed the interpretations of Zoroaster’s religious system, and many ingenious xcviii parables which, for their moral sense, may be reckoned among the best specimens of this kind of popular instruction.

This true statement, contained in the Dabistan,[115] corrects the assertion of sir William Jones,[116] that Mohsan Fani affirms “the work of Zartusht to “have been lost.” The learned Orientalist evidently confounds the Mah-zand, which is said to be a portion of the Desátir, with the work of Zartusht. The writer of the Dabistán enumerates[117] the twenty-one nosks or books, of which the Zand was composed; he says:[117] “At present there are fourteen complete nosks, possessed by the Dosturs of Karman; the other seven being incomplete, as, through the wars and dissensions which prevailed in Iran some of the nosks have disappeared, so that, notwithstanding the greatest researches, the nosks have come into their hands in a defective state.” We find it expressly declared in the Dabistán, on the authority[118] of the Dostur who wrote the volume of the Sad dur, “the hundred gates,” that “the excellent faith has been received from the prophet Zartusht.” In a particular section, intitled Enumeration of some advantages which arise from the enigmatical xcix forms of the precepts of Zartusht’s followers, Mohsan not only adduces examples of Zartushtian allegories, but subjoins his own interpretations of them; yet he never affirms, nor even insinuates “the place of Zoroaster’s lost works to have been supplied by a recent compilation.” Nor can we assent to the view, which sir W. Jones takes of the modern literature of the Mobeds, “for whom,” he says,[119] “as they continued to profess among themselves the religion of their forefathers, it became expedient to supply the last or mutilated works of their legislator by new compositions, partly from their imperfect recollection, and partly from such moral and religious knowledge as they gleaned, most probably among the Christians with whom they had an intercourse.”

To settle our judgment upon this subject, we ought to recollect, that languages and precepts may be transmitted from generation to generation by oral instruction, which indeed was once the only possible mode during a long period of time. It was then that memory was so much stronger, as, destitute of all artificial assistance, it depended solely upon itself. We bought the advantage of writing by resigning somewhat of memorial energy; this was the evil, which, according to Plato, Thamus, the c Egyptian king, predicted to Theut, the inventor of writing. However this may be, it will appear founded upon reason and history, that religious creeds, which had once been the property of nations, are not easily eradicated by any force, or forgotten under any circumstances; they become living streams of ideas and sentiments, which run uninterruptedly through the ever-renewed races of man, even when these separate from a parent stock. Hence we find, in countries and among nations the most remote from each other, so many notions and customs, the origin of which is lost in the night of time. Shall I mention the Jews, who, throughout the whole world, repeat to-day the same words which they learned more than thirty-three centuries ago? With regard to the Guebres—sir W. Jones might have safely granted a little more confidence to his friend Bahman, his Persian reader, who always named with reverence Zartusht, whose religion he professed, in common with many so called Guebres. For these it was not necessary “to preserve Zoroastrian books, in sheets of lead or copper, at the bottom of wells near Yezd:”[120] this fact, ci which Bahman used to assert, shows the particular care which had once been taken to guard these sacred documents, the veneration for which most naturally prevented any falsification of their known contents.

We are confirmed, by the author of the Dabistán, that Zoroaster did not change the fundamentals of the ancient religion; only the dualism of the principles, good and bad, not existing, as I have remarked[121] in the Mahabadian religion, was either then first introduced, or only further developed; besides, we see the cycle of 12,000 years fixed, and divided into four periods of 3000 years each; we hear the promise of a Saviour to restore the empire of God promulgated, and the destruction of the world by fire announced: this is at the same time the epoch of the general resurrection, which is one of the most remarkable dogmas of the Zoroastrian religion.

Although this be not destitute of religious observances, yet we find scarce any painful austerity recommended. The twenty-fifth gate of Zoroaster contains the remarkable precept: “Know that in thy faith there is no fasting except that of avoiding sin: in which sense thou must fast the whole year.”[122] The ancient Mahabadian religion, although adulterated before, during, and after Zoroaster’s cii life, seems to have never lost its grave character and solemnity. In the Zand-books known to us, no trace of temples, altars, or religious symbols exist. Herodotus knew of none; the fire-places were upon a desert place, or upon mountains; the fire upon the ground. Upon the Persian monuments which time has spared, upon the walls of the thousand-pillared palace of Isfahan, and upon those of the Royal tombs we see no idols, but priests and kings, performing the sacrifice of fire before their fervers, “ideals of virtue and sanctity,” and other actions rather of a political than religious character. The pyræa, round and concave, represented the vault of heaven. Nevertheles other accounts permit us to believe, that, by association with other nations; most likely by the introduction of sculpture, architecture, and painting; and, as the Dabistán expressly says, by the use of symbolical language: a superstitious worship of sacred places and symbolic images gained a great ascendancy.

This religion prevailed during the times of the Kayanian kings from Gushtasp to Dara the Second, during more than two centuries. After the conquest of Persia by Alexander, a political and religious revolution took place in this country, and extended to Greece, where, according to the commentary of the Desátir, the creed of the Gushaspians was introduced. This is declared to be a medium between ciii the Illuminated and the Rationalists, perhaps the same which the Dabistán calls the faith of the Beh-dinians, “professors of the better religion.” So much is avowed by Philo, Plinius, and others—and we have reason to lay stress upon this avowal—that at one time the so called barbarians were reckoned to be more wise and virtuous than the Greeks. During the Ashkanian dynasty (from the third century B. C. to the end of the second after our era), the people conformed to the Kah-zand, that is, yielded to the superstition, which the figurative language was apt to suggest. Ardeshir, the first Sassanian, in the beginning of the third century A. D.; endeavored to re-establish the ancient religion; but, after his reign of forty years, the Kah-zand took and kept the ascendancy, until the Persian empire fell before the overwhelming power of the Muhammedans. The Mah-zand was lost during the domination of the intolerant invaders, Greeks, Arabs, and Turks; the Kah-zand still remains in some of its parts, whilst many others were lost in the successive disorders of the state.

The fifteenth and last section of the first chapter treats of Mazdak, who lived in the fifth century of our era. We are informed of the existence of a book, called Desnak, which the author of the Dabistán saw, and which contains the doctrine of this reformer. This was nothing else than the Zoroastrian civ system about the two principles, Yezed, “God” or “light,” and Ahriman, “agent of evil” or “darkness,” with a few peculiarities which did not destroy the fundamental principles of the original religion. But, it was the ethical part of his doctrine which at first caused a great revolution, and at last the destruction of the teacher and his numerous disciples, Mazdak bade all men to be partners in riches and women, just as they are of fire, water, and grass; private property was not to exist; each man to enjoy or to endure, in his turn, the good and bad lots of this world. To this strange doctrine may be perhaps applied the saying of a great bishop (Bossuet): that “every error is but an abuse of some truth.” To prevent an excessive inequality of fortunes in society was the object towards which celebrated ancient legislators tended, and for which frequently wishes were expressed, reforms projected, and politico-philosophical romances[123] composed by well-meaning and respectable persons. It is therefore to a natural, but dangerous propensity of the human mind, that we ought to refer Mazdak’s bold and for some time too successful attempt, as well as all the doctrines of the same tendency, which before and after him were and will henceforth be proposed.

cv I have now terminated the general review of what the first chapter of the Dabistán, and the first volume of the English translation contain, concerning the most ancient dynasties, religions, and political institutions of Persia.

§ IV.—The Religion of the Hindus.

The theatre upon which the author of the Dabistán begins history from the remotest times, is Persia, without limitation of its extent, probably including Chaldæa. From thence he passes to India, he says little of any other country; nothing at all of Egypt. The delta of this most fertile land, as an alluvial formation of the great river Nile, was necessarily posterior to the existence of inland regions; still its claims to antiquity are very high and not unsupported, to a certain extent, by the best written testimonies and architectural monuments. If I here refer in a cursory manner to its eras,[124] it is to strengthen what was above remarked concerning the general belief of the great age of the world. The ancient religion of Egypt, although connected and cvi conformable in many points with other Asiatic religions, is never alluded to by the author of the Dabistán, probably because in his time the Egyptians had lost even the memory of their ancient history, which very little attracted the curiosity of their masters, the Muhammedans, except perhaps by the medium of the Bible of the Jews, often quoted in their Koran.[125]

I cannot here omit briefly noticing the various opinions of several learned men concerning the comparative antiquity of the Magi, the Egyptian priests, and the Hindu philosophers. Aristotle[126] believed the Magi more ancient than the Egyptians; Diodorus of Sicily[127] believed the Hindus to have never sent nor received colonies, and invented every art and science; Lucian, Philostratus[128], and Eusebius[129] granted anteriority in philosophy to the Hindus over the Egyptians. In our times the learned abbé Mignot established in three Memoirs[130], that the Hindus cvii owed nothing to the Egyptians, and traced the true communications of the former with several nations of Asia and Europe. But sir W. Jones declared in 1785[131], as not ill-grounded, the opinion that Ethiopia and Hindostan were peopled or colonized by the same extraordinary race, or that the Ethiopians of Meroe were the same people as the Hindus. His opinion was reproduced under different forms by Hennel, Wilford, Forbes, Carwithen, among the English, and adopted by L. Langles among the French. I need not dwell upon this opinion, as the grounds upon which it rested are now considered as entirely destroyed. Sir W. Jones himself seems to have abandoned it in 1789,[132] as the Dabistán appeared to him to furnish an unexceptionable evidence, that the Iranian monarchy must have been the oldest in the world, although, he added, it will remain dubious to which of the three stocks, Hindu, Arabian, or Tartar, the first kings of Iran belonged; or whether they sprang from a fourth race, distinct from any of the others; He further states, that no country but Persia seems likely to have sent forth colonies to all the kingdoms of Asia, and that the three races (Indians, Arabs, Tartars) migrated from Iran as from their common country, “the true centre of population, of knowledge, of languages, and cviii of arts; which, instead of travelling westward only, as it has been fancifully supposed, or eastward, as might with equal reason have been asserted, were expanded in all directions to all the regions of the world, in which the Hindu race had settled under various denominations.”

The second chapter of the Dabistán describes, in twelve sections, the religious systems and customs of the Hindus. It is a detailed account, given by a Persian who, as traveller and resident in India during about thirty years, had the best opportunities to collect right information; he shows himself acquainted with the canonical books of this nation; he quotes their Puránas, and other works less known.[133]

The Hindus are, among all nations, most particularly distinguished by a decided turn for metaphysics, which even tinctured the radicals of their language; they have labored more than others to solve, exhaust, comprehend, what is insolvible, inexhaustible, incomprehensible. To give a general notion of their metaphysical theology, I do not say cix to render it intelligible, would require an extensive treatise. We will now give a few characteristic and leading features of their systems as indicated in the Dabistán.

Some of their theological philosophers made incredible efforts to steer clear of anthropomorphism in their conceptions of the Divinity: their Brahm, in the neuter gender, has no symbol, nor image, nor temple; they generally profess the great principle of emanation of all existences from a common but unknown source. God is the producer of the beginning and end, exhibiting himself in the mirror of pure space. Creation is held to have proceeded from pure space and time. Other Hindu philosophers establish: 1. a primary, subtile, universal substance, undergoing modification through its own energy. This they call Mula Prakritti, “rudimental nature,” no production but the root of all, involving, 2. seven principles, which are productions and productive (that is, intellect, egotism, and five subtile elements); from these seven proceed: 3. sixteen productions (to wit, eleven organs and five gross elements); to these just mentioned twenty-four (namely, Nature, seven principles and sixteen productions); add, 4. the soul, which is neither a production, nor productive, and you have the twenty-five physical and metaphysical categories of the Sankhya philosophy.[134] This strikes us cx as a very specious methodical arrangement of an abstruse matter, which is not thereby in any degree rendered more intelligible.

We seem to understand something more when, as in the Vedenta philosophy, it is said of the truly-existing Being (God):[135] “that he has exhibited the “world and the heavens in the field of existence, but has nothing like an odor of being, nor taken a color of reality; and this manifestation is called Máya that is, ‘the Magic of God,’ because the universe is his playful deceit, and he is the bestower of imitative existence, himself the unity of reality. With this pure substance, like an imitative actor, he passes every moment into another form. He, manifesting his being and unity in three persons, separate from each other, formed the universe. The connexion of the spirits with the holy Being is like the connexion of the billows with the ocean, or that of sparks with fire.” This is pure idealism; but man will spontaneously break through the shadowy illusion, and grasp at some reality; the trinity of the Hindus became creation, preservation, and destruction (or renovation), the history of nature before their eyes.

I shall here remark, without attempting to explain, the striking contrast in the religion of the same nation between the most subtile metaphysic cxi theology and the grossest idolatry. In the latter, the symbolical representation prevails; it is known, that in its immoderate use they have entirely abandoned the normal proportions of the human form, and by the multiplication of members banished all fitness and beauty. Their plastic and graphic typification of an all-mighty, all-bestowing, and all-resuming God, with its three, four, five heads, so many and more arms, is repulsive; in their poetry he frightens us with innumerable mouths, eyes, breasts, arms, and legs, grinding between his teeth the generations of men, who precipitate themselves into his mouth like rivers into the ocean, or flies into fire.[136]

The psychology of the Hindus is not less abstruse than the rest of their metaphysics. We have already mentioned the soul among the twenty-five categories as neither a production nor productive. The Indian philosophers distinguish spirit and soul, that is, a rational soul and a mere sensitive principle. The first is supposed enveloped with a subtile, shadowy form of the most delicate material ether. Some hold the soul to be incased in three sheaths, the intellectual, the mental, and the organic or vital sheath.[137] According to different views the vital spirit is Máya herself, or an emanation of Máyá, cxii in any case the illusive manifestation of the universe.

This ingenuous conception seems to have taken deep and complete possession of the Hindus; it dominates in their most subtile abstractions, and embodies itself in a thousand forms to their vivid and luxuriant imagination. The Saktians, a sect wedded to sensual materialism, represent Máyá as a Saktí or energy of Siva; she is “the mother of the universe;” “non-entity finds no access to this creator, the garment of perishableness does not sit right upon the body of this fascinating empress; the dust of nothingness does not move round the circle of her dominion; the real beings and the accidental creatures of the nether world are equally enamoured and intoxicated with desire before her.” Above the six circles, into which the Hindus divide the human body, is “the window of life, and the passage of the soul, which is the top and middle of the head, and in that place is the flower of the back of one thousand leaves: this is the residence of the glorious divinity, that is, of the world-deceiving queen, and in this beautiful site reposes her origin. With the splendor of one hundred thousand world-illuminating suns, she wears, at the time of rising, manifold odoriferous herbs and various flowers upon her head, and around her neck: her resplendent body is penetrated cxiii with perfumes of divers precious ingredients, such as musk, safran, sandal, and amber, and bedecked with magnificent garments; in this manner, she is to be represented.”[138] Thus we see the poetical imagination of the Hindus, playing, as it were, with abstruseness, materializing what is spiritual, and spiritualizing what is material.

Characteristic of and peculiar to the Hindus, are their conceptions relative to the states of the embodied soul, which are chiefly three: “waking, dreaming, and profound sleep.”[138] In these three conditions the soul is imprisoned, but it may, by virtue and sanctity, break the net of illusion, that is, acquire the consciousness of the illusion which captivates it, and know that, even when awake, man is dreaming: this is the triumph of his perfection.

Such, and other notions, in their development and application, form a system of metaphysics, in which excess and abuse of refined speculations lose themselves in obscurity, contradiction, and absurdity.

Among the Indian sectaries appear the Charvak, who, rejecting the popular religion, follow their own system of philosophic opinions.

Of Buddha and the Buddhists, we are disappointed to find so little in the Dabistán, except the important information that Vichnu, in order to destroy the demons cxiv and evil genii, the agents of night, assumed the avatár of Buddha when ten years only of the Dwaparyug remained, that is, 3112 years before Christ. In the section on the tenets held by the followers of Buddha, these religionists are called Jatis or Yatis, a great number of whom are corn-traders and get their livelihood as servants; they are divided in several classes, and do not believe the incarnations of the deity; as to the rest, they have tenets and customs in common with other Indian sects, only distinguishing themselves by a great aversion to Brahmans, and an extreme care of not hurting animal life.

In the whole account, which the Dabistán gives of the various sects and doctrines of the Hindus, we can but remark a frequent confusion of Indian with Muhammedan notions and stories. Indeed, this work having been written in India at a time when, after a sojourn of more than seven centuries, about twenty millions of Muselmans appeared, as it were, lost in the midst of one hundred millions of Hindus, we cannot wonder that a mutual assimilation in opinions and customs took place among individuals of both religions. A remarkable instance of it presents itself in the person of Kabir, renowned in his time for sanctity. After his death, both the Hindus and Muhammedans claimed his corpse for funeral honors; monuments erected to him by each cxv party exist in our days, with the proverbial precept which originated from this event:

“Live so as to be claimed after death to be burnt by Hindus, and to be buried by Muslims.”

The Indian Yogis, Sanyásis, and Vairagis are perpetually confounded with Muhammedan Durvishes, and Sufis, of whom hereafter.

We do not fail to meet with many traces of the ancient Persian astrolatry and pyrolatry among the Indians. Mohsan mentions the Surya-makhan (Sauras), “worshippers of the sun,” and periphrases, as addressed to that luminary, a Sanscrit prayer, which seems to be one of those called gayátri, the holiest verses of the Vedas, kept as mysterious by the Brahmans, and pronounced with the deepest sense of concentrated devotion. In our days, more than one gayátri has been made known.[139] We cannot doubt that (according to the poet)[140]—

“That vast source of liquid light, the ethereal sun, which perpetually laves heaven with ever-renewed brightness,”

was, from the remotest times, the object of adoration in India. The Dabistán mentions also the Chandra-bakhtra, “worshippers of the moon.” Even in our days we find the veneration for the cxvi sun, the planets, and fire, openly practised by the Hindus. The worshippers of the latter elements called Sagníkas, are very numerous at Benares;[141] they keep many agni-hotras, “burnt-offerings,” continually blazing; they kindle, with two pieces of sacred wood, called sámi, a fire, never extinguished during their lives, for the performance of solemn sacrifices, their nuptial ceremonies, the obsequies of departed ancestors, and their own funeral pile. There are besides particular worshippers of the wind, water, earth, and the three kingdoms of nature. The latter are called Tripujas, “trinitarians.” We find also Manushya-bhakta, “worshippers of mankind,” who recognise the being of God in man, and believe nothing to be more perfect than mankind; like Channing, a famous American preacher of our days. In short, the worship of personified nature, in its utmost extent, is most evident in what we know of the Vedas, and never ceased to be the general religion of the Hindus.

Not without interest will be read in the Dabistán the account of Nanak,[142] the founder of the Sikh religion and domination. He is there represented as having been, in a former age, Janaka, sovereign of Mithila, and father of Sitá, the wife of Rama. The revolution effected by Nanak, in the middle of the cxvii sixteenth century, proves that the Hindus are not quite so unchangeable in religion and customs as is generally believed. It is however to be remarked, that the Panj-ab, the country of the Sikhs, was always considered by the Brahmans as the seat of heterodoxy (probably Buddhism), and blamed for irregularity of manners. Mohsan’s account will be found to add confirmation and a few particulars to that given of Nanak, from the best sources—the generals sir John Malcolm, and John Briggs.

What will appear most valuable in this work is the description of various usages, some of which have never been described elsewhere. The most ancient customs are brought to recollection. Thus, we find stated, on the authority of Maha bharat, that widows could formerly take other husbands—married women, with the consent of their husbands, maintain intercourse with other men—several individuals, of the same race and religion, espouse one wife among them;—in ancient times there existed no such practice as appropriation of husband and wife; every woman being allowed to cohabit with whomsoever she liked; conjugal fidelity was only in later times made a duty. Much of what he describes may be seen, even in our days, in India, where all the degrees of civilisation which the Hindus ever attained, from the lowest to the highest, occur here and there within a small compass of cxviii country. So constant are they in good and bad! The whole of antiquity is still living in India, and Herodotus stands confirmed in what appeared most incredible in his narrative by the testimonies of Mohsan Fáni, the reverend abbe Dubois,[143] Ward, and others. The Persian author intersperses his account with anecdotes which characterise in the most lively manner individuals, sects, and tribes. If now and then we must avert our eyes from disgusting scenes of human degradation, more frequently we admire man, even in his errors, for the power and command of the mental over the physical part of his nature. The naked Yogi, who inflicts the most cruel tortures upon himself, wants but a better motive for being justly extolled as a hero of fortitude; death appears to him an habitual companion, into whose arms he sinks without fear; overpowered by malady, he buries himself alive.

We may be astonished at the number of unbelievers cxix among the Hindus of whom we read, and at the licentiousness of their opinions, expressed with a strength which we should think carried to excess.[144] We perceive also that, in contradiction to common belief, in the midst of the seventeenth century, when the Dabistán was composed (1645 A. D.) a numerous class of Indians assumed the name of Muselmans, but it must be remarked, that the Hindus neither endeavor to make, nor easily admit, proselytes: because their religion depends much less upon creed, in which they are latitudinarians, than upon the fixed customs of their castes, the character of which, being derived from birth, cannot be transferred to strangers.[145] We shall see hereafter in what manner Hindus and Muhammedans may be confounded with each other.

So much of India being known in our days, we have the facility of trying the veracity and correctness of the Dabistán concerning this country. Its account will be found, I dare say, rather incomplete in the small compass in which so extensive a subject was inclosed, but not inaccurate in the greatest part of its various statements. Sir W. Jones[146] bears Mohsan Fani the testimony, “that his information concerning cxx the Hindus is wonderfully correct.” Let us compare the account given by him with all that has been published about India by the best instructed Europeans before the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and we shall regret that the Dabistán was brought into notice so late. Whatever it be, the particular views of a Persian, through a medium of education, religion, and custom, so different from that through which we consider India, can but interest us by their novelty, and by themselves add something to our information about the character of Asiatics.

Largus item liquidi fons luminis, æthereus sol,

Irrigat assiduè cœlum candore recenti.

§ V.—Retrospect of the Persian and Indian Religions.

I have endeavored to trace the most remarkable features of Persian and Indian religions from among those which are contained in the Dabistán. In them we recognise resemblances, and, in more than one point, even coincidences, which appear not merely taken from each other in the course of time, but rather originally inwoven in the respective institutions. This may be explained, partly by the general probability that nations, passing through the same stages of civilisation, might agree in several parts of religion, politics, and philosophy, and cxxi chiefly by the fact, now generally admitted among the learned,[147] that in very remote times, a union of all the Arian nations, among whom the Persians and Indians are counted, existed in the common regions of central Asia. Sir W. Jones[148] goes so far as to say: “We cannot doubt that the book of Mahabad, or Manu, written in a celestial dialect, means the Veda.” William von Schlegel most ingeniously surmises,[149] “that the name of Zand may be but a corruption of the Sanscrit word chhandas, one of the most usual names of the Vedas.” The fourteen Mahabadians are to him: “Nothing else but the fourteen Manus, past and future, of the Brahmanical mythology.”[150] Thus we should have to thank Mohsan Fani for a confirmation of the above-stated historical fact; the Mahabadians were nothing else but Mahabodhis, in good Sanscrit, “great deified teachers;” he would have placed them, as did lately Burnouf, Lassen, and Charles Ritter, cxxii somewhere on the highlands of Iran, and he invented nothing.

From the ante-historical dynasties descending to later times, let us consider that, according to respectable traditions,[151] there existed friendly and hostile relations between Iran and Persia in the time of the Iranian king Feridun, 1729 years before our era: he reconducted with an army a fugitive Indian prince, and rendered India tributary. Two other invasions took place under the Persian monarch Manucheher,[152] after which the Indians recovered their liberty. Under Kai Kobad[153] flourished Rustum, who ruled, beside other countries, Sejistan and Kabul, conquered the Panj-áb, and carried war into the bosom of Arya varta. This country was also attacked by Afrasiab, a Turan prince,[154] then possessor of Persia. Ferdusi’s Shah-namah indicates expeditions of Feramurs, a son of Rustum, to India, under the reign of Kai Khosrú. We arrive at the epoch of Gushtasp, who ordered the Indus to be explored, and cxxiii although he had not, as Herodotus asserts,[155] conquered the Indians, he entertained religious relations with that nation. After Alexander’s conquest of Persia, Sassan, the son of Dara, retired to Hind, where, devoted to the service of God, he died.[156] After a very obscure period of Persian history, Ardeshir, directed by a dream, brought an offspring of Sassan from Kabulistan to Istakhar. We cannot doubt that at all times a communication was open between Iran and India, where Bahram Gor married an Indian princess, and whence Nushirvan received a celebrated book and the game of chess. In our seventh century, the Muhammedan Arabians, driven by the spirit of conquest, turned their arms towards India, but stopped on the borders of the Indus. It was reserved to Muhammedan Moghuls, mixed with Persians, to establish in the midst of India an empire which, after eight hundred years, disjoined by various disorders, fell into the hands of the English.

This rapid sketch is perhaps sufficient to explain any mixture, fusion, and resemblance of Persian and Indian doctrines and institutions, if even we were not disposed to seek their fountain-head in the sacred gloom of the remotest antiquity. Whatever it be, in any case, it will no more be said, that the Dabistán cxxiv was written “with the intention to claim for Persia the pre-eminence over India, concerning the antiquity of religious revelations.”[157] In fact, Mohsan Fani never explicitly alludes to a comparative antiquity between the Persians and Indians, and implicitly acknowledges the anteriority of the Indian religion over the Zoroastrian, in a part of Persia at least, by relating that Gushtasp was converted from the former to the latter by Zardusht, by whom also the Indian sage, Sankhara atcharya, was vanquished.

After a more accurate examination, the resemblance between the said religions will be found to exist certainly in particular principles and tenets, but not at all in the general character or the spirit of these religious systems. Nothing can be more dissimilar than the austerity of Mezdaism and the luxuriancy of Hinduism in the development of their respective dogmas, and particularly in their worship, as was already observed.[158] We cannot however deny, that not a little of the similarity in the account of different religions belongs to the author of the Dabistán, who most naturally confounded the ideas of his own with those of more ancient times, and used expressions proper to his particular creed when speaking of that of others. Thus he employs cxxv very often the term angels for that of divinities, and carries the mania of allegorising, so peculiar to the later Muhammedan Súfis, into his description of the Indian mythology. This sort of substitution, or these anachronisms of expression, are to be remarked in the narrative of other authors, praised for general correctness and veracity; I can here so much the more readily call to mind similar inaccuracies in the accounts which Greek historians, and in particular the philosophic Xenophon, gave of Persia, as I may add, that in many points they agree with our Mohsan Fani.

§ VI.—The Religion of the Tabitian (Tibetans).

The third chapter of the Dabistán treats of the religion of the Kera Tabitán (Tibitans). The author says that he received his information from a learned man of this sect by means of an interpreter, who did not always satisfy his inquiries; the little he says appears to belong to a class of Buddhistic Hinduism, and not to be destitute of truth.

§ VII.—The Religion of the Jews.

Then follows, in the fourth chapter, a short account of the religion of the Yahuds or Jews. The author derived his notion from a Rabbin converted cxxvi to Muhammedism, and states nothing which was not really professed by one of the Jewish sects, which, in his summary narration, he does not distinguish. He gives a Persian translation of the first five chapters, and a part of the sixth chapter of the Genesis from the Hebrew original; a comparison of it with several other translations known in Europe, proves its general accuracy; I thought it not altother unimportant to point out the few variations which occur.

§ VIII.—The Religion of the Christians.

It is not without great interest that an European Christian will peruse the fifth chapter, in which a Persian treats of the religion of the Tarsas, that is, “Christians.” Mohsan Fani declares, that he saw several learned Christians, such as the Padre Francis,[159] highly esteemed by the Portuguese in Goa and in Surat. We can scarce doubt, that it was from that cxxvii father, or some other Roman Catholic missionary, that he received his information; as he portrays particularly the Roman Catholic doctrine, of which, in my opinion, he exhibits a more faithful idea than that which a great number of Protestants entertain, and are wont to express.

Every Christian may be satisfied with the picture of his religion, which, although contracted in a small compass, is nevertheless faithfully drawn by a foreign but impartial hand. Mohsan Fani, in seventeen pages of our translation, states only a few circumstances of the life of Jesus Christ, and a few dogmas relative to him as son of God, and the second person of the holy Trinity. In the account of seven sacraments, the eucharist is characterised in a manner which will not fail to attract attention.[160] Scarce any rites or ceremonies are mentioned; the greatest part of the statement relates to the moral precepts of Christianity, which presents an advantageous contrast with the many absurd and superstitious duties, with which other religions are encumbered. Thus, we find confirmed in the Dabistán that the cxxviii Pentateuch of the Jews and the Gospel of the Christians were both sufficiently familiar to Muhammedans who had any pretension to learning.

§ IX.—The Religion of the Muselmans.

The author of the Dabistán, after having treated of the most ancient religions, passes to the comparatively modern religious system of Arabia. The Arabians, although frequently attacked, were never conquered by the Assyrians, Medians, Persians, or Romans; they maintained their political independance, but could not avoid nor resist the religious influence of nations with whom they were, during ages, in various relations. The ancient history of Arabia is lost, like that of many other nations; so much is known of their oldest religion, that it resembled that of the Persians and Hindus: it was the Magism or Sabæism; the stars were worshipped as idols from the remotest times; we read of antediluvian idols. At the time, which we now consider, that is the seventh century of our era, all the then existing religions seemed to be far remote from their original simplicity and purity;[161] idolatry was dominant, and Monotheism preserved and positively professed only in Judaism and Christianity, although cxxix likewise corrupted by various kinds of superstition. Followers of both these religions were settled in Arabia, to which region the Jews fled from the cruel destruction of their country by the Romans; and the Christians, on account of the persecutions and disorders which had arisen in the Eastern church.

We see by what facts, circumstances, and notions Muhammed was acted upon, whilst nourishing his religious enthusiasm by solitary contemplation in the cavern of mount Hara, to which he was wont to retire for one month in every year. In his fortieth year, at the same age at which Zoroaster began to teach 600 years before Christ (according to some chronologers), Muhammed, as many years after the Messiah, assumed the prophetic mission to reform the Arabians. He felt the necessity of seizing some safe and essential dogmas in the chaos of Magian, Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian notions; broke all the figures of planets in the temple of Mecca, and declared the most violent war against all plastic, graven, and painted idols; he left undisturbed only the black stone, Saturn’s emblem before, and at the time when the Jewish traditions claimed it for Abraham, and even transported it to heaven. Muhammed preferred the latter to the more ancient superstition; as to the rest, he abhorred the prevailing idolatry of the Sabaians; and blamed the corruption cxxx of monotheism in the Jews and Christians. He felt in himself the powerful spirit, and undertook to re-establish the Touhid, “the unity and spiritualism of God;” he preached with enthusiastic zeal the Islam, “devotedness und resignation to God.”

But, in order to found and to expand the great and necessary truths, he knew no other means, but to attach the believers to his own person, and to accustom them to blind obedience to his dictates; he proclaimed: “There is no God but God, and Muhammed is his prophet;” he gave them the Koran, the only holy book, in which his precepts were as many commands proclaimed under the penalty of eternal damnation. In the Muhammedan all spontaneity is stifled; all desire, all attempt to be self-convinced is interdicted; every thing becomes exterior, the religious and civil Code but one.

Muhammed seemed not to know that religion cannot be the gift, as it is not the property, of any single man; it belongs to mankind. Any particular creed lives only by its inherent force, independently of the founder, who retires and leaves nothing behind him but his name as a mere distinction from that of another religion. Every individual action is of little avail, if it does not proceed from the free and pure impulse of the spirit, which must revive in all succeeding generations. This is acknowledged cxxxi in the Dabistán[162] by giving a very philosophic explanation of the expression prophetic seal, or “the last of prophets:” “That which is reared up by superior wisdom, renders the prophet’s knowledge vain, and takes his color; that is to say: if one hundred thousand prophets like himself realise in themselves the person of superior wisdom, they are possessors of the seal, the last prophets, because it is superior wisdom which is the seal, and they know themselves to be effaced, and superior wisdom existing.” Muhammed, although wise enough to connect himself with other prophets, his predecessors, pretended however to close the series, and to be the last of prophets, or “the seal of prophetism.”

Vain project! immediately after him violent contests arose,

Thirty years after his death his family was dispossessed of the Khalifat. This passed to the Moaviyahs, who, residing in Damascus, kept it during 90 years, and then ceded it to the Abbasides, who established their seat at Baghdad. The impulse and development of the Islam was overwhelming during the one hundred and twenty years after the prophet’s death; the mighty spirit of conquest cxxxii had arisen and was—I shall not say irresistible—but certainly badly resisted by the nations assailed. The Romans and Persians were then hard pressed themselves; on the West by the Goths, on the East by the Huns:—whilst the Greeks had sunk into general luxury and degeneracy; all feebly sustained the attack of hardy and active men, whose native habit of rapine and devastation was then exalted and sanctified by the name of religion, and continually invigorated by rich, splendid, and easy conquests. Thus, the khalifs, who were divided into two great lines, the before-mentioned Abbasides and the Fatimites, extended their empire within 600 years after Muhammed, not only over the greatest part of Asia, but also along the western shore of Africa, Egypt, Spain, and Sicily; threatening the rest of Europe.

After the first labors, came rest, during which the genius of the Arabs turned to persevering study, deep speculation, and noble ambition: this was the scientific age of the Arabs, which began in the middle of our eighth century, and was most conspicuous in the old seats of learning, Babylonia, Syria, Egypt, Persia, and India. But in the numerous schools rose violent schisms and bloody contests between philosophy and religion. In the mean time the khalifs, by becoming worldly sovereigns, had lost their sacred character, and were in contradiction with the principle of their origin. The cxxxiii crusades of the Christians, by reviving their martial energy, maintained for some time the vacillating power of the Khalifs, but their vast and divided empire, assailed by Pagan nations, first in the West in 1211, and forty-seven years afterwards in the East, fell in 1258 of our era. Muhammedism however revived in the barbarous and energetic conquerors, Turks, Seljuks, Albanese, Kurds, Africans, who were drawn into its circle; and science was again cultivated in Tunis, Bulgaria, and India.

I thought necessary to draw this rapid historical sketch, because within its outlines is contained the account of the Muhammedan sects as given in the text of the Dabistán.

Mohsan Fani himself lived in the age of general decline of Muhammedism. He exhibits in the sixth chapter the religion of his own nation: we may expect that he will be true and accurate. He divides the chapter into two sections: the first treats of the creed of the Sonnites; the second, of that of the Shiâhs. These are the two principal sects of the Muhammedans, but divided into a number of others, exceeding that of seventy-three, which Muhammed himself has announced, and consigned, all except one, to eternal damnation. This one was that of the sonnah “the traditional law,” or Jamaât, “the assembly.” The Dabistán explains this religion in a manner which, to Muhammedans, might appear cxxxiv sufficiently clear, in spite of digressions and want of order in the arrangement of the matter; but an European reader will desire more light than is afforded in the text, and feel himself perplexed to understand the meaning of frequent technical terms, and to connect the various notions disseminated in an unequal narrative—now too diffuse, now too contracted. The following are the principal features of the long account of Muhammedism contained in the Dabistán.

Immediately after the promulgation of the Koran, which followed Muhammed’s death, it became necessary to fix the meaning and to determine the bearing of its text. There was one theme in which all agreed: the grandeur, majesty, and beneficence of one supreme Being, the Creator, ruler, and preserver of the world, which is the effulgence of his power. This is expressed in the Koran in such a strain of sublimity as may unite men of all religions in one feeling of admiration. This excellence is an inheritance of the most ancient Asiatic religion. God can but be always the object of boundless adoration, but never that of human reasoning. Hence the Muhammedan sects disagreed about the attributes of God.

The residence assigned, although inconsistently with pure spiritualism, to the supreme Being was the ninth heaven; an eighth sphere formed the intermediate cxxxv story between the uppermost heaven and seven other spheres, distributed among so many prophets, in the same manner as, in the Desátir, the seven prophet kings of the Péshdadian dynasty were joined to the seven planets which they, each one in particular, venerated. Numberless angels, among whom four principal chiefs, fill the universe, and serve, in a thousand different ways, the supreme Lord of creation. We recognisee the notions of the ancient Persian religion in this, and in the whole system of divine government.

Another subject of violent and interminable dispute was God’s action upon the nether world, principally upon mankind, or God’s universal and eternal judgment, commonly called predestination. This subject was greatly agitated by the Matezalas, Kadarians, Jabarians, and others; they disputed

Although this subject appears to be connected with the Zoroastrian doctrine of the two principles, “good and bad,” yet it has never been agitated with so much violence in so many particular ways by any religionists as by the Muhammedans.

It has already been observed that, according to tradition, the ancient Persian philosophy was cxxxvi carried in the reign of Alexander to Greece, and from thence, after having been recast in the mould of Greek genius, returned in translations to its original country. We find it expressly stated in the Dabistán, that Plato and Aristotle were acknowledge as the founders of two principal schools of Muhammedan philosophers, to wit, those of the Hukma ashrákín, “Platonists,” and the Hukma masháyín, “Aristotelian, or Peripatetics.” To these add the Súfí’s matsherâin, “orthodox Sufis,” who took care not to maintain any thing contrary to revelation, and exerted all their sagacity to reconcile passages of the Koran with sound philosophy. This was the particular profession of the Matkalmin, “scholastics.” These cede to no other philosophers the palm of mastering subtilties and acute distinctions. They had originally no other object but that of defending their creed against the heterodox philosophers. But they went further, and attacked the Peripatetics themselves with the intention to substitute another philosophy for theirs. It may be here sufficient to call to mind the works of three most celebrated men, Alfarabi, Ibn Sina (Avisenna), and Ghazali, whose works are reckoned to be the best specimens of Arabian and Muhammedan philosophy.[163] They contain three essential parts of orthodox cxxxvii dogmatism: 1. ontology, physiology, and psychology; these together are called “the science of possible things;” 2. theology, that is, the discussion upon the existence, essence, and the attributes of God; as well as his relations with the world and man in particular; 3. the science of prophetism, or “revealed theology.” All these subjects are touched upon in the Dabistán, but in a very desultory manner. I shall add, that the author puts in evidence a sect called Akhbárín, or “dogmatic traditionists,” who participate greatly in the doctrine of the Matkalmin, and in his opinion are the most approvable of all religious philosophers.

The contest for the khalifat between the family of Ali, Muhammed’s son-in-law, and the three first khalifs, as well as the families of Moaviah and Abbas, a contest which began in the seventh century, and appears not yet terminated in our days—this contest, so much more violent as it was at once religious and political, occasioned the rise of a great number of sects. Much is found about Ali in the Dabistán, and even an article of the Koran,[164] published no where else relative to this great Muselman, which his adversaries are said to have suppressed. The adherents of Ali are called Shiâhs.

cxxxviii The Persians, after being conquered by the Arabs, were compelled to adopt the Muhammedan religion, but they preserved a secret adherence to Magism, their ancient national creed, they were therefore easily disposed to join any sect, which was more or less contrary to the standard creed of their conquerors, and bore some slight conformity, or had the least connection with, their former religion. They became Shiâhs.

Among these sectaries originated the particular office of Imám, whose power partook of something of a mysterious nature: the visible presence of an Imám was not required; he could, although concealed, be acknowledged, direct and command his believers; his name was Mahdi, “the director.” This opinion originated and was spread after the sudden disappearance of the seventh Imám, called Ismâil. His followers, the Ismâilahs, maintained that he was not dead; that he lived concealed, and directed the faithful by messages, sent by him, and brought by his deputies; that he would one day reappear, give the victory to his adherents over all other sects, and unite the world in one religion. More than one Mahdi was subsequently proclaimed in different parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe—always expected, never appearing—so that it became a proverbial expression among the Arabs to denote tardiness: “as slow as a Mahdi.” We recognize in this cxxxix an ancient idea of Zoroaster: he too was to reappear in his sons at the end of 12,000 years; rather late,—but mankind never tire of hope and expectation.

A creed, like that of the Ismâilahs, because founded upon something mysterious, vague, and spiritual, was likely to branch out in most extraordinary conceptions and practices. The Dabistán abounds with curious details about them. Their doctrine bore the character of duplicity: one part was manifest, the other concealed. Their manner of making proselytes was not open; they acted in the dark. They first induced the neophyte to doubt, then to despise his own creed, and at last to exchange it for apparently more sublime truths, until, after having sufficiently emboldened his reasoning faculty, they enabled him to throw off every restraint of authority in religious matters. We see in the Dabistán,[165] the degrees through which an Ismâilah was to pass until he believed in no religion at all.

A most remarkable sect of the Ismâilahs was that of the Almutians, so called from Alamut, a hill-fort in the Persian province of Ghilan. This fort was the seat of Hassan, a self-created Imám, and became the capital of an empire, perhaps unique in the history of the world.[166] An Imám, called by Europeans “the old man of the mountain,” without armies, or cxl treasures, commanded the country around, and terrified a great part of Asia by a band of devoted adherents, whom he sent about to propagate his religion, and to execute his commands, which were frequently the murder of his enemies. The executioners were unknown save at the fatal moment of action; mighty khalifs and sultans met with their murderers among their most intimate servants, or the guardians of their doors, in the midst of crowded public places or in the solitude of their secret bed-chambers. The Fedayis, so were they called, devoted themselves not only to the sacred service of their Imám, but hired their arm also for profane service to foreign chiefs, such as the Christian crusaders. Among Europeans, these Ismâilahs were known under the name of Assassins, which well answered their infamous profession, but is better derived from Hashishah[167], a sort of hemp, from which they extracted an intoxicating beverage for their frequent use. During one hundred and sixty years the Ismâilahs were the terror of the weak and the mighty, until they fell in one promiscuous slaughter, with the khalif of Islámism, under the swords of the ferocious invaders who, issuing from the vast steppes of Tartary, fell upon the disordered empire of the Muhammedans.

cxli The Ismâilahs, and other sects connected with them, professed a great attachment to an Imám, whose lineage was always traced up to Ali through a series of intermediate descendants; but it belonged to the Ali-Ilahians to deify Ali himself, or to believe his having been an incarnation of God.

Another sect, the Ulviahs, also devoted to Ali, maintain that he was united with the sun, that he is now the sun, and having also been the sun before, he was for some days only united to an elemental body. Both these sects reject the Koran.

Here terminates the review of the second volume of the English Dabistán.

§ X.—The Religion of the Sadikiahs.

The third volume of this work begins with the seventh chapter, upon the religion of the Sadikiahs. It is generally known that, during the life of Muhammed, another prophet, called Musaylima, arose in the country of Yamáma, and dared offer to himself in a letter to the former as a partner of his sacred mission, but was treated as a liar. He had however gained a great number of followers, at the head of whom he was defeated and himself slain in a bloody battle against Khaled, a general of the first Khalif, the very same year as Muhammed’s death. We cxlii find in the Dabistán, what appears less generally known, that Musaylima’s sect, far from being entirely crushed after his fall, existed under the name of Sadikias in the seventeenth century of our era, and conformed to a second Faruk, or Koran, to which they attributed a divine origin, and a greater authority than to the first.[168]

Another account, not frequently met with, is contained in the eighth chapter of the Dabistán, concerning Vahed Mahmud, who appeared in the beginning of our thirteenth century, and is by his adherents placed above Muhammed and Ali. Among his tenets and opinions is to be remarked that of an ascending refinement or perfection of elemental matter, from the brute or mineral to that of a vegetable form; from this to that of an animal body; and thence progressing to that of Mahmud.[169] Further, the particular mode of transmigration of souls by means of food into which men, after their death, are changed; such food, in which intelligence and action may reside, becomes continually the aliment and cxliii substance of new successive human beings. We were not a little astonished to find these singular opinions agreeing with the information, which Milton’s archangel Raphael imparts to Adam, the father of mankind.[170]

This sort of hylozoism is more expanded in a particular system of cosmogony of the same Vahed,[171] according to which the materials of the world existed from the very beginning, which signifies from the first appearance of afrad, “rudimental units.” We cxliv can never think meanly of this opinion, when we find it coinciding with that of Leibnitz in our seventeenth century, contemporary of Mohsan Fani. According to the celebrated German philosopher,[172] there exists already an entirely organical preformation in the seeds of the bodies which are born, and all souls had always pre-existed in some sort of organized body, and shall after death remain united with an organic whole; because in the order of nature souls are not likely to exist entirely separated from any kind of body. In the eighteenth century Bonnet, a great physiologist, maintained,[173] that all was preformed from the beginning, nothing engendered; all organized bodies were pre-existing in a very small compass in the germs, in which souls may also pre-exist, these indestructible germs may sojourn in such or such a body until the moment of its decomposition, then pass, without the least alteration, into another body, from this into a third, and so on; each of the germs incloses another imperishable germ, which will be developed but in a future state of our planet, which is destined to experience a new revolution.

We see here the very same ideas, without any cxlv mutual communication, entertained in the East and the West, in ancient and modern times.

Vahed Mahmud combines his cosmogony with periods of 8000 years, eight of which form a great cycle of 64,000 years, at the completion of which the world is renovated. This sect is said to have been widely spread in the world; in Persia the persecution of Shah Abbas forced them to lie concealed.

§ XI.—The Religion of the Roshenians.

The ninth chapter of the Dabistán introduces to us Mian Báyezid, who, born in the Panjáb, flourished in the middle of the sixteenth century under the reign of Humayún, the Emperor of India. At first a strict observer of Muhammedism, he abandoned afterwards the exterior practices of this religion, and, devoting his mind to contemplation, assumed with the character of a saint the title of a “master of light;” his followers were called Roshenians, or “enlightened.” His sayings, several of which are quoted in the Dabistán, express sound reason, pure morality, and fervent piety. In the spirit of his nation and time, and for self-defence, he took up arms against the Moghuls. His history and that of his sons is carried to the middle of the seventeenth century, the time of Mohsan Fani.

cxlvi Muhammed was the permanent type of a prophet, in whom the religious and political character were united. The first Khalifs were all military chiefs and religious men; the Koran furnished the rules of foreign and internal policy, the final decision of every tribunal, the inciting exclamation to combat and carnage, and a prayer for every occasion. The founders of sects were frequently warriors, or, what in Asia is generally the same, highwaymen and plunderers of caravans; such was the just mentioned Miyan Bayezid, and many others. As possessors of empires, they preserved the austere habits of ascetics: they carried a sabre and a rosary, counted their beads and gave order for battle; emaciated by fasts, covered with a woollen mantle, sitting upon the bare ground, they disposed of empires and received the homage of millions of men.

The Mohammedans preserved their religion, as long as they were militant: because all states of mental excitement are apt to support each other. But, in solitary retirement, and in the precincts of schools, the doctrine of Muhammed was put to the test of reason: now began the struggle between religion and philosophy. Fearful to part at once with early impressions and national feelings, attempts to reconcile faith and reason were made; religious philosophers had recourse to allegory, in order to rationalize strange and absurd dogmas and cxlvii practices; for the literal they substituted a mystical sense; under arbitrary acceptations and interpretations, the foundation of the doctrine itself disappeared, or was confounded with some old dogma renewed, if not one entirely invented: in short, the Muhammedan religion appeared to have survived itself; its presumed period of one thousand years was believed to be completed under the reign of Akbar.