Part 6 (1/2)

_Lettish_ is the language of Kurland and Livonia, rammar than Lithuanian, yet not immediately derived froes, properly so called The eastern branch coarian_, and the _Illyrian_ The most ancient document of this eastern branch is the so-called Ecclesiastical Slavonic, _ie_ the ancient Bulgarian, into which Cyrillus and Methodius translated the Bible, in the middle of the ninth century This is still the authorized version(184) of the Bible for the whole Slavonic race; and to the student of the Slavonic languages, it is what Gothic is to the student of Gerra the Slavonic dialects

_Illyrian_ is a convenient or inconvenient name to comprehend the _Servian_, _Croatian_, and _Slovinian_ dialects Literary frago back as far as the tenth century(185)

The western branch coe of _Poland_, _Bohes to the fourteenth century: the Psalter of Margarite The Bohee was, till lately, traced back to the ninth century But most of these old Bohemian poems are now considered spurious; and it is doubtful, even, whether an ancient interlinear translation of the Gospel of St John can be ascribed to the tenth century(186)

The language of Lusatia is spoken, probably, by no more than 150,000 people, known in Germany by the naes of our first or Aryan family, which are spoken in Europe, with one exception, the _Albanian_ This language is clearly a member of the same family; and as it is sufficiently distinct froe, it has been traced back to one of the neighboring races of the Greeks, the Illyrians, and is supposed to be the only surviving representative of the various so-called barbarous tongues which surrounded and interpenetrated the dialects of Greece

We now pass on froin at once, on the extrees of India As I sketched the history of Sanskrit in one of my former Lectures, it must suffice, at present, to , about 1500 B C, with the dialect of the Vedas, which is followed by the modern Sanskrit; the popular dialects of the third century B C; the Prakrit dialects of the plays; and the spoken dialects, such as Hindi, Hindustani, Mahratti, Bengali There are e, in the long history of the speech of India; and it has been truly said that Sanskrit is to the science of language what mathematics are to astronomy In an introductory course of lectures, however, like the present, it would be out of place to enter on a e of languages

There is one point only on which I may be allowed to say a feords I have frequently been asked, ”But how can you prove that Sanskrit literature is so old as it is supposed to be? How can you fix any Indian dates before the time of Alexander's conquest? What dependence can be placed on Sanskrit ed or interpolated?” It is easier to ask such questions than to answer theibly But, perhaps, the following argument will serve as a partial answer, and show that Sanskrit was the spoken language of India at least some centuries before the time of Solomon In the hymns of the Veda, which are the oldest literary coraphical horizon of the poets is, for the greater part, lies in which any allusions to the sea or the sea-coast occur, whereas the snowy mountains, and the rivers of the Penjab, and the scenery of the Upper Ganges valley are familiar objects to the ancient bards There is no doubt, in fact, that the people who spoke Sanskrit caradually extended their sway to the south and east Now, at the time of Solomon, it can be proved that Sanskrit was spoken at least as far south as the mouth of the Indus

You remember the fleet of Tharshi+sh(187) which Soloether with the navy of Hiraold_ and _silver_, _ivory_, _apes_, and _peacocks_ The same navy, which was stationed on the shore of the Red Sea, is said to have fetched gold froreat plenty of _algureat deal has been written to find out where this Ophir was; but there can be no doubt that it was in India The nauutta-percha_ or _tobacco_ are in English Now, if ished to know froutta-percha_ was first iht safely conclude that it cautta-percha_, fore(190) If, therefore, we can find a language in which the nauenous, we e was spoken e is no other but Sanskrit

_Apes_ are called, in Hebrew, _koph_, a ithout an etyes, but nearly identical in sound with the Sanskrit name of ape, _kapi_

_Ivory_ is called either _karnoth-shen_, horns of tooth; or _shen habbiain without a derivation in Hebrew, but it is most likely a corruption of the Sanskrit name for elephant, _ibha_, preceded by the Semitic article(191)

_Peacocks_ are called in Hebrew _tukhi-im_, and this finds its explanation in the naei_, which in turn has been derived fro furnished with a crest

All these articles, ivory, gold, apes, peacocks, are indigenous in India, though of course they ht have been found in other countries likewise

Not so the _alguuenous on the coast of Malabar only; and one of its nuu_(_ka_) is clearly the nau_

Now, the place where the navy of Solo down the Red Sea, would naturally have landed, was the old_ and _precious stones_ froht down the Indus; and _sandalwood_, _peacocks_, and _apes_ would have been brought from Central and Southern India In this very locality Ptoleives us the name of _Abiria_, above _Pattalene_ In the saraphers place the people called _Abhira_ or _abhira_; and in the sahborhood MacMurdo, in his account of the province of Cutch, still knows a race of _Ahirs_,(192) the descendants, in all probability, of the people who sold to Hiraold and precious stones, their apes, peacocks, and sandalwood(193)

If, then, in the Veda the people who spoke Sanskrit were still settled in the north of India, whereas at the tie had extended to Cutch and even the Malabar coast, this will show that at all events Sanskrit is not of yesterday, and that it is as old, at least, as the book of Job, in which the gold of Ophir is mentioned(194)

Most closely allied to Sanskrit, more particularly to the Sanskrit of the Veda, is the ancient language of the Zend-avesta,(195) the so-called _Zend_, or sacred language of the Zoroastrians or Fire-worshi+ppers It was, in fact, chiefly through the Sanskrit, and with the help of coy, that the ancient dialect of the Parsis or Fire-worshi+ppers was deciphered The MSS had been preserved by the Parsi priests at Bombay, where a colony of fire-worshi+ppers had fled in the tenth century,(196) and where it has risen since to considerable wealth and influence Other settlements of Guebres are to be found in Yezd and parts of Kerman A Frenchman, Anquetil Duperron, was the first to translate the Zend-avesta, but his translation was not froinal, but from a modern Persian translation The first European who atteinal words of Zoroaster was Rask, the Dane; and after his prereatest triue of the Zend-avesta, and establishi+ng its close relationshi+p with Sanskrit The saenuineness of the Veda, were repeated with regard to the Zend-avesta, by h authority as oriental scholars, by Sir W Jones himself, and even by the late Professor Wilson But Burnouf's argurammatical evidence only, were irresistible, and have of late been nally confirmed by the discovery of the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes That there was a Zoroaster, an ancient sage, was known long before Burnouf

Plato speaks of a teacher of Zoroaster's Magic (?a?e?a), and calls Zoroaster the son of _Oromazes_(197)

This name of Oromazes is important; for Oromazes is clearly meant for _Ormuzd_, the God of the Zoroastrians The name of this God, as read in the inscriptions of Darius and Xerxes, is _Auramazda_, which comes very near to Plato's Ororace of Aurado of _Aurae in the Achaemenian inscriptions, where Auraenitive of Auramazda occurs there as _Aurahya ible, and is, in fact, nothing but a phonetic corruption of the nae of the Zend-avesta, namely, _Ahuro mazdao_ (nom) Here, too, both words are declined; and instead of _Ahuro mazdao_, we also find _Mazdao ahuro_(199) Well, this _Ahuro mazdao_ is represented in the Zend-avesta as the creator and ruler of the world; as good, holy, and true; and as doing battle against all that is evil, dark, and false ”The wicked perish through the wisdo wise Spirit” In the oldest hymns, the power of darkness, which is opposed to _Ahuro ro mainyus_, the later _Ahriman_; but it is spoken of as a power, as _Drukhs_ or deceit; and the principal doctrine which Zoroaster came to preach was that we ood, and not bad These are his words:-

”In the beginning there was a pair of twins, two spirits, each of a peculiar activity These are the Good and the Base in thought, word, and deed Choose one of these two spirits; Be good, not base!”(200)

Or again:-

”Ahurah holy deeds” ”You cannot serve both”

Now, if anted to prove that Anglo-Saxon was a real language, and lish, a mere coospel_ and _Godspel_ would be sufficient _Hlafford_ has a ; _lord_ has none; therefore we may safely say that without such a compound as _hlafford_, the word _lord_ could never have arisen The sae of the Zend-avesta with that of the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius _Auramazda_ is clearly a corruption of _Ahuro e of the Mountain-records of Behistun is genuine, then, _a fortiori_, is the language of the Zend-avesta genuine, as deciphered by Burnouf, long before he had deciphered the language of Cyrus and Darius But what is the ive us an answer; but we e, just as we looked froinal forovern the changes of words, common to Zend and Sanskrit, _Ahuro mazdao_ corresponds to the Sanskrit _Asuro medhas_; and this would mean the ”Wise Spirit,” neither more nor less

We have editions, translations, and coel, and Westergaard Yet there still re, now settled at Poona, has lately taken up the hich Burnouf left unfinished He has pointed out that the text of the Zend-avesta, as we have it, coments of very different antiquity, and that the most ancient only, the so-called Gathas, can be ascribed to Zarathustra ”This portion,” he writes in a lecture just received froments is very snized