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The Zend-Avesta Volume 1
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ... 17. Verethraghna, made by Ahura, came to him the sixth time, running in the shape of a beautiful youth of fifteen, shining, clear-eyed, thin-heeled. Thus did Verethraghna come, bearing the good Glory made by Mazda, the Glory made by Mazda .... VII. 18. We sacrifice unto Verethraghna, made by Ahura. Zarathustra asked Ahura Mazda: 'Ahura Mazda, most beneficent Spirit, Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! 'Who is the best-armed of the heavenly gods?' Ahura Mazda answered: 'It is Verethraghna, made by Ahura, O Spitama Zarathustra!' 19. Verethraghna, made by Ahura, came to him the seventh time, running in the shape of a raven that ....1 below and ....1 above, and that is the swiftest of all birds, the lightest of the flying creatures. 20. He alone of living things, --he or none, -- overtakes the flight of an arrow, however well it has been shot. He flies up joyfully at the first break of dawn, wishing the night to be no more, wishing the dawn, that has not yet come, to come 2. 21. He grazes the hidden ways3 of the mountains, he grazes the tops of the mountains, he grazes the depths of the vales, he grazes the summits4 of the trees, listening to the voices of the birds. 1 ? Urvat6, pishat6. 8 The raven was sacred to Apollo. The priests of the sun in Persia are said to have been named ravens (Porphyrius). Cf. Georgica I, 45. * Reading vigatavd. * Doubtful. Thus did Verethraghna come, bearing the good Glory made by Mazda1, the Glory made by Mazda .... VIII. 22. We sacrifice unto Verethraghna, made by Ahura. .... Zarathustra asked Ahura Mazda: 'Ahura Mazda, most beneficent Spirit, Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! 'Who is the best-armed of the heavenly gods?' Ahura Mazda answered: 'It is Verethraghna, made by Ahura, O Spitama...
196 pages, Paperback
Published September 12, 2013
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About the author
James Darmesteter
144 books4 followersJames Darmesteter (28 March 1849 – 19 October 1894) was a French author, orientalist, and antiquarian.
He was born of Jewish parents at Château-Salins, in Lorraine. The family name had originated in their earlier home of Darmstadt. He was educated in Paris, where, under the guidance of Michel Bréal and Abel Bergaigne, he imbibed a love for Oriental studies, to which for a time he entirely devoted himself. In 1875 he published a thesis on the mythology of the Avesta, in which he advocated that the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism had been influenced by Judaism (and not backwards as many scholars say). In 1877 became teacher of Persian language at the École des Hautes Études. He continued his research with his Études iraniennes (1883), and ten years later published a complete translation of the Avesta and associated Zend (lit. "commentary"), with historical and philological commentary of his own (Zend Avesta, 3 vols., 1892–1893) in the Annales du Musée Guimet. He also edited the Avesta for Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East series (vols. 4 and 23).
Darmesteter regarded the extant texts as far more recent than commonly believed, placing the earliest in the 1st century BC and the bulk in the 3rd century AD. In 1885 he was appointed professor in the Collège de France, and was sent to India in 1886 on a mission to collect the popular songs of the Afghans, a translation of which, with a valuable essay on the Afghan language and literature, he published on his return. His impressions of English dominion in India were conveyed in Lettres sur l'Inde (1888). England interested him deeply; and his attachment to the gifted English writer, Agnes Mary Frances Robinson , whom he shortly afterwards married (and who in 1901 became the wife of Professor E. Duclaux, director of the Pasteur Institute at Paris), led him to translate her poems into French in 1888. Two years after his death a collection of excellent essays on English subjects was published in English. He also wrote Le Mahdi depuis les origines de l'Islam jusqu'à nos jours (1885); Les Origines de la poésie persane (1888); Prophètes d'Israël (1892), and other books on topics connected with the East, and from 1883 onwards drew up the annual reports of the Société Asiatique. He had just become connected with the Revue de Paris, when his delicate constitution succumbed to a slight attack of illness on 10 October 1894 at Maisons-Laffitte.
His elder brother, Arsène Darmesteter, was a distinguished philologist and man of letters.
He was born of Jewish parents at Château-Salins, in Lorraine. The family name had originated in their earlier home of Darmstadt. He was educated in Paris, where, under the guidance of Michel Bréal and Abel Bergaigne, he imbibed a love for Oriental studies, to which for a time he entirely devoted himself. In 1875 he published a thesis on the mythology of the Avesta, in which he advocated that the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism had been influenced by Judaism (and not backwards as many scholars say). In 1877 became teacher of Persian language at the École des Hautes Études. He continued his research with his Études iraniennes (1883), and ten years later published a complete translation of the Avesta and associated Zend (lit. "commentary"), with historical and philological commentary of his own (Zend Avesta, 3 vols., 1892–1893) in the Annales du Musée Guimet. He also edited the Avesta for Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East series (vols. 4 and 23).
Darmesteter regarded the extant texts as far more recent than commonly believed, placing the earliest in the 1st century BC and the bulk in the 3rd century AD. In 1885 he was appointed professor in the Collège de France, and was sent to India in 1886 on a mission to collect the popular songs of the Afghans, a translation of which, with a valuable essay on the Afghan language and literature, he published on his return. His impressions of English dominion in India were conveyed in Lettres sur l'Inde (1888). England interested him deeply; and his attachment to the gifted English writer, Agnes Mary Frances Robinson , whom he shortly afterwards married (and who in 1901 became the wife of Professor E. Duclaux, director of the Pasteur Institute at Paris), led him to translate her poems into French in 1888. Two years after his death a collection of excellent essays on English subjects was published in English. He also wrote Le Mahdi depuis les origines de l'Islam jusqu'à nos jours (1885); Les Origines de la poésie persane (1888); Prophètes d'Israël (1892), and other books on topics connected with the East, and from 1883 onwards drew up the annual reports of the Société Asiatique. He had just become connected with the Revue de Paris, when his delicate constitution succumbed to a slight attack of illness on 10 October 1894 at Maisons-Laffitte.
His elder brother, Arsène Darmesteter, was a distinguished philologist and man of letters.
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