The Gathas

by Zoroaster

The Gâthas
of
Zarathushtra (Zoroaster)
in metre and rythm,
being
a
second edition
of the
metrical versions in the author's edition of 1892—94,
to which is added
a second edition (now in English) of the author's Latin version also of 1892—94, in the Five Zarathushtrian Gâthas, which was subventioned by His Lordship, the Secretary of State for India in Council, and also by the Trustees of the Sir J. Jejeebhoy Translation Fund of Bombay, and is now practically disposed of; (see also the literary translation in the Sacred Books of the East, XXX, pp. 1—393 (1887), itself founded by especial request upon the limited edition of 1883)
by
Lawrence H. Mills, D.D., Hon. M. A.,
Professor of Zend Philology in the University of Oxford.

---

to be had of
F. A. BROCKHAUS, LEIPZIG
1900.

Dedicated to the memory
of
Bai Dinbai Nesserwanji Manockji Petit,
late of
Bombay,
a generous contributor to the endowment of the Professorship of Zend Philology in the University of Oxford.

Preface and Introduction.

After all that I have written on this subject I will not waste many words upon a preface here. My object now is to reach a wider circle of intellectual readers, who may not, however, yet have become habituated to oriental literature.

I by no means wish to minimise the difficulties of Zoroastrian science, ’though I present its interior in this popular manner. The questions which arise are exceedingly numerous and the problems are severe. Some of them are also not susceptible of (a positive) solution, while the materials necessary to a critical opinion have actually never been at all attempted in any serious spirit by any person whomsoever (since Spiegel) except to the extent of the Gâthas; and the urgent requests which I have received for assistance from leading scholars have been based upon the exhaustive presentation of these materials made in my Study of them^[1].

As this Preface may be read by persons who hear for the first time of the subject I give a further account of my stewardship. Aside from the more extended attempts (S. B. E. XXXI, 1887, Gâthas with Zend, Pahlavi, Sanskrit and Persian texts with Latin verbatims of the Zend, English of the Pahlavi and Sanskrit, together with Commentary 1892—94. (Dictionary now in the Press), other contributions to the subject have been very numerous, though each separate section of them has not extended beyond the dimensions of a magizine article (see Roth’s Festgruss, Yasna 28, in the sister tongue Sanskrit, Acts of the Congress of Orientalists at London in 1892, and at Paris in 1897 ‘The Sanskrit Equivalents of Yasna 44’, (things of the utmost practical use), articles in the Zeitschrift of the German Oriental Society, in the American Journal of Philology, Journal of the American Oriental Society, of the Royal Asiatic Society, in the Critical Review, the Nineteenth Century Review, the Thinker, the Asiatic Quarterly Review, etc., etc. with dates spread over the last twelve years). But there seems to be no end to the questions involved, and masses of MSS. still remain awaiting space for printing or time for re-copying. No,-I do not Wish to minimise the the difficulties as I am myself the chief sufferer from them.

But in the meantime, a free rendering as a temporary help is an absolute necessity if we are ever to get them (more popularly) read. Professors and leading scholars ex- pressed themselves as pleased with my translations in the XXXIst volume of the Sacred Books of the East (1887); others however found them too roughly literal. (One of my pupils used to say that he could read the Gathas using them almost without a lexicon). But the penalty was a somewhat uncouth diction. I cannot of course attempt to remedy that detect here; that edition was the only literary one which I could offer then; and for such a series as the Sacred Books of the East I should not even new venture on rounding off the asperities.

Notwithstanding a too little attractive exterior it was as Darmesteter wrote me (for I then dared not look myself) ‘déjà cité et apprecie par tous les specialistes' which was enough surely. And the chief fault which I find with it now is that it is at present some twelve years older than when it left its author’s hand^[2]. It was one of the most exhaustively 'prepared' books that ever left a press; see its preface and that of the Gâthas 1892-1894. The present attempt is a mere second edition of the metrical version which appeared opposite the Latin word-for-word’s in those Five Zarathushtrian Gâthas, (which are now practically all disposed of^[3]). But as before, I by no means allow the free metrical to go out unguarded by a word-for-word. Even disinterested friends may in all good faith wish to know whether these striking thoughts^[4] in the metrical can be justified by the actual words of their original, and they will see that I have done all that I could do to satisfy them. And on the other hand the usual groups of mendacious malignants will find it more difficult to mislead the public. If the word-for-word’s are given here as well as in the Five Zarathushtrian Gâthas no one can assail the freedom.

Departing from custom, I put this verbatim now into English, translating and modifying it from my Latin in the larger book^[5]. Readers in India are more familiar with Sanskrit than with Latin and with English than with either; here they can read the actual terms with extensions and comments separated by brackets. I think the subject is worth the trouble which I have bestowed upon it. Said the Rev. James Hope Moulton in the Critical Review: ‘The Gâthas or Hymns of Zoroaster are by far the most precious relic which we possess of oriental religion, the only sacred literature which in dignity, in profoundness, in purity of thought and absolute freedom from unworthy conceptions of the divine could for a moment be compared with the Hebrew scriptures’ (jan. ’96). Mr. Gladstone also mentioned in a private letter of October ’91: ‘I am sensible of the extraordinary interest attaching to Zoroastrianism, and grateful to those who . . . afford us such help in understanding it’. With regard to my critical editions, see below, note I, page IX. It is to be. hoped that the public which I am endeavouring new to teach will not need to be informed that the rare value of these hymns arises from their importance in the history of thought and sentiment.

If these pieces were indeed written yesterday they could not be considered contemptible, but they are to be valued chiefly for their rarity as the expression of religious sentiments at their early date, (as to which see S. B. E. XXXI, Introduction p. XXXIII—VII), and as a specimen of . the force of human thought in its influence upon the then coming future.

If we have any respect for the religious ideas of the world and their growth, here are some of their mothers. Not that our own personal feelings are direct descendants from the sentiments expressed in these immortal fragments. but that they are most certainly the descendants of ideas that were cognate to them.

It is needless to say more to those whom I hope will read this book. To the multitude who could mention the inferiority of these pieces. to modern productions, I have nothing whatever to say (turpe pecus), except perhaps that there is a very large mass of modern anthology of which what they affirm could by no means be maintained.

With regard to the other works I would add one word as to the matter of their dates for those who are not in the ‘swim of it’. I would recall that they were begun so long ago as even 1881 when I had already tentatively printed some 390 odd pages of my Gathas (all the texts Zend, Pahlavi, Sanskrit and Persian with translation of the first three). These were imperatively demanded of me by the Pythagoras of Aryan orientalism, the sage of Tuebingen whose ‘ipse dixit’ could make or unmake a reputation.

Having put them into the hands of this most formidable of personalities. I gave them to the others, and in fact this led to the urgent invitation from Darmesteter to become his continuator on the Sacred Books of the East, which also put in train my connection with this University (Oxford). So, some years afterward, when the first sections of the Gâthas were ready, at the urgent request of some of my leading colleagues, I sent them copies, receiving grateful acknowledgments from them in private communications^[6].

The various expressions of opinion referred to were important enough to me at one period, for there was as usual a clique of mendacious pretenders (of a known type) who had control of some of the newspapers. And as to one particular they are important to me now, for they show that I have worked in a catholic spirit. Those distinguished gentlemen who have expressed themselves with much toleration of my well-meant labours belong to various schools. They prove by their sympathy that they do not regard my results as one-sided^[7]. To my sorrow I must confess that I have spent more time and labour on this subject and its adjuncts than any one now living, or I might almost say than any one without the qualification; and on the whole with greater facilities. The XXXIst volume of the Sacred Books of the East was made after the only exhaustive effort ever even attempted by any one, for I had edited the Asiatic Commentaries, Pahlavi, with all the known MSS, collated, the Sanskrit with five MSS, and the Persian, and made the first attempt ever made by any one at a full critical explanation of any of them in any of their parts (since Spiegel). I now desire to make the results of those exertions as accessible to the general public as may be. One very singular and most delicate duty meets me, just here. No one indeed but a very ill-informed person would expect any two independent translators to agree in toto in their rendering of the Gâthas, or of any other ancient compositions^[8] of a difficult nature; but there is one modern translation which differs from all others by such marked peculiarities that it is quite necessary to pause for a moment upon it. It is none other than the French translation of the Gâthas in the work of my own colleague, the late Professor James Darmesteter. I will first premise what I have to say by the remark which may sound strange enough, but to which I would entreat uninitiated readers to give their closest attention. Among the higher circles of criticism, strange and reprehensible as it may be at first sight^[9] appear, specialists in orientalism, as well as in other branches of research, do not value works chiefly on account of their practical accuracy as books for ordinary use. It is far too readily supposed that both the investigators and those who confide in them are already familiar with all that has been edited on the subject, so that vagaries and eccentricities on the part of any well-meaning expounder will not do so much harm, while their hazardous and even sometimes wild conjectures at least stir up disenssion. This well known fact may be even found printed. 'What helps' is valued, curiously enough, not on account of its correctness^[10] but on account Page:The-Gathas.pdf/13 Page:The-Gathas.pdf/14 Page:The-Gathas.pdf/15 Page:The-Gathas.pdf/16 Page:The-Gathas.pdf/17 Page:The-Gathas.pdf/18 Page:The-Gathas.pdf/19 ones, are the genuine expression of men deeply moved by a religious crisis in some country in contact with ancient India. What we now call Afghanistan may have been pretty nearly the scene, though some think it more likely to have been further West.

To say a single word on a subordinate but by no means unimportant item. Some attempt at a metrical version is needed to give an idea of the original rhythm hf the pieces, but of course only an approximate idea, none other can be obtained.

I have certainly toned up the strings, and used both addition and omission, as is universal in such reproductions. It is impossible, or unprofitable, to represent metrical matter in a tongue foreign to its original without this. And without some attempt at the representation of the metrial matter we lose even more than aesthetic effect: some reproduction of the rhythm is needed to express the emotional sentiment as well; for this is, as always, dependent to some extent upon the melody of the verse; and even the moral tone is sometimes aided by it. But my chief motive is facility.

I find in my own case that I can get a bird’s eye view of a subject most rapidly and easily from a metrical version; and I suppose that the same may be the case with others; only (let me emphatically repeat it), I disavow all responsibility for the literal terms of the metrical version, except when read together with the word-for-word.

Indian Rishis once lived before their descendants migrated, and that the finest metre in the Gâthas is practically the same as the Indian trishtup (Or rather that the Indian trishtup is certainly the mere repro- duction of immensely older Iranian metres used when Indians and Iranians were one people, or more properly speaking, before any Indians existed)?

Oxford. Feb. 1900.

Lawrence Mills.

PS. Readers of the Sacred Books of the East may notice that several of the introductory summaries to the chapters in this work are condensed from the corresponding summaries in the XXXIst volume of the S.B.E., of which I am the author. l take this opportunity to express my indebtedness to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, and also to the Right Honourable Max Muller, the Editor of the Series, for their courtesy in according me this privilege. This book in no sense interferes with that literary rendering which is addressed to a different public. The intelligent reader will not need to be reminded that in dealing with subjects of this kind an author makes an especial effort to re-cast former presentations in the light of fresh discoveries. It should never be forgotten that no changes in wording can alter that which we most value in these hymns, which is their moral and religious-philosophical tone; and this is wholly unique in view of their age and circumstances.

 

L. H. M.

1. See the Five Zarathushtrian Gâthas.

   It is easy enough with absolutely no (enlightened) public to criticise us, to offer tentative translation where others have preceded us; but to afford really exhaustive and not fictitious results on matters never yet even properly edited is quite another thing.

2. It was the report of a good bit of a lifetime’s labour. (l apologise for much of the personal tone here; it has been elicited by the in gratitude of a pupil, and of some so-called old friends who are greatly in my debt).
3. I am generously offered another subvention from the British Government toward a second edition.
4. Most striking in view of their age and circumstances.
5. It is therefore practically a new edition of that rendering, but I could hardly repeat here all the rich alternatives there presented, which together with those in the Commentary (pp. 393—622 and the Dictionary still in press) include pretty nearly all conceivable opinions and possibilites.
6. See Darmesteter’s remarks even on the interrupted edition and so early as Nov. 26th 1883 in the Revue Critique, also another eminent person in the London Athenaeum April 12th 1881, the Academy of September 13th 1884 (long enough ago!), the Deutsche literaturzeitung September 24, 1887, of S. B. E. XXXI; then again of the fuller edition of the Gâthas the Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen of May 1893, Revue Critique of September 1893, etc. Pischel in Z. D. M. G. 1896 etc. It is usual in issuing circulars for the purpose of promoting the sale of a book to cite various notices from reviews. But l allude to them here for a particular reason.
7. Well may they hold to this, for I report almost every conceivable opinion ancient or modern, while I distinctly express my own preference.
8. Witness the chaos in critical (?) opinions over on the Old Testament Scriptures (on the one side) and upon Homer (on the other), while with one sole exception opinion on the Gâthas are drawing closer together, and may well be comprehended within easily found alternatives.
9. And also at 'second' sight; it is in my opinion as an indictment against the learning of the epoch that it treats all non-specialists as if they were children, but scandalous as it may seem, it is, for the present, still the fact
10. But why can we not keep our hazardous suggestions for our notes? Must we forever assume an air of bigoted conviction while we suggest innvations which we hardly believe ourselves? I, for one, have guarded mine (which are often as bold as anybody's) by distinct remarks; see Zoitachrift der d, morgeuländischen Geselischaft, Oct. 1898, p.436.