Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 677

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Diary and Journal of Parsees..

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cumference of 175 feet, and of 170 at top, which is open, so that the bodies of the men, women, and children, are all, in their respec-. tive places, exposed to the sun and rain. The three receptacles for the bodies are in a circular form, one within the other, the partitions: running parallel with the outer wall of the cemetery, The innermost receptacle is for the children, the next for the women, and the other for the men.

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It has been asserted by some of the most distinguished orientalists, that the language in which the sacred writings of the Parsees are composed is a fabrication of the Zoroastrian priests, subsequent to their expatriation from Persia, and that their writings are, as far as regards antiquity, entitled to no consideration whatever. Against this assertion, the Parsees advance the following remarks. They affirm, that in various parts of Persia, at the present day, inscriptions are, to, be found in a character which they denominate Cuneiform, exhibit- ing historical records of the sixth and fifth centuries before Christ, written in three different languages.

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The inscriptions in the simple and literal cuneiform, character ins variably occupy the most distinguished place of the three upon the tablets, and exhibit other points of evidence, to indicate that the lan- guage in which they are written must have been the native and ver-, nacular language of the sovereign by whose orders they were engrav-; ed. To the analysis of this character, and to the examination of their language, a good deal of time has been devoted; and it is asserted that the Persian language of the ages of Cyrus and Darius, is unquestiona-, bly the parent of the tongue now called the Zend, and which bas been so successfully elaborated by continental students, and by none with greater, skill and perspicuity than by M, Bournouf in his admi- rable “Commentaire sur le yacno."..

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The Anti-Alexandrian Persian is in fact, to all appearance, an in- termediate formation between the languages of Zend Avesta and some primitive tongue which gave rise to the various cognate derivatives, of Sanscrit, Pali, Pelasgian, Etrusian, and the many branches of the: Indo Teutonic family .*:* !!

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The preceding remarks on the language are quoted almost verba- tim from the notes of major Rawlinson, who is writing a memoir to` illustrate, the cuneiform inscriptions of Persia, and to show the close affinity between this Anti-Alexandrian Persian and the Zend. He, considers it as incontrovertible, that the dialect in which are compes-: ed the Vundidad, Vispered, Izeshne, &c., is merely a modification of the true vernacular tongue, used in Persia in the ages of Cyrus and.