|
|
Ridpath's History of the World
You are currently in Volume 1 Part 2 on
Page 0218
| Pages range from 0218 to 0490
218 UNIVERSAL HISTORY-THE ANCIENT WORLD.
The materials used in writing were stone and parchment. The latter
substance was employed in disseminating the edicts of the kings and for
other similar purposes. For the more important Statutes and records of
the Empire the face of the imperishable rock was used, and the scribe's
chisel was the pen. The method of writing on clay tablets and cylinders
seems not to have been known among the early Aryans of the Median
plateau. Whatever writing they did was limited to the practical and
necessary affairs of life; the voice of imagination found no utterance,
the tongue of poetry no language.
Such was the speech of the Medes. As in the case of nearly all the
other ancient peoples, the oldest records of this language are embalmed
in the religious system which was formulated on the emergence of the
race from barbarism. This system is presented in the ZENDAVESTA,
though, as al ready said, the language of that great work is much more
antique than that development of speech which prevailed in the days of
Astyages.
The Zendavesta is in eight Books, covering the same general topics
which are presented in the Old Testament--Laws, Covenants, Prayers,
Songs, etc. In these we can see reflected with considerable clearness
the hopes and aspirations of our ancestral race in its earliest
communings with the gods. It was the blind effort of an unscientific
age to interpret the phenomena of the world and to discover the cause
or causes of Nature. Perhaps the oldest part of this quaint Bactrian
bible is the Gathas, or "Songs," many of which are no doubt more
primitive than the separate existence of the Medo-Persian race. They
contain the unpremeditated and often fervid utterances of awe-struck
worshipers, pouring out their praises and petitions to the invisible
powers of the earth and air and sky. These powers were many rather than
one, and possessed few-perhaps none-of the attributes of personality.
There was at the first only one class of divine beings the Ahuras, or
gods. These were good, and were worshiped as beneficent and life giving
influences. It is believed that that
system of dualism in which the bad powers of the universe are set over
against the 'good' was unknown to the earliest religion of the Aryan
race.
The Powers, then, or Beings most worshiped by the ancient Bactrians
were Indra, the Storm; Mithra, the Sunlight; Armati, the Earth; Vayu,
the Wind; Agni,the Fire; and Soma, Intoxication. These principles or
forces of nature were the common objects of adoration before the
earliest tribal separations of the Aryans-the deities alike of Hindus
and Iranians. It was nature-worship, pure and simple, in the garb of
polytheism. It was not long, how ever, before the perceptions grew by
evolution, and it was seen that the powers of the physical world are
harmful as well as helpful-bad as well as good. Upon the good
principles of nature, therefore, the affections of the worshiper were
turned and centered, while from the bad his gaze was averted, and by
them his fears alarmed. Thus arose the good spirits and the evil- the
Ahuras and Dn'as, the beneficent gods and the demons. Their worship was
con- ducted by three classes of priests: the Kan, or Prophets; the
Karopani, or Sacrificers; and the Ricikhs, or Sages. The ceremonies
consisted of hymns chanted in praise of the gods, in sacrifices of
animals and fruits, and in libations and intoxication. Of the sacrifice
a part was burnt upon an altar, the rest remaining to the priest; and
in the ceremony of intoxication a portion of the liquor was poured out
on the earth and the residue drank by the karopani, who, when drunken,
were thought to be in com munion with the deity.
With the progress of religious ideas in Media, and the acceptance of
the dualistic system of good and evil, there came also the concept of
one god above the rest-a supreme and all-wise Intelligence by whom the
other deities were held in subordination. This great God of the Medes
was called AHURA-MAZDAO, or AHURAMAZDA-the living Creator of all. His
Attributes were holiness, purify, goodness, truth, fatherhood, and
happiness. He was the possessor and giver of all blessings, both
temporal and everlasting. Earthly honor and pre-
|
indicates an external link 
