66

cause of all human sorrow, and urging men to wage uncom promising warfare with the powers of darkness, relying for aid on the Good Spirit. "Give offering and praise," says the Avesta, "to that Lord who made men greater than all earthly beings, and through the gift of speech created them to rule the creatures, as warriors against the evil spirits." Fire was invoked as the symbol of Divinity, and the sun as the eye of Ormazd;" but idolatry Zoroaster and his disciples abhorred. Ormazd was the rewarder of the good, the punisher of the bad. Those who obeyed him, and were "pure in thoughts, pure in words, pure in actions," were admitted at death into Paradise, "the House of the Angels' Hymns," where all was brightness: the wicked were consigned to a region of everlasting darkness and woe, "the House of Destruction." Of all the religions of human origin, Zoroaster's, though not free from superstition and cumbrous rites, approaches nearest to the truth. It was gladly accepted by the people, and did much to elevate them and improve their condition. We have thrown into verse the following

HYMN TO ORMAZD.

Praise to Ormazd, great Creator,
He it was the cattle made;
Lord of purity and goodness,

Trees and water, sun and shade.
Unto him belongs the kingdom,
Unto him the might belongs;
Unto him, as first of beings,
Light-creator, float our songs.

Him we praise, Alurian Mazda,
With our life and bodies praise;
Purer than the purest, fairest,

Bright through never-ending days.
What is good and what is brilliant,
That we reverence in thee-

Thy good spirit, thy good kingdom,
Wisdom, law, and equity.

Persian Inscriptions. In a flower-clad plain of southwest

CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.

65

ern Persia, shut in from the outer world by lofty hills, and now dotted with pleasant villages, once stood the great palace of Persepolis, the wonder of the world for its magnificencewhich Alexander, in a fit of drunken fury, reduced to a heap of ruins with his wanton torch (331 B.C.). Yet, though silent and deserted, "the piles of fallen Persepolis" speak to us, not only with their strange sculptures, but also through the inscriptions carved upon them in cuneiform letters, originally adorned with gold.

Not far from these ruins is the famous rock of Behistun, 1,700 feet high, and inscribed with the same arrow-headed, wedge-shaped characters. Some of these, protected from the

weather by a varnish of flint, have been wonderfully preserved to the present time.

This mountain - record was set up by Darius I. (516-515 B.C.), who, in the shadow of the palace-walls of Persepolis, was wont to sit upon a throne of gold, canopied by a vine of the same precious metal bearing clusters of priceless gems. It is his triumphal tablet, graven with figures of himself and several conquered princes. It records his victories, asserts his hereditary right to the throne, and enumerates the provinces of his vast empire, in nearly a thousand lines of cuneiform characters—in three different languages, the Persian, Scythian, and Babylonian-that it might be understood by all his subjects. Here the Persian monarch announces his dignity, while he attributes the glory of it all to the God Supreme :

"I am Darius, the Great King, the King of Kings, the King of Persia, the King of the dependent provinces, the son of Hystaspes. By the grace of Ormazd I am King. Ormazd has granted me my empire. The countries which have fallen into my hands, by the grace of Ormazd I have become king of them.

Within these countries, whoever was good, him have I cherished and protected; whoever was evil, him have I utterly destroyed. By the grace of Ormazd, these countries have obeyed my laws. By the grace of Ormazd, I hold this empire."

Other inscriptions were cut by order of Xerxes, whose royal name and title they formally declare; but there are none of any later date.

Cuneiform letters were also employed by other nations, as will be hereafter seen (page 105). The Persian writing is the least complicated, and is in the Zend language, but Zend in a later stage of development than the primitive tongue of the Avesta.

NOTES ON PERSIAN LITERATURE, ETC.

Ancient Persian records made on leather; parchment the favorite writing material, the high price of papyrus preventing its adoption. Bricks seldom used for inscriptions. A running hand, different from the cuneiform, probably in use

LIBRARIES.-THE MAGI.

67

among the people for ordinary purposes, as every educated person could undoubtedly write: no trace of this left.

The kings of Persia founders of a library consisting of historical records, state archives, and royal ordinances. "The house of the rolls" at Babylon is meutioned in the book of Ezra as being searched, during the reign of Darius, for a certain volume supposed to contain a decree of Cyrus, providing for the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem.

The old priestly order of Media a..d Persia, known as Ma'gi; devoted to scientific studies, in which they attained such eminence that they were believed to possess supernatural powers-whence our word magic. The "wise men" of the New Testament by some supposed to be Persian Magi.

The Zoroastrian religion, which was on the wane, restored and maintained in the third century after Christ by the Sassan'idæ, who measured swords successfully with the Roman emperors, and extended the power of Persia. The coins of this dynasty stamped on one side with five altars, which seem to have been carried before the kings in processions as emblematical of their faith.

Most of the ancient Persian literature lost during the struggle with Alexander the Great, and subsequent wars and convulsions.

CHAPTER III.

CHINESE LITERATURE.

Chinese Language. From the Persian Gâthâs and Vedic hymns, let us now turn to the prose writings of the Chinese philosophers, plain, grave, and moral in their tone. The language in which their tenets have been preserved differs materially from the musical Sanscrit and its sister Zend.

Modern Chinese, which has changed but little from the ancient tengue and is the least developed of all existing languages, is monosyllabic; i. e. each syllable conveys a complete idea, all its words are expressed by single separate sounds. Of these elements, or roots, it contains 450; changes of emphasis and intonation, accompanied with corresponding changes in meaning, increase this number to 1,263.

Chinese may be called a language without grammar, as it

dispenses with inflection and conjugation, and leaves the rela tions of words and their functions as different parts of speech to be determined by the arrangement. Thus sin means hon

or, honorable, honorably, or to be honorable, according to its position in the sentence. Plurality and gender are generally indicated by adding roots with a modifying signification. Son in Chinese is man-child; daughter, woman-child; a mare is called a mother-horse; people is the word surnames with a hundred prefixed. This grouping together of roots is carried to great lengths. Writing materials is expressed by two words denoting four precious objects (paper, brush, ink, and palette); a trader is a buying-selling-man; a knife is a sword's-son; while difference of opinion is expressed by four words meaning I east, thou west.

Characters used in Writing.—The written characters of the Chinese were originally outline pictures of visible objects; specimens are presented below. A crescent (1) stood for the moon; three peaks (2), for a mountain; (3) is a tortoise, (4) a fish, (5) a field. Pictographs were frequently combined to represent a single idea. The notion of song, for instance, was conveyed by a mouth and a bird (6); that of tears, by the symbols for eye and water; beauty and goodness, by the representation of a virgin and an infant.

(1)

(3)

(4)

(6)

A phonetic symbol is often joined with a pure hieroglyphic in one and the same character; as in the case of the sign for a rapid stream, which is composed of the ideogram for water and a symbol denoting the sound of a torrent. And quite necessary is the ideographic element: the one sound tschoo, for example, means ape, whirlpool, island, silk, deep, a wine, a kind