The Parsis themselves possessed no such
work. Even their most learned priests are satisfied with learning the
Zend-Avesta by heart, and with acquiring some idea of its import by
means of a Pehlevi translation, which dates from the Sassanian period,
or of a Sanskrit translation of still later date. Hence the
translation of the Zend-Avesta published by Anquetil Duperron, with
the assistance of Dustoor Darab, was by no means trustworthy. It was,
in fact, a French translation of a Persian rendering of a Pehlevi
version of the Zend original. It was Burnouf who, aided by his
knowledge of Sanskrit, and his familiarity with the principles of
comparative grammar, approached, for the first time, the very words of
the Zend original. He had to conquer every inch of ground for himself,
and his 'Commentaire sur le Yasna' is, in fact, like the deciphering
of one long inscription, only surpassed in difficulty by his later
decipherments of the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenian monarchs
of Persia. Aided by the labours of Burnouf and others, Dr. Haug has at
last succeeded in putting together the disjecta membra poetae, and we
have now in his Outline, not indeed a grammar like that of Pa_n_ini
for Sanskrit, yet a sufficient skeleton of what was once a living
language, not inferior, in richness and delicacy, even to the idiom of
the Vedas.

There are, at present, five editions, more or less complete, of the
Zend-Avesta. The first was lithographed under Burnouf's direction, and
published at Paris 1829-1843. The second edition of the text,
transcribed into Roman characters, appeared at Leipzig 1850, published
by Professor Brockhaus. The third edition, in Zend characters, was
given to the world by Professor Spiegel, 1851; and about the same
time a fourth edition was undertaken by Professor Westergaard, at
Copenhagen, 1852 to 1854. There are one or two editions of the
Zend-Avesta, published in India, with Guzerati translations, which we
have not seen, but which are frequently quoted by native scholars. A
German translation of the Zend-Avesta was undertaken by Professor
Spiegel, far superior in accuracy to that of Anquetil Duperron, yet in
the main based on the Pehlevi version. Portions of the ancient text
had been minutely analysed and translated by Dr. Haug, even before his
departure for the East.

The Zend-Avesta is not a voluminous work. We still call it the
Zend-Avesta, though we are told that its proper title is Avesta Zend,
nor