e to the priests of the
present time whence to derive any knowledge of the old
texts, is therefore the only Zend or explanation they know
of.... The name Pazend, to be met with frequently in
connection with Avesta and Zend, denotes the further
explanation of the Zend doctrine..... The Pazend language is
the same as the so-called Parsi, i. e. the ancient Persian,
as written till about the time of Firdusi, 1000 A.D.'

[Footnote 46: See page 84.]

Whatever we may think of the nomenclature thus advocated by Dr. Haug,
we must acknowledge in the fullest manner his great merit in
separating for the first time the more ancient from the more modern
parts of the Zend-Avesta. Though the existence of different dialects
in the ancient texts was pointed out by Spiegel, and although the
metrical portions of the Ya_s_na had been clearly marked by
Westergaard, it is nevertheless Haug's great achievement to have
extracted these early relics, to have collected them, and to have
attempted a complete translation of them, as far as such an attempt
could be carried out at the present moment. His edition of the
Gathas--for this is the name of the ancient metrical portions--marks
an epoch in the history of Zend scholarship, and the importance of the
recovery of these genuine relics of Zoroaster's religion has been well
brought out by Bunsen in the least known of his books, 'Gott in der
Geschichte.' We by no means think that the translations here offered
by Dr. Haug are final. We hope, on the contrary, that he will go on
with the work he has so well begun, and that he will not rest till he
has removed every dark speck that still covers the image of
Zoroaster's primitive faith. Many of the passages as translated by him
are as clear as daylight, and carry conviction by their very
clearness. Others, however, are obscure, hazy, meaningless. We feel
that they must have been intended for something else, something more
definite and forcible, though we cannot tell what to do with the
words as they stand. Sense, after all, is the great test of
translation. We must feel convinced that there was good sense in these
ancient poems, otherwise mankind would not have taken the trouble to
preserve them; and if we cannot discover good sense in them, it must
be either our fault, or the words as we now read them were not the
words uttered by the ancient prophets of the world. The following are
a few specimens of Dr. Haug's tran