Ahuna Vairya_. King Vishtaspa is
said to have caused two authentic copies of the Avesta--which contained
in all ten or twelve hundred chapters**--to be made, one of which
was consigned to the archives of the empire, the other laid up in
the treasury of a fortress, either Shapigan, Shizigan, Samarcand, or
Persepolis.***

* The word _Avesta_, in Pehlevi _Apastak_, whence come the
Persian forms _avasta, osta_, is derived from the
Achaemenian word _Abasta_, which signifies _law_ in the
inscriptions of Darius. The term Zend-Avesta, commonly used
to designate the sacred book of the Persians, is incorrectly
derived from the expression _Apastac u Zend_, which in
Pehlevi designates first the law itself, and then the
translation and commentary in more modern language which
conduces to a _knowledge (Zend)_ of the law. The customary
application, therefore, of the name Zend to the language of
the Avesta is incorrect.

** The Dinkart fixes the number of chapters at 1000, and the
Shah-Namak at 1200, written on plates of gold. According to
Masudi, the book itself and the two commentaries formed
12,000 volumes, written in letters of gold, the twenty-one
Nasks each contained 200 pages, and the whole of these
writings had been inscribed on 12,000 cow-hides.

*** The site of Shapigan or Shaspigan is unknown. J.
Darmesteter suggests that it ought to be read as _Shizigan_,
which would permit of the identification of the place with
Shiz, one of the ancient religious centres of Iran, whose
temple was visited by the Sassanids on their accession to
the throne. According to the Arda-Viraf the law was
preserved at Istakhr, or Persepolis, according to the Shah-
Namak at Samarcand in the temple of the Fire-god.

Alexander is said to have burnt the former copy: the latter, stolen by
the Greeks, is reported to have been translated into their language and
to have furnished them with all their scientific knowledge. One of the
Arsacids, Vologesus I., caused a search to be made for all the fragments
which existed either in writing or in the memory of the faithful,* and
this collection, added to in the reign of the Sassanid king, Ardashir
Babagan, by the high priest Tansar, and fixed in its present form under
Sapor I., was recognised as the religious code of the empire in the time
of Sapor II., about the fourth century of the C