"
Jones's censure was echoed in England by Sir John Chardin and
Richardson, in Germany by Meiners. Richardson tried to give a scientific
character to the attacks of Jones by founding them on philological
grounds. That the "Avesta" was a fabrication of modern times was shown,
he argued, by the number of Arabic words he fancied he found both in the
Zend and Pahlavi dialects, as no Arabic element was introduced into the
Persian idioms earlier than the seventh century; also by the harsh
texture of the Zend, contrasted with the rare euphony of the Persian;
and, lastly, by the radical difference between the Zend and Persian,
both in words and grammar. To these objections, drawn from the form, he
added another derived from the uncommon stupidity of the matter.
In Germany, Meiners, to the charges brought against the newly-found
books, added another of a new and unexpected kind, namely, that they
spoke of ideas unheard of before, and made known new things. "Pray, who
would dare ascribe to Zoroaster books in which are found numberless
names of trees, animals, men, and demons, unknown to the ancient
Persians; in which are invoked an incredible number of pure animals and
other things, which, as appears from the silence of ancient writers,
were never known, or at least never worshipped, in Persia? What Greek
ever spoke of Hom, of Jemshid, and of such other personages as the
fabricators of that rhapsody exalt with every kind of praise, as divine
heroes?"
Anquetil and the "Avesta" found an eager champion in the person of
Kleuker, professor in the University of Riga.
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