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logy, a bull is the first and sole inhabitant of the earth, to which succeeds man. In the Indian books the succession of animals is much

more complete. The incarnations of Vishnu, some of which are not without their parallel in Assyrian legend, are successively as a fish (cf. Dagon, Oannes, Jonah), a turtle, a boar, a lion, a pigmy, a rude man armed with an axe, a hunter or warrior with a bow, one furnished with a plough, a priest or religious teacher. The final incarnation seems to imply a mysterious subversal of the whole order, a completion of the cycle, a saviour heralding destruction. Another similar scheme is of a transmigratory succession consisting of plants, worms, insects, fish, serpents, tortoises, cattle, wild animals, man.

This may fairly be taken to represent the evolution of natural life.

The simultaneous process which eventually results in man is that of a spiritual being gradually descending, by a sort of fall as it were, into a region of grosser life. The Parsi Bun-daheshn, or Book of Genesis, which is a compilation of old fragmentary lore, refers to a statement in the Law, or ancient scripture, concerning beings who have fed first on water, then on the fruit of trees, then on milk, finally on meat. Eating, it will be remembered, had something to do with the Adamite fall, but here it would really appear that а gradual materialisation is adumbrated, the spiritual entity becoming more corporeal stage by stage until eventually he can make organic the chemical atoms of the terrestrial sphere, and is fitted to adopt the embryo animal body, which, by its own process of evolution, is being prepared for him. The reverse process with regard to food heralds the millennium, to which

we will refer more fully, in its place.

The cosmogony to which these developments belong is cyclic. A period passes in tranquillity without evil, then ensues a period of evils and wars; then, as good and evil mingle, appears the level of life as we know it.

In the works of Mirkond, the Persian historian, we find it stated that a being bearing the name of Kaiômart is asserted by the Magi to be synonymous with the Hebrew Adam. The following passages from the Avesta will serve as introduction to the myth of our Aryan ancestor, who, like as the Kabbalists regarded the first or archetypal Adam, is not so much the actual protoplast as the medium of production of the human race:

"The Fravashi (angelic counterpart) of the pure Gayomarathan praise we, who first heard the mind of Ahura Mazda, and His commands, from which he created the race of the Aryan regions, the seed of the Aryan regions:" (Farvardin Yasht 24, 87).

"This word have I (Ahura Mazda) spoken .. before the creation of this heaven, before the water, before the earth, before the trees, before the creation of the four-footed bull, before the birth of the pure man, the two-legged, before the body of this sun was created according to the wish of the Ameshaçpentas [the seven personified divine attributes whose duty is the preservation of the universe]." (Yaçna XIX. 16). The "pure man" here is Kaiômart or Gayomarathan.

"All the good, mighty, holy Fravashis of the pure, praise we, from Gayômarathan unto Çaoshyanç the victorious: " (Yaçna' XXVI. 32.)

We

will refer later to this Çaoshyanç or Sosiosh.

"Praise to the Fravashi of the Bull, of Gayômarathan, of the holy

Zarathustra, the pure:" (Yaçna LXVII. 63.)

"Praise be to Ahura-Mazda. Praise to the Ameshaçpentas, praize to Mithra who possesses wide pastures, praise to the Sun with swift steeds, praise to the eyes of Ahura-Mazda, praise to the bull, praise to Gayâmarathan, praise to the Fravashi of Zarathustra, the holy, pure. Praise to the whole

world of the pure, which was, and is, and is to be:" (Qarset Nyayis, 1.)

"May all the Fravashis of the pure together, from Gayomart to Çosios, here be mentioned:" (Prayer after the Afergâns.)

"Blessed be the souls of the lords, Desturs, Mobeds, Herbeds, believers, propagators of the faith, the disciples who have died on this corporeal earth. Blessed be the soul of Gayomars, and Hoshang, and Tahmur and Jamshéd, &c .:" (Âferîn pands.)

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of the seven Amshas

May the heavenly yazatas [angels], the earthly yazatas, the heavenly Time, the Frohars [the same as Fravashis, pre-existent spiritual counterparts, or the power which holds body and soul together] of the pure, from Gayomart to Cosios, the victorious, the very majestic, the being, having been, about to be, the born-unborn, belonging to the region, belonging to other regions, the pious men and women, not of age and of age, who have deceased upon this earth in the faith-all Frohars and souls of the same be here mentioned:" (Âferîn Gahanbâr, 4.)

"The Heavenly Understanding, created by Mazda, praise we' (Sîrozah 29.)

"The first after the Understanding among the pure creatures praise we:" (Vispered XXII. 5.)

This description, according to tradition, denotes Kaiômart.

"We begin praise and adoration of the bull, of Gayomeretan, of Manthra-çpenta [the holy word personified], the pure, efficacious:" (Vispered XXIV. 3.)

These very catholic prayers and praises, which are no doubt of very different dates, show the primeval man, regarded as a mythological being, and having, indeed, come to be treated with adoration.

It is to later works than the Avesta that we have to turn to find any elucidation of the myth; the earlier writings concur in shewing the existence of the legend which the later ones explain.

In the "Desatir "- -a collection of writings of the ancient Persian poets-we find Kaiômart addressed as "the prince of the higher sphere." The Persian commentator names him " Ferzinsar, the son of Yasanajanan" (which we take to mean head or beginning of the Farsi, or Persians, son of the Spirit. of Life), "whom they call Gil-shah [lord of clay] and Giomert "; and describes him as "sent by the benevolent and merciful Ruler of the world on the work of prophecy." He also describes him as having reclaimed man, and as held to be the Father of Mankind. The address to Kaiômart to which the commentator is referring is most passionate and poetic. It runs as follows:

"He who created thee, and is the Creator of all, is mighty!

"And gave thee refulgence, and enlightened All!

"And sent forth upon thee a portion of his awful light!

"And next, according to his will, assigned thee a course which is everlasting!

"And placed thee high in the lofty eminence of the seventh Heaven!

"I pray of thee, O Father, Lord! that thou ask, by the splendour of thy soul, from thy father and Lord,

thy Prime Cause and Lover, the Intelligence that glorified thee with light, and all the free and blazing lights that possess intelligence, that they would ask of their Father and Lord, the Intelligence of all Intelligences, the first created Intelligence, the most approved wish that can be asked of the Being, most worthy of all Beings to be adored, the one worthy of the worship of mankind, the Stablisher of All, to make me one of those who approach the band of his Lights and the secrets of his essence; and to pour light on the band of Light and Splendour; and to magnify them, and to purify them and us; while the world endureth, and to all eternity,

so let it be!

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One class of writers has attempted to make Kaiômart a historical personage, as the first sovereign of the earliest dynasty Persia, the Peshdadian. The annals of that dynasty Sir W. Jones describes as dark and fabulous, that of the Kaiani kings who succeeded them heroic and poetical, that of the Sasanian sovereigns historical. The Peshdadian may well be dark and mythical, seeing that the word signifies "before created." According to the legend, however, the son of Kaiômart was a king who discovered fire from flint, while his grandson's nephew was Jemsheed, the founder of Persepolis, who is said to have lived for centuries, and to have divided his subjects into castes.

On the supposed historical ground Kaiômart has a rival.

Malcolm, in his History of Persia, says: "In almost all modern accounts of Persia which have been translated from Mahomedan authors, Kaiomurs is considered the first king of the country; but the Dabistan, a book professedly compiled from works of the ancient Guebers or worshippers of fire, presents us with a chapter on a succession of monarchs and prophets who preceded Kaiomurs. According to the author, the Persians, previous to the reign of Kaiomurs, and consequently long before the mission of Zoroaster, venerated a prophet called Mah-abad (or the great Abad), whom they considered as the father of men. We are told in the Dabistan that the ancient Persians deemed it impossible to ascertain who were the first parents of the human race. The knowledge of man, they alleged, was quite incompetent to such a discovery; but they believed, on the authority of their books, that Mah-abad was the person left at the end of the last great cycle, and consequently father of the present world.

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They believe time to be divided into a succession of cycles or periods, to each of which they allot its own people, believing that a male and female are left at the end of every cycle to be the parents of the population of the

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power, resolved to alter their condition; and to effect that object, planted gardens and invented ornaments, and forged weapons, &c., &c."

The Avesta, however, makes no reference to Mah-abad, who must be considered a strictly Persian creation, the Dabistan making Kaiômart only the first king of the fifth dynasty of the monarchs of Persia, and the sovereign to whom is transmitted a celestial volume in perfect accord with the Mahabadian code.

Later Persian writers follow the chronology of the Jews, and trace the descent of Kaiômart from Noah. He reclaimed, says Ferdosi, his subjects from a state of savage barbarity, but his civilising efforts brought him many wars with the deevs or magicians. The just king's army, however, was joined by all the lions, tigers, and panthers in his dominions, who left their native forests to aid him, and routed the deevs. There is another and slightly discrepant account of supernatural aid which we need not advert to more particularly. After the victory Kaiômart is represented as retiring to his capital of Balkh.

This is but imaginary history. We will return to the myth, which has at least a philosophic conception for its basis. We gather it mainly from the Bundehesch and the Majmil al Tawarikh.

According to one account, the present cycle, taken out of the Endless Time, is to be 12,000 years; for one half of these the primeval man and the bull (the animal creation, we may presume) lived "without evil in the superior regions of the world." During

this time six signs of the Zodiac were traversed. As the world came under the sign of the Balance dissensions manifested themselves.

According to another account,

the first model of existence incarnated upon earth is the Homotaurus, who, however, eventually succumbs to the attacks of the

Principle of Evil. As he dies, Kaiômart proceeds from him. Kaiômart is androgynous, as also is Adam in one of the two versions we have of the creation myth, and in the traditions handed down by the Kabbalistic Rabbins. R. Samuel Bar Nahman, who presided over 1200 students at Pumbadita in the early part of the fourth century of our era, describes Adam and Eve as created conjoined, and is as absurdly definite as Plato's friends in the Symposium, in describing the manner of such conjunction.

He

As opposed to the bull, who is typified by emblems of death and deprivation of speech, Kaiômart is a living and speaking being. He was formed radiant, white, with eyes looking up to heaven. is essentially an immortal being, and a particular genius watches over his safety to enable him to withstand the power of the Principle of Evil.

The accounts we have of the myth, being of late compilation, differ among themselves, and wander into trivialities; but there seems evidence that Kaiômart represented man in a higher state than ordinary mortality. The same belief was held by the Rabbins concerning the primeval Adam, "Garments of light, these were the garments of the first Adam,” was the commentary made by Rabbi Meir on the coats of skins or fleshly bodies; while Adam's deep sleep was said to represent the lapse from the state of essential life.

Notwithstanding his immortality Kaiômart did not survive the combined attack of the Principle of Evil, the Father of Death, and of thousands of deevs who fell upon him. But the elementary principles of

his being were purified by sunlight, and confided to the genii of fire and of earth. After a number of years there grew from this seed a tree of life, spreading into two branches.

A poet in the Veda seems to be considering some such evolution as this when he asks, "Who has seen the first born, when he who had no bones (i.e., no form) bore him that had bones ?"

The next stage accordingly brings us to the creation of strictly terrestrial man. In the Avesta itself Kaiômart is at once supernal and the physical protoplast; but in the later writings are frequent references to first parents of a kind not very different from the fabled Adam and Eve; while to Kaiômart, on the other hand, the Kabbalistic conception of the first and spiritual Adam manifests a similar resemblance.

The tree of two branches develops into two human beings, a male and a female, Meschia and Meschiâna (mashya is Old Bactrian for man), who are pure, and obedient to Ahura Mazda. Heaven is destined for them, provided they be humble of heart, perform the work of the law, be pure in thought, word, and deed, and do not invoke the deevs. By so continuing they will be a reciprocal blessing to each other.

But, alas! first they spoke thus: It is Ahura Mazda who has given the water, the earth, trees, animals, the stars, the moon, and sun, and all the benefits that spring therefrom. Then the spirit of opposition enters their thoughts, and all becomes inverted. They turn to the evil principle, and confess him author of their benefits. They eat and clothe themselves. Their food is of more substantial kind, step by step, until they reach flesh. Then they make a fire, obtain metals, and practice handicrafts, all without thanking God. They quarrel and

lose the wish to be re-united. Finally comes the serpent, not in the well-known guise of the Hebrew story, but in that of which Dr. Donaldson thought he saw traces in the same story, that of the phallic symbol. Excess begins, with arrogance and selfishness on the part of each and injury to both.

In the Avesta itself there is no trace of Meschia and Meschiana, and it is therefore probable that they do not belong to the original Zoroastrian conception of creation, but have been evolved by an amplification of the myth. But if the legend of them is borrowed from that of Adam and Eve, it is singular that an element which some scholars have regarded as almost eliminated from the Hebrew account should appear distinctly in the Parsi version. If the latter, which is frequent in the books of later date than the Avesta, be borrowed from the Hebrew story, it must surely be from an earlier edition of it than that which we now possess.

The myth of Kaiômart has the best evidence of being a veritable original; and, moreover, is in harmony with the cyclic beliefs of the Zoroastrians. The attempt to set down Kaiômart as the earliest of the Kings of Persia, must be due to an endeavour after historymaking. The further account of the historians, that it was owing to the increasing depravity of the race, by which it was rendered nearly extinct, that the all-merciful Creator called Kaiômart to the throne in order to save mankind, may also be regarded as an amplification of the legend. This reading, however, may not be wholly inconsistent with the cyclic idea, for the wearing out of one cycle by reason of depravity and declension, must surely be the beginning of the regenerative era, unless we are to believe, with the author of the

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