The earliest remnant of the Aryan
languages of Ariana which antiquity has bequeathed to us is the
language of the Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrian
religion.
For about nine hundred years the people
of Ariana had no script in which they could write the Avesta. So they
continued to learn it by heart and thus communicate it from
generation to generation right from the seventh century B.C. to the
third century A.D.
A special script was at last invented
for this book in the third century A. D. The Avesta written in this
particular script has been known as the Zend Avesta. At times it has
been just mentioned as the Zend. The French scholar Anquetil du
Perron who was the first to have studied it in India at the end of
the twelfth/eighteenth century, introduced it to the West. For a
considerable time it continued to be known as the Zend language in
Europe. At present, however, the more accurate term of "Avestic
language" is in vogue. The script in which the Avesta was
recorded should be known as the "Zend script."
Much has been speculated on the origin
and times of Zoroaster, and different theories have been advanced in
this respect from the earliest times. What appears to be most
authentic at present, however, is that Zoroaster preached his
religion between 660 and 583 B. C. in the north-eastern zone of the
Aryan plateau in Central Asia. It is plausible that he sprang from
the Median stock, lived in the north-west of the present-day Ariana,
and from there he travelled east to Central Asia. Of the extant
languages and dialects of the Aryan plateau Pashto or Pakhto has the
closest affinity with the Avestic language. This lends support to the
view that the Avestic language was spoken in the north-eastern
regions of the Aryan plateau in the seventh century B. C. The Avesta
is a massive work, a major portion of which has been destroyed and
forgotten owing to the vicissitudes of time and the domination of
Ariana by foreign nations. What remains today of this book was
compiled in the early days of the Christian era. It comprises fifteen
out of the twenty-one original parts and if the extinct parts were
proportionate in volume to those present about one-fourth of the book
may be said to have perished.
From the philological point of view,
the extant parts of the Avesta were not written in one period of
history. On the contrary, its composition may be divided into three
sections. The Gathas, which are composed in poetry, doubtlessly
constitute the earliest part of the book. The Avesta is a collection.