Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.15992

c10.15992

ZEND, ZENDAVESTA, s. Zend is the name which has been commonly applied, for more than a hundred years to that dialect of the ancient Iranian (or Persian) language in which the Avesta or Sacred Books of Zorastrianism or the old Persian religion are written. The application of the name in this way was quite erroneous, as the word *Zand* when used alone in the Parsi books indicates a ‘commentary or explanation,’ and is in fact applied only to some Pahlavi translation, commentary, or gloss. If the name Zend were now to be used as the designation of any language it would more justly apply to the Pahlavi itself. At the same time Haug thinks it probable that the term Zand was originally applied to a commentary written in the same language as the Avesta itself, for in the Pahlavi translations of the Yasna, a part of the Avesta, where the scriptures are mentioned, Avesta and Zend are coupled together, as of equal authority, which could hardly have been the case if by Zend the translator meant his own work. No name for the language of the ancient scriptures has been found in the Parsi books; and Avesta itself has been adopted by scholars in speaking of the language. The fragments of these scriptures are written in two dialects of the Eastern Iranian, one, the more ancient, in which the Gāthas or hymns are written; and a later one which was for many centuries the spoken and written language of Bactria.