History of Zoroastrianism/Chapter 54

The last native version of the Avesta independent of the influence of Western scholarship. So far the Parsi scholars had generally written in the Persian language, a knowledge of which was limited to a very narrow circle, and the general public accordingly did not profit by their work. The need had long been felt of producing theological literature in the language of the people, and several portions of the Persian Rivayats had already been done into Gujarati These were followed during the early part of the last century by a Gujarati version of the Avestan texts, not from the original, but based on the Pahlavi, Sanskrit, and Persian renderings. This was the last native attempt to render the Avestan scriptures into another language through the medium of the Pahlavi translation The Sanskrit, Persian, and Gujarati translators had all successively made their renderings on the basis of the traditional Pahlavi version; it was left for the modern philologists to approach the Avestan texts in the original itself, independently of the Pahlavi rendering though aided by it, and through the methods of strict linguistic science to give an independent and first-hand translation of the original Avestan texts.

Rendering of other Persian works into Gujarati. The Persian Zartusht Namah was rendered into verse in Gujarati by Mobad Rustam Peshutan Hamajiar in the early part of the eighteenth century.^[1] The Gujarati version of the Avesta was soon followed by a translation of some of the important PazandPersian works into Gujarati. The most popular among these were Jamaspi and Arda Viraf Namah. The prognostications of the former treatise fascinated the gentler sex, who were regaled by the recital of its contents from the lips of the family priest, ​or of some male member of the family who happened to know the language. Viraf's account of the beatific visions of heaven and the horrors of hell appeared in illustrated lithographed editions. The pictures of the heavenly persons seated on golden thrones, and of the wicked falling headlong into hell to be gnawed by noxious creatures, served vividly to bring the abstract ethical teachings before the mind of young and old. Some devotional literature, both in prose and verse, appeared during this period. In the same connection, it may be added that the episodes of the Persian kings and warriors, handed down from antiquity by tradition, were rendered into Gujarati, and were most enthusiastically read or heard by all. This helped to bring home to them the greatness and glory of their ancestors.