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from the first Sasanian ruler, Ardashir, or still earlier, and stretching downwards to the times of the illustrious Caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, al-Ma'mun, or even later. The invention of the modern Persian alphabet restricted the use of Pahlavi to the learned clerics, who continued to make some slight additions to the Pahlavi literature up to the end of the eleventh century.^[1]

The Pahlavi literature has its roots in the Avestan soil. The Pahlavi works allege that the Avestan Nasks had perished, but the tradition transmitted orally from father to son and the fragments of the sacred texts did not suffer the Avestan lore to die out entirely. The extant Pahlavi works contain quotations from Avestan works that have not come down to us, and this may help to show that the later writers either quoted from memory or that they had access to Avestan works, since lost, when they wrote their Pahlavi treatises; or possibly it may serve to prove both facts. Nay, some of the Pahlavi works seem to be wholly or in part reproductions of some of the Avesta Nasks, and most scholars agree with West that the Pahlavi Bundahishn is an epitome of the Avestan Damdad Nask, that has since disappeared.^[2] This leads to the probable conclusion that besides the two archetype copies deposited in the royal treasuries at Persepolis and Samarkand, there may have existed other copies of these Nasks, in full or in part, in private possession or in the more notable fire-temples. The internal evidence of some of the most important Pahlavi works show us that they preserve much of the material derived from Avestan sources, which still existed in their days, but has been subsequently lost, and thus make up for the loss of the original Avestan books to a considerable extent.

The Pahlavi literature is the completion of the Avestan works. The Pahlavi works explain, elaborate, and describe in detail much of what is stated in brief in the original Avestan texts. This is the inestimable value of the Pahlavi literature. A few examples may serve to illustrate this statement.

The Avestan texts frequently mention 'the Time of Long Duration,' a period carved out from eternity as the age for the duration of the present world, but give no idea, as far as the texts have been preserved, as to the length of this mighty aeon. It is to