Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/480

A period of literary arrest. The unsettled times that followed the first settlement of the Parsis in India were unfavourable to literary activity. Centuries full of hardships intervened before Zoroastrianism gained a real foothold in India and secured for its adherents some means of livelihood in this new country of their adoption. Severe was the struggle and terrible was the trial of the faithful throughout the vicissitudes of all this early period. Poverty, an insurmountable barrier to progress of any kind, haunted the faithful followers of Zoroaster for a long time. When we look at the condition of the times, it is no wonder that the literary movement among the Parsis was arrested for a considerable interval before these emigrants succeeded in adapting themselves to the changed circumstances in which they were placed. Religious knowledge orally transmitted from generation to generation, however, kept alive the native tradition; but no written works have come down to us of this period. With our slender resources we are unable to ascertain the precise scope of the literary activity of the first five or six centuries of Parsi settlement in India.

Pahlavi studies. After an absolute blank extending over a period of three centuries, we come across the only literary composition of this period in the form of the Pahlavi inscriptions in one of the Kanheri caves near Bombay, which record the two visits of some Parsi travellers in 1009 and 1021 A.D.^[1] Pahlavi seems to have long remained the literary language of the learned Zoroastrian priests in India; and the traditional knowledge of the language had not become extinct. Though the insufficiency of data prevents us from saying anything with certainty, we cannot be wide of the truth when we say that a number of learned priests had with unflagging zeal kept the torch of Iranian scholarship burning The masterly Sanskrit version of the Pahlavi texts done in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is an eloquent evidence of this.

Parsi-Sanskrit literature. Some of the Parsi scholars, who frequently came into contact with the learned Brahmans, seem to have adopted Sanskrit, the learned language of the land, for their literary productions. The extant Parsi literature produced in this tongue comprises the translation into Sanskrit of the