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EXODUS TO INDIA

greater part of the Avestan Yasna, Khordah Avesta, and Aogemadaecha, based on their Pahlavi versions; also a Sanskrit translation of the Pahlavi works Menuk-i Khrat, Shikand Gumanik Vijar, and Arda Viraf Namah, and the Sanskrit version of the Pazend Ashirvad. The most illustrious representative of this group of Parsi Sanskritists is Neryosangh Dhaval, who flourished about 1200 A.D. He has been one of the most eminent doctors of the Parsi church in India, and has made the versions of the major portion of the Zoroastrian work that has come down to us accompanied by a Sanskrit version. We shall not pause here to consider the question of the literary merit of this particular form of the literature, as that lies beyond the pale of the present work. As the Sanskrit works are merely the faithful translations of the Pahlavi texts, and not any original compositions, we look in vain in them for any side-information on the religious thought of this period. What we do find from them is the fact that the religious studies were prosecuted with great zeal at this period, and that the knowledge of Avestan in general, and of Pahlavi and Sanskrit in particular, among the learned clerics was of a superior order.