Page:The chronology of ancient nations (IA chronologyofanci00biru).djvu/39

keeping it in memory, and of fixing it (so as to preserve it from confusion). God says: "Have they not got the stories about those who were before them? None but God knows them." (Sûra ix. 71.) Therefore it is becoming not to admit any account of a similar subject, if it is not attested by a book, the correctness of which is relied upon, or by a tradition, for which the conditions of authenticity, according to the prevalent opinion, furnish grounds of proof.

If we now first consider this era, we find a considerable divergence of opinion regarding it among these nations. For the Persians and Magians think that the duration of the world is 12,000 years, corresponding to the number of the signs of the zodiac and of the months; and that Zoroaster, the founder of their law, thought that of those there had passed, till the time of his appearance, 3,000 years, intercalated with the day-quarters; for he himself had made their computation, and had taken into account that defect, which had accrued to them on account of the day-quarters, till the time when they were intercalated and were made to agree with real time. From his appearance till the beginning of the Æra Alexandri, they count 258 years; therefore they count from the beginning of the world till Alexander 3,258 years. However, if we compute the years from the creation of Gayômarth, whom they hold to be the first man, and sum up the years of the reign of each of his successors—for the rule (of Iran) remained with his descendants without interruption—this number is, for the time till Alexander, the sum total of 3,354 years. So the specification of the single items of the addition does not agree with the sum total.

Further, the Persians and Greeks disagree as to the time after Alexander. For they count from Alexander till the beginning of the reign of Yazdajird 942 years 257 days. If we deduct therefrom the duration of the rule of the Sasanian kings as far as the beginning of the reign of Yazdajird, as they compute it, viz., nearly 415 years, we get a remainder of 528 years as the time during which Alexander and the Mulûk-al-ṭawâ'if reigned. But if we sum up the years of the reign of each of the Ashkanian kings, as they have settled it, we get only the sum of 280 years, or,—taking into regard their difference of opinion as to the length of the reign of each of them,—the sum of not more than 300 years. This difference I shall hereafter try to settle to some extent.

A section of the Persians is of opinion that those past 3,000 years which we have mentioned are to be counted from the creation of Gayômarth; because, before that, already 6,000 years had elapsed—a time during which the celestial globe stood motionless, the natures (of created beings) did not interchange, the elements did not mix—during which there was no growth, and no decay, and the earth was not cultivated. Thereupon, when the celestial globe was set a-going, the first man came into existence on the equator, so that part of him in longitudinal direction was on the north, and part south of the line. The animals