includes all the books written in Pehlvic, and especially all the
translations and paraphrases of the works of the first period. There are
also in this language a manual of the religion of Zoroaster, dictionaries
of Pehlvi explained by the Parsee, inscriptions, and legends.

When the seat of the Persian empire was transferred to the southern states
under the Sassanides, the Pehlvi gave way to the Parsee, which became the
prevailing language of Persia in the third period of its literature. The
sacred books were translated into this tongue, in which many records,
annals, and treatises on astronomy and medicine were also written. But all
these monuments of Persian literature were destroyed by the conquest of
Alexander the Great, and by the fury of the Mongols and Arabs. This
language, however, has been immortalized by Ferdusi, whose poems contain
little of that admixture of Arabic which characterizes the writings of the
modern poets of Persia.

4. THE ANCIENT RELIGION OF PERSIA.--The ancient literature of Persia is
mainly the exposition of its religion. Persia, Media, and Bactria
acknowledged as their first religious prophet Honover, or Hom, symbolized
in the star Sirius, and himself the symbol of the first eternal word, and
of the tree of knowledge. In the numberless astronomical and mystic
personifications under which Hom was represented, his individuality was
lost, and little is known of his history or of his doctrines. It appears,
however, that he was the founder of the magi (priests), the conservators
and teachers of his doctrine, who formed a particular order, like that of
the Levites of Israel and of the Chaldeans of Assyria. They did not
constitute a hereditary caste like the Brahmins of India, but they were
chosen from among the people. They claimed to foretell future events. They
worshiped fire and the stars, and believed in two principles of good and
evil, of which light and darkness were the symbols.