----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 5:57
AM
Subject: Re: [cybalist] avestan and
vedic
Dear John,
I went back to my posting to see what
precisely I'd written, because I had the feeling that there was still
something amiss. There was indeed. I wasn't dating the ORAL COMPOSITION of
the Avesta but its compilation and standardisation in WRITTEN form, and that
WAS done under the Sassanids. Where I slipped was that I wrote 5th c. BC,
meaning AD, and thus putting the date back a whole millennium.
To summarise these corrective
remarks:
The core of the Avesta must have been composed
in the first half of the sixth century BC.
The book was assembled and given its known
form more than a thousand years later, ca AD 400-500.
Your remarks were very helpful in making me
realise what was wrong. Thanks again,
Piotr
You are right with the dates for Zarathushtra, as much as one can
be,
but wrong with the Dynasty. The Sassanids were a Middle
Persian
dynasty, deriving their name from Sassan, "lord" of Fars under
the
Parthian Arsacids. The first Saasnid Shahanshah (King of
Kings) was
Ardashir who reigned from 220's to 240 CE, about 700 years
after
Zarathushtra.
Piotr, I think you were meaning the
Archaemids, who ruled Persia from
Cyrus (Kurush) II (559-530 BCE) until
the death of Darius III
Codomannus (336-330 BCE) at the time their
empire was incorporated
into that of
Alexander.