The DesatirДэзатир

The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. The Desatir, Book of the Prophet Zirtusht, vv. 44-52; Conway (1874), no. CCLXXV, The Prophet, p. 177.

Conway's last sentence, close: 'He will ask thee, "How can we know a prophet?" By his giving you information regarding your own heart.' Tolstoy turns the answer into the speaker's own: «это тот, кто дает мне знание о моем собственном сердце» (he who gives me knowledge of my own heart). Conway had already cut the Desatir: the prophet Zirtusht answers a Greek sage that a prophet is known by three signs, by his knowing what others do not know, by his telling you about your own heart, and by his never being puzzled by a question; Conway keeps the second. The Desatir was published in 1818 from the only known manuscript, bought at Isfahan by the Parsi Mulla Kaus, in an otherwise unknown language with a Persian version. Conway calls it 'of apocryphal authorship, and date in Christian era uncertain', and the 1888 reprint prints the dispute over its genuineness (William Erskine's doubts, Anthony Troyer's defence). Its Persian text, printed in the 1818 first volume, was not available as text and was not checked.