Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1XIII, 19, n.), or by a young dog (a dog four months old),’ Comm. ad Farg. VII, 2. As birds of prey are as fiend-smiting as the dog, they are Nasu-smiters like him, and one may appeal to their services, when there is no dog at hand (see Farg. VII, 3, n. 3). ® Rig-veda X, 14, To seq. 2 Gr. Rav. p. 592. Allusions to this myth are found in Farg. XIII, 9, and XIX, 30. The Commentary ad Farg. XIII, 17 has: ‘There are dogs who watch over the earthly regions; there are others who watch over the fourteen heavenly regions.’ The birth of the yellow-eared dog is described in the Raviet (1. c.) as follows: ‘Ormazd, wishing to keep the body of the first man, Gaydmart, from the assaults of Ahriman, who tried to kill him, cried out: ‘©O thou yellow-eared dog, arise!” and directly the dog barked and shook his two ears; and the unclean Satan and the fiends, when they saw the dreadful looks of the yellow-eared dog, and heard his barking, were sore afraid and fled down to hell.’ INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxv that way until the deadly breath, that blows through it, has been blown away to hell’. The four-eyed dog is made to go through the way three times, or six times, or nine times, while the priest helps the look of the dog with his spells, dreaded by the Drug. § 5. The use of géméz in cleansing the unclean is also derived from old mythic conceptions*. The storm floods that cleanse the sky of the dark fiends in it were described in a class of myths as the urine of a gigantic animal in the heavens. As the floods from the bull above drive away the fiend from the god, so do they from man here below, they make him ‘free from the death-demon’ (franasu), and the death-fiend flees away hellwards, pursued by the fiend-smiting spell: ‘ Perish thou, O Drug . . ., never more to give over to Death the living world of the good spirit !’ § 6. As uncleanness is nothing else than the contagion of death, it is at its greatest intensity when life is just departing. The Nasu at that moment defiles ten persons around the corpse *: when a year is over, the corpse defiles no longer*. Thus the notion of uncleanness is quite the reverse of what it is elsewhere : the corpse, when rotten, is less unclean than the body still all but warm with life; death defiles least when it looks most hideous, and defiles most when it might look majestic. The cause is that in the latter case the death-demon has just arrived in the fulness of his strength, whereas in the former case time has exhausted his power. . § 7. As the focus of the contagion is in the corpse, it must be disposed of so that death may not spread abroad. On this point the old Indo-European customs have been completely changed by Mazdeism. The Indo-Europeans either burnt the corpse or buried it : both customs are held to be sacrilegious in the Avesta. § 8. This view originated from the notion of the holiness 1 Farg. VIII, 14-22.
2On this point the old Indo-European customs have been completely changed by Mazdeism. The Indo-Europeans either burnt the corpse or buried it : both customs are held to be sacrilegious in the Avesta. § 8. This view originated from the notion of the holiness 1 Farg. VIII, 14-22. 2 Orm. Abr. § 124. The use of giméz has been lately found to be known in Basse-Bretagne (Luzel, Le Nirang des Parsis en Basse-Bretagne, Mélusine, 493). 3 Farg. V, 27; ef. n. 5. * Farg. VIII, 33-34. Ixxvi VENDIDAD. of the elements being pushed to an extreme. The elements, fire, earth, and water are holy, and during the Indo-Iranian period they were already considered so, and in the Vedas they are worshipped as godlike beings. Yet this did not prevent the Indian from burning his dead; death did not appear to him so decidedly a work of the demon, and the dead man was a traveller to the other world, whom the fire kindly carried to his heavenly abode ‘on his undecaying, flying pinions, wherewith he killed the demons.’ The fire was in that, as in the sacrifice, the god that goes from earth to heaven, from man to god, the mediator, the god most friendly to man. In Persia it remains more distant from , him; being an earthly form of the eternal, infinite, godly light !, no death, no uncleanness can be allowed to enter it, as it is here below the purest offspring of the good spirit, the purest part of his pure creation. Its only function is to repel the fiends with its bright blazing. In every place where Parsis are settled, an everlasting fire is kept, the Bahram fire, which, ‘preserved by a more than Vestal care®, and ever fed with perfumes and dry well-blazing wood, whichever side its flames are brought by the wind, goes and kills thousands and thousands of fiends, as Bahram does in heaven*. If the necessities of life oblige us to employ fire for profane uses, it must be only for a time an exile on our hearth, or in the oven of the potter, and it must go thence to the Right-Place of the fire (Daityé GAtu), the altar of the Bahr4m fire, there to be restored to the dignity and rights of its nature‘. At least, let no gratuitous and wanton degradation be inflicted upon it: even blowing it with the breath of the mouth is a crime®; burning the dead is the most heinous 1 Ignem coelitus delapsum (Ammian. Marcel. XXVII, 6); Cedrenus; Elisaeus ; Recogn. Clement. IV, 29; Clem. Homil. TX, 6; Henry Lord. 3 J. Fryer, A New Account of East India and Persia, 1698, p. 265. 3 Farg. VIII, 81-96; 79-80. * Extinguishing it is a mortal sin (Ravfets; Elisaeus; cf. Strabo XV, 14). 5 A custom still existing with the TAztk, an Iranian tribe in Eastern Persia, (de Khanikoff, Ethnographie de la Perse). Strabo XV, 14. Manu has the same prescription (IV, 53). Cf. Farg. XIV, 8, n. 10. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxvii of sins: in the times of Strabo it was a capital crime}, and the Avesta expresses the same, when putting it in the number of those sins for which there is no atonement ?.
3Strabo XV, 14. Manu has the same prescription (IV, 53). Cf. Farg. XIV, 8, n. 10. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxvii of sins: in the times of Strabo it was a capital crime}, and the Avesta expresses the same, when putting it in the number of those sins for which there is no atonement ?. Water was looked upon in the same light. Bringing dead matter to it is as bad as bringing it to the fire®. The Magi are said to have overthrown a king for having built bath-houses, as they cared more for the cleanness of water than for their own ‘+. § 9. Not less holy was the earth, or, at least, it became so. There was a goddess who lived in her, Spesta Armaiti; no corpse ought to defile her sacred breast: burying the dead is, like burning the dead, a deed for which there is no atonement®. It was not always so in Persia: the burning of the dead had been forbidden for years ®, while the burying was still general. Cambyses had roused the indignation of the Persians by burning the corpse of Amasis: yet, years later, Persians still buried their dead. But the priests already felt scruples, and feared to defile a god. Later on, with the ascendancy of the Magian religion, the sacerdotal observances became the general law 7. § 10. Therefore the corpse is laid on the summit of a mountain, far from man, from water, from tree, from fire, and from the earth itself, as it is separated from it by a layer of stones or bricks*. Special buildings, the Dakhmas, ' Strabo XV, 14; cf. Herod. III, 16. » Farg. I, 17; cf. Farg. VIII, 74. ® Farg. VII, 25-27; Strabo XV, 14; Herod. I, 138. * King Balfsh (Josué le Stylite, traduction Martin, § xx). It seems as if there were a confusion between Balash and Kav&t; at any rate, it shows that bathing smacked of heresy. Jews were forbidden to perform the legal ablutions (Fiirst, Culturgeschichte der Juden, 9). ® Farg. I, 13. * From the reign of Cyrus. 7 Still the worship of the earth seems not to have so deeply penetrated the general religion as the worship of fire. The laws about the disposal of the dead were interpreted by many, it would seem, as intended only to secure the purity of water and fire, and they thought that they might be at peace with religion if they had taken care to bury the corpse, so that no part of it might be taken by animals to fire or water (Farg. III, 41, n. 7). ® Farg. VI, 44 seq.; VIII, 10 seq. Cf. 1X, 11, 0.5. Moreover, the Dakhma is ideally separated from the ground by means of a golden thread, which is supposed to keep it suspended in the air (Ravaet, ap. Spiegel, Uebersetzung des Avesta II, XXXVI). Ixxvili VENDIDAD. were erected for this purpose’. There far from the world the dead were left to lie, beholding the sun ?.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1XIII, 19, n.), or by a young dog (a dog four months old),’ Comm. ad Farg. VII, 2. As birds of prey are as fiend-smiting as the dog, they are Nasu-smiters like him, and one may appeal to their services, when there is no dog at hand (see Farg. VII, 3, n. 3). ® Rig-veda X, 14, To seq. 2 Gr. Rav. p. 592. Allusions to this myth are found in Farg. XIII, 9, and XIX, 30. The Commentary ad Farg. XIII, 17 has: ‘There are dogs who watch over the earthly regions; there are others who watch over the fourteen heavenly regions.’ The birth of the yellow-eared dog is described in the Raviet (1. c.) as follows: ‘Ormazd, wishing to keep the body of the first man, Gaydmart, from the assaults of Ahriman, who tried to kill him, cried out: ‘©O thou yellow-eared dog, arise!” and directly the dog barked and shook his two ears; and the unclean Satan and the fiends, when they saw the dreadful looks of the yellow-eared dog, and heard his barking, were sore afraid and fled down to hell.’ INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxv that way until the deadly breath, that blows through it, has been blown away to hell’. The four-eyed dog is made to go through the way three times, or six times, or nine times, while the priest helps the look of the dog with his spells, dreaded by the Drug. § 5. The use of géméz in cleansing the unclean is also derived from old mythic conceptions*. The storm floods that cleanse the sky of the dark fiends in it were described in a class of myths as the urine of a gigantic animal in the heavens. As the floods from the bull above drive away the fiend from the god, so do they from man here below, they make him ‘free from the death-demon’ (franasu), and the death-fiend flees away hellwards, pursued by the fiend-smiting spell: ‘ Perish thou, O Drug . . ., never more to give over to Death the living world of the good spirit !’ § 6. As uncleanness is nothing else than the contagion of death, it is at its greatest intensity when life is just departing. The Nasu at that moment defiles ten persons around the corpse *: when a year is over, the corpse defiles no longer*. Thus the notion of uncleanness is quite the reverse of what it is elsewhere : the corpse, when rotten, is less unclean than the body still all but warm with life; death defiles least when it looks most hideous, and defiles most when it might look majestic. The cause is that in the latter case the death-demon has just arrived in the fulness of his strength, whereas in the former case time has exhausted his power. . § 7. As the focus of the contagion is in the corpse, it must be disposed of so that death may not spread abroad. On this point the old Indo-European customs have been completely changed by Mazdeism. The Indo-Europeans either burnt the corpse or buried it : both customs are held to be sacrilegious in the Avesta. § 8. This view originated from the notion of the holiness 1 Farg. VIII, 14-22.
2On this point the old Indo-European customs have been completely changed by Mazdeism. The Indo-Europeans either burnt the corpse or buried it : both customs are held to be sacrilegious in the Avesta. § 8. This view originated from the notion of the holiness 1 Farg. VIII, 14-22. 2 Orm. Abr. § 124. The use of giméz has been lately found to be known in Basse-Bretagne (Luzel, Le Nirang des Parsis en Basse-Bretagne, Mélusine, 493). 3 Farg. V, 27; ef. n. 5. * Farg. VIII, 33-34. Ixxvi VENDIDAD. of the elements being pushed to an extreme. The elements, fire, earth, and water are holy, and during the Indo-Iranian period they were already considered so, and in the Vedas they are worshipped as godlike beings. Yet this did not prevent the Indian from burning his dead; death did not appear to him so decidedly a work of the demon, and the dead man was a traveller to the other world, whom the fire kindly carried to his heavenly abode ‘on his undecaying, flying pinions, wherewith he killed the demons.’ The fire was in that, as in the sacrifice, the god that goes from earth to heaven, from man to god, the mediator, the god most friendly to man. In Persia it remains more distant from , him; being an earthly form of the eternal, infinite, godly light !, no death, no uncleanness can be allowed to enter it, as it is here below the purest offspring of the good spirit, the purest part of his pure creation. Its only function is to repel the fiends with its bright blazing. In every place where Parsis are settled, an everlasting fire is kept, the Bahram fire, which, ‘preserved by a more than Vestal care®, and ever fed with perfumes and dry well-blazing wood, whichever side its flames are brought by the wind, goes and kills thousands and thousands of fiends, as Bahram does in heaven*. If the necessities of life oblige us to employ fire for profane uses, it must be only for a time an exile on our hearth, or in the oven of the potter, and it must go thence to the Right-Place of the fire (Daityé GAtu), the altar of the Bahr4m fire, there to be restored to the dignity and rights of its nature‘. At least, let no gratuitous and wanton degradation be inflicted upon it: even blowing it with the breath of the mouth is a crime®; burning the dead is the most heinous 1 Ignem coelitus delapsum (Ammian. Marcel. XXVII, 6); Cedrenus; Elisaeus ; Recogn. Clement. IV, 29; Clem. Homil. TX, 6; Henry Lord. 3 J. Fryer, A New Account of East India and Persia, 1698, p. 265. 3 Farg. VIII, 81-96; 79-80. * Extinguishing it is a mortal sin (Ravfets; Elisaeus; cf. Strabo XV, 14). 5 A custom still existing with the TAztk, an Iranian tribe in Eastern Persia, (de Khanikoff, Ethnographie de la Perse). Strabo XV, 14. Manu has the same prescription (IV, 53). Cf. Farg. XIV, 8, n. 10. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxvii of sins: in the times of Strabo it was a capital crime}, and the Avesta expresses the same, when putting it in the number of those sins for which there is no atonement ?.
3Strabo XV, 14. Manu has the same prescription (IV, 53). Cf. Farg. XIV, 8, n. 10. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxvii of sins: in the times of Strabo it was a capital crime}, and the Avesta expresses the same, when putting it in the number of those sins for which there is no atonement ?. Water was looked upon in the same light. Bringing dead matter to it is as bad as bringing it to the fire®. The Magi are said to have overthrown a king for having built bath-houses, as they cared more for the cleanness of water than for their own ‘+. § 9. Not less holy was the earth, or, at least, it became so. There was a goddess who lived in her, Spesta Armaiti; no corpse ought to defile her sacred breast: burying the dead is, like burning the dead, a deed for which there is no atonement®. It was not always so in Persia: the burning of the dead had been forbidden for years ®, while the burying was still general. Cambyses had roused the indignation of the Persians by burning the corpse of Amasis: yet, years later, Persians still buried their dead. But the priests already felt scruples, and feared to defile a god. Later on, with the ascendancy of the Magian religion, the sacerdotal observances became the general law 7. § 10. Therefore the corpse is laid on the summit of a mountain, far from man, from water, from tree, from fire, and from the earth itself, as it is separated from it by a layer of stones or bricks*. Special buildings, the Dakhmas, ' Strabo XV, 14; cf. Herod. III, 16. » Farg. I, 17; cf. Farg. VIII, 74. ® Farg. VII, 25-27; Strabo XV, 14; Herod. I, 138. * King Balfsh (Josué le Stylite, traduction Martin, § xx). It seems as if there were a confusion between Balash and Kav&t; at any rate, it shows that bathing smacked of heresy. Jews were forbidden to perform the legal ablutions (Fiirst, Culturgeschichte der Juden, 9). ® Farg. I, 13. * From the reign of Cyrus. 7 Still the worship of the earth seems not to have so deeply penetrated the general religion as the worship of fire. The laws about the disposal of the dead were interpreted by many, it would seem, as intended only to secure the purity of water and fire, and they thought that they might be at peace with religion if they had taken care to bury the corpse, so that no part of it might be taken by animals to fire or water (Farg. III, 41, n. 7). ® Farg. VI, 44 seq.; VIII, 10 seq. Cf. 1X, 11, 0.5. Moreover, the Dakhma is ideally separated from the ground by means of a golden thread, which is supposed to keep it suspended in the air (Ravaet, ap. Spiegel, Uebersetzung des Avesta II, XXXVI). Ixxvili VENDIDAD. were erected for this purpose’. There far from the world the dead were left to lie, beholding the sun ?.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
No commentary for this page.