Fetching
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Fetching
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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1Spiegel, 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 ?. § 11. Not every corpse defiles man, but only those of such beings as belong to the world of Ahura. They are the only ones in whose death the demon triumphs. The corpse of an Ahrimanian creature does not defile; as its life was incarnate death, the spring of death that was in it is dried up with its last breath: it killed while alive, it can do so no more when dead; it becomes clean by dying*. None of the faithful are defiled by the corpse of an Ashemaogha or of a Khrafstra. Nay, killing them is a pious work, as it is killing Ahriman himself. § 12. Not only real death makes one unclean, but partial death too. Everything that goes out of the body of man is dead, and becomes the property of the demon. The going breath is unclean, it is forbidden to blow the fire with it *, and even to approach the fire without screening it from the contagion with a Penédm®. Parings of nails and cuttings or shavings of hair are unclean, and become weapons in the hands of the demons unless they have been protected by certain rites and spells*. Any phenomenon by which the bodily nature is altered, whether accompanied with danger to health or not, was viewed as a work of the demon, and made the person unclean in whom it took place. One of these phenomena, which is a special object of attention 1¢The Dakhma is a round building, and is designated by some writers, “The Tower of Silence.” A round pit, about six feet deep, is surrounded by an annular stone pavement, about seven feet wide, on which the dead bodies are placed. This place is enclosed all round by a stone wall some twenty feet high, with a small door on one side for taking the body in. The whole is built up of and paved with stone. The pit has communication with three or more closed pits, at some distance, into which the rain washes out the liquids and the remains of the dead bodies’ (Dadabhai Naoroji, The Manners and Customs of the Parsees, Bombay, 1864, p. 16). Cf. Farg. VI, 50. A Dakhma is the first building the Parsis erect when settling in a new place (Dosabhoy Framji). ? The Avesta and the Commentator attach great importance to that point : it is as if the dead man’s life were thus prolonged, since he can still behold the sun. ‘Grant us that we may long behold the sun,’ said the Indian R#shi. 5 Farg. V, 35 sey. 4 See above, p. Ixxvi. 5 See Farg. XIV, 8, n. 10. ® Farg. XVII. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxix
2‘Grant us that we may long behold the sun,’ said the Indian R#shi. 5 Farg. V, 35 sey. 4 See above, p. Ixxvi. 5 See Farg. XIV, 8, n. 10. ® Farg. XVII. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxix in the Vendid4d, is the uncleanness of women during their menses. The menses are sent by Ahriman’, especially when they last beyond the usual time: therefore a woman, as long as they last, is unclean and possessed of the demon: she must be kept confined, apart from the faithful whom her touch would defile, and from the fire which her very look would injure; she is not allowed to eat as much as she wishes, as the strength she might acquire would accrue to the fiends. Her food is not given to her from hand to hand, but is passed to her from a distance’, in a long leaden spoon. The origin of all these notions is in certain physical instincts, in physiological psychology, which is the reason why they are found among peoples very far removed from one another by race or religion®, But they took in Persia a new meaning as they were made a logical part of the whole religious system. § 13. A woman that has just been delivered of a child is also unclean *, although it would seem that she ought to be considered pure amongst the pure, since life has been increased by her in the world, and she has enlarged the realm of Ormazd. But the strength of old instincts overcame the drift of new principles. Only the case when the woman has been delivered of a still-born child is examined in the Vendidad. She is unclean as having been in contact with a dead creature; and she must first drink géméz to wash over the grave in her womb. So utterly unclean is she, that she is not even allowed to drink water, unless she is in danger of death; and even then, as the sacred element has been defiled, she is liable to the penalty of a Peshétanu®, It appears from modern customs that the treatment is the same when the child is born alive: the reason of which is that, in any case, during the first three days after delivery she is in danger of death®. A great fire is lighted 1 Farg. I, 18-19; XVI, 31. Cf. Bund. III. 2 Farg. XVI, 15. * Cf. Leviticus. See Pliny VII, 13. * Farg. V, 45 seq. 5 Farg. VII, 70 seq. ¢ «When there is a pregnant woman in a house, one must take care that there be fire continually in it; when the child is brought forth, one must bum Ixxx VENDIDAD. to keep away the fiends, who use then their utmost efforts to kill her and her child. She is unclean only because the death-fiend is in her.
3to keep away the fiends, who use then their utmost efforts to kill her and her child. She is unclean only because the death-fiend is in her. § 14. Logic required that the sick man should be treated as an unclean one, that is, as one possessed. Sickness, being sent by Ahriman, ought to be cured like all his other works, by washings and spells. In fact, the medicine of spells was considered the most powerful of all*, and although it did not oust the medicine of the lancet and that of drugs, yet it was more highly esteemed and less mistrusted. The commentator on the Vendid4d very sensibly observes that if it does not relieve, it will surely do no harm, which seems not to have been a matter of course with those who heal by the knife and physic. It appears from the last Fargard that all or, at least, many diseases might be cured by spells and Barashnim washing. It appears from Herodotos and Agathias that contagious diseases required the same treatment as uncleanness: the sick man was excluded from the community of the faithful ‘, until cured and cleansed according to the rites °, § 15. The unclean are confined in a particular place, apart from all clean persons and objects, the Armést-gah °, which may be described, therefore, as the Dakhma for the living. All the unclean, all those struck with temporary death, the man who has touched dead matter, the woman in her menses, or just delivered of child, the leper 7, or the man who has made himself unclean for ever by carrying a corpse alone ®, stay there all the time of their uncleanness. § 16. Thus far for general principles. From the diversity a candle, or, better still, a fire, for three days and three nights, to render the Dévs and Drugs unable to harm the child; for there is great danger during those three days and nights after the birth of the child’ (Saddar 16). 1 «When the child is being born, one brandishes a sword on the four sides, lest fairy Aal kill it’ (Polack, Persien I, 223). In Rome, three gods, Intercidona, Pilumnus, and Deverra, keep her threshold, lest Sylvanus come in and harm her (Augustinus, De Civ. D. VI, 9). ® Farg. VII, 44. 3 Thid. * Herod. I, 138. 5 Agathias IT, 23. * The Armést-gih for women in their menses is called Dashtanistan. 7 Herod. I. 1.; Farg. II, 29. * Farg. II, 19. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxxi of circumstances arises a system of casuistry, the development of which may be followed first through the glosses to the Vendidad, in which the labours of several generations of theologians are embodied, and, later on, through the Ravdets. We will give a few instances of it, as found in the Vendidad itself. The process of the cleansing varies according to the degree of uncleanness; and, again, the degree of uncleanness depends on the state of the thing that defiles and the nature of the thing that is defiled.
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.
1Spiegel, 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 ?. § 11. Not every corpse defiles man, but only those of such beings as belong to the world of Ahura. They are the only ones in whose death the demon triumphs. The corpse of an Ahrimanian creature does not defile; as its life was incarnate death, the spring of death that was in it is dried up with its last breath: it killed while alive, it can do so no more when dead; it becomes clean by dying*. None of the faithful are defiled by the corpse of an Ashemaogha or of a Khrafstra. Nay, killing them is a pious work, as it is killing Ahriman himself. § 12. Not only real death makes one unclean, but partial death too. Everything that goes out of the body of man is dead, and becomes the property of the demon. The going breath is unclean, it is forbidden to blow the fire with it *, and even to approach the fire without screening it from the contagion with a Penédm®. Parings of nails and cuttings or shavings of hair are unclean, and become weapons in the hands of the demons unless they have been protected by certain rites and spells*. Any phenomenon by which the bodily nature is altered, whether accompanied with danger to health or not, was viewed as a work of the demon, and made the person unclean in whom it took place. One of these phenomena, which is a special object of attention 1¢The Dakhma is a round building, and is designated by some writers, “The Tower of Silence.” A round pit, about six feet deep, is surrounded by an annular stone pavement, about seven feet wide, on which the dead bodies are placed. This place is enclosed all round by a stone wall some twenty feet high, with a small door on one side for taking the body in. The whole is built up of and paved with stone. The pit has communication with three or more closed pits, at some distance, into which the rain washes out the liquids and the remains of the dead bodies’ (Dadabhai Naoroji, The Manners and Customs of the Parsees, Bombay, 1864, p. 16). Cf. Farg. VI, 50. A Dakhma is the first building the Parsis erect when settling in a new place (Dosabhoy Framji). ? The Avesta and the Commentator attach great importance to that point : it is as if the dead man’s life were thus prolonged, since he can still behold the sun. ‘Grant us that we may long behold the sun,’ said the Indian R#shi. 5 Farg. V, 35 sey. 4 See above, p. Ixxvi. 5 See Farg. XIV, 8, n. 10. ® Farg. XVII. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxix
2‘Grant us that we may long behold the sun,’ said the Indian R#shi. 5 Farg. V, 35 sey. 4 See above, p. Ixxvi. 5 See Farg. XIV, 8, n. 10. ® Farg. XVII. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxix in the Vendid4d, is the uncleanness of women during their menses. The menses are sent by Ahriman’, especially when they last beyond the usual time: therefore a woman, as long as they last, is unclean and possessed of the demon: she must be kept confined, apart from the faithful whom her touch would defile, and from the fire which her very look would injure; she is not allowed to eat as much as she wishes, as the strength she might acquire would accrue to the fiends. Her food is not given to her from hand to hand, but is passed to her from a distance’, in a long leaden spoon. The origin of all these notions is in certain physical instincts, in physiological psychology, which is the reason why they are found among peoples very far removed from one another by race or religion®, But they took in Persia a new meaning as they were made a logical part of the whole religious system. § 13. A woman that has just been delivered of a child is also unclean *, although it would seem that she ought to be considered pure amongst the pure, since life has been increased by her in the world, and she has enlarged the realm of Ormazd. But the strength of old instincts overcame the drift of new principles. Only the case when the woman has been delivered of a still-born child is examined in the Vendidad. She is unclean as having been in contact with a dead creature; and she must first drink géméz to wash over the grave in her womb. So utterly unclean is she, that she is not even allowed to drink water, unless she is in danger of death; and even then, as the sacred element has been defiled, she is liable to the penalty of a Peshétanu®, It appears from modern customs that the treatment is the same when the child is born alive: the reason of which is that, in any case, during the first three days after delivery she is in danger of death®. A great fire is lighted 1 Farg. I, 18-19; XVI, 31. Cf. Bund. III. 2 Farg. XVI, 15. * Cf. Leviticus. See Pliny VII, 13. * Farg. V, 45 seq. 5 Farg. VII, 70 seq. ¢ «When there is a pregnant woman in a house, one must take care that there be fire continually in it; when the child is brought forth, one must bum Ixxx VENDIDAD. to keep away the fiends, who use then their utmost efforts to kill her and her child. She is unclean only because the death-fiend is in her.
3to keep away the fiends, who use then their utmost efforts to kill her and her child. She is unclean only because the death-fiend is in her. § 14. Logic required that the sick man should be treated as an unclean one, that is, as one possessed. Sickness, being sent by Ahriman, ought to be cured like all his other works, by washings and spells. In fact, the medicine of spells was considered the most powerful of all*, and although it did not oust the medicine of the lancet and that of drugs, yet it was more highly esteemed and less mistrusted. The commentator on the Vendid4d very sensibly observes that if it does not relieve, it will surely do no harm, which seems not to have been a matter of course with those who heal by the knife and physic. It appears from the last Fargard that all or, at least, many diseases might be cured by spells and Barashnim washing. It appears from Herodotos and Agathias that contagious diseases required the same treatment as uncleanness: the sick man was excluded from the community of the faithful ‘, until cured and cleansed according to the rites °, § 15. The unclean are confined in a particular place, apart from all clean persons and objects, the Armést-gah °, which may be described, therefore, as the Dakhma for the living. All the unclean, all those struck with temporary death, the man who has touched dead matter, the woman in her menses, or just delivered of child, the leper 7, or the man who has made himself unclean for ever by carrying a corpse alone ®, stay there all the time of their uncleanness. § 16. Thus far for general principles. From the diversity a candle, or, better still, a fire, for three days and three nights, to render the Dévs and Drugs unable to harm the child; for there is great danger during those three days and nights after the birth of the child’ (Saddar 16). 1 «When the child is being born, one brandishes a sword on the four sides, lest fairy Aal kill it’ (Polack, Persien I, 223). In Rome, three gods, Intercidona, Pilumnus, and Deverra, keep her threshold, lest Sylvanus come in and harm her (Augustinus, De Civ. D. VI, 9). ® Farg. VII, 44. 3 Thid. * Herod. I, 138. 5 Agathias IT, 23. * The Armést-gih for women in their menses is called Dashtanistan. 7 Herod. I. 1.; Farg. II, 29. * Farg. II, 19. INTRODUCTION, X. Ixxxi of circumstances arises a system of casuistry, the development of which may be followed first through the glosses to the Vendidad, in which the labours of several generations of theologians are embodied, and, later on, through the Ravdets. We will give a few instances of it, as found in the Vendidad itself. The process of the cleansing varies according to the degree of uncleanness; and, again, the degree of uncleanness depends on the state of the thing that defiles and the nature of the thing that is defiled.
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.
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