Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 31 — The Zend-Avesta, Part III / Yasna & Gathas (Mills, page scans)

- khshathrem, but closely allied to it. And yet some writers, following Haug, and animated by a desire to differ from the indications of the ancient translators, prefer two words of closely kindred meaning, ésh and kshatrd ‘strength’ and ‘power’, with great loss of point and sense.

The Pahl. trlr. probably erred as to andz$, seeing in it a particle, or an adverb which he referred to 7 = ‘to go’. He proceeds however to give us our first idea as to what follows, even explaining yénd§ as ‘things prayed for’. He correctly carries down the force of zaranaé(é)ma, but seemingly fails to recognize a perfect in yoithemd (sic). He renders its idea by a substantive; and this freedom, or error, may well be excused, as yoithemd (sic) would, aside from its context here, suggest a stem ydith(e)man. There are several instances in the Indian where a stem with a seems to become a stem with e. The trlr. is rather strong with his déshakd. Read, as the rendering of ordinary Pahl., (c): ‘Ye are loving (and not troubled as a foe), and, as to the kingly desire, beneficent’.

Ner.’s punyopachiti needs correction, but his wparydy? seems justifiable. The Parsi-persian errs in kunand, having read vdgiinand, = vadinand for vddiinyén, or vadindnd. (It may be well to repeat here that the Pahl. texts cited in the Persian version are all in the traditional transliteration; but jén = gdn is a mistransliteration of ydn). Khwéhad is an erroneous form in c; otherwise the Pers. corroborates my rendering of the Pahlavi.

10. I can no longer see the propriety in printing ashdad(£)chd, an obvious corruption which crept into some MSS. from an earlier deficiency in the number of the syllables. We have here an interpolation which disturbs the metre; how did it occur? The text may have stood originally as ashad(t). Some Jater reciters pronounced ashdéad(f), others preferring to emend by ché. The original composer must have sometimes varied by additions of syllables, while, on the other hand, a redundancy of syllables was avoided by reducing the word, when necessary, as in the case of vairydo for vairyaydo (see similar Vedic usage elsewhere cited); later °datcha was imitated, oS

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At the first glance we should be inclined to render ddthéng ‘creatures’: ‘What creatures Thou knowest as just, the creatures of the Good Mind, to these with the gains of blessing, O Ahura, fill the desire’ (see Spiegel and Bartholomae). But ‘creatures’ is here a platitude. In the previous verse the allusion is pointedly to ‘us’; so in verse 11.

See also Y.46, 15, where ddathéig --- addthaisché are used in the sense of ‘lawful’ and ‘unlawful’; and then observe sravdo in line c, which evidently continues the sense; the verb also, vééstd, is better applied to ‘laws’, ‘revelations’ than to ‘creatures’, The whole connection refers to revelations; see, beside sravdo, mathrad srevaé(é)md rdddéo v.71; they are also reierred to in v. 8 and v. 9, and in fré m@ sisha in v. 11, while v.

evidently continues the sense; the verb also, vééstd, is better applied to ‘laws’, ‘revelations’ than to ‘creatures’, The whole connection refers to revelations; see, beside sravdo, mathrad srevaé(é)md rdddéo v.71; they are also reierred to in v. 8 and v. 9, and in fré m@ sisha in v. 11, while v. 6 has its explicit ereshvdis ti ukhdhdis, which is itself preceded by and mdathrad in v. 5. It is therefore better to take aé(é)ébyé as the abl. of original causality, and dpandis as the instr. of the immediate means. rethwéeig = erethvdn (the letter yf = English v) may be related to rittvdni = frdrénd; so datherng may = * dathani.

As to aséind, I can now report the Pahlavi as favouring my rendering. I have heard through Dr. West of an improvement. Asddak should be referred to stidah = ‘remiss’, ‘obsolete’; astndak = ‘not remiss’: ‘If thus one obtains food and clothing by (or as) that which is not remiss, by (or as) that recital’. But the ancient glossist understood ‘useless’, an important case to prove that the gloss is of greatly inferior importance. Var(e)thya has been ably compared with svdrtha (= ‘well reaching the aim’) by Roth.

The suggestion of the Pahl. trir. is perhaps more probable sar(e) + thya = Ind. tya (?) = ‘having reference to food’.

Vaintya, van with the same suffix tya, means ‘having reference to possessions’, ‘inspired revelations which lead to food and riches’. Or it might mean ‘having reference to supplications’; see vdédunus; Bartholomae fiehentliche; ‘Ich weisz ya, dass bei euch schallende (barethya*), flehentliche gebete nicht erfolglos sind’. But more is expressed than ‘bet euch’. *See Haug onY.31, 20.

The Pahl. trlr. everywhere fails to recognize vdéstd in its proper form.
He seems to have been quite aware that it might equal vettd, but he
doubted it as the equivalent of véttha.

As to its radieal meaning, he of course gives us our first clue. He seems to render vazitya by ‘clothing’, but this idea may be part of his rendering of darethyd(?). With the exception of vatitya however, he gave us our first idea of the sense of every word, having been thrown out of gear by his misconception of the grammatical form of vdistd; (he seems to have had no difficulty with vdiedim in Y. 33, 8; yehabiéinéd is there a secondp. 409 plural; see Jektim in lines 6 and c). Line 6 here is to be noticed as free but correct.

Ner. renders our improved view of asédak well by analaso, and otherwise translates the Pahl. usefully, although seldom with absolute exactness, at least not according to the readings of our present texts.

His ekahelayd is strong as a translation for amat aétind, and his parichinohi (for parichinuht) can only be defended as Vedic Sanskrit. Was he accustomed to read the Veda? Ner. seems to have had a different text before him at c; he does not notice the lekim of the Pahl. nor the vé khshmaibyd. The Persian trlr. carelessly reads homandnd = hastand, and often elsewhere follows DJ.’s MS. in reading d for 7.

11.

ended as Vedic Sanskrit. Was he accustomed to read the Veda? Ner. seems to have had a different text before him at c; he does not notice the lekim of the Pahl. nor the vé khshmaibyd. The Persian trlr. carelessly reads homandnd = hastand, and often elsewhere follows DJ.’s MS. in reading d for 7.

11. Haug rendered nipdonhé(é) protegendum (est), adding: ‘An eine erste Person sing., wie Nerios. annimmt, ist nicht 2w denken; sie wire hier und 49, 10 véllig widersinnig’.

An infin. certainly looks possible, and a first person is inadmissible in Y. 49, 10, but according to the valuable indication of the Pahl. trlr. nipdonhé(é) is here a 1st sg. conj. aor. in the sense of the future, and is now fully recognized as such, Spiegel leading the way in rendering as a first person in analogy with the other 1s persons in this chapter.

The Pahl. trir. recoils, as usual, from yé@ as equalling azém yé, but my rendering of him is perhaps too unfavourable.

‘When I shall defend Righteousness - -’ may well be free for ‘I who shall defend - - - . Pavan nikirishné = ‘according to observation’ means practically ‘as one observes’, ‘as the matter goes’ (so Spiegel elsewhere) ; so dis means ‘according to these things’, ‘thus’. Ménavadikih has the position of a gen.; see mainyeus (or manyéus).

When regarded as ordinary Pahl., I would render c; ‘A spiritual thing is the Gathic doctrine which is declared from this which is Thine by mouth’.

The general accuracy is to be noted, the glosses being intelligent, or harmless, and, as in every case, possibly from a later hand. This is especially true of the gloss gdsdnikih in line c, as it probably did not exist in the MS. used by Ner.; and this circumstance is of importance to us in our endeavours to estimate the age of surviving codices. The liturgical notes containing directions regarding the repetitions of verses etc. are not properly Gathic.

The Persian reports vdyinand = vadinand, for vddinyén, or vddinand, instead of vddiinam-é, and yemalelin (jamniimi) for dmizdi. Mint occupies the position of a gen., like ménavadikih, fortified by the reading znsh, but this does not render it at all certain that the trlr. understood mindi as a gen. 52

.

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Y. XXIX.

See for summary, and for further treatment, S. B. E. XXXI. pp. 3—13. Changes in opinion which have taken place since its composition are however not always noted here.

1. I prefer to read tavisch@, as it is quite possible that the nearly universal substitution of e for a may not be original. The exceptional occurrences of a should be preserved by use, or notification; see K.5 J2

Gerezhda@ must have the sense of ‘plaint’ here; cp. raosté in vy. 9. Consider also the reading gerezhdiim in Y. 51, 17. which may refer back to this place. As to the reading dhishdya (J.2 etc.), the Pahl. points to ahushaya, while Westergaard and Spiegel reproduced dhushuyd (= dhushuvd (?)).

In the Persian MS. K.* the long 7 and the long @ are indistinguishable.