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

Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.

1eduplication as elsewhere.. All but J.3 and P. om. thalokam. J.* has mérgasya without the usual irrational gr for g; J.thas sydt yatah punyam, J.* punya (so) margah (d). Ner. wellavoids the trl. of demano which adds to the probability that it is gl. Mahat punyam (a) seems a free trl. of Hitdsh; Ner. may mean; ‘and it is (that is, the meaning of the name is) ‘great sanctity’ ; so let it be understood’. One might put the | before yat swmanasd (= a hi-minishnih); and mahat-punyasya (so) again = 7 Hitosh. ‘The place of the greatly righteous one’; so on the whole better. Poss. vaginad* is a better translit. (?); rakdm = /ekim is the Pahl. printed by oversight for shuma; ék is preferred as more Parsi, otherwise yak. *Pahl. 34 sg. °éd induced vdgdnéd (so). 6. Read yw for the antiquated w, and final ys. This verse offers special difficulties, and an entire line seems interpolated. One writer would eliminate drajé hachd, as gloss, following authority. Another cast, widely diverging from certainty and depending on radical changes in the text might be somewhat as follows: ‘Here are honest men, there honest women - : - He who is an adherent of the lie, shall not tread (enter patdt (?) for pithd) the holy circle (Ind. pradhim). If you act kindly (? vayit.bere- d(u)byé), want will vanish from you; but comfort will vanish ((?)ndsad(t)) when you heretically neglect your duty, through these ye destroy the heavenly life’. Others more correctly, and following me partly: ‘Thus is it true, ye men and women. I, the righteous (?) whom ye see here, I rob Satan of suecess. Far from their (or your) person, from the loving (? = vaytt.- beredubyé) may want remain, and welfare from those forgetful of duty - -’. The tendency is to eliminate the difficulties. I think it more probable that the first line, which is clear, was a formula taken from a lost verse. ‘These things are true’ would be a natural heading, well adapted to the context. I restrict emendations as usual. I of course meant to read y@ mé (= méi) which is no emendation; see the MSS. (since reported) ; rath(e)mé I refer to ratha, figuratively, ‘a waggoner’, ‘a guide’. Spashuthad I regarded alternatively as an irregular form of the verbal noun = ‘an (over)seer’, or ‘guardian’, or alternatively as a second plural, ‘ye view’. I now prefer this latter, » miswritten for » also = y with inherent a = ya, °yathd. Then yemi, yeme, or yemé (see the MSS.) might refer to the two sexes just mentioned, the verb however continuing pl., and having as sub- ject the naréd - - - jénayd, yemé (?) being merely in apposition (yemd might be read). Ayé(e)se(é) .. para with the abl. in the sense of ‘exorcize’; root yam, yas = yachchh as elsewhere. Héigs was regarded by Haug as a gen, 614 of hi. But we have no analaga by which to estimate the gen. of Ai. I sug- gested for lack of better a root form from Ai = st, st, = ‘to bind’, de- clined after the é declension, meaning ‘the fixed characteristic’, ‘the nature’, or (as in 8. B. KE.

2ewhere. Héigs was regarded by Haug as a gen, 614 of hi. But we have no analaga by which to estimate the gen. of Ai. I sug- gested for lack of better a root form from Ai = st, st, = ‘to bind’, de- clined after the é declension, meaning ‘the fixed characteristic’, ‘the nature’, or (as in 8. B. KE. XXXI, p. 192) perhaps better as ‘the association », ‘the allied party’ of the D. Vayda, as the proper name, better in the ‘evil’ sense ; there are the two senses. Others, as if to vt, or vod = van, ‘to those who cherish inclination’. Duséarethem to bar in the sense of ‘light’ = ‘dis- honour’, or to dar = ‘to eat’. Nasad(t) in a natural if ‘evil? sense ; others read nasad(f) (?) = ‘(want) will vanish’. I take (de)jid(t).aretaé(é)ibyd as a poetical parallelism, or repetition of vaya bered(ujbyd, a principle greatly neglected in the prosaic exegesis of ancient poetical matter. D. om ¢ kold, has néshman (so M.1), has the vowels of Jeh (a), has frad (2 sic) dahishnth aighash nafsman tant (tand) aétind - ‘, dashtano (see Pers.) (6), has nafsh- man 7, om. second atgh (d) has darvand 7, gas 7 tamman (e). Read zak Jindk in the gl. We must be grateful for hints in this shattered trl., and these hints may be the echoes of original truth. Rdthemd = bahar, to radh (2), or rd; hamishak (not in brackets) may possibly reflect a form of yam, (yé mé (me, mé(é) were never seen), but yé also = méin (ash). Ayé(e)sé(@) as infin. = ‘for, or in the desire’? — ‘desires’ (the D.). If Addé = ash, Haug’s gen. of hi = si (?) was anticipated. Adftéd, if = patha (J.*, ete.) might recall pat = ‘to fall’; vay = adshishnd Suggests destructive in- fluence. Andis as in Y. 29, 9; 32, 45;, and in y: 8, as adv. = ‘toward’ with @ priv. (?); manahim as — ‘spiritual’ (¢ ménavadén). The glosses in- crease the divergence from literal exactness here. J.* seems ndryaschit ; 6, c, in J.4 are written on the margin by a second hand; J.4 seems bir- bhartti (sic), J.* seems bibhakti (sic), J.3 seeras yat for yé in c; J.3, J.4 J* have apagaiahi; JA has °shddyam for °kh?; J3, 5.4 maranam, C., P., mar. Mar in the Pahl. gl. was mistaken for mar = ‘calculation’, hence lekh?®. Bahar was evidently confused with Babd also — dvdram. Praharakartd Without doubt takes up the idea in paspanth; the gl. is senseless, Ner. takes Vaya in the good sense, reading the Pahl. hi-dahishn (sO poss.) = susiddham (so), whereas bered® was read berez® = uttamam, sampirna(h) or *ptirnam. Mind would look more like Parsi; perhaps kunand was meant as = vidginand (the MS. is obscure); hamishah, so for hami®; Read pdsbdnt for the misprint, and perhaps kunad = vagiinad (?), read naedéki, burand as ; more orig., as Pers. better barand. I hesitated to write dabinad, vdgtinad; % péddish as more Parsi; Pers. paiddyish. a 7. Some scholars would change the text radically here; but the diffi- culty lies almost wholly in (‘)vizayathd magém tem and Vayd.

3kunad = vagiinad (?), read naedéki, burand as ; more orig., as Pers. better barand. I hesitated to write dabinad, vdgtinad; % péddish as more Parsi; Pers. paiddyish. a 7. Some scholars would change the text radically here; but the diffi- culty lies almost wholly in (‘)vizayathd magém tem and Vayd. How can — yathra mainyus dregvatd be said of the Same subject? Magém is perhaps — a BON ik et 615 the most sacred of expressions, for ‘the holy cause’, or ‘the Saviour’. Common sense must here come to our relief. As in the case of daben (vy. 1), we must understand something like salud virtute. Some very able writers seem to hold that no transition of tone from condemnation to praise can take place in the same connection here, while yet their exegesis at times pro- poses the most startling changes. Some would render (more agreeably than my necessitated rendering); ‘while trustful devotion remains in the hearts, in the character, of the wedded pair (dénéi hakhtaydo) - +’. But dzhus is beyond all doubt an evil expression, see Mainyo-i-khard (West) 2, 13, 14 dzh kdmat ma kun; kut dzh dev née fréved, see also 8, 15; 15, 31, etc., showing the life of the idea. Here I refer to no ¢ranslation of the Avesta, but to Parsi literature. The later meaning was ‘greed’, ‘avarice’, often personified as a demon. The original and oldest, that is, the Gathic, meaning included, as we see here, the idea of lust, or else the idea of lust was the only earlier meaning. Manifestly ‘avarice’ cannot be the meaning here. Reading hakhtyéo with K.®, we have the loc. dual of hakhti meaning ‘the two thighs’, ‘in the root of the two thighs’; cp. RV., X, 86, 16, nd sége ydsya rdmbate ’ntard sakthyd kdprit, séd ice ydsya romagdm nishedisho vijrimbhate - - -. (I much regret allusion to indecencies). ‘Sensual desire seated in the heart, and in the sexual organ’ is indicated. It is not likely that a demon should be spoken of as ‘seated in the foundation of the character of the wedded’. Moreover this latter view necessitates taking anasad(t) as if for anqsad(t): ‘while there in the heart the spirit of evil-- - will vanish (?)’. Seldom, if ever was a form of nag (= ‘to vanish’) written like the aorist of nag (= ‘to reach’), that is, with the nasal; cp. ndngi? In paraché - - » aordché we have strong analogy with para avara = ‘ab- ove and below’; to this we may well accede. Mainyus dregvaté is obviously the dzhus directly preceding. (I)vizayathd is referred by some to ji = ‘to - conquer’; ‘Ye conquer your devotion’. Others ‘ye defend the maga (the association)’. Having an eye to the sexual allusions, and to the marriage occasion, I refer the word to zan = ‘bring forth’. ‘Ye bring forth the Maga (concrete), ye bring forth one of the royal line of saving princes, Saos(k)yaiits, and not the offspring of adultery and deception (the Druj)’. For the sense ‘produce’, to the stem jdéya (from jan) + vi, varying from the Meaning ‘be born’, cp.

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.