Pahlavi Texts, Part IV: Contents of the Nasks — SBE Vol. 37 (trans. E. W. West, 1892)

Open to allEdited by F. Max Müller; translated by Müller, Legge, Bühler, West, Darmesteter, Palmer, Telang, Thibaut, Jolly, Rhys Davids, Oldenberg, Jacobi, Bloomfield and others369 segments · 124 pp

The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.

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The translator’s English as printed (E. W. West). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.

18. Réshistin section of the same : kinds of wounds, scourging, 76 members of the body, effects of assaults, modes of assaulting, description of a wound and the weapon, curing wounds . . .

19. Hamémilistan section of the same: various accusations, true and false, and retribution for the offences ; pollution, a young woman well taught, slander, care of a pregnant woman, a householder neglecting his family, opinions of quiet and unquiet people ; (§ 10) cowardice, impenitence, sin of priests, retribution, authority of priests, punishment of judges, illegal action of plaintiff, seizing purity of foreigners, those worthy of death, confession; (§ 21) assault with a weapon, curing a wounded person who afterwards dies, security taken from defendant, procrastination by plaintiff, mediation, assaults furious and harmless, punishment of a child for sin, interpretation, signs of approval by the dying ; (§ 31) undefined assault, killing a foreigner, great hinderers, indiscriminate assault, a frontier governor, striking the living and dead, timber and firewood, atonement and ordeals, physicians, mutilating a horse ; (§ 41) a wound as evidence of crime, modes of using a weapon, assault and retribution, incarceration, pulling a steed’s tail, threats and spells, various plaints and plaintiffs, pleadings inconsistent with accusations; (§ 50) master unfriendly to disciple, arresting and prosecuting a thief, the good to be treated like oneself, when carrying off property becomes theft, native and foreign thieves, why the foreigner is unfettered, assail-

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CONTENTS.

CHAP.

ants to be restrained, renunciation of sin, avoiding one worthy of death; (§ 60) informing about a righteous man, giving weapons to generals and governors, execution and reprieve of one worthy of death, witchcraft

20. Fifth section of the same: an armed man riding to attack

Commentary
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Historical§003

Part IV, 1892, the Contents of the Nasks: a description of Avesta books that no longer exist, preserved because a Pahlavi summary of them does. This is the clearest case of what West said the second class of Pahlavi writings is for — the value of "translations and Zands of Avesta texts no longer extant." The lost original is legible only through a commentary on it, which is precisely the material he graded as having disputable authority. Both things are true at once, and Part I is where he says so.

same translation project as Pahlavi Texts, Part I — SBE Vol. 5 (trans. E. W. West, 1880)