SBE 05: Pahlavi Texts, Part 1 (E. W. West) — page scans

THE SACRED BOOKS — OF THE EAST

Volume 5

Pahlavi Texts

Part 1

The Bundahis, Bahman Yast, And Shayast La-Shayast

Edited by
Translated by
E.W. WEST ©

THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST

Translated by VARIOUS ORIENTAL SCHOLARS

Edited by F. MAX MULLER

Vol. 5

Sacred Books of the East

(50 VOLUMES)
Series Editor : F. Max-Miiller |
ISBN” 978-81-208-0101-1 (Set) % 37,500 (Each Vol. = 750 )

dj These volumes of the Sacred Books or the East series include translations of all the most important works of the seven non-Christian religions that have exercised a profound influence on the civilisations of the continent of Asia. The Vedic Brahmanic system claims 21 volumes, Buddhism 10, and Jainism 2;8 volumes comprise Sacred Books of the Parsis; 2 volumes represent Islam; and 6 the two main indigenous systems of China. Translated by twenty leading authorities in their respective fields, the volumes have been edited by the late F. Max Miller. The inception, publication and the compilation of these books cover almost 34 years.

I. BUDDHISM
Vol. 49: Buddhist Mahayana Texts (2 Parts)
Vol. 11: Buddhist Suttas
Vol. 10: The Dhammapada and Sutta Nipata
Vols. 35 & 36: The Questions of King Milinda (2 Parts)
Vol. 21: The Saddharma Pundarika or the Lotus of the True Law
Vols. 13, 17 & 20: Vinaya Texts (3 Parts)

Il. CHINESE
Vols. 3, 16, 27, 28, 39 & 40: The Sacred Books of China (6 Parts)
Vol. 19: The Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King

Ill. ISLAM Vols. 6 & 9: The Qur'an (2 Parts)

IV. JAINISM Vols. 22 & 45: The Jaina Sutras (2 Parts)

V. Parsis

Vols. 5, 18, 24, 37 & 47: Pahlavi Texts (5 Parts)

Vols. 4, 23 & 31: The Zend-Avesta (3 Parts)

Vol. 50: A General Index to the Names and Subject-matter of the Sacred Books of the East

Vi. Vedic-Brahmanic System

Vol. 8: The Bhagavadgita with the Sanatsujatiya and the Anugita

Vols. 29 & 30: The Grihya-Sutras: Rules of Vedic Domestic Ceremonies (2Parts)

Vol. 42: Hymns of the Atharva Veda together with Extracts from the Ritual Books and the Commentaries

Vol. 7: The Institutes of Vishnu

Vol. 25: The Laws of Manu

Vol. 33: The Minor Law Books

Vols. 2 & 14: The Sacred Laws of the Aryas as Taught in the Schools of Apastamba, Gautama, Vasishtha and Baudhayana (2 Parts)

Vols. 12, 26, 41, 43 & 44: The Satapatha Brahmana According to the Text of the Madhyandina School (5 Parts)

Vols. 1 & 15: The Upanishads (2 Parts)

Vols. 34 & 38: The Vedanta Sutras (2 Parts)

Vol. 48: The Vedanta-Sutras (with the commentary by Ramanuja)

Vols. 32 & 46: Vedic Hymns (2 Parts)

Pahlavi Texts

THE BUNDAHIS, BAHMAN YAST, AND SHAYAST LA-SHAYAST

Translated by

E.W. WEstT

Part I

MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LIMITED e DELHI

Reprint: Delhi, 1970, 1977, 1987, 1993, 2003, 201 0
First Indian Edition: Delhi, 1965
First Published in 1880 by Oxford University Press.

© MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LTD. All rights reserved

Isbn: 978-81-208-0106-6

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UNESCO COLECTION OF REPRESENTATIVE WORKS— Indian Series This book has been accepted in the Indian Translation Series of the INESCO Collection of Representative Works, jointly sponsored by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Government of India

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RASHTRAPATI BHAVAN,
New Decuti-4
June 10, 1962

I am very glad to know that the Sacred
Books of the East, published years ago by
the Clarendon Press, Oxford, which have
been out-of-print for a number of years,
will now be available to all students’ of
religion and philosophy. The _ enterprise
of the publishers is commendable and I
hope the books will be widely read.

S. Radhakrishnan

Publisher's Note

First, the man distinguished between eternal and perish-
able. Later he discovered within himself the germ of the
Eternal. This discovery was an epoch in the history of the
human mind and the East was the first to discover tt.

To watch in the Sacred Books of the East the dawn of this religious consciousness of man, must always remain one of the most inspiring and hallowing sights in the whole history of the world. In order to have a solid foundation for a comparative study of the Religions of the East, we must have before all things, complete and thoroughly faithful translation of their Sacred Books in which some of the ancient savings were preserved because they were so true and so striking that they could not be forgotten. They contained eternal truths, expressed for the first time in human language.

With profoundest reverence for Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, President of India, who inspired us for the task; our deep sense of gratitude for Dr. C. D. Deshmukh & Dr. D. S. Kothari, for encouraging assistance; esteemed appreciation of UNESCO for the warm endorsement of the cause ; and finally with indebtedness to Dr. H. Rau, Director, Max Miller Bhawan, New Delhi, in procuring us the texts of the Series for reprint, we humbly conclude.

Contents

INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
1. The Parsd Scriptures ; , ix
2.,The Pahlavi Language and Literature , xi
3. The Bundahis . ; , |
4. The Selections of Zad-sparam . . ' 5 ee
5. The Bahman Yast. ; ; : ; l
6. The Shayast la-shdyast . ; lix
7. Concluding Remarks . xvii
TRANSLATIONS.
BunpaHls , , , : i
SeELecTIons OF ZAD-sPARAM ; ; ; : .’ SES
Bauman YAST ; “tds , ' ; » » Bo
SHAYAST LA-SHAYAST yi Peto , ' ; . 237
Index . ; ; ; ; , ; ; - 407
Errata. ; : ‘ : : » <eee

Transliteration of Oriental Alphabets adopted for the Trans- lations of the Sacred Books of the East 435

Introduction

To

Nag SS Yt I WS. id BR

1. THE PARSI SCRIPTURES,

THOUGH we must look to the Avesta for information regarding the main outlines of the Parsi religion, it is to Pahlavi writings we must refer for most of the details relating to the traditions, ceremonies, and customs of this ancient faith, which styles itself emphatically ‘the good religion of the Mazdayasnians, and calls its laity bahdinan, or ‘those of the good religion.’ In the fragments of the Avesta which still exist, we may trace the solid foundations of the religion, laid by philosophic bards and lawgivers of old, with many a mouldering column and massive fragment of the superstructure erected upon them by the ancient priesthood. These are the last remnants of the faith held by Cyrus, the anointed of the Lord (Isaiah xlv. 1), the righteous one (Is. xli. 2), or eagle (Is. xlvi. 11), whom He called from the east, and the shepherd who performed His pleasure (Is. xliv. 28); scattered fragments of the creed professed by Darius in his inscriptions, when he attributes his successes to ‘the will of Atramazda;’ and mouldering ruins of the comparatively pure religion of oriental ‘bar- barism,’ which Alexander and his civilising Greek successors were unable wholly to destroy, and replace by their own idolatrous superstitions. While in the Pahlavi texts we find much of the medizval edifice built by later lersian priest- craft upon the old foundations, with a strange mixture of old and new materials, and exhibiting the usual symptom of declining powers, a strong insistence upon complex forms and minute details, with little of the freedom of treatment and simplicity of outline characteristic of the ancient bards.

X PAHLAVI TEXTS.

To understand the relationship between these two classes of Parsi sacred writings, it must be observed that the Avesta and Pahlavi of the same scripture, taken together, form its Avesta and Zand, terms which are nearly synonymous with ‘revelation and commentary.’ Both words are derived from verbal roots implying ‘ knowledge;’ Avesta being the Pahlavi avistak, which may most probably be traced to the past participle of a, ‘to, + vid, ‘to know.’ with the meaning of ‘what is announced’ or ‘ declaration ;’ and Zand, being the Pahlavi form of Av. zaizti (traceable in the word azaiztis), must be referred to the root zan, ‘to know,’ with the meaning of ‘ knowledge, understanding!.’ European scholars, misled probably by Muhammadan writers, have converted the phrase ‘Avesta and Zand’ into ‘Zend-Avesta,’ and have further identified Zand with the language of the Avesta. This use of the word Zand is, however, quite at variance with the practice of all Parsi writers who have been inde- pendent of European influence, as they apply the term Zand only to the Pahlavi translations and explanations of their sacred books, the original text of which they call Avesta. So that when they use the phrase ‘Avesta and Zand’ they mean the whole of any scripture, both the Avesta text and Pahlavi translation and commentary. And the latter, being often their only means of understanding the former, has now become of nearly equal authority with the Avesta itself. It is probable, indeed, that the first Zand was really written in the Avesta language, as we find many traces of such Avesta commentaries interpolated both in the Avesta and Pahlavi texts of the Parsi scriptures ; but this is rather a matter of European inference than of Parsi belief. The later (or Pahlavi) Zand appears also, in many places, to be merely a translation of this earlier (or Avesta) Zand, with additional explanations offered by the Pahlavi translators.

Regarding the saciedness of these Pahlavi translations, in the eyes of the Parsis, there can be no manner of doubt, so far as they cannot be shown to be inconsistent with the

' See Haug’s Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings, and Religion of the Parsis, second edition, London, 1878; pp. 121, 122.

Introduction. Ni

original Avesta text. But besides these translations there is another class of Pahlavi religious writings whose authority is more open to dispute. These writings are cither trans- lations and Zands of Avesta texts no longer extant, or they contain the opinions and decisions of high-priests of later times, when the Pahlavi language was on the decline. Such writings would hardly be considered of indisputable authority by any Parsi of the present day, unless they coincided with his own preconceived opinions, But for outsiders they have the inestimable value cither of supplying numcrous details of religious traditions and customs which would be vainly sought for elsewhere, or of being contemporary records of the religious ideas of the Parsis in the declining days of their Mazdayasnian faith. It is with a few of such writings this volume has to deal; but before describing them more minutely it will be desirable to give some account of the Pahlavi language in which they are written.

2. THE PAHLAVI LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

‘ The term ‘ Pahlavi,’ in its widest extent, is applied to all the varying forms of the medizval Persian language, from the time when the grammatical inflexions of ancient Persian were dropped, till the period when the modern alphabet was invented, and the language became corrupted into modern Persian by the adoption of numerous Arabic words and phrases. Some traces of Pahlavi words and phrases, writtén in old Semitic characters, have been found in the legends of coins struck by certain kings of Persian provinces, subordinate to the Greek successors of Alexander, as early as the third century B.c.! Further traces have been dis- covered in the legends on some provincial coins of the time of the Arsacidan dynasty. But, practically, our acquaintance with Pahlavi commences with the inscriptions, on rocks and coins, of Ardakhshir-i Papakan (A.D. 226-240), the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, and ends with ccrtair religious

1 See Levy’s Beitriige zur aramiischen Miinzkunde Eran’s, und zur Kunde der altern Pchlewi-Schrift ; Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlindischen Gesell- schaft, Leipzig, 1867 ; XXI, 421-465.

xii PAHLAVI TEXTS.

writings of priests and other devout Parsis of post-Muham- madan times, among the latest of which is one dated.a.Y 250 (A.D. 881). Any fragments of Pahlavi composition of later date than A.D. 1000, must be considered merely as modern imitations of a dead language, and cannot be quoted as authorities for the use of any particular Pahlavi words construction. ,