* Saturn revolves round the sun in about 29 years and 167 days, so it cannot return into opposition to the sun (or to its maximum brightness), at or near the vernal equinox, in less than thirty years.
* That is, while Saturn performs one revolution round the sun, Jupiter performs two and a half, which is very nearly correct, as Jupiter revolves round the sun in about 11 years and 315 days. Therefore, when the supposed deadly influence of Saturn has returned to its maximum, the supposed reviving influence of Jupiter is at its minimum, owing to the small altitude of Capricornus, and no longer counterbalances the destructive power of Saturn.
' There seems to be no other reasonable translation, but the MS. has 14 instead of rai, and niskasp instead of nistv.
Selections of Zad-Sparam, Iv, 9-V, 4. 167
—_— SSS...
CHAPTER V.
tr. When in like manner, and equally oppressively,
as his (Aftharmazd’s) creatures were disfigured, then
through that same deterioration his own great glory
was exhibited; for as he came within the sky' he
maintains the spirit of the sky, like an intrepid war-
rior who has put on metal armour ?; and the sky in
its fortress* spoke these hasty, deceitful words to
Aharman, thus: ‘ Now when thou shalt have come
in I we/? not let thee back;’ axd it obstructed Aim
until Adharmazd prepared another rampart, that is
stronger, around the sky, whzch is called ‘righteous
understanding’ (ashék 4kd4sih). 2. And he ar-
ranged the guardian spirits‘ of the righteous who
are warriors around that rampart, mounted on horses
and spear in hand, in such manner as the hair on
the head; and they acquired the appearance of
prison guards who watch a prison from outside, and
would not surrender the outer boundaries 4 an
enemy descended from the inside.
3. Immediately, Aharman endeavours that he
may go back to his own complete darkness, but
he found no passage; and he recapitulated, with
seeming misgiving, his fears of the worthiness
which is to arise at the appearance of‘the renova-
tion of the universe at the end of the nine thousand
years.
4. As it is said in the Gathas, thus®: ‘So also
1 See Chap. ITI, 2. * Compare Bund. VI, 2
§ Or ‘ zodiacal signs,’ for birg6é means both.
* Bund. VI, 3, 4.
’ This quotation from the Gathas is from the Pahlavi Yas. XXX, 4, and agrees with the Pahlavi text, given in Dastir Jam-
168 APPENDIX TO THE BUNDAHIS.
both those spirits have approached together unto
that which was the first creation—that is, both
spirits have come to the body of Gayémard. What-
ever is in life zs so through this purpose of Afthar-
mazd, that is: So that I may keep it alive ; what-
ever is in lifelessness zs so through this purpose! of
the evil spirit, that is: So that I may utterly destroy
it; and whatever is thus, is so until the last in
the world, so that they (both spirits) come also on
to the rest of mankind. And on account of the
utter depravity of the wicked ¢hezr destruction is
fully seen, avd so is the perfect meditation of him
who is righteous, the hope of the eternity of
Atharmazd.’
5. And this was the first contest *, that of the sky © with Aharman.
CuaPpTer VI.
1. And as he (Aharman) came secondly to the
water, together with him rushed in, oz the horse
Cancer, he who is the most watery ‘istar; the
equally watery ove, that is called Avrak*, gave
forth a cloud azd went down in the day; that is
Aspji’s old MS. of the Yasna in Bombay, very nearly as closely as Spiegel’s edition does. It appears, therefore, that. Zid-sparam used the same Pahlavi translation of the Yasna as the Parsis do at the present day.
" The MS. here omits the words ‘through this purpose,’ by mistake.
® The word Ardik, which Zfd-sparam uses instead of the
kharah, ‘conflict,’ of Bund. V, 6, VI, 1, &c., may be connected
with Pers. ard, ‘ anger.’
* The ninth lunar mansion (see Bund. II, 3, VU, 1)..
Selections of Zad-Sparam, V, 5~Vi, 7. 169
declared as the movement of the first-comers of the
creatures. 2. Cancer became a zodiacal constella-
tion (akhtar); it is the fourth constellation of ‘he
zodiac for this reason, because the month Tir is the
fourth month of the year’.
3. And as Tistar begged for assistance, Vohd-
man and Hém are therefore co-operating with him
in command, Birg of the waters and the water in
mutual aid, and the righteous guardian spirits in
keeping the peace. 4. He was converted into three
forms, which are the form of a man, the form of a
bull, azd the form of a horse; and each form was
distinguished in brilliance for ten nights, and lets its
rain fall on the night for the destruction of noxious
creatures. 5. [The drops became each separately
“ike a great bowl in which water is drawn; and as
to that on wfzch they are driven, they kill all the
noxious creatures except the reptiles *, who entered
into the muddiness of the earth.
6. Afterwards, the wind spirit, in the form of a
man, became manifest on the earth; radiant evd tall
he had a kind of wooden boot (mtkv6-aé-i darind)
on Azs feet ; axd as when the life shall stir the body,
the body is advancing with like vigour, so that spirit
of the wind stirs forth the inner nature of the atmo-
spheric wind, the wind pertaining to the whole earth
is forth, and the water in its grasp is flung out from
it to the sides of the earth, and its wide-formed
ocean arose therefrom.
7. It (the océan) keeps one-third of this earth °,
1 Bund. VII, 2-6 is paraphrased in §$ 2-6.
® Reading nekstiind baré min khasandakané instead of the MS. bara nastind min khasandakana,
> Compare Bund, XIII, 1, 2,
170 APPENDIX TO THE BUNDAHIS.
and among its contents are a thousand sources avd
fountains, such as are called lakes (var); a thousand
water-fountains, whose water is from the ocean,
come up from the lakes avd are poured forth into
it. 8. And the size of some of all the lakes and all
the fountains of water is as much as a fast rider on
an Arab horse, wo continually compasses avd can-
ters around ¢em, will attain in forty days, which is
1900' long leagues (parasang-i akarik), each
league deing at least 20,000 feet.
9. And after the noxious creatures died ?, and the
poison therefrom was mixed up in the earth, in
order to utterly destroy that poison Tistar went
down into the ocean; and Apdadsh, the demon,
hastened to meet him, and aé the alarm of the first
contest Tistar was in terror (pard). 10. And he
applied unto Atharmazd, who brought such power
unto Tistar as arises through propitiation and praise
and invoking by name®, and they call forth such
power unto Tistar as /4at of ten vigorous horses,
ten vigorous camels, ten vigorous bulls, ten moun-
tains when hurled, and ten single-stream rivers
when together. 11. And without alarm he drove
out Apadsh, the demon, and kept him away from
the sources of the ocean.
12. And with a cup and measuring bowl, which
possessed the diligence even of a guardian spirit
(fravahar), he seized many more handfuls of water,
———— Ss
* Bund. XIII, 2 has 1700, but as neither number is a multiple of forty in round numbers, it is probable that both are wrong, and that we ought to read 1600,
* Bund. VII, 7-14 is paraphrased in §§ 9-14.
* The Av, aokht6-namama yasna of Tistar Yt. 11, 23, 24.
SELECTIONS OF ZAD-SPARAM, VI, 8~17. 17!
and made z¢ rain down! much more prodigiously,
for destruction, drops as large as men’s heads and
bulls’ heads, great and small. 13. And in that cloud
and rain were the chastisement avd beating which
Tistar and the fire Vazist zxflicted on the opposition
of Apadsh; the all-deciding (visp6-vifir) fire Vazist
struck down with a club of fire, all-deciding among
the malevolent (kébaran6).
14. Ten days axd nights there was rain, and its
darting *? was the shooting of the noxious creatures ;
afterwards, the wind drove z¢ to the shore of the
wide-formed ocean, and it is portioned out into
three, and three seas arose from it; they are called
the Puitik, the Kamirid, and the Géhan-bin®*®. 15.
Of these the Pditik itself is salt water, in which is
a flow aud ebb*; and the control of its flow and
ebb is connected with the moon, and by its con-
tinual rotation, in coming up azd going down, that
of the moon is manifested. 16. The wide-formed
ocean stands forth on the south side as to (pavan)
Albarz*, and the Pditik stands contiguous to it, and
amidst it is the gulf (var) of Satavés, whose con-
nection is with Satavés, which is the southern
quarter. 17. In the activity of the sea, and in the
increase and decrease of the moon, whose circuit
is the whole of Iran, are the flow avd ebb; of the
1 Or perhaps ‘made the cloud rain,’ if madam varaninid stands for avar varaninid.
® Reading partav instead of the MS. patifitaz, ‘ powerful fury.’
5 This is a variant of the Saht-bfin or Gahi-biin of Bund. XIII, 7,15; the other two names differ but little from those given in Bund. XIII. In the MS. Paittk occurs once, and Puitik twice.
* Compare §§ 15-18 with Bund. XIII, 8-14.
> Compare Bund. XIII, 1.
¥72 APPENDIX TO THE BUNDAHIS.
curving tails in front of the moon two issue forth,
and have an abode in Satavés; one is the up-
drag azd one the down-drag; through the up-drag
occurs the flood, azd through the down-drag occurs
the ebb. 18. And Satavés itself is a gulf (var)
and side arm of the wide-formed ocean, for it drives
back the impurity azd turbidness which come from
the salt sea, when they are continually going into
the wide-formed ocean, with a mighty high wind?,
while that which is clear through purity goes into
the Arédvisir sources of the wide-formed ocean.
19. Besides these four * there are the small seas *.
20. And, afterwards, ‘here were made to flow from
Albfirz, out of its northern border, two rivers®, which
were the Arvand ‘—that is, the Diglit, azd the flow
* This is even a more mechanical theory of the tides than that detailed in Bund. XIII, 13. Whether the ‘ curving tails’ (gagak dunbak) are the ‘horns’ of the crescent moon is uncertain.
* By an accidental transposition of letters the MS. has Ataré, ‘fire,’ instead of vaté, ‘ wind.’
* The ocean and three principal seas.
* Said to be twenty-three in number in Bund. XIII, 6.
® Bund. VII, 15, 16, XX, 1.
* This appears to be a later identification of the Arag, Arang, or Aréng river of Bund. XX with the Tigris, under its name Arvand, which is also found in the Bahman Yast (III, 21, 38) and the Afrin of the Seven Ameshdspends ($9). The Bundahis (XX, 8) seems to connect the Arag (Araxes?) with the Oxus and Nile, and describes the Diglat or Tigris as a distinct river (Bund. XX, 12). This difference is one of the indications of the Bundahis having been so old a book in the time of Zéd-sparam that he sometimes misunderstood its meaning, which could hardly have been the case if it had been written by one of his contemporaries. As the Persian empire has several times included part of Egypt, the Nile must have then been well known to the Persians as the great western river of their world, The last time they had possession of part of Egypt was, for about half a century, in the reigns of Khusré
Selections of Zad-Sparam, Vi, I18—Vii, I. 173
ee
of that river was to those of the setting sux (val
frdd-yehevundand)—and the Véh! was the river
of the first-comers to the sun; formed as two horns
they went on to the ocean. 21. After them eigh-
teen * great rivers came out from the same Albarz;
and these twenty rivers, whose source is in Albarz,
go down into the earth, and arrive in Khvaniras.
22. Afterwards, two fountains of the sea are
opened out for the earth*, which are called the
Kékast*—a lake which has no cold wind, azd on
whose shore rests the triumphant fire Gdsnasp'—
and, secondly, the Sévar® which casts on 7/s shores
all turbidness, and keeps its own salt lake clear and
pure, for it is like the semblance of an eye which
casts out to z/s edges every ache and every im-
purity ; and on account of its depth it is not reached
to the bottom, for it goes into the ocean; and in its
vicinity rests the beneficial fire Barzin-Mitré *.
23. And this was the second contest, which was with the water.
CuarptTer VII.
