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

As the work now stands it is evidently of a fragmentary character, bearing unmistakable marks both of omissions and dislocations; and the extant manuscripts, as will be seen, differ among themselves both as to the extent and arrangement of the text. Many passages have the appear- ance of being translations from an Avesta original, and it is very probable that we have in the Bundahis either a translation, or an epitome, of the Damdad Nask, one of the twenty-one books into which the whole of the Zoroas- trian scriptures are said to have been divided before the time of Darius. This may be guessed from a comparison of the contents of the Bundahis with those of the Damdad Nask, which are detailed in the Dini-vagarkard as fol- lows':—‘It contained an explanation of the spiritual existence and heaven, good and evil, the material existence of this world, the sky and the earth, and everything which Atharmazd produced in water, fire, and vegetation, men and quadrupeds, reptiles and birds, and everything which is produced from the waters, and the characteristics of all things. Secondly, the production of the resurrection and future existence; the concourse and separation at the Kinvad bridge; on the reward of the meritorious and the punishment of sinners in the future existence, and such-like explanations.’ Moreover, the Damdad Nask is twice quoted as an authority in the Selections of Zad- sparam (IX, 1, 16), when treating of ‘animals, in nearly the same words as those used in the Bundahis,

The first manuscript of the Bundahis seen in Europe
was brought from Surat by Anquetil Duperron in 1761,
and he published a French translation of it in his great
work on the Zend-Avesta in 1771%. This manuscript,

* See Haug’s Essays, &c., second edition, pp. 127, 128.
* Zend-Avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre, &c., par Anquetil Duperron; Paris,
1771, Tome seconde, pp. 343-422, Boun-dehesch.

Int Koduction, Xxv

i re eee —

which is now in the National Library at Paris, was a modern copy, written A.D. 1734, and contained a miscel- laneous collection of Pahlavi writings besides the Bundahis. And Anquetil’s translation, though carefully prepared in accordance with the information he had obtained from his Parsi instructor, is very far from giving the correct meaning of the original text in many places.

In 1820 the very old codex from which Anquetil’s MS. had been copied was brought to Europe, from Bombay, by the Danish scholar Rask, and was subsequently de- posited in the University Library at Kopenhagen. This most important codex, which will be more particularly described under the appellation of K20, appears to have beén written during the latter half of the fourteenth century; and a facsimile of the Pahlavi text of the Bundahis, which it contains, was very carefully traced from it, lithographed, and published by Westergaard in 1851'.

In a review of this lithographed edition of the Pahlavi text, published in the Goéttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen in 18547, Haug gave a German translation of the first three chapters of the Bundahis. And Spiegel, in his Traditional Literature of the Parsis*, published in 1860 a German translation of many passages in the Bundahis, together with a transcript of the Pahlavi text of Chaps. I, II, III, and XXX in Hebrew characters. But the complete German translation of the Bundahis by Windischmann, with his commentary on its contents, published in his Zoroastrian Studies* in 1863, was probably the most important step in advance since the time of Anquetil, and the utmost

1 Bundehesh, Liber Pehlvicus. E vetustissimo codice Havniensi descripsit, duas inscriptiones regis Saporis Primi adjecit, N. L. Westerg ard; Haynie, 1851,

2 Ueber die Pehlewi-Sprache und den Bundehesh, von Martin Haug; Got- tingen, 1854.

3 Die Traditionelle Literatur der Parsen in ihrem Zusaminenhange mit den angranzenden Literaturen, dargestellt von Fr. Spiegel ; Wien, 1860.

* Zoroastriche Studien. Abhandlungen zur Mythologie und Sagengeschichte des alten Iran, von Fr. Windischmann (nach dem Tode des Verfassers heraus- gegeben von Fr, Spiegel) ; Berlin, 1863.

XXVI PAHLAVI TEXTS.

that could be done on the authority of a single MS. which is far from perfect. ?

In 1866 another very old codex, containing the Pahlavi
texts of the Bundahis and other works, was brought to
Europe by Haug, to whom it had been presented at Surat
in 1864. It is now in the State Library at Munich, and
will be more minutely described under the appellation of
M6. In this codex the Bundahis is arranged in a different
order from that in K20, and Chaps. XXVIII, XXIX, and
XXXI-XXXIII are omitted.

A second complete German translation of the Bundahis, with a lithographed copy of the Pahlavi text, a trans- literation of the text in modern Persian characters, and a glossary of all the words it contains, was published by Justi in 18681. Its author, having had access to other MSS. (descended from M6) at London and Oxford, was able to rectify many of the deficiencies in Windischmann’s translation ; but, otherwise, he made but little progress in elucidating difficult passages.

Other European writers have published the result of
their studies of particular parts of the Bundahis, but it
does not appear that any of them have attempted a con-
tinuous translation of several chapters.

Whether the existence of previous translations be more of an assistance than a hindrance in preparing a new one, may well be a matter of doubt. Previous translations may prevent oversights, and in difficult passages it is useful to see how others have floundered through the mire; but, on the other hand, they occasion much loss of time, by the necessity of examining many of their dubious render- ings before finally fixing upon others that seem more satisfactory. The object of the present translation is to give the meaning of the original text as literally as pos- sible, and with a minimum of extra words; the different renderings of other translators being very rarely noticed, unless there be some probability of their being of service a aI SAIN edd ied a 2 he is ens one wee

Der Bundehesh, zum ersten Male herausgegeben, transcribirt, iibersetzt, und mit Glossar versehen, von Ferdinand Justi; Leipzig, 1868,

Introduction, Xxvii

to the reader. Some doubtful words and passages still
defy all attempts at satisfactory solution, but of these the
reader is warned; .and, no doubt, a few oversights and
mistakes will be discovered.

K20 is the very old codex already mentioned as having been brought from Bombay by Rask in 1820, and is now No. 20 of the collection of Avesta and Pahlavi MSS. in the University Library at Kopenhagen. It consists now of 173 folios of very old and much-worn Indian paper of large octavo size, but five other folios are certainly missing, besides an uncertain number lost from the end of the volume. This MS. contains twenty Pahlavi texts, written twenty lines to the page, and some of them accompanied by Avesta; the Bundahis is the ninth of these texts, and occupies fols, 88-129, of which fol. 121 is missing. Three of the texts, occurring before the Bundahis, have dated colophons, but the dates are A.Y. 690, 720, and 700, all within 36 folios; it is, therefore, evident that these dates have been copied from older MSS.; but at the same time the appearance of the paper indicates that the actual date of the MS. cannot be much later than A.Y. 720 (A.D. 1351), and there are reasons for believing that it was written several years before A. Y. 766 (A.D. 1397), as will be ex- plained in the description of M6. Owing to its age and comparative completeness this MS. of the Bundahis is certainly the most important one extant, aithough com- parison with other MSS. proves that its writer was rather careless, and frequently omitted words and phrases. The

XXVIII PAHLAVI TEXTS.

loss of fol. 121, though it has hitherto left an inconve- nient gap in the text (not filled up by other MSS.), is more than compensated by the three extra chapters which this MS. and its copies have hitherto alone supplied. The text on the lost folio was supposed by Anquetil to have contained a whole chapter besides portions of the two adjacent ones; this is now known to be a mistake, An- quetil’s Chap. XXVIII being quite imaginary ; the end of Chap. XXVII has long been supplied from other MSS., but the beginning of the next chapter has hitherto been missing.

Only two copies of K20 appear to be known to Eu- ropeans ; the best of these is the copy brought from Surat by Anquetil, No. 7 of his collection of manuscripts, now in the National Library at Paris; this was tvritten in A.D. 1734, when K20 appears to have been nearly in its present imperfect state, though it may have had some 15 folios more at the end. This copy seems to have been carefully written; but the same cannot be said of the other copy, No. 21 in the University Library at Kopenhagen, which is full of blunders, both of commission and omission, and can hardly have been written by so good a Pahlavi scholar as Dastir Darab, Anquetil’s instructor, although attributed to him.

' Tam indebted to the late Professor N, L. Westergaard for all information

about this MS., and also for a tracing of the Pahlavi text of so much of Chap. XXXI as is contained in it,

XXX PAHLAVI TEXTS.

There are also several PAzand manuscripts of the Bun-

Introduction. Xxxi

dahis, written in Avesta characters, and likewise derived from M6. One of the best of these is No. 22 of the collec- tion of Avesta and Pahlavi MSS. in the India Office Library at London; it is old, and has the date a.Y. 936 (A.D. 1567) in a Pahlavi colophon on fol. 111, but this may have been copied from an older MS.; its contents are arranged as follows :—Chaps. XVIII-XXIII, I-XIV, XXIV-XXVII, XXX, XXXII, XXXIV, followed by several short Pazand texts, only part of which are derived from M6, and the last of them being left incomplete by the loss of the folios which originally formed the end of the volume; instead of these lost folios others, containing Chaps. XV-XVII, have been added and bound up with the rest. Another MS., No. 7 in the same collection, which is dated A.Y. 1174 (A.D. 1805), is a modern copy derived from No. 22 through one or more intervening MSS.'; it contains precisely the same text, but with many variations in orthography, indicative of the very uncertain character of Pazand spelling. Two fragments of the Pazand text are also contained in the MSS. No. 121 at Oxford, already mentioned ; they consist of Chaps. V, 3-7 (to ‘would have known the secret’) and XXV, 18-22. Another fragment, evidently copied from an old MS., is found on fols. 34, 35 of the Rivayat MS. No. 8 of the col- lection in the India Office Library ; it consists of Chap. XVIII, 1-8.

The Pazand text of the Bundahis, derived from M6, is also written in Persian characters in M7 (No, 7 of the Haug collection at Munich), dated A.Y. 1178 (A.D. 1809). It is interlined by Persian glosses, word for word, and consists of Chaps. XVIII-XXIII, I-XIV, XXIV-XXVII, and XXX on fols. 81-119, with Chaps. XV-XVII on fols. 120- 126, a repetition of Chap. XV and part of XVI on fols. 223-227, and Chap. XXXII on fol. 232.

Thus far, it will be noticed, we have two good indepen- dent authorities, K20-and M6, for ascertaining the text of the Bundahis in the fourteenth century, so far as Chaps. I-

1 This is proved by an omission in fol, 40, which clearly indicates the loss of a folio in an intermediate MS.

XXXil PAHLAVI TEXTS.

TD is a manuscript of the Bundahis which contains a much more extensive text than the MSS. already described, but whether it be an extension of the hitherto-received text, or the received text be an abridgement of this longer one, is likely to be a matter of dispute among Pahlavi scholars until the whole of the new text has been thoroughly examined. At any rate, the contents of this MS., combined with those of some MSS. of the Dadistan-i Dinik, afford a means of fixing the date of this recension of the Bundahis, as will be seen hereafter.