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III. The Pahlavi Texts of Yasna LXX (Sp. LXIX), for the first time critically treated*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2017

Extract

To those (Supreme Persons) do I sacrifice; to them do I come on for friendly aid, who are the Amešaspentas, who rule aright, who establish (all things) well; (2) and to that Chief would I take up (or ‘celebrate’ my song), to that God and ritual Chief do I sacrifice who is Auharmazd, (3) the Creator, the Rejoicer, the Producer of every benefit. (4) And I sacrifice to the Chief who is Zartušt, the Spitāmān.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1908

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Footnotes

*

Translations into Parsi-Persian and Gujarati, from texts uncollated and otherwise of an uncritical character, have alone preceded this. The Pahlavi text of this section has been carefully prepared with all the MSS. collated, and will appear in due course

References

page 39 note 1 Correctly conjecturing a tãn, for the tãm of some MSS.Google Scholar

page 39 note 2 Here, however, in error, as ‘tem’ refers anticipatively to Ahurem-.Google Scholar

page 39 note 3 Av' is an error, as aēša is nom.Google Scholar

page 39 note 4 A 1st singular was erroneously seen here, perhaps to carry on the thoughts of yažāai and of yasāi. As gereñte was mistaken, it was probably thought to mean ‘take’, to a ‘gir’; so, rather than ‘make’, vebedunam-ē; we had better read vaxdūnam-ē, same characters; the Pers., however, has avar kunam.Google Scholar

page 39 note 5 Did the translator fail to see that Ahura was one of the Amešaspentas? The original passage is particularly interesting as to this point.Google Scholar

page 39 note 6 The Pers. has nişmat for šzšdīh (or avādīh) = vōhu; arŠa should properly be read for aŠa throughout.Google Scholar

page 40 note 1 AŠīm was not mistaken for an ace. of aŠi = aŠim, possibly of another accent. The Pers. also renders aŠō; though I do not think this quite decisive. The is the Pahlavi sign for ‘y’, here again occurring in the middle of an Av. word, as having also its inherent vowel ‘a’. There is no such word as aŠīm here present; the form is aŠyam, an ace. sg. maso.; see Z.D.M.G., Oct., 1898.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 I can only suggest an an-avar-uxti here, the ‘u’ in -avaur being the result of epenthetic anticipation of the following ‘u’ in uxti, ‘the most non-irreligious’ (sic), ‘a’ priv- before var— ‘the one having no irreligious speech’; ‘who does not express himself in an unorthodox manner’. The Persian reads arānagī, translating bī-āzār- ? + bī-ranzīdah (so); while the gloss to Visp. x, 10, would suggest the further idea of a ‘not un. Iranianism’ (?); anarānakīh to be read here ?Google Scholar

page 40 note 3 The Persian has kunam = ‘I make invitation’, ‘I invite’.Google Scholar

page 40 note 4 I cannot always accede to the meaning ‘holy’ for speñta = afzūnīg, but ‘bounteous’ alone hardly conveys the idea; ‘beatifying with prosperity’, ‘sacred good fortune’, seem to be the ideas involved. ‘Holy’, with the most, has, on the other hand, seemed to me to be too credulous.Google Scholar

page 41 note 1 Is it ‘of the XXX? provinces’; hardly; see the l-k or r-k recurring; see also the Persian . Was this ‘lak’, however, accidentally occasioned by the foregoing letters –tō, -tū? Lak seems to render the Avesta vā as ‘vǻ’.Google Scholar

page 41 note 2 Recalling Y. XXXIII, 9.Google Scholar

page 41 note 3 Recalling Y. XXX, 9.Google Scholar

page 41 note 4 Referring to the vāzištō … astiš of XXXI, 22.Google Scholar

page 41 note 5 Here I suggest as alternative reconstruction of the original: ‘who (read yōi) with the good thoughts of the holy man thinking, with the ood words of the holy man speaking, and with the good deeds of the holy man acting. … ’ Or, otherwise again, putting mainimna (mainyamana) in the sg.; read -, to smooth the sense.Google Scholar

Nothing is more erroneous than to refrain from restoring texts, which is the chief business of reproduction; no texts of any kind exist which are perfect. Our incipient confidence is illusive; approximation only is o be expected.

page 41 note 6 So, as the original in yaθā, čēgōn is better rendered in this sense, here avoiding the interrogative.Google Scholar

page 41 note 7 Recalling Y. XLIV, 1, and Y. XLIV, 8, so mistaking only the immediate subject.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 Here interrogative; see Y. XLIV, 8e.Google Scholar

page 42 note 2 It is interesting to notice that fravāmešn', rather than franāmešn', is here indicated by the sense of frāitīm; so also the Persian Pahl. text writes fravāmešn, but it has a curious Persian transl. pah mašhūr (so), as if the utterance of vocal doctrinal expressions were seen; mašhūr renders āfrīnagān, etc., at times.Google Scholar

page 42 note 3 A repetition from 16 and 17.Google Scholar

page 42 note 4 The Pers. transl. has pazīrah raftan.Google Scholar

page 42 note 5 One might suppose that the ‘tides’ were referred to, but the localities were inland.Google Scholar

page 42 note 6 Jareitīm is here referred to a jar = ‘gar’, ‘to seize’; so the Pers. translates gīrišnī; I still prefer ‘their roar’, as in S.B.E. xxxi, 1887; ‘their “taking-up” in vapour’ would be too advanced.Google Scholar

page 42 note 7 This translation may indeed possibly be correct in essence, as the word may in fact refer to ‘ladies’, but the form of its translation was probably, if not evidently, an error owing to the same common mistake, which I have so often endeavoured to rectify. The long ‘ī’ of Ҳsarθīm is one of those relics of the original Pahlavi-Avesta signs, which I find to be so frequent in the Avesta-writing; in the original Pahl. -Avesta it equals y, as well as ī, d, g, etc.; and it has here its inherent vowel ‘a’ (or ‘e’), as so often. The word is xšaθriyam (or ‘-yem’), of course agreeing with ‘ahurem’, acc. sg. masc., though this last word shows an interesting case where ‘ahura’ does not refer to ‘Ahura Mazda’; xšaθrīm as acc. sg. masc. is as impossible as an ašīm of that force, or as a hatīm, etc.; see again Z.D.M.G., Oct., 1898, etc., and the previous article.Google Scholar

Xša¸riyem may, however, exactly mean ‘appertaining to the protection of ladies’. I preferred, however, in S. B. E. to avoid this opportunity to follow tradition.

page 43 note 1 The ‘brilliant’ one postulates a meaning ‘to lighten’ in the root of xšaētem; this I can hardly accept, though ‘brilliant’ is well enough adapted to the context here.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 Sraoša understood in this sense; see also 21, not as mere ‘hearing’, however, but as accepted ‘hearing‘; the ‘heeding’ on the part of God regarded as the object of the sacrifice, while sraoša also elsewhere undoubtedly means ‘the heeding on the part of man’, and even ‘toward man’; see the Gāthas, Y. XLV, 5.Google Scholar

page 43 note 3 The aīt = ‘is’ shows a failure to notice the imperative in astu; ‘let this heeding be … ’ Was asti read, as in some MSS., for astu? In one ‘good’ MS., K. 4 (?), I think, all the ū's are written as î's.Google Scholar

page 43 note 4 So, far better than ‘eminent from His Holiness’; if we can avoid this last; see also zag. ī mas., ‘even more closely attentive than Aša’; ‘the most (fully) arrived from Aša’ would invert the relation; Ahura is the subject; God would not so naturally be so referred to.Google Scholar

page 43 note 5 The idea of ‘anticipated information’ is elsewhere prominent.Google Scholar

page 43 note 6 The traditional sayings.Google Scholar

page 43 note 7 So the most MSS. with the original; but B. om. the ī.Google Scholar

page 43 note 8 As if the whole Avesta, together with its commentaries, were from Zartušt, whereas we should have correctly ‘O Zartušt’; see the original.Google Scholar

page 43 note 9 Hardly ‘his’ deeds here; see the future referred to.Google Scholar