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134
VENDIDAD.
'Say aloud those words in the Gathas that are to be said thrice!
'Say aloud those words in the Gâthas that are to be said four times?.
And the Drug shall fly away like the well-darted arrow, like the felt of last year, like the annual garment of the earth.'
III. 47 (172). O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! If a man who does not know the rites of cleansing according to the law of Mazda, offers to cleanse the unclean, how shall I then fight against that Drug who from the dead rushes upon the living? How shall I fight against that Drug who from the dead defiles the living ?
48 (175). Ahura Mazda answered: Then, O Spitama Zarathustra! the Drug Nasu appears to wax stronger than she was before. Stronger then are sickness and death and the working of the fiend than they were before ?'
49 (177). O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! What is the penalty that he shall pay ?
Ahura Mazda answered: “The worshippers of Mazda shall bind him; they shall bind his hands first; then they shall strip him of his clothes, they shall cut the head off his neck, and they shall give over his corpse unto the greediest of the corpse
i The Thris-âmrûta and Kathrus-âmrûta formulas, as enumerated in the following Fargard.
? The felt of an oba made for a season (?). Cf. Farg. VIII, 1. 8 The grass. • The plague and contagion are stronger than ever.
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