Zend Avesta Part 01

SR No.: 007671
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1895
Total Pages: 2695
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 564

lvi
PAHLAVI TEXTS.
reign of Adharmazd IV, the son and successor of Khasrð Nôshirvan, together with the prowess of the famous Persian general Bahram Kopîn, which drove out all invaders. This writer evidently expected the reign of the demon-races to last less than a century, but still at some period in the near future; merely illustrating his theme by details of the disasters and wars of his own time. Thirdly, we find it stated (III, 44) that Hashedar will be born in 1600, which seems to mean the sixteen hundredth year of Zaratůst's millennium, or six hundredth of his own (say A.D. 11931235), also that the reign of the demon-races is to last a thousand years (III, 34), and that Pêshyôtand does not come to restore the religion till near the end of the millennium (III, 51); it also appears (III, 49) that Vargåvand occupies a prominent position when Hashêdar comes from his conference with Adharmazd at thirty years of age (III, 44, 45). Such details were probably inserted by the compiler of the epitome, who had to admit the facts that the reign of the demon-races had already lasted for centuries, and that Hashedar had not yet appeared. To get over these difficulties he probably adopted the opinions current in his day, and postponed the advent of Húshedar till the beginning of the next century in his millennium, and put off the destruction of the wicked, as a more hopeless matter, till near the end of the millennium. Both these periods are now long since past, and the present Zoroastrians have still to postpone the fulfilment of the prophecies connected with their last three apostles, or else to understand them in a less literal fashion than heretofore.
For the Pahlavi text of the Bahman Yast the translator has to rely upon the single old manuscript K20, already described (p. xxvii), in which it occupies the 13! folios immediately following the Bundahis; these folios are much worn, and a few words have been torn off some of them, but nearly all of these missing words can be restored by aid of the Pazand version. The Pahlavi text is also found in the modern copies of K20 at Paris and Kopenhagen, but these copies (P7 and K21) have no authority independent of K20. In India this text has long been exceedingly rare,
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