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 573

INTRODUCTION.
Ixv
interference of the governing powers with the religion or priesthood, it is probable that they were written before the Muhammadan conquest (A.D. 636-651), although they do not mention the existence of any 'king of the kings,' the usual title of the Sasanian monarchs. And this probability is increased by there being no direct mention of Muhammadanism among the contemporary religions named in Chap. VI, 7, unless we assume that passage to be a quotation from an earlier book. We may, therefore, conclude, with tolerable certainty, that the Pahlavi text of the first two parts of the present translation of the Shâyast låshảyast was compiled some time in the seventh century; but, like the Bundahis and Bahman Yast, it was, for the most part, a compilation of extracts and translations from far older writings, and may also have been rearranged shortly after the Muhammadan conquest.
The fragments which are collected in the appendix, or third part of the present translation, are probably of various ages, and several of them may not be more than seven centuries old. The commentator Bakht-âfrid, whose work (now lost) is quoted in Chap. XX, 11, may have lived in the time of Khasrô Nôshirvân (see B. Yt. I, 7). And Chap. XXI must certainly have been written in Persia, as the lengths of noonday shadows which it mentions are only suitable for 32° north latitude. As regards the last two chapters we have no evidence that they are quite five centuries old.
For the Pahlavi text of the Shayast lâ-shầyast and its appendix we have not only the very old codex M6 (see p. xxix) for the whole of it, but also the equally old codex K20 (see p. xxvii) for all but Chaps. XV-XVII, XX, XXII, and XXIII in the appendix. In M6 the first two parts are separated by twenty folios, containing the Farhang-i Oîmkhaduk, and the second part is separated from the first three chapters of the appendix by four folios, containing the Patit-i Khad; the next three chapters of the appendix are from the latter end of the second volume of M6, Chap. XXI is from the middle of the same, and the last two chapters are from some additional folios at the beginning of the
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