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 707

CHAPTER XXX, 12-19.
125
his friend, they suffer, every one for his own deeds, and weep, the righteous for the wicked, and the wicked about himself; for there may be a father who is righteous and a son wicked, and there may be one brother who is righteous and one wicked. 16. Those for whose peculiar deeds it is appointed, such as Dahâk and Frâsiyâv of Tar, and others of this sort, as those deserving death (marg-argânân), undergo a punishment no other men undergo; they call it'the punishment of the three nights 1.'
17. Among his producers of the renovation of the universe, those righteous men of whom it is written 2 that they are living, fifteen men and fifteen damsels, will come to the assistance of Sôshyans. 18. As Gôkihar 3 falls in the celestial sphere from a moonbeam on to the earth, the distress of the earth becomes such-like as that of a sheep when a wolf falls upon it. 19. Afterwards, the fire and halo 4 melt the metal of Shatvatro, in the hills and mountains, and it remains on this earth like a river.
1 According to the Pahlavi Vend. VII, 136 (p. 96, Sp.) it appears that a person who has committed a marg-argân or mortal sin, without performing patît or renunciation of sin thereafter, remains in hell till the future existence, when he is brought out, beheaded three times for each mortal sin unrepented of, and then cast back into hell to undergo the punishment tishrãm khshafnãm (' of the three nights') before he becomes righteous; some say, however, that this punishment is not inflicted for a single mortal sin. This period of three nights' punishment is quite a different matter from the three nights' hovering of the soul about the body after death.
. See Chap. XXIX, 5, 6. As the text stands in the MSS. it is uncertain whether the fifteen men and fifteen damsels are a portion of these righteous immortals, or an addition to them.
Probably a meteor (see Chap. V, 1). • Reading khîrman; M6 has the fire and angel Aîrman (Av. Airyaman) melt the metal in the hills,' &c.
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