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 74

INTRODUCTION, X.
1xxi
The other sixteen chapters deal chiefly with religious observances, although mythical fragments, or moral digressions, are met with here and there, which are more or less artificially connected with the text, and which were most probably not written in connection with the passages which they follow?
$ 2. A rough attempt at regular order appears in these sixteen chapters: nearly all the matter contained in the eight chapters from V to XII deals with impurity arising from the dead and the way of dispelling it; but the subject is again treated, here and there, in other Fargards, and matter irrelevant to the subject has also found its way into these same eight Fargards 3. Fargards XIII and XIV are devoted to the dog, but must be completed with a part of the XVth. Fargards XVI, XVII, and most part of XVIII deal with several sorts of uncleanness, and their proper place should rather have been after the XIIth Fargard. Fargard III is devoted to the earth * ; Fargard IV stands by itself, as it deals with a matter which is treated only there, namely, civil and penal laws.
No better order prevails within these several parts: prescriptions on one and the same subject are scattered about through several Fargards, without any subject being treated at once in a full and exhaustive way; and this occasions needless repetitions.
The main cause of this disorder was, of course, that the advantage of order is rarely felt by Orientals; but it was : further promoted by the very form of exposition adopted by the first composers of the Vendîdad. The law is revealed by Ahura in a series of answers to questions put to him by
· For instance, Farg. V, 15-20; III, 24-29; 30-32 ; 33; IV, 47-49. • III, 14-11; 36 seq.; XIX, 11-25.
• The passages on medicine (VII, 36-44), and on the sea Voara-kasha (V, 15-20).
• It contains two digressions, the one on funeral laws, the other on husbandry. See Farg. III, Introd.
. It contains one digression on physical well-being, which must have belonged originally to Farg. III. See Farg. IV, Introd.
• V, 27-30 - VII, 6-9; V, 45-54-VII, 60-69; V, 57-62 - VII, 17-32.
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