________________
160
APPENDIX TO THE BUNDAHIS.
And in aid of the celestial sphere he produced the creature Time (zôrvân)"; and Time is unrestricted, so that he made the creatures of Adharmazd moving, distinct from the motion of Aharman's creatures, for the shedders of perfume (bôi-dâ dân) were standing one opposite to the other while emitting it. 25. And, observantly of the end, he brought forward to Aharman a means out of himself, the property of darkness, with which the extreme limits (virûnako) of Time were connected by him, an envelope (pôstô) of the black-pated and ash-coloured kind. 26. And in bringing it forward he spoke thus: “Through their weapons the co-operation of the serpent (azo) dies away, and this which is thine, indeed thy own daughter, dies through religion; and if at the end of nine thousand years, as it is said and written, is a time of upheaval (madam kardano), she is upheaved, not ended.'
27. At the same time Aharman came from accompanying Time out to the front, out to the star station; the connection of the sky with the star station was open, which showed, since it hung down into empty space, the strong communication of the lights and glooms, the place of strife in which is the pursuit of both. 28. And having darkness with himself he brought it into the sky, and left the sky so to gloom that the internal deficiency in the sky extends as much as one-third 2 over the star station.
1 This is the Av, zrvâna akarana, 'boundless time or antiquity,' of Vend. XIX, 33, 44. He is a personification of duration and age, and is here distinctly stated to be a creature of Adharmazd. This throws some doubt upon the statements of Armenian writers, who assert that the two spirits sprang from Zrvâna.
% Compare Bund. III, II.
Digitized by Google