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 82

INTRODUCTION, X.
lxxix
in the Vendidâd, is the uncleanness of women during their menses. The menses are sent by Ahriman!, especially when they last beyond the usual time: therefore a woman, as long as they last, is unclean and possessed of the demon : she must be kept confined, apart from the faithful whom her touch would defile, and from the fire which her very look would injure; she is not allowed to eat as much as she wishes, as the strength she might acquire would accrue to the fiends. Her food is not given to her from hand to hand, but is passed to her from a distance, in a long leaden spoon. The origin of all these notions is in certain physical instincts, in physiological psychology, which is the reason why they are found among peoples very far removed from one another by race or religion 3. But they took in Persia a new meaning as they were made a logical part of the whole religious system.
§ 13. A woman that has just been delivered of a child is also unclean 4, although it would seem that she ought to be considered pure amongst the pure, since life has been increased by her in the world, and she has enlarged the realm of Ormazd. But the strength of old instincts overcame the drift of new principles. Only the case when the woman has been delivered of a still-born child is examined in the Vendidad. She is unclean as having been in contact with a dead creature; and she must first drink gômêz to wash over the grave in her womb. So utterly unclean is she, that she is not even allowed to drink water, unless she is in danger of death; and even then, as the sacred element has been defiled, she is liable to the penalty of a Peshotanu. It appears from modern customs that the treatment is the same when the child is born alive: the reason of which is that, in any case, during the first three days after delivery she is in danger of death. A great fire is lighted
Farg. I, 18-19; XVI, 11. CL Band. III. · Farg. XVI, 15.
Cf. Leviticus. See Pliny VII, 13. • Farg. V, 45 seq.
s Farg. VII, 70 seq. • When there is a pregnant woman in a house, one must take care that there be fire continually in it; when the child is brought forth, one must bam
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