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 828

246
SHAYAST LÂ-SHAYAS'T.
and as to the rûkanik there have been divers opinions, as Vand-Allharmazdi asserted, from the teaching of Afarg, that it does not destroy it. 3. The dog destroys the Nasûs at the time when it sees the flesh, and when it sees the hair or nails it does not destroy it? 4. A blind dog also destroys it at the time when it places a paw 3 on the corpse ; and when it places it upon the hair or nails it does not destroy itt. 5. The birds which destroy the Nasûs are three: the mountain kite, the black crow, and the vulture 6; the bird, moreover, destroys it at the time when its shadow falls upon it; when it sees it in the water, a mirror, or a looking-glass, it does not destroy it.
is translated by hâkar or hâkâr in the Pahlavi version. This fifth kind of dog is called the blind (kur) dog' in the Persian Rivâyats; but Pahl. Vend. VII, 4 asserts that Sôshậns said the rûkunîk also destroys it,' and then speaks of the blind dog as in $ 4.
See the note on Chap. I, 4. · This is also stated in Pahl. Vend. III, 138. · See Pahl. Vend. VII, 4.
• The Persian Rivậyats say this is because the Nasûs is concealed beneath the hair and nails (compare Vend. VII, 70).
• These are the birds created for devouring dead matter' (see Bund. XIX, 25). Pahl. Vend. VII, 4 substitutes an eagle (dâlman) for the vulture.
This sentence is probably defective, as the last clause evidently refers to the dog's gaze (see Pahl. Vend. III, 138), and not to the bird's shadow; the rule, however, is applicable to both. Thus the Persian Rivayats state that if the bird's shadow falls upon the hair or the nails of the corpse, or if the bird's shadow, or the dog's gaze falls upon a corpse in the water, or upon its reflection in a mirror, the Nasûs is not destroyed. Dastur Jâmâspji is of opinion that the utility of the bird's shadow is intended to apply only to cases of death in uninhabited places, where a dog is not procurable. As all three birds are such as feed upon corpses, it seems probable that the rule as to their utility was intended to pre
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