Zend Avesta Part 02

SR No.: 007672
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1883
Total Pages: 2221
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 41 MB

Page 1899

INTRODUCTION.
1. In the summary account of the Spend Nask, given in the eighth book of the Dînkard, chapter XIV, it is stated in § 4 (see S. B. E., vol. xxxvii, p. 32) that many marvels, owing to Zaratūst, are published therein, 'just as there are some which, collected and selected, are noticed by the Dinkard manuscript.' This statement evidently refers to the seventh book of the Dînkard, which contains the legendary history of Zaratůst and his religion, related as a series of marvels extending from the creation to the resurrection of mankind. A much briefer account of some of the same details occurs at the beginning of the fifth book of the Dînkard, and appears to have been abridged from a compilation which was either derived partially from a foreign source, or prepared for the use of foreign proselytes. A third compilation of similar legends is found among the Selections of Zad-sparam. And a careful translation of these three Pahlavi Texts constitutes the Marvels of Zoroastrianism contained in this volume.
2. As the extent of Dk. VII is about 16,000 Pahlavi words (without allowing for one folio lost), it probably contains about four-fifths of the details included in the Spend Nask, the Pahlavi version of which has been estimated, in S. B. E., vol. xxxvii, p. 469, to extend to 20,500 words. It says very little about Zaratûst's conferences with the sacred beings (mentioned in Dk. VIII, xiv, 5, 6), and gives no description of the other world and the way thither (as reported ibid. 8). But it probably contains many verbatim extracts from other parts of the Pahlavi version of the Spend Nask, which appear, however, to have been previously collected in the Exposition of the Good Religion, an older MS. than the Dînkard, which is quoted as an authority in Dk. VII, i, 2.
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