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ÂBÂN YAST.
61
hundred male horses, a thousand oxen, and ten thousand lambs.
30. 'He begged of her a boon, saying: “Grant me this boon, O good, most beneficent Ardvi Sara Anâhita ! that I may make all the seven Karshvares of the earth empty of men."
31. 'Ardvi Sara Anâhita did not grant him that boon, although he was offering libations, giving gifts, sacrificing, and entreating her that she would grant him that boon.
'For her brightness and glory, I will offer her a sacrifice ....
IX.
32. Offer up a sacrifice, O Spitama Zarathustral unto Ardvi Sûra Anâhita ....
33. “To her did Thraêtaona, the heir 2 of the valiant Athwya clan, offer up a sacrifice in the fourcornered Varena3, with a hundred male horses, a thousand oxen, ten thousand lambs.
34. He begged of her a boon, saying: “Grant me this, O good, most beneficent Ardvi Sara Anâhita! that I may overcome Azi Dahâka, the threemouthed, the three-headed, the six-eyed, who has a thousand senses“, that most powerful, fiendish Drug,
1 Thraêtaona (Ferîdûn), son of Athwya, conquered Azi and bound him to Mount Damâvand, where he is to stay till the end of the world, when he shall be let loose and then killed by Keresâspa (Vendidâd, Introd. IV, 12, 18; Bahman Yast III, 55 seq.; Bund. XXIX, 8 seq.).
3 Vîsô-puthra=Pahlavi barbitâ (see Études Iraniennes, II, 139).
8 Cf. Vend. I, 18 and Introd. IV, 12. Modern tradition supposes Varena to have been the region of Ghilan (very likely on account of its proximity to Mazandaran and Mount Damavand).
+ See Yt. X, 82, note.
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