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THE GÂTHAS.
YASNA XXIX.
THE WAIL OF THE KINE. THE CALL OF
ZARATHUSTRA. His PRAYER FOR Aid.
This chapter, the second in the manuscripts of the Gatha Ahunavaiti, is placed here as in a more natural order. It may be regarded as containing the terminus a quo of the divine revelation. The Soul of the Kine, as representing the herds of the holy Iranian people, their only means of honourable livelihood, raises its voice, and expressing the profoundest needs of an afflicted people, addresses Ahura and His Divine Order, Asha, in bitterness.
1. Recalling another and a later 'groan of the creation,' she demands wherefore and for whom she was made, since afflictions encompass her; and as her comfort, if not her existence, was threatened as much by the unsettled habits induced by constant alarms as by the actual incursions of her predatory neighbours, she beseeches the Bountiful Immortals to instruct her as to the benefits of civilised agriculture, and confirm her protectors in its practice, as her only remedy against the evils of which she complains.
2. Ahura answers by a question to Asha, the personified Righteous Order, as to what guardian he had appointed in order to smite back the fury which assails her, intimating that some chief ought to have been set over her originally who would have averted her miseries, training her people in steady tillage and bucolic skill, and repelling the destructive raids.
3. Asha answers that her sufferings were inevitable, that no chief could be appointed who could prevent them since none was himself without his share of injustice and of passionate resentment. He could not answer why this was the case. The question, involving the insolvable problem of the origin of evil, lay at the foundation of those influences which move the stars of destiny; that the religious revelation afforded by the Ratu (as in
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| SR No. | 007673 |
| Book Title | Zend Avesta Part 03 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | L H Mills |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1887 |
| Total Pages | 2618 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 49 MB |