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CHAPTER XC, 7-XCI, 4.
259
CHAPTER XCI. 1. As to the ninetieth question and reply, that which you ask is thus: From what is the sky made, and with what is it prepared ?
2. The reply is this, that the sky is a dome (gardan), wide and lofty; its inside and whole width and boundaries (âkhyakiha), besides its material existence, are the stone of light, of all stones the hardest and most beautiful; and the grandeur of its spirit and even its internal bow are like those of mighty warriors arrayed. 3. And that material of the sky reached unto the place where promise-breaking words exists, and was without need of preparation; as it is said of places such as those—where wisdom is a witness about them—that that which is not even itself a place, and its place does not yet exist, is without need of any preparing
4. The light is for existing things, and they cherish a faculty (niyaih) of motion also of two
Yakhmâyüsad in our text. Barâzd is the Ibairaz of Bd. XXIX, 6, and, possibly, the Av. Berezyarsti of Fravardin Yt. 101.
1 The same notion as that indicated in Genesis by the word firmament.' * The rainbow.
Probably meaning that the sky extends downwards, below the horizon, as far as the second grade of hell, that for evil words,' Das-hQkht (see Sls. VI, 3, note).
• The word divák, place' (zîvâk in the Sasanian inscription of Naqs-i Rustam, but traditionally pronounced gînák), seems to be here taken in the etymological sense of zîvâk, that is, a livingplace. The text refers to the period, in the beginning, when the sky was indefinite space unprepared for the residence of creatures and merely a region of light (see Bd. I, 2), the light mentioned in 84. Its preparation is referred to in $ 8, 9.
S 2
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| SR No. | 007676 |
| Book Title | Text of Confucianism Part 02 |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | James Legge |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1882 |
| Total Pages | 2405 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 43 MB |