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ÅBÂN YAST.
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offer up a sacrifice with a hundred horses, a thousand oxen, ten thousand lambs on the Pedvaệpal of the Rangha.
82. He begged of her a boon, saying: “Grant me this, O good, most beneficent Ardvi Sara Anahita ! that I may overcome the evil-doing Akhtya, the offspring of darkness, and that I may answer the ninety-nine hard riddles that he asks me maliciously, the evil-doing Akhtya, the offspring of darkness.”
'83. ‘Ardvi Sara Anâhita granted him that boon, as he was offering up libations, giving gifts, sacrificing, and entreating that she would grant him that boon.
'For her brightness and glory, I will offer her a sacrifice ....
XXI. 84. 'Offer up a sacrifice, O Spitama Zarathustra I unto this spring of mine, Ardvi Sûra Anâhita ..
85. Whom Ahura Mazda the mercifül ordered thus, saying: “Come, O Ardvi Sura Anâhita, come from those stars? down to the earth made by Ahura,
thirty-three riddles proposed by Akht; then, in his turn, he proposes him three riddles which the sorcerer is unable to guess, and, in the end, he destroys him by the strength of a Nirang. Cf. Yt. XIII, 120. This tale, which belongs to the same widespread cycle as the myth of Oedipus and the Germanic legend of the Wartburg battle, is found in the Zarathustra legend too (Vendîdad XIX, 4).
Perhaps an affluent of the Rangha (cf. Yt. XIII, 19, 19; XV,27).
Between the earth and the region of infinite light there are three intermediate regions, the star region, the moon region, and the sun region. The star region is the nearest to the earth, and the sun region is the remotest from it. Ardvi Sûra has her seat in the star region (Yasna LXV (LXIV), 1; Phl. tr.); cf. Yt. V, 132.
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