Saddharma Pundarika

SR No.: 007677
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: H Kern
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1884
Total Pages: 2546
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 46 MB

Page 945

YASTS AND SİRÔZAHS.
REES
OF THE
!TY
ONIK
The word yast, in Zend yėsti, means properly 'the act of worshipping,' the performance of the yasna; and it is often used in Parsi tradition as synonymous with yasna. But it has also been particularly applied to a certain number of writings in which the several Izeds are praised and magnified. These writings are generally of a higher poetical and epical character than the rest of the Avesta, and are most valuable records of the old mythology and historical legends of Iran.
The Parsis believe that formerly every Amshaspand and every Ized had his particular Yast, but we now possess only twenty Yasts and fragments of another. The writings known as Yast fragments, the Afrîn Zartust, and Vîstâsp Yast (printed as Yasts XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV in Westergaard's edition), are not proper Yasts, and have no liturgical character; they are not devoted to the praise of any Ized.
The order in which the Yasts have been arranged by the Parsis follows exactly the order of the Sîrôzah, which is the proper introduction to the Yasts.
SIRÔZAH. Sîrôzah means 'thirty days :' it is the name of a prayer composed of thirty invocations addressed to the several lzeds who preside over the thirty days of the month.
There are two Sîrôzahs, but the only difference between them is that the formulas in the former are shorter, and there is also, occasionally, some difference in the epithets, which are fuller in the latter.
1 The Bahman Yast (see Yt. 1, $$ 24 and following).
: In the greater Sîrôzah the names of the gods invoked are introduced with the word yazamaide, we sacrifice to;' in the lesser Sîrôzah there is no introductory word, the word khshnaothra, propitiation,' being understood, as can be seen from the introductory formulas to the several Yasts.
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