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 997

ÂBÂN YAST.
53
the course of the enumeration brings us to the times of Zarathustra and of the institution of the new religion.
The Yast is opened with a laudation of the benefits bestowed by Ardvi Sûra:(§§ 1-16), and it closes with a description of her garments and apparel.
The first record of the worship of Ardvi Sūra is in a cuneiform inscription by Artaxerxes Mnemon (404-361), in which her name is corrupted into Anahata. Artaxerxes Mnemon appears to have been an eager promoter of her worship, as he is said 'to have first erected the statues of Venus-Anâhita ('Adpodirns, 'Avairidos) in Babylon, Suza, and Ecbatana, and to have taught her worship to the Persians, the Bactrians, and the people of Damas and Sardes' (Clemens Alexandrinus, Protrept. 5, on the authority of Berosus; about 260 B. c.). My friend M. Halévy suggests to me that the detailed and circumstantial description of Anâhita's appearance and costume (in $$ 126-13.1) shows that the writer must have described her from a consecrated type of statuary.
The principal data of the Greek writers on Anâhita will be found in Windischmann's Essay (Die persische Anahita oder Anaïtis, 1856). One must be cautious in the use of the Greek sources, as the Greeks, with the eclectic turn of their mind, were inclined to confound under the name of Anâhita all the great female deities of Asia Minor, and her name became a common appellation for the Aphrodites as well as for the Artemides of the East.
o. May Ahura Mazda be rejoiced 1.... Ashem Vohû: Holiness is the best of all good ....
I confess myself a worshipper of Mazda, a follower of Zarathustra, one who hates the Daêvas and obeys the laws of Ahura;
For sacrifice, prayer, propitiation, and glorification unto [Hávani], the holy and master of holiness.
Unto the good Waters, made by Mazda ; unto the holy water-spring Ardvi ANAHITA; unto all waters, made by Mazda ; unto all plants, made by Mazda,
Be propitiation, with sacrifice, prayer, propitiation, and glorification.
Yath â ah û vairyô: The will of the Lord is the law of holi
ness....
1 Sîrôzah I, ro.
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