Questions of King Milinda Part 02

SR No.: 007682
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 2240
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 38 MB

Page 475

xliv
PAHLAVI TEXTS.
From these descriptions, and their connection with certain Avesta texts and Pahlavi writings, it is now possible to form a more or less adequate conception of the contents of Nasks I-IV, X, XIII-XIX, XXI, and also some idea of those of Nasks VI, XII; but the accounts of the remaining six Nasks, most of which belonged to the Hadha-mãthric or scientific class, are very unsatisfactory.
With reference to the total extent of the Nasks, when they were all extant, it is obvious that the length of descriptions, drawn up on the same plan, ought to bear approximately some definite proportion to the lengths of text described; so that, if the extent of the text of one Nask be known, and the proportion it bears to the length of its description be ascertained, this proportion becomes a rough means of estimating the probable extent of other Nasks, from the length of their descriptions drawn up on the same plan. Three years ago an attempt was made to estimate the total extent of the Nasks in this way, based upon the assumptions that the Nasks still extant were three in number, that the length of the description of the Vendidad was a fair average one for estimating the extent of Pahlavi version in all the lost Nasks, and that the proportion of Avesta text to Pahlavi version in the Nirangistân was also a fair average for estimating the extent of their Avesta texts. These assumptions were carefully made, as the least liable to objection, and the total extent of the Nasks in Sasanian times, thus estimated, amounted to 133,000 words of Avesta text and 844,000 of Pahlavi version.
Since the completion of the translation of Dk. IX it has, however, become possible to estimate the probable extent of the first three Nasks from the proportion between the actual extent of the first three fargards of the Bako (Yas. XIX-XXI) and the length of their description. It has also been thought no longer reasonable to neglect the actual length of the Nîrangistân as a basis for estimating the extent of the Pahlavi versions of the strictly Legal Nasks XV
In the Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philologischen und historischen Classe der k. b. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München, 1888, PP. 441, 442.
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