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 885

404
OTHER DETAILS OF NASKS.
6. Then the Gathas are apportioned into 10161 metrical lines (gas), and the Nasks into 1000 Hâs and Fargards ?, and, since the Hâdôkhts is the priestly master (rado) of the Nasks, and the remedy (darmôn) which is a perfect statement about the master of the resurrection, the existence of its fargards about the other fargards is therefore 1000 remedies fully combined, being the corn and fodder that are shut up (bastako) when, over that thousand, they supply one that is great, which in every way protects them from hail and rain, from the wind which is hot and that which is cold.
7. Then the Gâthas are apportioned into 6666 words (mârîk) 5, and as to the Nasks, too, their own 6666 ordinances (dâ distâno) are therein severed. 8. And the 6666 words, which are in the Gathas, are
See Sls. XIII, 50; that this number is correct may be seen from the details given in § 2 n.
See Dk. VIII, Chap. I, 20; here the MS. has âyâîno instead of hâto, by miswriting.
$ The sixth of the Gathic Nasks (see Dk. VIII, Chap. I, 9).
• See Dk. VIII, Chap. XLV, 13, where the word used is bêsházo.
According to Sls. XIII, 50 the six Gâthas (including the Yasna of seven has) contain 5567 vakak, 9999 mârîk, and 16,554 khûrdak; which enumeration makes the meaning of mârîk doubtful. In our present text, however, it must have its usual meaning of
word,' as the number of 6666 words in the six Gâthas can be obtained by including the customary repetition of the first stanza of each Hâ of the five real Gâthas, with the text of the Airyaman and of the introductions to Yas. XXVIII, XXXV, and probably the homage formula prefixed to each Gâtha; also by considering each component of a compound as a separate word, and all verbal prefixes as separable; and by counting all enclitics except -ka, in accordance with the different modes of treating -kîd and -kâ in counting the words of the Ahunavair. If the three sacred formulas were included, and the Airyaman and five homage formulas were omitted, the total would be nearly the same.
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