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 957

476
EXTANT FRAGMENTS.
XVI. GANABÂ-SAR-NIGAD Nask! Dk. VIII, Chap. XXII, 2, probably refers to the passage which contained the statement thus quoted in Sls. X, 13:—'It is revealed in the Ganabâ-sarnigêd, where a day in the year is indicated, that the sacred thread-girdle of every one who shall be one day more than fourteen years and three months old 2 is to be tied on-it is better so than when he remains unto fifteen years, and then ties on the girdle—who is more cared for, that way, than those of five (or nine) months in the womb of the mother, on whom they should put it.'
XVII. HOSPÂRAM NASK 3. A small portion of this Nask is still preserved and known by the name of Nirangistân. The last seveneighths of this text corresponds with the description of the Nirangistân section of the Huspâram, given in Dk. VIII, Chap. XXIX, 1-17, although a few folios of its commencement are probably lost. And
| The very long account of this Nask, in Dk. VIII, contains 2,179 Pahlavi words, from which the extent of its original text may be estimated (in the same way as in the case of Nask XVII) at about 28,000 Avesta and 251,500 Pahlavi words.
? So as to include the nine months' existence, before birth, in the prescribed fifteen years.
: As the 212 Pahlavi words in Dk. VIII, Chap. XXIX, 1-17, represent about 2,722 words of the original Avesta text of this Nask, with 24,472 of its Pahlavi version, it may be fairly assumed that the 3,496 Pahlavi words of the whole account of the Nask in Chaps. XXVIII-XXXVII, must represent about 44,900 Avesta and 403,600 Pahlavi words of original text. And the same proportion probably holds good with regard to the other Legal Nasks, XV, XVI, XVIII, of which very long accounts are given.
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