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802
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(JULY, 1902.
periphasis, scholia and later additions. The abstracts at all events seem to be correct. Anyway, the synopsis of the contents of the Vendidad, which the author presents is in tolerable accord with the prototype. But details touching the period of the Sabsanides, nay more, here and there allusions to the Arabs, crop up, so that it is well to regard as old only what harmonizes with the dogma of the primitive texts, so far as they have come down to us.
The Dinkart contains two classifications of the 21 books, of which neither can be original. One divides them into three classes, to each of which belongs seven Nasks : seven Gathic, seven Hadha Manthraic and seven legal works. This division is but partially in consonance with the contents of the books. From the writer's own words it is evident that, properly speaking, not more than four books appertain to the Gathas, that not more than five can claim the designation of Juristic works, so that in point of fact all the rent must be recorded or at least characterized as HadhaManthraics or miscellaneous. The second classification is a theological triviality, according to which each Nask corresponds to one of the twenty-one words of the Ahuna Vaerya Prayer, which is the "fount of the fountains of religion." Perhaps more authentic, and, at any rate, more rational sequence, is that in which almost all the Persian Revaydts enumerate the books and which we shall follow in our rapid survey of the Zend-Avesta.
At the head stands the Stot-Yasht, Staota Yesnye, which at present is wholly embraced in the Yesna and comprises the most archaic litanies, the Gathas, along with other ancient texts. Rightly does West, the Coryphaeus of Pehlevi scholars, remark that the Stot-Yasht, and especially the Gathas, form the central point round which all Nasks are ranged, and that these texts in the Sassanian epocb were neither larger nor smaller than now. Perhaps they may be better styled the foundation on which all the rest reposes.
The three Nasks, which immediately come after, are or should be scholit on the Gathas and the oldest prayers. The first of these, the Sutkar, can be so called only arbitrarily. I would hesitate to call this Nask a collection of homilies after the type of the Gathas, notwithstanding it may be urged in extenuation that "homilies do indeed at times digress far from the text." In truth, so far at least as we can judge from the table of contents the Dinkart presents, several chapters have not the slightest bearing on the litanies with which tradition associates them.11 The Varstmansar has much inore of commentary. It is arranged not only in order of the prayers and psalms preceded by a prelude recounting the miraculous birth of Zarathushtra, but actually keeps to what we find in the corresponding passages of the Pehlevi Yasna ;-though occasionally it deals with matter which is touched upon neither in the old texts nor in the version, to our knowledge, and although there is mention, naturally in a prophetic manner, of Mani and his followers (215 A. D. and the subgequent years), and even of the 9th and the 10th century "after the coming of the religion," i, e., according to the native chronology of the 5th and 6th, or even the 6th and 7th, centuries after Christ. If we compared the Gáthas in a way with the Vedic Sauhitd, this Nask would be called Bráhmana. Still more intimately is the Bako Nask connected with the Gáthas and the appended texts, at least in respect of the sequence. The books do not pretend to be an exhaustive commentary, but the author selected a few sections (bako, bagha, piece or fragment), to which he superadds his own reflections, making it most difficult for us to ascertain the context.13 We possess in the original the first three Fargards of the Bako-Nask, which give a kind of analysis of the three sacred formula 14
11 Comp., . ., in Dinkart IX. Chap. 6, which should belong to Yama 29, but which makes no mention of Geushurva; or Chap. 7, which treats of something quite other than the two spirits in Yamna 80, and so forth.
13 The following may serve as an illustrative example: In Fargard 15, inter alia, khuathuadata, marriage between Dear relatives, is spoken of, and Aarhmazd himself is cited as an instance, The Occasion for this is furnished by a passage in Yaana 44, where Sponta Armaiti is called his daughter. This is combined with another myth which denominates her his epouse; and therefrom the conclusion is arrived at that he, like Manu, was married to his own daughter.
18 Only of these three Naska do wa ponses to some extent a detailed analysis in Dinkart IX.; of all the rest, Bo far as they were nooossible to the anthor only 4.pummary of ogntonta in Dinkart VIII.
14 Especially Yamna, 19-21.
