Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 213

Indian Linguistics 27
TWO NOTES ON YAŠTS
by M. A. MEHENDALE, Deccan College, Poona
(1) On Hom Yašt, verse 1.
At the very beginning of the Haoma yašt we are informed that Haoma approached Zarathustra at the time of the pressing when the latter asked him the question about his identity. Zarathustra asked : ko nara ahi, yim azam vispahe ayhāuš astvato sraestam dādarasa xVahe gayehe xYanvato amasahe ? (Y. 9.1).
The last part of Zarathustra's above question-xvahe gayehe x'anvato amasahe-presents difficulty and does not seem to have been satisfactorily explained so far. REICHELT in his Awestisches Elementarbuch $4991 takes x'ahe etc. as genitive of quality and translates the entire clause beginning with yim azam as 'den ich als den schönsten von der ganzen Welt eigenen sonnigen unsterblichen Lebens gesehen habe'. It will be observed in the first instance that Reichelt has not translated the word astvato of the text. Next, he seems to take the difficult portion beginning with r'ahe gayehe as genitive of quality qualifying the word aŋhu 'Welt'. Earlier, BARTHOLOMAE apparently had the same construction in view.3 LOMMEL, on the other hand, takes the clause beginning with rahe gayehe not as going with anhu, but with Haoma himself. The 'shining, immortal, life'is thus attributed not to
the world' but is taken to refer to Haoma's superhuman qualities. LOMMEL's translation runs as-"Wer bist du, o Mann, der schönste, den ich im ganzen körperlichen Dasein gesehen habe, (du) von eigenem leuchtendem unsterblichem Leben (?)."5
TARAPOREWALA translates the above passage as follows: "Who O Hero, art thou, whom I see the noblest of all material creation,
1. Also his Avesta Reader, p. 96. 2. Unless he has taken astvant and anhu together to mean Welt'. 3. See his Wörterbuch s. v. x'anvant (1865) and Wolff's translation
(p. 30) based on it. 4. He translates sraèštam (acc.) as though it was nom. 5. Die Yašt's des Awesta, p. 188.
Madhu Vidya/188