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66
BUNDAHIS.
written of as 'the Ariz1 of the water;' as it says that the greatest of the creatures of Adharmazd is that fish, and the greatest of those proceeding from the evil spirit is that lizard; with the jaws of their bodies, moreover, they snap in two whatever of the creatures of both spirits has entered between them, except that one fish which is the Vâs of Pankâsadvarân? 6. This, too, is said, that those fish are so serpent-likes in that deep water, they know the scratch (mâlisn) of a needle's point by which the water shall increase, or by which it is diminishing.
7. Regarding the Vas of Pankâsadvarân it is declared that it moves within the wide-formed ocean, and its length is as much as what a man, while in a swift race, will walk from dawn till when the sun goes down; so much that it does not itself move 4 the length of the whole of its great body. 8. This, too, is said, that the creatures of the waters live also specially under its guardianship.
9. The tree of many seeds has grown amid the wide-formed ocean, and in its seed are all plants ; some say it is the proper-curing, some the energeticcuring, some the all-curing.
1 See Chaps. XIV, 26, and XXIV, 13. : The Av. vâsîm yam pankâsadvarăm of Yas. XLI, 27.
• Transcribing the Paz. mârâdu into Pahlavi we have mâr âyin, 'snake's manner. Compare the text with Bahrâm Yt. 29.
• K20 omits the words from walk' to 'move.
• This is the tree of the saê na or Simurgh, as described in Rashnu Yt. 17, and these three epithets are translations of its three titles, hubis, eredh wô-bis, and vispô-bis. See also Chap. XXVII, 2, 3
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