________________
CHAPTER XVIII, 6-XIX, 1.
67
10. Between1 these trees of such kinds2 is formed the mountain with cavities, 9999 thousand myriads in number, each myriad being ten thousand. 11. Unto that mountain is given the protection of the waters, so that water streams forth from there, in the rivulet channels, to the land of the seven regions, as the source of all the sea-water in the land of the seven regions is from there3.
CHAPTER XIX.
4
1. Regarding the three-legged ass they say, that it stands amid the wide-formed ocean, and its feet are three, eyes six, mouths nine, ears two, and horn
This must have been the original meaning of the Huz. dên (bên in the Sasanian inscriptions) before it was used as a synonym of Pâz. andar,' within.' The mountain is between the white-Hôm tree and the tree of many seeds.
? Transcribing the Pâz. ofnoh into Pahlavi we have ân-gunak, 'that kind;' or the word may be a miswriting of Pâz. ânô, 'there.'
'This description of the mountain seems to identify it with the Aûsîndôm mountain of Chaps. XII, 6, and XIII, 5.
The Av. khara, 'which is righteous and which stands in the middle of the wide-shored ocean' (Yas. XLI, 28). Darmesteter, in his Ormazd et Ahriman (pp. 148-151), considers this mythological monster as a meteorological myth, a personification of clouds and storm; and, no doubt, a vivid imagination may trace a striking resemblance between some of the monster's attributes and certain fanciful ideas regarding the phenomena of nature; the difficulty is to account for the remaining attributes, and to be sure that these fanciful ideas were really held by Mazdayasnians of old. Another plausible view is to consider such mythological beings as foreign gods tolerated by the priesthood, from politic motives, as objects worthy of reverence; even as the goddess Anâhita was tolerated in the form of the angel of water.
This is the traditional meaning of the word, which (if this
F 2
Digitized by Google
