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CHAPTER II, 32-36.
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Spitâmânt—the reign of Wrath with infuriate spear? and the demon with dishevelled hair, of the race of Wrath,—the meanest slaves walk forth with the authority of nobles of the land; and the religious, who wear sacred thread-girdles on the waist, are then not able to perform their ablution (pâdiyâvih), for in those last times dead matter and bodily refuse become so abundant, that one who shall set step to step walks upon dead matter; or when he washes in the bara shnům ceremony, and puts down a foot from the stone seat (magh), he walks on dead matter; or when he arranges the sacred twigs (baresôm) and consecrates the sacred cakes (drôno) in their corpse-chamber (nasåt katak): it is allowable.
The Av. Aêshmô khrvîdrus, •Aeshma the impetuous assailant' (see Bund. XXVIII, 15-17); this demon's Pahlavi epithet is partly a transcription, and partly a paraphrase of the Avesta term.
According to Dastûr Hoshangji (Zand-Pahlavi Glossary, p. 65) the term magh is now applied to the stones on which the person undergoing purification has to squat during ablution in the barashnûm ceremony. Originally, however, Av. magha appears to have meant a shallow hole dug in the earth, near or over which the person squatted upon a seat, either of stone or some other hard material (see Vend. IX). The term for the hole was probably extended to the whole arrangement, including the seat, which latter has thus acquired the name of magh, although magh and maghảk still mean a channel or pit' in Persian.
The Av. kata of Vend. V, 36-40; a special chamber for the temporary reception of the corpse, when it was impossible to remove it at once to the dakhma, owing to the inclemency of the weather. It should be large enough for standing upright, and for stretching out the feet and hands, without touching either walls or ceiling; that is, not less than six feet cube. The text means that those times will be so distressing, that it will be considered lawful to perform the sacred ceremonies even in a place of such concentrated impurity as a dead-house not actually occupied by a corpse.
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