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BAHMAN YAST.
12. Zaratust enquired of Atharmazd thus: "O Aûharmazd, propitious spirit! creator of the material world, righteous one! when they are so many in number, by what means will they be able to perish1?'
13. Aûharmazd spoke thus: 'O Zaratust the Spitâmân! when the demon with dishevelled hair of the race of Wrath comes into notice in the eastern quarter, first a black token becomes manifest, and Hûshêdar son of Zaratust is born on Lake Frazdân". 14. It is when he comes to his conference with me 3, Aûharmazd, O Zaratust the Spitâmân!' that in the direction of Kinistân, it is said-some have said among the Hindus-'is born a prince (kat); it is his father, a prince of the Kayân race, approaches the
forty-second year, his birth must have been ten or twelve years earlier, and his millennium must have ended A. D. 593-595. But according to the imperfect chronology of Bund. XXXIV the tenth millennium of the world, that of Capricornus, commenced with 'the coming of the religion,' and ended, therefore, in A. D. 635, the fourth year of Yazdakard, the last Sasanian king, when the Muhammadans were just preparing for their first invasion; so the millennium of Aquarius is very nearly coincident with that of Hushêdar, and may probably be intended to represent it. It appears, therefore, that the millennium of Hûshêdar is altogether past, having extended from A. D. 593-635 to A. D. 1593-1635.
1 The Pâz. MSS. omit § 12. The writer having detailed the evils of the iron age, now returns to its commencement in order to describe the means adopted for partially counteracting those evils.
See Bund. XXII, 5, XXXII, 8. The Pâz. MSS. add, 'they bring him up in Zâvulistân and Kâvulistân;' and the Pers. version says, 'on the frontier of Kâbulistân.' With regard to the time of Hûshêdar's birth, see § 44. His name is always written Khûrshêdar in K20.
The Pâz. and Pers. versions say, 'at thirty years of age,' as in § 44.
• Possibly Samarkand (see Chap. II, 49, note 2).
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