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CHAPTER III, 40-46.
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44. Regarding Hûshêdar it is declared that he will be born in 16001, and at thirty years of age he comes to a conference with me, Aûharmazd, and receives the religion. 45. When he comes away from the conference he cries to the sun with the swift horse, thus: "Stand still!"
46. The sun with the swift horse stands still ten
(§ 13) for the purpose of mentioning some of his actions, and making the chronology of his millennium rather more clear. Nothing is said here about his miraculous birth, the details of which are given in the seventh book of the Dînkard very much as they are found in the Persian Rivâyats. The Dînkard states that thirty years before the end of Zaratust's millennium a young maiden bathing in certain water, and drinking it, becomes pregnant through the long-preserved seed of Zaratust (see Bund. XXXII, 8, 9), and subsequently gives birth to Hûshêdar.
1 There seems to be no other rational way of understanding this number than by supposing that it represents the date of Hûshêdar's birth, counting from the beginning of Zaratust's millennium. According to this view Hushêdar was to be born in the six hundredth year of his own millennium, and not at its beginning, as § 13 seems to imply, nor nearly thirty years earlier, as the Dinkard asserts. As the beginning of his millennium may be fixed about A. D. 593-635 (see note on § 11), the writer must have expected him to be born about A.D. 1193-1235; a time which was probably far in the future when he was writing. And as Vâhrâm the Vargåvand was to be born when Hûshêdar was thirty years of age (compare §§ 14, 44), and was to march into Iran at the age of thirty (§ 17), the great conflict of the nations (§§ 8, 19-22) was expected to begin about A.D. 1253-1295, and to continue till near the end of the millennium, about A.D. 1593-1635, when Pêshyôtanû was expected to appear (§ 51) and to restore the 'good' religion (§§ 26, 37, 42). An enthusiastic Parsi interpreter of prophecy might urge that though this period did not witness any revival of his religion, it did witness a restoration of the Persian empire under Shâh 'Abbâs, and also the first beginning of British power in India, which has been so great a benefit to the scanty remnant of his fellow-countrymen.
2 The usual epithet of the sun in the Avesta.
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