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CHAPTER I, 2.
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stirs, and each stîr is four dirhams (gūgan)'; of Âgerept and Avôirist that which is least is a scourging (tâ zâno), and the amount of them which was specially that which is most is said to be one dirham 2; an Aredus is thirty stîrs 3; a Khôr is sixty stirs; a Bâzâi is ninety stirs; a Yat is a hundred and eighty stirs; and a Tanâpahar is three hundred stirs *
the blood comes, irrespective of where, how, how much, and wherewith it is inflicted; it is that which is a wound from the beginning, and that which will result therefrom.'
The application of this scale of offences is, however, not confined to these particular forms of assault, but has been extended (since the Avesta was compiled) to all classes of sins, and also to the good works which are supposed to counterbalance them.
The dirham has been variously estimated, at different times, as a weight of forty-five to sixty-seven grains, but perhaps fifty grains may be taken as the meaning of the text, and the stîr may, therefore, be estimated at 200 grains. The Greeks used both these weights, which they called δραχμή and στατήρ.
The amounts of these first three degrees of sin are differently stated in other places (see Chaps. XI, 2, XVI, 1-3, 5). It is difficult to understand why the amounts of Âgerept and Avôirîst should here be stated as less than that of Farmân, and some Parsis, therefore, read vîhast (as an irregular form of víst, 'twenty') instead of vês-ast, 'is most,' so that they may translate the amount as 'twenty dirhams;' but to obtain this result they would have to make further alterations in the Pahlavi text. In a passage quoted by Spiegel (in his Traditionelle Literatur der Parsen, p. 88) from the Rivâyat MS. P12, in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, it is stated that Farmân is seven stîrs, Agerept twelve stirs, and Avôirîst fifteen stîrs. Another Rivâyat makes the Farmân eight stîrs.
s All MSS. have Aredûs sî 30, 'an Aredas is thirty (30),' leaving it doubtful whether dirhams or stîrs are meant; and the same mode of writing is adopted in Chap. XI, 2.
• Al authorities agree about the amounts of the last five degrees of sin. These amounts are the supposed weights of the several sins in the golden scales of the angel Rashna (see AV. V, 5), when the soul is called to account, for its actions during life, after the
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