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CHAPTER VI, 7-VII, 1.
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law are the Zandik1, the Christian (Tarsâk), the Jew (Yahud), and others of this sort (sano)2.
CHAPTER VII.
1. The morning sun it is necessary to reverence (yastano) till midday, and that of midday it is necessary to reverence till the afternoon time, and that of the afternoon time it is necessary to reverence till night; whenever one is quite prepared
above any such imputation. By these quibbles, and others like them, he carried away their minds, and made them adopt his errors.'
The tenets of the Manicheans ought, no doubt, to have been considered by the Zoroastrians as a mixture of truth and error, just as those of the Sînîk congregation are represented to be in our text; but such tenets being an heretical offshoot of Zoroastrianism, it argues unusual liberality in the priests if they preferred Manicheans to Christians, that is, heretics to infidels.
K20 has altered sînîk vaskardih into nisînîk (or vîdînîk) sikaftîh, which appears to be an attempt to bring the words within the limits of the writer's knowledge, without paying much attention to their collective meaning.
A sect which (according to its name) probably adhered to a certain heretical interpretation (za nd) in preference to the orthodox Avesta and Zand. Nêryôsang, in his Sanskrit version of Mkh. XXXVI, 16, explains a Zandîk as one who 'thinks well of Aharman and the demons.'
* Unless this paragraph be a continuation of the quotation from Kashtano-bugêd's commentary, which seems unlikely, its contents have an important bearing upon the age of the Shâyast lâ-shâyast. As it does not mention Muhammadanism by name it could hardly have been written after the fall of the Sasanian dynasty, when that new faith had become much more important, in Persia, than those of the Christians and Jews.
* Referring to the recitation of the Khurshêd Nyâyis, or 'salutation of the sun,' which should be performed thrice a day, in the Hâvan, Rapîtvîn, and Aûzêrîn Gâhs, or periods of the day (see
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