________________
322
SHAYAST LÂ-SHAYAST.
15. Also this, that ten women are necessary for affording assistance to a woman who is in labour : five women for directing the making of the cradle (gavarak), one woman should be opposite the left shoulder, and one to hold the right shoulder, one woman to throw a hand on her neck, one woman to hold her waist, and one woman, when the infant shall be born, to take it up and cut the navel cord, and to make the fire blaze? 16. Three days and three nights no one is to pass between the fire and the child, nor to show the child to a sinful man or woman; they are to triturate a little sulphur in the sap (ma ya) of a plant, and to smear it over the child; and the first food to give it is Hôm-juice (parâhôm) and aloes (shapyar).
17. The rule is this, that in case any one shall beat an innocent man, until the pain shall cease it becomes every day the root of a Tanapuhar sin? for him.
18. The rule is this, that when in a country they trust a false judge, and keep him among their superiors, owing to the sin and breach of faith which that judge commits, the clouds and rain, in that country, are deficient, a portion (bavan) of the deliciousness, fatness, wholesomeness, and milk of the cattle and goats diminishes?, and many children become destroyed in the mother's womb.
19. The rule is this, that a man, when he does not wed a wife, does not become worthy of death; but when a woman does not wed a husband it
i Literally, 'make the fire high.' . See Chap. I, 1, 2.
Most of these evils are also ascribed (see B. Yt. II, 41-43) to neglect of the precautions prescribed with regard to hair-cuttings.
Digitized by Google
