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SHAYAST LA-SHAYAST.
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the high-priests have taught thus: 'My son is suitable also as thy son, but my daughter is not suitable also as thy daughter.'
sections, mentioned below, in the summary of its contents; and this is confirmed by another reference in Chap. XII, 7. This nask is called Aspâram in the Rivâyats, and Aspârum in the Dînî-vagarkard; for its contents, as given by the latter, see Haug's Essays, p. 133. The following is a brief summary of the account of it given in the eighth book of the Dinkard, where it occupies sixteen quarto pages of that work :
Of the first thirty sections of the Hûspâram, one is the Aêrpatistân ('the priest's code'), a treatise on priestly studies, priests, disciples, and their five dispositions. One section is the Nirangistân (religious formula code'), a treatise on the formulas of worship, the Avesta to be recited by the officiating priests twice, thrice, and four times, the five periods of the day and their proper ceremonies, the season-festivals, the sacred girdle and shirt, cutting the sacred twigs, reverencing water, the families of Zaratûst, Hvôv, and Vistâsp, &c. One section is the Gôharîkistan ('quality code'), a treatise on nobility and superiority, buying and selling, cattle, slaves, servants, and other property, houses where men or dogs have been sick, dealings with foreigners, &c. And other sections are about appropriating the property of others, obedient and disobedient wives, foreign wives, advantages of male and female offspring, breeding of cattle, treatment of labourers and children, the evil eye, judges, the origin and cultivation of corn, the degrees of crime and punishment, &c. Of the next twenty sections, one is about the treatment of furious cattle and mad dogs, and the damage they may do. One section on the means of accumulating wealth, the giving of sons and daughters in marriage, the goodness of charity and evil of waste, the five best actions and the five worst, unlawful felling of trees, the sin of burying the dead, &c. And one section on the begetting, birth, and treatment of children. Of the last fourteen sections, one is a treatise, in six fargards, on the ownership of property and disputes about it, on one's own family, acquiring wife and children, adoption, &c. And a section of seven fargards, at the end, is a treatise on the sufferings of men, women, children, and dogs, on the connection of owner and herds, priest and disciple, on various offences and sins, spiritual and worldly healing, physic and physicians, astrology,
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