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CHAPTER XIII, 3-5.
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4. Ahyâ-yâsâ (Yas. XXVIII), Khshmaibya (Yas. XXIX), and Ad-ta-vakhshyâ (Yas. XXX) have, severally, eleven stanzas (vakêst), because eleven things move spiritually within the bodies of men, as life, consciousness, religion, soul, guardian spirit, thought, word, deed, seeing, smelling, and hearing ; and the bodies of men and other creatures are formed of water, fire, and wind.
5. Ashem-Ahurem-mazdãm (Visp. XV) is to be recited ? three times before the coming of Hashedar, Hashêdar-mâh, and Sôshyans; and when they also recite the chapter (hâd) well, and by line (gâs) and stanza, those apostles are presents, and the
1 These first three chapters of the Ahunavaiti collection of hymns are here supposed to symbolize the three material elements, whose union distinguishes a man's body from inorganic substances; while the eleven stanzas, which each of these chapters contains, symbolize the eleven immaterial existences said to be contained in the same body.
• This is doubtful, as no verb is expressed, and the word bâr, time,' is struck out in M6, so it is possible to read the "three foremost " of the Ashem-Ahurem-mazdım are the coming of Hashedar,' &c. The three foremost' (3 levînog) would be a possible Pahlavi translation of the Av. tisrô paoiry and tisra paoirya of Visp. XV, 4-6, instead of the actual 'three first' (3-i fratûm), as may be seen from Pahl. Visp. VIII, 17, 20, where both pês (= levîno) and fratûm are used indifferently for Av. paoiry ô. At any rate the idea embodied in the text is that these three first' have some reference to the three future apostles of the Parsi religion (see Bund. XXXII. 8, B. Yt. III, 13, 44, 52, 62). In fact, however, they seem to refer to the first three chapters of the Ahunavaiti Gâtha, immediately after which this chapter (Visp. XV) is recited in the full Parsi ritual ; the phrase being rendered in the Pahlavi translation thus :- I reverence the three first by not speaking out, that is, I do not say anything during them, and not wearing out, that is, I do not doze away during them.' K20 has arrive early.'
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