________________
382
SHAYAST LA-SHAYAST.
CHAPTER XVII.
1. This, too, Zaratust asked of Aûharmazd, that Which is the time when one must not eat
is:
meat?'
2. Aûharmazd gave a reply thus: 'In a house when a person shall die, until three nights are completed, nothing whatever of meat is to be placed on a sacred cake (drôn) therein and in its vicinity'; but these, such as milk, cheese, fruit, eggs, and preserves, are to be placed; and nothing whatever of meat is to be eaten by his relations". 3. In all the three days it is necessary to perform the ceremonial (yazisn) of Srôsh for this reason, because Srôsh will be able to save his soul from the hands of the demons for the three days; and when one con
1 Reading va hamgôshak, the latter word being apparently used in a parallel passage in Pahl. Vend. VIII, 64 in old MSS.; this reading is, however, somewhat doubtful here, and perhaps we ought to read 'on a sacred cake in that roofed place (pavan zak vâmkînîh);' the last word being a possible term for 'roofing' as it stands, though it may be a miswriting of vâmpôs (Pers. bâm pôs, 'roofing').
The Parsis, nowadays (Dastur Hoshangji says), do not cook for three days under a roof where a death has occurred, but obtain food from their neighbours and friends; but if the cookroom be under a separate roof, as often happens in India, they have no objection to cooking there.
The soul is supposed to hover about the body for the first three nights after death, during which time it has to rely upon the angel Srôsh (see Bund. XXX, 29) for protection from the demons, which the angel, it is presumed, will afford more efficiently if properly propitiated by the surviving relatives. At the third dawn after death (that is, the dawn of the fourth day inclusive of the day of death) the soul is supposed to depart finally for the other world (see AV. IV, 8-36, XVII, 5-27).
Digitized by Google
