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SHAYAST LA-SHAYAST.
(gâsânbar)', the sacred feast (myazd), and nextof-kin marriage (khvêtuk-das).'
See Bund. XXV, 1, 3, 6. The six Gâhanbärs or seasonfestivals are held, respectively, on the 45th, 105th, 180th, 210th, 290th, and 365th days of the Parsi year. An explanation of the cause of the inequality of these intervals has been proposed by Mr. Khurshedji Rustamji Cama, which is well worthy of attention, and appears to have been first published in 1867 in Nos. 7 and 8 of his Zartosti Abhyas. His view is that the mediæval Zoroastrians, beginning their year at the vernal equinox (Bund. XXV, 6, 13, 21), recognised originally only two seasons, a summer of seven months and a winter of five (Bund. XXV, 7), and they held a festival, not only at the end of each season, that is, on the 210th and 365th days of their year, but also in the middle of each season, that is, on the 105th and a goth days of their year. That these two latter were mid-season festivals is proved by their Avesta names, Maidhy6shema and Maidhyâirya, beginning with the word maidhya, "middle.' Later on, the Zoroastrians divided their year into four equal seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter (Bund. XXV, 20), and without interfering with their old festivals, they would, no doubt, have wished to celebrate the end and middle of each of their new seasons. The ends of these four seasons occur on the goth, 180th, 270th, and 365th days of the year, and their midpoints are the 45th, 135th, 225th, and 320th days; but the Zoroastrians already held a festival on the 365th day, and celebrated midsummer and midwinter (the 135th and 320th days of their new calendar) on the 105th and 290th days of their year, and they would consider the goth, 225th, and 270th days too close to their old festivals of the 105th, 2 10th, and 290th days to allow of the former being held as new festivals; so that they would have only the midspring festival, on the 45th day, and that of the end of summer, on the 180th day, to add to their old festivals. It may be objected that the end of summer was already celebrated on the 210th day, and, for this reason, it is more probable that the festivals were intended to celebrate the beginnings and mid-points of the seasons, rather than their ends and mid-points. According to this view, the six season-festivals were intended, respectively, to celebrate midspring, midsummer, the beginning of autumn, the beginning of winter, midwinter, and the beginning of spring. That they were also intended to commemorate, respectively, the
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