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much intelligence and wisdom, the morality he teaches is of a high standard for the age in which he lived, and, while anxious to uphold the power and privileges of the priesthood, he is widely tolerant of all deficiencies in the conduct of the laity that do not arise from wilful persistence in sin. The reader will search in vain for any confirmation of the foreign notion that Mazda-worship is decidedly more dualistic than Christianity is usually shown to be by orthodox writers, or for any allusion to the descent of the good and evil spirits from a personification of 'boundless time,' as asserted by strangers to the faith. No attempt is made to account for the origin of either spirit, but the temporary character of the power of the evil one, and of the punishment in hell, is distinctly asserted.
Although Mânûskîhar does not mention, in his writings, any of the lost Nasks or sacred books of the Mazda-worshippers, except the Hûspârâm (Dd. LXI, 3) and the Sakâdům (Ep. I, viii, 1, 6, 7), he certainly had access to many Pahlavi books which are now no longer extant; hence he is able to give us more information than we find elsewhere regarding some of the legendary personages mentioned in Dd. II, 10, XXXVI, 4, 5, XLVIII, 33, XC, 3; he hints that the second month of the year (April-May) was called Zaremaya in the Avesta (Dd. XXXI, 14); and he mentions two places, instead of one, intermediate between heaven and hell, one for the souls of those not quite good enough for heaven, and one for those not quite bad enough for hell (Dd. XXIV, 6, XXXIII, 2).
PAHLAVI TEXTS.
The present translation of this work is not the first that has been attempted. Shortly before the late Professor Haug left India he delivered a lecture on the Parsi religion to a large assemblage of Parsis in Bombay, at their request, and at his desire the sum of 900 rûpis, out of the net proceeds of the entrance-tickets sold, was offered as a prize for an edition of the Pahlavi text of the Dâdistân-î Dînîk with a Gugarâti translation and glossary. Some years afterwards this prize was awarded to Mr. Shehriarji Dadabhoy and Mr. Tehmuras Dinshawji Anklesaria, for their joint Gugarâti translation of the work, which still, however, remains unpublished
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