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CHAPTER XXXVii, 53-57.
which is no indication of learning, disputing (sitôg) about the nature of a righteous one, and many other seductive powers and demons helping to win, were made auxiliary to the doctrine of falsehood in deceiving the creatures.
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55. Also, to turn his disturbance1 to creatures of even other kinds, there are demons and fiends of further descriptions (freh-altân); and for the assistance of those combatants he established also those afflictions (nivakân) of many, the witches of natures for gloomy places, whose vesture is the radiance of the lights that fall, and rush, and turn below the luminaries which have to soar (vâzisntkâno) in stopping the way of any little concealment of the spirits and worldly beings. 56. And they (the witches) overspread the light and glory of those luminaries, of whose bestowal of glory and their own diminution of it, moreover, for seizing the creatures, consist the pain, death, and original evil of the abode for the demon of demons1.
57. And those demons and original fiends, who are the heads and mighty ones of the demons, injudiciously, prematurely moving, prematurely speaking, not for their own disciplined advantage,
1 Reading paîtiyârako, but K35 and J have paîtâzârako, which, if it be a real word, would have nearly the same meaning.
2 Shooting stars, meteors, and comets, the last of which are apparently intended by the term Mûspar (Av. Mûs pairika, 'the Mas witch') of Bd. V, 1, XXVIII, 44.
That is, the luminaries which have to prevent these beings from becoming obscured by the darkness produced by the evil spirits.
By the omission of one loop the MSS. have yasdânŏ, 'angels,' instead of shêdâno, 'demons;' the difference between the two words being very slight in Pahlavi characters.
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