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CHAPTER XXXVII, 72-78.
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75. One is this, that Aûharmazd, the creator, is a manager with omniscient wisdom, and the contention of the fiend of scornful looks (tar nigirisn) is through lust of defilement; of united power is the management of that creator, as existing with (hamzik) all the vigilance in the wisdom which is in everything; and that united power is the strength of the management of heaven. 76. And of much power is the contention of the fiend, as his manifold changing of will-which is hostile to the will of even his own creatures, and is through the weakness and exhausted strength of an evil nature—is the contending power which forms his visible strength3.
77. One is this, that is, on account of the fiend's contending ill-advisedly, however strongly the contest is adapted for the damage of his own fiendishness, and regret and bad consequences therefrom are perceptible. 78. Such as the very paralyzing affliction which was appointed (nthâdo) by him
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poison he has to take; while the more cautious evader trusts to recognising his adversary's poison by its taste, and selecting another poison as an antidote for both to take, so that the hasty evader suffers through his own deceit in not taking the first poison. Similarly, the fiend is supposed to suffer in the end from the death and destruction which he was the first to introduce into the world.
By omitting a phrase M14 and J have: and the management of the fiend of scornful looks is as it were existing with,' &c.
This is little more than a guess at the meaning of a word which can be read vashakîdo (compare Pers. gas and kasîdan). The whole sentence is rather uncertain.
The argument is that this unstable power of the fiend cannot permanently stand against the consolidated strength of the creator.
Adopting J's reading samakguntar, but K35 has vasmakguntar, which may be 'very troublesome,' and M14 has samkîntar, probably for sahmgîntar, 'very terrible.'
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