________________
DÂDISTÂN-I DİNİK.
158
foremost places being occupied, or like causes he becomes otherwise-is fit for all the great share and very good estimation of the place of one much more skilful, when their being fitting and skilful, or their excess or deficiency, is not specially manifest from their skill'. 8. And him to whom the commentary is very easy, having prayed much, it has seemed important to consider more thriving proportionable to his eating 2.
9. And great and ample respect for both their ways of worthiness is an advantage and fully necessary, skill in the commentary and that in the Avesta being together mutually assisting; for even the solemnizers of the Avesta have need for information from the commentary about the scattered (parvand) 'proper and improper' usages of the sacred ceremony. 10. The more efficient information from the commentary is advantageous when the ceremonial is proceeded with by them, and one of those two is one of the skilful, and a friend, provider, glorifier, and aggrandizer for the other; and the friends of religion are good friends and, therefore, also providers of fame for both of them.
intended originally to celebrate the periods of midspring, midsummer, the beginning of autumn, the beginning of winter, midwinter, and the beginning of spring (see Sls. XVIII, 3), when the Parsi year was fixed to begin at the vernal equinox. In later times they were supposed to commemorate the creations of the sky, water, earth, vegetation, animals, and man.
1 The meaning seems to be that a priest once acknowledged as pre-eminent is not to lose his right of precedence merely because others become rather better qualified, so long as he himself does not retrograde, or is not superseded in his official duties. But if through any accidental circumstance he be excluded from the chief seat, he ought not to dispute the matter.
Or, perhaps, through being moderate in his eating.'
Digitized by
Google
