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CHAPTER LXVI, 4-10.
203
tion of stipend is more necessary to arise with me than other men, owing to the position of religion, not the other portion (sâno) of all religious rites; therefore, it is more authorisedly received and conducted by me when I accept readily and again intrust the work; but I direct so that they pray thoroughly, and it brings on much business to its closing point; moreover, if I seize upon it, even then I should be authorised, for this is the stipend of religion.'
7. Should they seize this that is authorisedly theirs, or not? And is it the custom of a man who is frequently ordering all the religious rites to reduce his gift for the ceremonial, or not?
8. Order some one to decide for us clearly, when they do not dispute the gift for the ceremonial, or when they do dispute it, how is then its great advantage; and the harmfulness that exists therein, in many ways and many modes, when they give an insufficient gift for the ceremonial. 9. Is the property which is given up as a gift for the ceremonialso long as it thus becomes the remuneration which one gives to a receiver of remuneration (mozdôbar) that property which they can seize? 10. And is the work which is done, or deputed, and its great advantage, more than they would perform when, in the period of the evil millenniums 2, they diminish the gift for the ceremonial; and in how many modes
1 Reading li min, instead of the imperfect word lanm.
Of the twelve millenniums of time, mentioned in Chap. XXXVII, 11 n, the most evil one is said to have been that in which the author lived, the millennium of Hushêdar (about A.D. 600-1600 according to the chronology of Bund. and Byt.), for 'mankind become most perplexed in that perplexing time' (see Byt. II, 62, 63), a period of great tribulation for the religion of the Mazda-worshippers.
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