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340
EPISTLES OF MÂNOSKÎhar.
perform it more acceptably than that of other purifiers. 12. For the water and bull's urine are all consecrated by me, and the three hundred pebbles (sang) are cast into them (aQbas) by me, just as it is directed; the operation is also directed by me in the three days 2 when it is performed, and all the customary parts are washed three times by me S; the ablution seats (mako) are also arranged by me anew for every single person, and the use of washed seats is not ordered by me therein *; every rite of the washing by the purifier is also so performed by me as all three teachings have mentioned as perfection. 13. You become the best of the district, as regards the minutiae (bârikido ân) of the purification that is within your duty, so long as they excite the sight", but which are curtailed (kazd) by you in the way of washing disclosed to me", while, when it should be performed by you in this manner, your performance would be equally constantly extolled and your writing praised.
14. When, then, you write of it that they should always perform it just as now, the falsity therein is
See Ep. I, vii, 16. · The three washings' mentioned in Pahl. Vend. IX, 132, 0 (see App. IV); referring probably to those after the third, sixth, and ninth nights (see Vend. IX, 136, 140, 144), that is, on the fourth, seventh, and tenth days of the Bareshnům ceremony. Most of this clause is omitted in J.
• As said to have been directed by Medyők-mah (see Chap. II, 6, Ep. I, vi, 7), though the extant Pahlavi Vendidad (IX, 132,j) attributes the order to Afarg.
• Compare Ep. I, ix, 7, Pahl. Vend. IX, 132, 9, s.
• J has 'so long as they advance the purification as much as possible by a resemblance so approved.'
. In the heretical decree under consideration,
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