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IV. THE BARESHNUM CEREMONY.
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IV. THE BARESHNOM CEREMONY.
The great ceremony of purification for any Parsi man or woman who has become unclean by contact with the dead, or through any other serious defilement, lasts for nine nights, and is called the Bareshnům, which is the Avesta name for the 'top' of the head, the first part of the body appointed to be washed in the ceremony, after the hands. The description of this ceremony, given in Pahl. Vend. IX, 1-145, which does not differ very materially from the rite still in use, is as follows? :
Pahl. Vend. IX, 1. Zaratůst enquired of Adharmazd thus: “O Adharmazd, propitious spirit! creator of the material world! who art the righteous one [of righteousness!' that is, Adharmazd is the righteous creator through invocation, and the rest through praise]. 2. 'How, when in the material existence they see a [clean] man together with that which is polluted], (3) how shall they purify him clean who
1 Observing that the passages in brackets do not occur in the Avesta text, but are added by the Pahlavi translators; and that the sections are numbered to correspond with the alternating Avesta and Pahlavi sections in the MSS., which is the division adopted in Spiegel's edition of the texts. The readings adopted are those of L4, wherever they are not defective; this MS. was written about A. D. 1324, and differs occasionally from Spiegel's printed text; it begins the ninth fargard with the following heading :-May it be fortunatel may it destroy the corruption (nasas) which rushes on from a dead dog and men on to the living ! May the pure, good religion of the Masda-worshippers be triumphant l'
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