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INTRODUCTION, X.
The penalty here below consists of a certain number of stripes with the Aspahê-astra or the Sraoshô-karana1.
The unit for heavy penalties is two hundred stripes; the crime and the criminal thus punished are called Peshôtanu or Tanu-peretha (Parsi: Tanâführ). The two words literally mean, 'one who pays with his own body,' and 'payment with one's body,' and seem to have originally amounted to 'worthy of death, worthiness of death;' and in effect the word Peshô-tanu is often interpreted in the Pahlavi Commentary by margarzân, 'worthy of death.' But, on the whole, it was attached to the technical meaning of one who has to receive two hundred strokes with the horse-whip. The lowest penalty in the Vendîdâd is five stripes, and the degrees from five stripes to Peshôtanu are ten, fifteen, thirty, fifty, seventy, ninety, two hundred. For instance, âgerepta is punished with five stripes, avaoirista with ten, stroke with fifteen, sore wound with thirty, bloody wound with fifty, broken bone with seventy, manslaughter with ninety; a second manslaughter, committed without the former being atoned for, is punished with the Peshôtanu penalty. In the same way the six other crimes, repeated eight, or seven, or six, or five, or four, or three times make the committer go through the whole series of penalties up to the Peshôtanu penalty.
1 The general formula is literally, 'Let (the priest; probably, the Sraoshavarez) strike so many strokes with the Aspahê-astra, so many strokes with the Sraosho-karana.' Astra means in Sanskrit 'a goad,' so that Aspahê-astra may mean 'a horse-goad;' but Aspendiârji translates it by durra, a thong,' which suits the sense better, and agrees with etymology too ('an instrument to drive a horse, a whip;' astra, from the root az, 'to drive;' it is the Aspahê-astra which is referred to by Sozomenos ΙΙ, 13: ἱμᾶσιν ὠμοῖς χαλεπῶς αὐτὸν ἐβασάνισαν οι μάγοι (the Sraoshâ-varez), βιαζόμενοι προσκυνῆσαι τὸν ἥλιον). Sraoshdkarana is translated by kâbuk, 'a whip,' which agrees with the Sanskrit translation of the si-srôshôkaranâm sin, 'yat tribhir gokarmasâ/aghâtâis prâyaskityam bhavati tâvanmåtram, a sin to be punished with three strokes with a whip.' It seems to follow that Aspahê-astra and Sraoshô-karana are one and the same instrument, designated with two names, first in reference to its shape, and then to its use (Sraosho-karana meaning 'the instrument for penalty,' or 'the instrument of the Sraoshâ-varez?'). The Aspabê-astra is once called astra mairya, 'the astra for the account to be given,' that is, 'for the payment of the penalty' (Farg. XVIII, 4).
Farg. IV, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42; V, 44; VI, 5, 9, 19, 48, &c.
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