________________
le
PAIILAVI TEXTS.
bably arisen from the frequent use it makes of the words shayad, 'it is fit or proper,' and là shayad, it is not fit or proper.' And, owing to its resemblance to those Persian miscellanies of traditional memoranda called Rivậyats, it has also been named the Pahlavi Rivayat, though chiefly by Europeans.
It consists of two parts, which are often put together in modern MSS., and bear the same name, but are widely separated in the oldest MSS. These two parts, consisting respectively of Chaps. I-X and XI-XIV in the present translation, are evidently two distinct treatises on the same and similar subjects, but of nearly the same age. That they were compiled by two different persons, who had access to nearly the same authorities, appears evident from Chaps. XI, 1, 2, XII, 11, 13-16, 18, 20 being repetitions of Chaps. I, 1, 2, X, 4, 20-23, 7, 31, with only slight alterations, such repetitions as would hardly be made in a single treatise by the same writer. Minor repetitions in the first part, such as those of some phrases in Chaps. II, 65, IV, 14, repeated in Chap. X, 24, 33, might readily be made by the same writer in different parts of the same treatise. To these two parts of the Shayast là-shayast a third part has been added in the present translation, as an appendix, consisting of a number of miscellaneous passages of a somewhat similar character, which are found in the same old MSS. that contain the first two parts, but which cannot be attributed either to the same writers or the same age as those parts.
The first part commences with the names and amounts of the various degrees of sin, and the names of the chief commentators on the Vendidad. It then gives long details regarding the precautions to be taken with reference to corpses and menstruous women, and the impurity they occasion; besides mentioning (Chap. II, 33–35) the pollution
in its opening words, as follows:- This book is on "the proper and improper" which is brought out from the good, pure religion of the Mazdayasnians;' though this term may possibly relate to its own contents. There is also a Persian treatise called Shayast na-shayast, which gives a good deal of information obtained from the Persian Rivayats, and copies of which are contained in the MSS. Nos. 56 and 116 of the Ouseley collection in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.
Digitized by
Digitized by Google