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xlii
PAHLAVI TEXTS.
No. 29 in the Bombay University Library. In this Rivayat, or miscellany of traditional lore, the prose Sad Dar occupies fourteen folios (17-30) in the first volume, each page containing twenty-one closely-written lines. The Persian colophon at the end of the last chapter is to the following effect :- This book of the prose Sad Dar is completed on the day Åståd of the auspicious month Daî of the year 1048 of Yazdagard, the king of kings of happy Iran, of the race of Såsân. And the writer of the lines am I, the servant of the good religion of the Mazda-worshippers, the priestlyborn priest Dåråb, son of the priest Hormazyår, son of Qavamu-d-dîn, son of Kal-Qubåd, son of Hormazyari of the surname Sangånå, of the family of the priest Nêryôsang Dhaval.' The date mentioned in this colophon corresponds to the 28th September 1679, new style.
A third copy of the Persian text is contained in J15, a small quarto volume, No. 15 in the library of Dastar Jåmåspji Minochiharji in Bombay. In this volume the prose Sad Dar occupies the last thirty-six folios, and is written thirteen lines to the page, but is not dated. This manuscript has been consulted in only a few passages, and usually where the other copies differ considerably.
Regarding the variations in the text of these manuscripts it will be noticed, on reference to the foot-notes to the translation, that there is usually considerable agreement among the three Persian manuscripts (Lp, B29, J152) when they differ from the Avesta-Persian text of La. In a few cases the text of La is undoubtedly defective, and then Lp or B29 may perhaps supply the original reading which has come down to them through some collateral line of descent. But, in the great majority of instances, their variations (especially those of B29) seem to be intended either to make the text more intelligible, or to correct some statement that the copyist thought doubtful. That none of these three manuscripts is derived from La is proved by the fact that they all contain a passage (Chap. XIX, 4-6) which
1 A variation of this pedigree has already been quoted in p. xxiv. ? Allowing for the fact that this last has been only occasionally used.
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