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DÂDISTÂN-Î DÎNÍK.
CHAPTER LXXXIII. 1. As to the eighty-second question and reply, that which you ask is thus: Is it necessary for a priestly man that he should undertake all the religious rites and other ceremonials, or in what way is it?
2. The reply is this, that a priestly man should necessarily undertake all the religious rites and other ceremonials, because the deciding and advising performers of the ceremonial, these same priestly men, well understand the merit or demerit, the propriety or impropriety, of the ceremonial. 3. When the undertaker and conductor of all the religious rites is a priestly man, one is more hopeful of their progress in merit.
4. As to the priestly man who shall undertake all the religious rites, if he be living comfortably (hû-zivisno) on a share of our house-rulership’,
flogging, as appears probable from a passage in Farh. Okh. p. 34, Il. 1, 2, which, when restored to its form in the oldest MSS., runs as follows:--Astaridano askârîh astaraspân snas pavan vinâs, which may be translated the manifestation of "overwhelming" is the blow of horsewhips for sin;' assuming that a starasp is equivalent to aspô astar, the usual translation of Av. aspahê astraya, with a horsewhip.
1 The term magavôg-gabrá probably means strictly 'a man of a priestly family,' as distinguished from a priest appointed from the laity, an appointment that seems to have been occasionally made in former times (see Bd. Introd. p. xxxiii, note I). According to the Nîrangistân any virtuous man or woman can perform certain priestly duties under certain circumstances (see Sls. X, 35), but would not, of course, be magavôg, 'priestly, or of priestly family.'
* Reading manpatîh, instead of magôpatih, priesthood,' which words are often confounded in Pahlavi, being written very nearly alike. And assuming that hatom, 'if my,' stands for hatomân, if our;' M14 has atûkhsh, without exertion,' but hatós, 'if his,' would be a more probable emendation, as it occurs in the next section.
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