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VENDIDÂD.
18, 19 (58-63). "There, on that place, shall the worshippers of Mazda erect an enclosure', and therein shall they establish him with food, therein shall they establish him with clothes, with the coarsest food and with the most worn-out clothes. That food he shall live on, those clothes he shall wear, and thus shall they let him live, until he has grown to the age of a Hana, or of a Zaurura, or of a Pairista-khshudra.
20, 21 (64-71). "And when he has grown to the age of a Hana, or of a Zaurura S, or of a Pairistakhshudra, then the worshippers of Mazda shall order a man strong, vigorous, and skilful“, to cut the head off his neck, in his enclosure on the top of the mountain : and they shall deliver his corpse unto the greediest of the corpse-eating creatures made by the beneficent Spirit, unto the vultures, with these words: “The man here has repented of all his evil thoughts, words, and deeds. If he has committed any other evil deed, it is remitted by his repentance 6: if he has committed no other evil deed, he is absolved by his repentance, for ever and ever."'.
1 The Armest-gâh, the place for the unclean; see Introd. V, 15.
* Hana means, literally, 'an old man;' Zaurura, 'a man broken down by age;' Pairista-khshudra, 'one whose seed is dried up.' These words have acquired the technical meanings of fifty, sixty, and seventy years old.'
• When he is near his death. The carrier alone (evak-bar), being margarzân (see p. 27, n. 2), ought to have been put to death at once. The rigour of theory was abated in practice and delayed to the moment when the guilty man was to have paid to nature the debt due to religion.
+ Trained to operations of that sort' (Comm.); a headsman.
• Perhaps : 'to flay him alive and cut off his head.' Cf. Farg. IX, 49, text and note.
• By the performance of the Patet.
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