________________
.
FARGARD IV.
35
I.
1. He that does not restore a loan to the man who lent it, steals the thing and robs the man1. This he doeth every day, every night, as long as he keep in his house his neighbour's property, as though it were his own 2.
I a.
2 (4). O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! How many in number are thy contracts, O Ahura Mazda?
Ahura Mazda answered: 'They are six in number, O holy Zarathustra 3. The first is the wordcontract; the second is the hand-contract"; the third is the contract to the amount of a sheep; the
1 'He is a thief when he takes with a view not to restore; he is a robber when, being asked to restore, he answers, I will not (Comm.)
·
' Every moment that he holds it unlawfully, he steals it anew. "The basest thing with Persians is to lie; the next to it is to be in debt, for this reason among many others, that he who is so, must needs sink to lying at last' (Herod. I, 183). The debtor in question is of course the debtor of bad faith, he who says to a man, Give me this, I will restore it to thee at the proper time, and he says to himself, I will not restore it' (Comm.)
* At first view it seems as if the classification were twofold, the contracts being defined in the first two clauses by their mode of being entered into, and in the last four by their amount. Yet it appears from the following clauses that even the word-contract and the hand-contract are indicative of a certain amount, which, however, the commentators did not, or were unable to, determine.
• The word-contract may be a contract of which the object are words: the contract of jâ dangôi (ukhdhô-vakah), by which one offers to speak and intervene for some one's benefit, or the contract between master and pupil (for teaching the sacred texts).
The contract for hiring labour (?).
Viz. to the amount of 3 istîrs [in weight],' (Comm.) An istir (orarip) is as much as 4 dirhems (paxμn).
D 2
Digitized by
Google
