Zend Avesta Part 01

Author(s): James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford

Page 86

INTRODUCTION, X.
1xxxiii
The penalty here below consists of a certain number of stripes with the Aspahê-astra or the Sraosho-karana?
The unit for heavy penalties is two hundred stripes; the crime and the criminal thus punished are called Peshotaou or Tanu-peretha (Parsi: Tanåführ). The two words literally mean, 'one who pays with his own body,' and 'payment with one's body,' and seem to have originally amounted to 'worthy of death, worthiness of death;' and in effect the word Pesho-tanu is often interpreted in the Pahlavi Commentary by margarzân, 'worthy of death.' But, on the whole, it was attached to the technical meaning of one who has to receive two hundred strokes with the horse-whip?' The lowest penalty in the Vendidad is five stripes, and the degrees from five stripes to Peshotanu are ten, fifteen, thirty, fifty, seventy, ninety, two hundred. For instance, agerepta is punished with five stripes, avaoirista with ten, stroke with fifteen, sore wound with thirty, bloody wound with fifty, broken bone with seventy, manslaughter with ninety; a second manslaughter, committed without the former being atoned for, is punished with the Peshotanu penalty. In the same way the six other crimes, repeated eight, or seven, or six, or five, or four, or three times make the committer go through the whole series of penalties up to the Peshotanu penalty.
1 The general formula is literally, 'Let (the priest ; probably, the Sraoshavarez) strike so many strokes with the Aspahê-astra, so many strokes with the Sraosh-karana.' Astra means in Sanskrit a goad,' so that Aspabê-astra may mean a horse-goad;' but Aspendiárji translates it by dorra, 'a thong,' which suits the sense better, and agrees with etymology too ('an instrument to drive
horse, a whip;' astra, from the root az, 'to drive;' it is the Aspahê-astra which is referred to by Sozomenos II, 13: quãowy luois xaner@s autùy (Bagaισω α μάγοι (the Sraosha-varez), βιαζόμενοι προσκυνήσαι τον ήλιον). Sraoshakarapa is translated by kábak, 'a whip,' which agrees with the Sanskrit translation of the si-srôshkaranam sin, 'yat tribhir gokarmasåtagbåtâis prayaskityam bhavati tåvanmåtram, & sin to be punished with three strokes with a whip.' It seems to follow that Aspabe-astra and Sraoshô-karana are one and the same instrument, designated with two namės, first in reference to its shape, and then to its use (Sraosho-karana meaning the instrument for penalty,' or
the instrument of the Sraoshá-varez ?'). The Aspabe-astra is once called a stra mairy, 'the astra for the account to be given,' that is, 'for the payment of the penalty' (Farg. XVIII, 4).
· Farg. IV, 20, 21, 24, 25, 28, 29, 32, 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42; V, 44; VI, 5. 9, 19, 48, &c.
f 2
Digitized by
Digitized by Google