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ORMAZD YAST.
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I. ORMAZD YAST.
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The Ormazd Yast, properly so called, ends with § 23. The rest of the Yast, from § 24 to the end, is wanting in several manuscripts, and is supposed by the Parsis to be a fragment of the Bahman Yast.
The Ormazd Yast is exclusively devoted to an enumeration of the names of Ahura and to a laudation of their virtues and efficacy: the recitation of these names is the best defence against all danger
$§ 1-6. The names of Ahura Mazda are the most powerful part of the Holy Word.
$$ 7-8. The twenty names of Ahura Mazda are enumerated. $$ 9-11. Efficacy of these names. $$ 12-15. Another list of names. $$ 16-19. Efficacy of Ahura's names. $$ 20–23. Sundry formulas of invocation.
As may be seen from this summary, the subject has been treated twice over, first in $$ 1-11, and then in $$ 12-19; yet it does not appear that this Yast was formed out of two independent treatises, and it is more likely that the vague and indefinite enumeration in $$ 12-15, which interrupts so clumsily the train of ideas, is due either to an interpolation or simply to the literary deficiency of the writer himself.
The Ormazd Yast is recited every day at the Hâvan Gâh, after the morning prayer (Anquetil, Zend-Avesta, II, 143): it is well also to recite it when going to sleep and when changing one's residence
Speculations on the mystical powers of God's names have always been common among Orientals. The number of these names went on increasing: Dastûr Nôshîrvan wrote on the 101 names of God; Dastûr Marzbân on his 125 names. With the Musulmans, Allah had 1001 names. On the names of God among the Jews, see Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, XXXV, pp. 162, 532.
We have three native translations of this Yast; one in Pahlavi (East India Office, XII, 39, and St. Petersburg, XCIX, 39; edited by Carl Salemann), one in Persian (East India Office, XXII, 43), and one in Sanskrit (Paris, fonds Burnouf, V, 66); the last two edited in our Etudes Iraniennes, II, 255).
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