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Pahlavi Texts, Part I (SBE05), E.W. West, tr. [1880], at sacred-texts.com


CHAPTER XXIII.

0. In the name of God and the good creation be health 3!

1. Aûharmazd is more creative, Vohûman is more

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embellished 1, Ardavahist is more brilliant 2, Shatvaîrô is more exalted 3, Spendarmad is more fruitful 4, Horvadad is moister 5, Amerôdad is fatter 6. 2. Dîn-pa-Âtarô is just like Aûharmazd 7, Âtarô is hotter 8, Âvân is more golden 9, Khûr is more observant 10, Mâh is more protective 11, Tîr is more liberal, Gôs is swifter 12. 3. Dîn 13-pa-Mitrô is just like Aûharmazd, Mitrô is more judicial, Srôsh is more vigorous, Rashn is more just, Fravardîn is more powerful, Vâhrâm is more victorious, Râm is more pleasing, Vâd is more fragrant. 4. Dîn-pa-Dînô just like Aûharmazd, Dînô is more valuable, Ard 14 is more beautiful, Âsd is purer, Âsmân is more lofty, Zamyâd is more conclusive, Mâraspend is more

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conveying the religion, Anîrân is the extreme of exertion and listening 1.

5. May it be completed in peace and pleasure!


Footnotes

404:3 Two versions of this chapter, detailing the qualities of the p. 405 thirty angels and archangels, are extant; one in M6, which has lost §§ 3-5, and the other in a very old MS. in the library of the high-priest of the Parsis at Bombay. This latter, being complete, is here taken as the text, while the variations of M6, which occur in nearly every epithet, are given in the notes. Which version is the oldest can hardly be ascertained with certainty from the state of the MSS. M6 omits this opening benediction.

405:1 M6 has 'more nimble.'

405:2 M6 has 'more discriminative.'

405:3 M6 has 'more active.'

405:4 M6 has 'more complete.'

405:5 M6 has 'fatter.'

405:6 M6 has 'more fruitful.'

405:7 M6 has 'Dînô is more desirous.'

405:8 M6 has 'more heating.'

405:9 Referring perhaps to the golden channels (Bund. XIII, 4, 5) through which the water of Arêdvîvsûr (a title of the angel Âvân, waters') is supposed to flow. M6 has 'more glittering.'

405:10 M6 has 'more embellished.'

405:11 M6 has varpântar, the meaning of which is uncertain.

405:12 M6 has 'more listening.'

405:13 The version in M6 ends here; the next folio being lost.

405:14 The same as Arshisang (see Bund. XXII, 4).

406:1 The reading of both these nouns is uncertain. The days of the Parsi month, which bear the names of these thirty angels, are divided, it will be observed, into four nearly equal divisions, resembling weeks, which are here separated in §§ 1-4. The first weekly period begins with a day dedicated to Aûharmazd, and called by his own name; and each of the three other weekly periods also begins with a day dedicated to Aûharmazd, but called by the name of Dîn, 'religion,' with the name of the following day added as a cognomen. The first week, therefore, consists of the day Aûharmazd followed by six days named after the six archangels respectively (see Bund. I, 23, 26). The second week consists of the day Dîn-with-Âtarô followed by six days named after the angels of fire, waters, the sun, the moon, Mercury, and the primeval ox. The third week consists of the day Dîn-with-Mitrô followed by seven days named after the angels of solar light, obedience, and justice, the guardian spirits, and the angels of victory, pleasure, and wind. And the fourth week consists of the day Dîn-with-Dînô followed by seven days named after the angels of religion, righteousness, rectitude, the sky, the earth, the liturgy, and the fixed stars.


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