Sacred Texts Zoroastrianism Index Previous Next
Buy this Book at Amazon.com
Pahlavi Texts, Part IV (SBE37), E.W. West, tr. [1892], at sacred-texts.com
Hûspâram Nask.
1. A miscellaneous section is about taking anything which is not one's own at the time when he does not think that they see him and they do see him, at the time when he thinks that they see him and they do not see him, and at the time when he thinks that they see him and they do see him. 2. About giving righteous instruction, that is, what happens, and how, at the time when the follower 2 asks again. 3. About the sin of imprisoning the needy, exalting falsehood, and approving deceit.
4. About the action and command which diminish, or alter, a liberal gift to any one. 5. About the limit of the open-handedness of a wife who should be privileged, and who is reverent towards her husband, out of anything that has not reached the husband; how it is when the husband is foolish, how it is when it is legally, how when derived from what is legally property, and how about that which is unspent savings (anyûrûzd kabun); also the limit of the reverence of a wife for a husband, and whatever is on the same subject.
6. About causing the conveyance of a maiden from the house of her fathers, or guardians, to the village of her husband, to hold the position of housemistress of the husband; of the wife when she becomes reverent and propitiatory towards him, and admonishing her when she speaks thus: 'I am thy wife, but I will not perform a wife's duties for thee;' also the quarrelling of a husband with his wife, and carrying it on to the bridge of judgment.
7. About the blood on a woman who wants washing, and the bridge penalty upon him who has sexual intercourse with a woman who wants washing, with her who is a foreigner, or any other of those not authorisedly for intercourse; the confusion of germs by the woman who grants intercourse to foreigners, and other sin which they nay commit about like matters. 8. About a wife claimed from foreigners; that is, how it is when allowable.
9. About the preparation of a wife for the control of a son, the period for it and for suckling, and the wish for a son which is present with a husband. 10. About the sin of a man owing to rejecting the controlling of his son by a sister or grown-up daughter. 11. About three things through which mankind become sinful and injuring their own property, and the possession of them is not to be taken away. 12. About those who may not inflict lawful chastisement with oppressive demeanour.
13. About that which a man is to be made to provide in feasting and gifts, for his store of good works, on his wife bringing forth. 14. How it is when he is a man of wisdom, and how it is when he is a disciple; how it is when it is a male birth, and how it is when it is a female. 15. The advantage
and benefit therefrom; the religious announcement of a name for the new-born, should it be a male, or should it be a female; the good work owing to the decision of a religious appointment of a name for the progeny, [and the sin] 1 owing to giving again to it a name of the idolators (dêvîyastân).
16. About the ritual and usage in admitting the male to a sheep, owing to which the male is a gratifier of the impregnated female nature, and a protection of the female nature; and the want of training and freedom from defect of the progeny; a proper condition of the flock, too, arises likewise through worshipping the sacred beings and providing the sacred feast; also about the shepherd's dog and the blessing for him. 17. About the regard of the shepherd for the breeding of the sheep. 18. About the work of the ceremonial and of providing the sacred feast, and the advantage for the sheep from the same cause. 19. About the Mazda-worshipping district-breeding of the dogs in a district, through providing careful nurture for the dogs, which is a good work owing to the same cause.
20. About the object of payment for teaching the Zôti duty, for the guardianship of the fire, for the publication and watching of worship, and for other labour, and whatever is on the same subject.
21. About the lawful guardianship of a child, the child who is lamp-light and the father who is the fire, and whatever is on the same subject. 22. About sickness owing to the look of an evil eye, or the vicinity of a menstruous woman, because those
with an evil eye, or menstruous, are thereby harmful. 23. About what is the kind of watching for the admitters of fear; the fearful and whatever is on the same subject. 24. And that in case of descending from a house on the outside.
25. About lawful arrangements for supplies, in union and assistance one towards the other; about payment for the labour in the lawful arrangement; and whatever is on the same subject. 26. About the produce of property for the multitude, and that also for one's own association; that is, how it is when taking it authorisedly, and how it is when not doing so; and whatever is on the same subject.
27. The special generosity of judges in conveying property back to its owners; the advantage from just judges, and the harm from unjust sentencing and false decisions. 28. So, also, the advantage from truly demanding, truly answering, and assisting the just; the enmity and harm from falsely demanding, falsely investigating, and assisting a false demander and false investigation; but not the enmity and secret harm of a complaint of the wretched. 29. Advice to judges about just decision and abstinence from false decision; and, secondly, the reward of their just decision, and the awful bridge judgment of false decision; the accountability in the spiritual existence in the case of judges, the praise of truth and contempt of falsity, the gratification of the sacred beings and vexation of die demons from just judgment and turning away from false decision, and whatever is on the same subject.
30. About what place the appointment by Aûharmazd in the original creation brought the corn to 1,
which arrived for use in the nourishment and assistance of mankind and animals; the sowing of corn from the bodies of Mashya and Mashyôî 1; and whatever is on the same subject. 31. About the labour in sowing and cultivating corn, and whatever is in the business of agriculturists; perseverance in agriculture, and the limit of its allotment, owing to suitable participation and inevitable participation in agriculture; whatever is about the shepherd and whatever is about the agriculturist, and the adjudication between them. 32. About the corn which is sown, that which is reaped, that which is for an increase (pavan nad-aê), and that which is for other things.
33. About the excitement of any one, owing to his blood. 34. About those kinds of ownership of land and other things that are best. 35. About him who sees some one conducting water for cultivation, when the person unauthorisedly sows the land of the observer who does not dispute about it with fearlessness and effectual resistance. 36. About the selling of supplies granted, which may be done in hunger, nakedness, and fear; and whatever is on the same subject.
37. About the supremacy of sin, both that which arises on the spot, and that at a distance (pavan hâsar); and whatever is on the same subject. 38. About the atonableness of every sin, and the bridge judgment for destroying a righteous man, for witchcraft, and for carrying evil (agîh) to fire and water. 39. About atonement for the sin of Yât, Bâzâî,
[paragraph continues] Khôr, Aredûs, Avôîrist, Âgêrept 1, and giving no food, through giving of scars (pisang-das) 2, labour, and punishment; the kinds of horse-whip and scourge, and how the penitential effect of both arises.
40. When a sinner dies outright on account of the penalty of giving of scars, or the performance of the labour, or the exertion of effecting the penance of punishment, and when a man has died penitent, but incapable of a desire 3 for the retribution of sin, and has not atoned in the worldly existence, what the nature of his soul's helplessness is, owing to sin. 41. About those for whom there is no retribution for sin.
42. About what is the kind of contest of a poor man, plundered of his property; first, as regards the oppressor who was the plunderer, and, afterwards, having petitioned for criminal proceedings, through the judges, as regards his oppressor, until their repayment of the property. 43. About being delivered into distress and disaster 1, and the decision thereon. 44. About the oppressiveness of the much pollution of greediness (âzŏ) which is owing to all its fiendishness, and the arrangement of the creator about it for restraining the same fiend 2 from destroying the whole worldly creation. 45. About the great judiciousness of a man in want of power being good, for preserving his own life and making it nurturable.
99:2 See Chap. XXII, 6 n.
101:1 Here, again, the repairer of the manuscript has forgotten to note the words in brackets which he had cut out of the folio before patching it.
102:1 According to Bd. X, 1, XIV, 1, XXVII, 2, fifty-five species of p. 103 grain sprang up originally where the primeval ox passed away; a statement which does not agree with that hinted at in this section.
103:1 See Chap. XIII, 1.
104:1 These six names are applied to the various grades of assault and wounding, for which a special scale of punishment is appointed (see Sls. I, 1, 2, XI, 1, 2, XVI, 1, 5). Here the list begins at the most heinous end of the scale, and the last three names, which refer to the lightest offences, have been already explained in Chaps. XIX, 1 n, XX, 64 n. The first three names are explained in Farh. Oîm, pp. 36, l. 7-37, l. 2, as follows:—'For whatever reaches the source of life the name is Khôr; one explains Bâzâî as "smiting," and Yât as "going to," though it be possible for the soul of man to be withstanding; and a counterstroke is the penalty for a Yât when it has been so much away from the abode of life.' These six gradations of crime, therefore, range from the infliction of the nearest possible approximation to a fatal wound, down to the merely constructive assault of seizing a weapon. All authorities agree in estimating the relative heinousness of the first four crimes by the following numbers: 180, 90, 60, and 30; but regarding the amounts for the two lighter offences there is much difference of statement. In the old law of the Vendîdâd there are seven gradations of such crime, the lowest four corresponding in name with the lowest four here, and all punishable by lashes, with a horse-whip, or scourge, varying from five to two hundred in number, according to the heinousness of the offence and the number of times it has been committed.
104:2 By scourging, as prescribed in the Vendîdâd
104:3 Owing to sickness, or any other disabling cause.
105:1 Pâz. vôighn.
105:2 The fiend of greediness, Âzŏ.