BUNDAHIS

OR

THE ORIGINAL CREATION.

OBSERVATIONS.

1. For all divisions into chapters and sections the translator is responsible, as the original text is written continuously, with very few stops marked.

2. Italics are used for any English words which are not expressed, or fully understood, in the original text, but are added to complete the sense of the translation.

3. Oriental words are usually 'spaced.' Italics occurring in them, or in names, are intended to represent certain peculiar Oriental letters. The italic consonants d, n, v may be pronounced as in English; but g should be sounded like j, hv like wh, k like ch in 'church,' N like ng, s like sh, z like French j. For further information, see 'Transliteration of Oriental Alphabets adopted for the Translations of the Sacred Books of the East' at the end of the volume.

4. In Pahlavi words all circumflexed vowels and any final ŏ are expressed in the Pahlavi original, but all other vowels are merely understood.

5. In the translation, words in parentheses are merely explanatory of those which precede them.

6. Abbreviations used are:—Av. for Avesta. Dâd. for Dâdistân-i Dînîk. Huz. for Huzvâris. Mkh. for Mainyô-i-khard, ed. West. Pahl. for Pahlavi. Pâz. for Pâzand. Pers. for Persian. Sans. for Sanskrit. Vend. for Vendîdâd, ed. Spiegel. Visp. for Visparad, ed. Sp. Yas. for Yasna, ed. Sp. Yt. for Yast, ed. Westergaard.

7. The manuscripts mentioned in the notes are:—

K20 (about 500 years old), No. 20 in the University Library at Kopenhagen.

K20b (uncertain date), a fragment of the text, No. 20b in the same library.

M6 (written A.D. 1397), No. 6 of the Haug Collection in the State Library at Munich.

TD (written about A.D. 1530), belonging to Mobad Tehmuras Dinshawji Anklesaria at Bombay.

Next: Chapter I