Sacred Texts Zoroastrianism Index Previous Next
Buy this Book at Amazon.com
Pahlavi Texts, Part I (SBE05), E.W. West, tr. [1880], at sacred-texts.com
1. And as he (Aharman) came secondly to the water, together with him rushed in, on the horse Cancer, he who is the most watery Tîstar; the equally watery one, that is called Avrak 3, gave forth a cloud and went down in the day; that is
declared as the movement of the first-comers of the creatures. 2. Cancer became a zodiacal constellation (akhtar); it is the fourth constellation of the zodiac for this reason, because the month Tîr is the fourth month of the year 1.
3. And as Tîstar begged for assistance, Vohûman and Hôm are therefore co-operating with him in command, Bûrg of the waters and the water in mutual aid, and the righteous guardian spirits in keeping the peace. 4. He was converted into three forms, which are the form of a man, the form of a bull, and the form of a horse; and each form was distinguished in brilliance for ten nights, and lets its rain fall on the night for the destruction of noxious creatures. 5. The drops became each separately like a great bowl in which water is drawn; and as to that on which they are driven, they kill all the noxious creatures except the reptiles 2, who entered into the muddiness of the earth.
6. Afterwards, the wind spirit, in the form of a man, became manifest on the earth; radiant and tall he had a kind of wooden boot (mûkvŏ-aê-i dârînô) on his feet; and as when the life shall stir the body, the body is advancing with like vigour, so that spirit of the wind stirs forth the inner nature of the atmospheric wind, the wind pertaining to the whole earth is forth, and the water in its grasp is flung out from it to the sides of the earth, and its wide-formed ocean arose therefrom.
7. It (the ocean) keeps one-third of this earth 3,
and among its contents are a thousand sources and fountains, such as are called lakes (var); a thousand water-fountains, whose water is from the ocean, come up from the lakes and are poured forth into it. 8. And the size of some of all the lakes and all the fountains of water is as much as a fast rider on an Arab horse, who continually compasses and canters around them, will attain in forty days, which is 1900 1, long leagues (parasang-i akarîk), each league being at least 20,000 feet.
9. And after the noxious creatures died 2, and the poison therefrom was mixed up in the earth, in order to utterly destroy that poison Tîstar went down into the ocean; and Apâôsh, the demon, hastened to meet him, and at the alarm of the first contest Tîstar was in terror (pard). 10. And he applied unto Aûharmazd, who brought such power unto Tîstar as arises through propitiation and praise and invoking by name 3, and they call forth such power unto Tîstar as that of ten vigorous horses, ten vigorous camels, ten vigorous bulls, ten mountains when hurled, and ten single-stream rivers when together. 11. And without alarm he drove out Apâôsh, the demon, and kept him away from the sources of the ocean.
12. And with a cup and measuring bowl, which possessed the diligence even of a guardian spirit (fravâhar), he seized many more handfuls of water,
and made it rain down 1 much more prodigiously, for destruction, drops as large as men's heads and bulls' heads, great and small. 13. And in that cloud and rain were the chastisement and beating which Tîstar and the fire Vâzist inflicted on the opposition of Apâôsh; the all-deciding (vispô-vikîr) fire Vâzist struck down with a club of fire, all-deciding among the malevolent (kêbarânŏ).
14. Ten days and nights there was rain, and its darting 2 was the shooting of the noxious creatures; afterwards, the wind drove it to the shore of the wide-formed ocean, and it is portioned out into three, and three seas arose from it; they are called the Pûîtîk, the Kamîrîd, and the Gehân-bûn 3. 15. Of these the Pûîtîk itself is salt water, in which is a flow and ebb 4; and the control of its flow and ebb is connected with the moon, and by its continual rotation, in coming up and going down, that of the moon is manifested. 16. The wide-formed ocean stands forth on the south side as to (pavan) Albûrz 5, and the Pûîtîk stands contiguous to it, and amidst it is the gulf (var) of Satavês, whose connection is with Satavês, which is the southern quarter. 17. In the activity of the sea, and in the increase and decrease of the moon, whose circuit is the whole of Iran, are the flow and ebb; of the
curving tails in front of the moon two issue forth, and have an abode in Satavês; one is the up-drag and one the down-drag; through the up-drag occurs the flood, and through the down-drag occurs the ebb 1. 18. And Satavês itself is a gulf (var) and side arm of the wide-formed ocean, for it drives back the impurity and turbidness which come from the salt sea, when they are continually going into the wide-formed ocean, with a mighty high wind 2, while that which is clear through purity goes into the Arêdvîvsûr sources of the wide-formed ocean. 19. Besides these four 3 there are the small seas 4.
20. And, afterwards, there were made to flow from Albûrz, out of its northern border, two rivers 5, which were the Arvand 6—that is, the Diglît, and the flow
of that river was to those of the setting sun (val frôd-yehevundânŏ)—and the Vêh 1 was the river of the first-comers to the sun; formed as two horns they went on to the ocean. 21. After them eighteen 2 great rivers came out from the same Albûrz; and these twenty rivers, whose source is in Albûrz, go down into the earth, and arrive in Khvanîras.
22. Afterwards, two fountains of the sea are opened out for the earth 3, which are called the Kêkast 4—a lake which has no cold wind, and on whose shore rests the triumphant fire Gûsnasp 5 and, secondly, the Sôvar 6 which casts on its shores all turbidness, and keeps its own salt lake clear and pure, for it is like the semblance of an eye which casts out to its edges every ache and every impurity; and on account of its depth it is not reached to the bottom, for it goes into the ocean; and in its vicinity rests the beneficial fire Bûrzîn-Mitrô 7.
23. And this was the second contest, which was with the water.
168:3 The ninth lunar mansion (see Bund. II, 3, VII, 1).
169:1 Bund. VII, 2-6 is paraphrased in §§ 2-6.
169:2 Reading neksûnd barâ min khasandakânŏ instead of the MS. barâ nasûnd min khasandakânŏ.
169:3 Compare Bund. XIII, 1, 2.
170:1 Bund. XIII, 2 has 1700, but as neither number is a multiple of forty in round numbers, it is probable that both are wrong, and that we ought to read 1600.
170:2 Bund. VII, 7-4 is paraphrased in §§ 9-14.
170:3 The Av. aokhtô-nâmana yasna of Tîstar Yt. II, 23; 24.
171:1 Or perhaps 'made the cloud rain,' if madam vârânînîd stands for avar vârânînîd.
171:2 Reading partâv instead of the MS. patûtâv, 'powerful fury.'
171:3 This is a variant of the Sahî-bûn or Gâhî-bûn of Bund. XIII, 7, 15; the other two names differ but little from those given in Bund. XIII. In the MS. Pûîtîk occurs once, and Puîtîk twice.
171:4 Compare §§ 15-18 with Bund. XIII, 8-14.
171:5 Compare Bund. XIII, 1.
172:1 This, is even a more mechanical theory of the tides than that detailed in Bund. XIII, 13,. Whether the 'curving tails' (gagak dunbak) are the 'horns' of the crescent moon is uncertain.
172:2 By an accidental transposition of letters the MS. has âtarô, 'fire,' instead of vâtô, 'wind.'
172:3 The ocean and three principal seas.
172:4 Said to be twenty-three in number in Bund. XIII, 6.
172:5 Bund. VII, 15, 16, XX, 1.
172:6 This appears to be a later identification of the Arag, Arang, or Arêng river of Bund. XX with the Tigris, under its name Arvand, which is also found in the Bahman Yast (III, 21, 38) and the Âfrîn of the Seven Ameshaspends (§ 9). The Bundahis (XX, 8) seems to connect the Arag (Araxes?) with the Oxus and Nile, and describes the Diglat or Tigris as a distinct river (Bund. XX, 12). This difference is one of the indications of the Bundahis having been so old a book in the time of Zâd-sparam that he sometimes misunderstood its meaning, which could hardly have been the case if it had been written by one of his contemporaries. As the Persian empire has several times included part of Egypt, the Nile must have then been well known to the Persians as the great western river of their world. The last time they had possession of part of Egypt was, for about half a century, in the reigns of Khusrô p. 173 Nôshirvân, Aûharmazd IV, and Khusrô Parvîz; but since the early part of the seventh century the Tigris has practically been their extreme western limit; hence the change of the old Arag or Arang into the very similarly written Arvand, a name of the Tigris.
173:1 See Bund. XX, 9.
173:2 Bund. XX, 2, 7.
173:3 Bund. VII, 14.
173:4 Bund. XXII, 2.
173:5 Written Gûsasp in Bund. XVII. 7, and Gûsnâsp in B. Yt. III, 30, 40, while the older form Visnâsp occurs in B.Yt. III, 10.
173:6 The Sôvbar of Bund. VII, 14, XII, 24, XXII, 3.
173:7 Bund. XVII, 8.