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Pahlavi Texts, Part IV (SBE37), E.W. West, tr. [1892], at sacred-texts.com
Sûdkar Nask.
1. The third fargard, YêNhê-hâtãm 3, is about
the formation of mankind by slow increase, and, when they live on for fifty 1 years, their slowly becoming dust; the coming of death even to him who is very pleasantly living, as regards mankind, at the climax (barînŏ) of his life; and the happiness of the worldly existence is given only to the worthy, on account of their love of righteousness; the rest are passed by 2. 2. And also this, that he who is produced by the demons, or is proceeding to the
demons, or has committed falsehood, is the opulent person who gives nothing to a worthy supplicant.
3. Righteousness is perfect excellence.
175:3 This third formula is chiefly recited at the end of most of the hâs in the Yasna, and consists of fifteen Avesta words, as follows:—
[paragraph continues] This may be translated as follows:—'Of whatever male of the p. 176 existences, therefore, Ahuramazda was better cognizant, through righteousness in worship, and of whatever females, both those males and those females we reverence.'
The Pahlavi version explains it as follows:—'Whoever of those existing is thus in worship as regards a good being [that is, shall celebrate a ceremonial for that good being who is Aûharmazd the lord], Aûharmazd is aware of it, owing to the accompaniment of righteousness [and being acquainted with the reward and recompense of whatever are, severally, the duty and good works that any one has performed, he grants them]. I reverence those of the assembly, males and females [the archangels; because the male of them are good, and the female of them].'
The Pahlavi translator evidently read vanghô in the first line of the text, as printed above, and not in the second, as in the present MSS.
176:1 So in K, but B has 'seventy.' The text seems to allude to the beginning of old age, of which three grades are mentioned in the Avesta (Vend. III, 19, 20): the hanô, zaururô, and pairistâkhshudrô. The Pahlavi version defines the age of each grade, but the ciphers given are corrupted in the MSS. extant. The Far. Oîm, p. 5, ll. 9, 10, gives fifty years as the age of the zarmân (Av. zaururô), seventy years as that of the hân (Av. hanô), and ninety years as that of the pâdîrânŏ-shûsar (Av. pairistâkhshudrô); but whether this arrangement of the ages is compatible with the different order of these epithets in the Avesta is doubtful, though it shows that old age was considered to begin at the age of fifty years.
176:2 Reading sakî-aîtŏ according to K, though the word can also be read segî-aîtŏ, 'are ruined;' in B it can be read gadâîgî-aîtŏ, 'are impoverished.'