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At the earliest hour of
roz Asmān of Spandārmat mah of 1373 Anno Yazdgardi,
Saturday, 12th March 2005 in plain English, commenced a
ceremony unique in the annals of the Zoroastrians settled outside their
traditional homelands of Iran and India. This was the Vendīdād
ceremony whose order of service includes the recitation of the entire
text – all 22 chapters of it; all of them read out of a book.
Our good friend Rustom
Bhedwar – an ervad truly worthy of the name – utilized the Avestic
characters; his fellow-officiants recited the text in Gujarāti script.
** ** ** ** **
Here is an observation from
way back in 1917:
“ … it cannot be said
that the Parsis even now have any
familiarity with the Hymns which in theory stand at the centre of their
religion. … The people collectively worship the Gathas, but it is the
Vendidad that makes their religion” [Moulton, Treasure of the
Magi, p.225]
The two corner-stones of
Zoroastrianism are the Gāthās and the Vendīdād. The first
may be broadly considered as Salutary and Reflective,
presenting the Science of the Mind; they constitute a Code for
Moral Right-living. The Vendīdād – the subject of our paper –
could be contrasted as Sanitary and Prescriptive, the
Science of the Body, and a Code for Physical Well-being.
Within these sweeping classifications are enshrined the complementary
aspects of our Zoroastrian Religion. The Latin tag, “mens sana in
corpore sano” – “a sound mind in a healthy body” fits our
definitions perfectly. Zoroastrianism holistically blends the spiritual
and physical aspects within man [Yss.28.2; 43.3]. If meaningfully
realized, they together provide Guide-lines for the good
moral life and sound physical health.
The meaning of Vendīdād,
its transmission and function
Its Avestic title is
vīdaēva dāta – the Law for the Expulsion of the Demons, or
Religious Code for the Ejection of Demonic Forces. This anti-demonic
drive sets the tone of our Credo [Ys.12] which begins: nāismī daēvō!
fravarānē mazdayasnō zaraθuštriš, vīdaēvō ahura.tkaēšō … : “I forswear
the daēvas! I profess Zarathushtrian Mazda-worship and the Ahuric doctrine
which repels the daēvas … ”
The Ahuric ethical doctrine
is clearly stated: “Purity is for man, next to life, the greatest good
– that purity that is procured by the Law of Mazda to him who
cleanses his own Self with Good Thoughts, Words, and Deeds”
[V.21 = X.18]. The superiority of the Vendīdād is proclaimed by imputing
authorship to Zarathushtra: aētэm dātэm yim vīdōyūm zaraθuštri …
: “This Zarathushtrian Law which repels the daēvas … ” [V.22].
It is concerned overall with purity; both ethical and ritual laws are seen
to underpin this priestly Code: the spiritual and the material
worlds are brought together.
The Pahlavi translators
knew the work as the Zand-ī yūdt-dēv-dād. Our early Parsi editors –
largely forgotten pioneers of religious propagation in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries – recorded it as Zand-ī javīt-shēda-dād:
and in shēda lies an interesting twist. For whom was our
Anti-demonic Code intended? Who were its composers? We find these answers
in the text itself where, if not always specific, there are sufficient
clues concerning its authors and their society. Parts of this text contain
some very ancient material which was remembered and transmitted, mostly
orally, by generations of learned priests from Media whose native
tongue was not Avestan, or perhaps whose command of it had lapsed over the
centuries of unrecorded history. It is a late or possibly a
post-Achaemenid compilation. These zandists occasionally had to
admit, “u-m nē rošnāg” – “to me it is unclear”. Neither poets nor
prophets, they had outwardly embraced Zarathushtra’s doctrines whilst
maintaining their peculiar dualistic stamp throughout their work.
Vendīdādic Avestan has been
described as “grammatical anarchy” by R. C. Zaehner who had no further
dealings with the text [Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of
Zoroastrianism, p.26]. Others have also been variously unkind to our
text – these result from hasty, prejudiced assessments: they tell us more
about their approach, attitude, and generally poor spirit of enquiry into
the letter rather than the spirit of the Vendīdād. Thus,
Moulton, usually very inspiring in his reading of the Gāthās, pronounced
it “a distasteful task to dwell on the drivelling nonsense which fills
so large a part of the Vendidad” [Treasure, p.110].
Henning, decrying the lack
of first-hand material for the “dark period” from 300 BCE to 200 CE,
declared “we feel scarcely compensated by the two Zoroastrian books
that must have been composed in that period: the Vendidad and the
Nirangistan, two fragments of a priestly code. Their authors were anxious
to preserve the ancient laws of the Magi, which threatened to fall into
desuetude, and at the same time to elaborate them in a spirit of
narrowness and bigotry. These books are typical products of priests who
find themselves powerless to enforce their authority, as indeed the Magi
were under Greek rule. They are so busy with regulations which are often
fictitious and sometimes absurd that they throw nearly no light on
contemporary reality, except, of course, on the authors’ state of mind”
[Zoroaster: Politician or Witch-doctor? pp.18/19].
It was left to Ilya
Gershevitch to redress this imbalance somewhat. He explained, “… we are
allowed a glimpse of the day-to-day life of the men and women for whose
benefit it was composed. …Unfortunately the enjoyment in reading it is
marred by … the deadly pedantry which obsesses the authors and leads them
to dreary repetitions and hair-splitting classifications” [“Old
Iranian Literature” in the Handbuch der Orientalistik – Literatur’
p.27].
The Qisse-ye Sanjān
purports to give us a kind of history of a particular group of Iranian
Zoroastrians who were shipwrecked off Sanjān in the early 8th
century CE (and not the 10th as some would have us
believe). With those refugees were priests who soon joined up with other
clerics from earlier groups to establish the first fire-temple, courtesy
of Jadī/Jaydēv Rāna. Among other and later immigrants were those settled
around the 12th century in Sind at Uchh or Uchhak near
present-day Bahawalpur with their priest Mahyār. They appear not to have
known of their co-religionists along the coast far to the south
for, in pursuit of religious knowledge, Mahyār travelled west some
600 miles into Seistān. He returned in 1184 after some six years with the
Zoroastrian priests there, bringing with him a copy of the Vendīdād, then
unknown among the Parsis in Gujarāt. It is said that all Indian copies of
our text were descended from Mahyār’s Iranian original: they were slowly
disseminated southward from Sind to Gujarāt, having been absent from the
12th century Navsāri religious canon.
The Qisse has been
quoted as asserting that the original band of refugees exiled themselves
from Iran to preserve their religion; yet its compiler in 1599 CE, Bahman
Kaikobād, a Sanjāna priest, bemoans – some eight and a half centuries
later, “In former times, there were people deeply versed in
spiritual matters, and were able to observe religious precepts with
wisdom. In our times the Lord alone knows what True Religion is,
for men do not”! What then was the state of our religion in 1600?
The Vendīdād is a composite
work, with chapters – fargards – (some in a fragmentary condition)
on geography, legendary history, laws of contract, on outrages
against the person, the various degrees of sins with their punishment and
remission, on pollution and purification, the dakhmas, on
cleansing, on sexual conduct and misconduct, the care of the dog
(and the beaver!) with the severest penalties on their mistreatment, on
good and bad priests, and finally on healing. The extant
collection of twenty-two chapters was gathered up as one of seven legal
Nasks among the 21 which existed in sixth century Sasanian Iran, by which
time the mobadhs and herbadhs had busily adapted their
religious practices to the life of the cities. The work had already some
thousand years of evolution and disruption behind it: we see these in some
abrupt breaks, repeats, dislocations, and additions.
The history of our
religious texts indicates that after the terrible socio-religious turmoil
created by the communistic Mazdak-i Bāmdātān, the ahramōγān ahramōγ
in the reign of Kavādh (488-531), when Crown Prince Khosro succeeded to
the throne (531-579), the scattered texts were brought together under the
supervision of the mobadhān mobadh Wēh-shāhpur, classified,
systematized and distributed among the twenty-one divisions or Nasks. The
great work was satisfactorily completed and Khosro’s Chief Priest
was duly commemorated as “the immortal-souled Wēh-shāhpur” –
anōshak-ruvān wēh-shāhpur i mobadhān mobadh. We note the terms of this
recognition – they are precisely those used to glorify the great Khosro
himself: anōshak-ruvān husrau i shāhan-shāh i kavātān: “Khosro, the
King of kings, son of Kavādh, of immortal soul”. [Manushchihr, Epistle
to the Beh-dins of Sīrakān, I. 4.14-17, trl. Bailey, Zoroastrian
Problems …p.173]. The 21 Nasks are listed according to the twenty-one
words of the yaθā ahū vairyō prayer. Our text is the nineteenth,
corresponding to the word drigubyō. It is regarded as the only
“complete Nask” to have survived, by which is probably meant that the
extant contents are all that could be rescued from other works to form
some kind of whole.
In view of its
heterogeneous contents, what was the function of this text? For a
certainty it could not originally have formed part of the old liturgy.
This priestly compilation required the stamp of authenticity; hence the
authors had recourse to the constant use of the names of the Supreme
Deity, Ahura Mazda, and of his prophet Zarathushtra. At just about every
juncture, the prophet is made to demand answers from the Deity on
questions with a very varied range. The standard opening is: pэrэsat
zaraθuštrō ahurэm mazdăm – “Zarathushtra asked Ahura Mazda”.
Then follows an extended formula of direct address: ahura mazda, mainyō
spэništa, dātarэ gaēθanăm astvaitinăm, ašāum! – “O Ahura Mazda, most
bounteous Spirit, Creator of the physical world, righteous One!”
These serial interlocutions are justified only after we have travelled
some way into the text: “… this Law of Mazda, O Spitama
Zarathushtra! cleanses the faithful from every evil thought, word, and
deed, as a swift-rushing mighty wind cleanses the plain” [III.42 =
VIII.30]. In this manner, every sin listed in our text could
be fully atoned, and every priestly query and response could be
authenticated.
Our text restricts itself
to matters of daily concern to the rural Mazdaean pastoralist and
agriculturist, which could be addressed by the country priests. These
priests were no great stylists, but had applied their practical knowledge
to resolve problems of the pious but uninformed laity. The Vendīdād was
then a wise and common-sense compilation which, viewed now through our
troubled times, lends itself to all manner of fanciful explanations –
occultic and theosophical, and some quite deliberate misrepresentations.
Similar manipulations are to be discerned in every religion in every age
from every form of priest with pretensions to higher knowledge.
The generally inaccessible
Avestic of the Vendīdād soon demanded translation into Pahlavi, the
learned language of the Sasanian priesthood. Also provided was a
rivāyat-like Commentary, again in Pahlavi, which probably originated
with the learned Medhyomah mentioned in the Šāyast nē-šāyast [Ch.2,
§1], as a super-commentary elaborated upon the difficult original text.
Fargards I and II, and XIX-XXII are absent from it.
It is the arid style and
disproportionate chastisements for sins and sinners that our text has
received some abrupt rebuffs from an earlier western scholarship. Thus the
notorious John Wilson, relying mainly upon the Pahlavi version, took to
task the ill-equipped Edal Dārū and derided the Vendīdād’s contents.
“Wilson gives no evidence that he ever read the Gathas” said Moulton [The
Treasure of the Magi, p.224]. It was perhaps just as well, for the
Parsis, stung into action through exposure of their religious ignorance,
and their inability to justify it, embarked upon a determined course of
researches and systematic studies of our sacred literature and languages.
James Darmesteter, that
wonderful, impartial, French scholar, had confined himself to sober
observations with which his still serviceable translations are pertinently
studded. In discussing its penology [in his Introduction to Fargard XIV],
he was “doubtful whether the legislation of the Vendīdād has ever
existed as real and living law”. Others, less tolerant of the style
and content of our text, gave vent to their exasperation with it. Moulton,
so great an admirer of Zarathushtra and his Gāthās, saw through what he
perceived as the pretensions of our text’s priestly compilers:
“Priestly religions inevitably lose the sense of proportion, offences
against ritual being so heinous that real sins lose caste. The Vendidad
is the very acme of absurdity in this respect. …The fact is, of
course, that these Magian writers have been – to put it nakedly – putting
silly rubbish into the mouth of the Deity, who solemnly sets forth these
penalties in answer to Zarathushtra’s questions.” [Treasure,
pp.108, 109].
Through these citations we
see that such objections are mainly to the exaggeratedly detailed
compilations of degrees of sins and their punishments. We agree the
various misdeeds which constitute sins; we cannot, however, reconcile the
retributions exacted. The instruments of chastisement are the
aspahē-aštra and the sraošō-čarana – the first is evidently a
horse-whip, and the other, we think, is the bastinado.
Punishment was meted out under the supervision of the Sraošō-varēz,
the officiating disciplinarian. A maximum of a thousand strokes with each
is recommended for the worst sins; exceptionally – for killing a bawra
or beaver, it is ten thousand of each! [XIV.1,2; XIII.52 and 55 for
the zindēh-ruvān ritual for its soul!]. The vastly increasing rate
of strokes seems to us inordinate – they may have been commuted into cash
fines or kinds of community service.
However, an anecdote makes
us half-believe in their actuality. Professor Edmund Bosworth reminded us
in the course of a lecture on the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon who “learnt
that as recently as 1884 … one victim had recently endured 6,000
strokes of the bastinado, evidence of the phenomenal hardness of
Persian soles”! The year 1884 was well into the reign of the Qajar
Shah Nasir al-Din, an autocrat who is reputed to have brushed aside moves
towards what he considered dangerous new liberal ideas with the remark,
“I want ministers who do not know whether Brussels is a city or a
cabbage”!
All authorities are
agreed on those Vendīdād passages which needlessly disfigure and distort
some valuable information on the earlier summarized salient topics. It is
indeed these quirky portions of our priestly code which occasioned our
comment that this text could not have originally formed part of the
Zoroastrian liturgy, and could indeed be why its late inclusion
necessitated its being read from a written text.
The Vendīdād’s
geographical horizons
Sixteen lands are named as being created by Ahura Mazda; each has its
particular attraction for its inhabitants, and each has its peculiar
drawback, being the counter-creation of Ahriman. The first listed is
Airyana Vaeja, the original homeland of the Aryan confederations, an area
thought to be an undetermined region somewhere in the northerly steppes of
South Central Asia. Its inhabitants were said to live for three hundred
years in an idyllic existence – a Golden Age in a primordial Paradise.
Thereupon, Ahriman afflicted it with prolonged severe winter conditions of
ten months, leaving only two for summer – the first migrations southward
of the Aryan tribes under Yima/Jamshīd started out from there.
The last of the sixteen
named lands was the basin of the Ranha. Using hints from the RigVeda on
the Rasa, we tentatively settle for the lower Volga region of the north
Caspian. The Volga, we note, was called Rha by the Greeks, and to this day
the Finns know it as the Rau. Old Indic explains Rasā as the name of a
mythical stream flowing around the earth: perhaps it too retained a
distant memory of this ancient water-way.
The intervening fourteen
named lands find their correspondences today in eastern and north-eastern
Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Balochistan, and
North-western India. We retain lands ten and thirteen, Harahvaiti and
Chakhra – the Herat region and the area south of Kabul, because of their
notoriety in permitting burial of the dead and cremation of
corpses, both methods abhorred by our Magian authorities, and contrasted
with their own preferred system of disposal of the dead by exposure. This
first fargard ends with the enigmatic statement that there are other
prosperous lands wide and beautiful without indications of names: it
is thought that the listed sixteen referred to lands wherein the first
Zoroastrian missions had spread [Ys.42.6; cf. Ys.45.1].
This geographical chapter
and the two following may be termed Earth Chapters. The third interests us
greatly, as indeed in the not-so-recent past it had captivated both Byles
Cowell and Francisco Cannizzaro. The first-named used part of it for his
Pittacus Song and the latter, with deep Italianate warmth and
humanity called it Il capitolo georgico. Where the second fargard
recounts the colonizing feats of Yima, the Splendiferous Jamshīd, as
pastoralist and universal ruler of a Golden Age, finishing up with the
creation and population of the famous var, this third chapter
extols the virtues of agriculture and well-organized homesteads
with the imperative of keeping arable land free from
corpse pollution. Agriculture and tilling of the land being regarded by
pious and industrious Mazdaeans as sacred obligations [III.23f.], it
follows that any pollution through buried remains of dogs and men
be remedied by disinterment. These interdicts against burial and
cremation stem from the common-sense protection and preservation of
scarce agricultural and pasturage land, and behind the latter prohibition
may be seen the need for conservation of precious fuel stocks and
prevention of their gross misuse. The four sacred elements – earth, water,
air and fire – are seen to be safe-guarded: it still makes excellent
ecological sense!
Dakhmas and the disposal of
the dead
We proceed to the
approved mode of disposal of human remains by exposure within dakhmas.
Fargards V. – XI. deal with the contagion arising from nasa or
dead matter, the means of countering the ensuing illnesses and diseases,
and the precautions to be observed against contamination through corpse
contact. In Fargard VI [44f.] we note the earliest method of exposure of
corpses on hill- and mountain-tops where they are weighted down with
stones and fastened at the head and feet to prevent carrion-eating dogs
and birds [kэrэfš.khvarō sunō and vayō kэrэfš.khvarō]
scattering it around streams and water-courses, and among crops and
plantations. After excarnation the bones were gathered up and deposited
within ossuaries. It is recalled that in the early 14th century
the Franciscan Friar Odoric of Pordenone, a Beatus of the Roman
Church, saw at Thana the bodies of Parsis exposed on open waste-ground
away from human habitation. Fargard VI.51 gives permission for such open
exposure where dakhmas of stone, mortar and clay are unaffordable.
Later came the exposure
within purpose-built dakhmas, out of reach of wild dogs, foxes and wolves,
and importantly where rain-water quickly drains away [VI.50]. The problem
of contamination of rain-water by decaying remains within the dakhmas
preoccupied the Vendīdād’s priestly compilers. Thus, Zarathushtra is made
to ask Ahura Mazda [V.15,16] how this unclean water is purified and
returned, via the Sea Pūitika, to its origin in the Sea
Vouru.kasha. Ahura Mazda’s reply [V.18-20] is extremely instructive
and not a little challenging: He it is who sends this water from
Vouru.kasha to the unclean remains and bones in the dakhmas; He it is who
makes these contaminated waters flow back unseen to the Sea Pūitika
where they boil up, and when cleansed, run back purified to the Sea
Vouru.kasha to nourish plant and animal life and feed humankind.
As we are aware, both these
“Seas”, Pūitika and Vouru.kasha, have long been regarded as mythical –
they were made to form part of our mythical geography. We disagree, and in
fact declare that we have identified both these “seas” on modern maps with
a little help from the Bundahishn, [Ch.X.7-12]. The Sea Vouru.kasha
– “having wide bays” – is the Caspian Sea which indeed is so configured.
About half-way up along its eastern seaboard, we note a large inland
stretch of water right by the Caspian itself and connected to it by the
tiniest of gaps. It is through this gap – a mere hundred metres or so –
that the Caspian pours ceaselessly downward some 4 metres into this
little sea. On modern maps you will see it as the Kara-boghaz Gol. Why
does it never fill up to the level of the Caspian and then stop this
one-way flow? We shall repeat to you what Ahura Mazda said to
Zarathushtra: “they flow back to the Sea Pūitika where they boil up …
”. It is a fact that this Kara-boghaz is extremely shallow and the
intense heat of the surrounding region makes it evaporate at a rate faster
than the Caspian can fill it! It is a natural boiling-pan! This
evaporation causes a very heavy salt concentration – some 35% of Glauber’s
salt, and you’d be most ill-advised to drink it! Also, it stinks!
Furthermore, Pūitika has
been carelessly translated as “the cleansing sea”. In fact the root pu-
indicates “smell”, and the sea should correctly be the “smelly little
one” or “stench-laden”. Think of the child’s word pooh; consider
also putrid, putrefy; puant, puanteur (French); putrefare,
putrescente (Italian); putor, putridus (Latin); and, best of
all, put (Skt.) which is rude. The point of all this is that the
Sea Pūitika/Kara-boghaz does stink, it does boil up, the
vapour is wafted back over the Caspian to condense as rainfall, and so we
boldly commend our de-mythicizing identifications to you.
To return to the dakhma
texts: we have noted the miasmas and the stench in VII.56-58 (Pahlavi Vd.
VII.54-58), despite such forthright warnings, some insist that the dakhmas
are not only sacred (!) but are purified through prayer (!). Why these
perverse interpretations of the clear Vendīdād indications? We have noted
the bizarre attempts to boost the vulture count at Bombay’s Malabar Hill
dakhmas, even hazardous deodorizing methods, and now part-time solar
concentrators. The entire purpose of the dakhma system appears to have
been forgotten or ignored – that is, in the interests of public hygiene
and welfare, all funerary structures must be located well away from
human habitation. It thus becomes today a breach of this ancient
directive and involves the serious matter of religio-social
responsibility.
The exact directives of our
text do not allow of negotiation or sophistry in this crucial
matter. Decaying remains, however disguised or explained away, still
present a real threat to those dwelling within smelling range, and stench,
let it not be forgotten, conveys the real danger of the source from which
it emanates. Our Vendīdād repeatedly warns us; Ahura Mazda Himself informs
Zarathushtra of these horrid dangers from a multitude of “demonic forces”
havocking within the dakhmas, [VII.56-58] and yet we perversely disinform
our fellows on this basic socio- religious issue. These “demons” have
infinite capacity to harm humans!
Elsewhere, it is stated
that the land whereon stand the dakhmas on which corpses are exposed, is
said to cause grief to the Spirit of the Earth [III.9]; therefore the
person who pulls down most of those dakhmas rejoices the Earth
[III.13]. It is considered a meritorious act to do this; the land upon
which the dakhmas stand is contaminated and can be restored only well
after its reclamation. It is time to leave this morbid subject, but with a
last plea that our priesthood should henceforth truthfully explain the
real threat from the dead to the living, using the warnings and
injunctions from their own proclaimed Bible which is our Vendīdād [IX.45,
46; Yt.III.17 (Ardibehešt)].
On Good and Bad Priests
“Let him who wants to have knowledge be taught the
Măθra Spэnta – the Sacred Teachings”: so
urges the Vendīdād [IV.44]. That this particularly applies to our
religious novices entering into the mobadship and the herbadship
– we lump these together as mobedi – is clear from what
follows: “he shall apply himself, through the first part of the day and
the last, through the first part of the night and the last, that his mind
may be increased in knowledge and become strengthened in righteousness. So
he shall sit up, praising and supplicating the gods for increase in
knowledge. He shall rest in the middle part of the day and the middle part
of the night. He should continue in this manner until he can repeat all
the utterances of the herbads of old.” [§45]. We should note that
herbad or ervad denotes a teaching priest – from Avestic
aēthrapaiti, “master of disciples”, and indeed his responsibilities
are demanding and extensive.
In the heyday of the
Mazdayasnian priesthood in Iran, very possibly including the times of
Khosro II Parvēz (590-628 CE), eight priests were required for the ornate
ceremonial and rites. The Vendīdād, which refers to priests generally as
Athravans, gives us their functional titles [V.57-58; VII.17-18], only two
of which are recognized today: the Zaotar (Zot/Zoti) and Rathwiškar (Raspi).
We have met the Sraošō-varēz earlier in his capacity of disciplinarian: he
is also likened to the cockerel Parōdarš which, at the crack of dawn,
summons mankind awake to be “up and doing” – to discard sloth, to devoutly
worship and devotedly work [XVIII.14,15; 23-29]
Priestly qualities included
frugality [XIII.45]; the priests’ duties were onerous [XVIII.5,6; IV.45].
Not performing the Yasna nor chanting the hymns, not properly worshipping
by word or deed (signifying sloppiness and inattention), neither
learning nor teaching – we shall return to this! – or teaching a wrong
religion (heresy!); who leaves off wearing the kushti; who does
not chant the Gāthās – such a one should not be regarded as priestly.
A list of priestly accoutrements and paraphernalia is given. Concerning
heresy, it is clearly enunciated by Ahura Mazda [XV.2]: it occurs when a
priest knowingly and wilfully teaches a Mazdayasnian a foreign, wrong
creed and a foreign, wrong religion. It also means flouting religious
precepts and regulations, perverting their truth, and substituting
so-called “traditions”!
The positive qualities are
enumerated in a short Pahlavi text Abar panj hēm ī asrōnān.
They are (1) Guilelessness; (2) Discrimination in thought, word, and
deed; (3) To respect as wise guide a truth-speaking Dastur who teaches
according to knowledge of the religion and instructs correctly; (4)
Worship of the yazdān with correct words, with memorization of the
nasks, and observance according to the ritual regulations; (5)
Steadfastness in his duty to propitiate day and night; to contend with his
own wrong-headedness; throughout his life not to turn from professing the
faith; and to be diligent in his proper duties.
Priestly virtues and faults
are listed elsewhere (e.g., Zādspram, ch.27; Rivāyats of Kama Bohra, Jasa
and Nariman Hoshang). The 15 virtues and good qualities are:
Pure disposition; Innate
Wisdom; Upholding and embellishing the Religion; Mindfulness of the Sacred
Beings; Having regard for the Spiritual World; Having pure Thoughts;
Speaking correctly; Performing works of Wisdom; Having a pure Body;
Eloquence; Memorization of the nasks ; Correctly reciting the
Avesta; Observing cleanliness; Expert in ritual formulas (nirangs);
Living as befits a qualified priest. To the foregoing was appended an
exhortation: “The herbads should practise these virtues so that
God and the Amshaspands may be pleased, and their Yasna-services be
acceptable.” Faults are generally those held in opposition to these
qualities, and one with such shortcomings is not to be respected as
an athravan. No herbad, no mobad, no dastur is exempt from the
exercise of these qualities!
In the comprehensive Earth
chapter III, the establishment of a farmstead includes maintaining a
family priest, good family values, and, of course, the care of farm
animals and dogs. The good pastoral life is the background to this
composite text, as indeed it was recommended by Zarathushtra himself
[Yss.50.2; 49.4, etc.]. From the beautiful Yasna LX., which is an extended
benediction commencing with the Gāthic 43.3, we can repeat the blessing
pronounced on the farmsteads by travelling priests:
“Vainīt ahmi nmāne sraošō
asruštīm / āχštiš anāχštīm / rāitiš arāītīm / ārmaitiš tarōmaitīm /
aršuχδō vāχš miθaoχtэm vāčim / aša.drujэm” – “Within this dwelling may
Hearkening overcome Obstinacy; may Harmony triumph over Discord;
Generosity over Miserliness; Right-mindedness over Wrong-headedness;
Truthful Speech over Lying Utterance; may Rightness prevail over Deceit!”
Such were the pious
utterances of the noble poryō.tkaēšān
priests.
Prayers and Măthras.
At the beginning of our presentation of the Vendīdād we had noted its
physicality complementing the spirituality of the Gāthās. Whilst our text
may not, strictly speaking, constitute a continuous series of prayers, its
frequent invocation of the Gāthās as mantras,
not
măθras –
as
spells,
and not
inspired precepts,
is remarkable. For example,
we have Gāthic verses chanted by the Athravan to ritually purify the road
traversed by corpse-carriers bearing the remains of
dogs and men:
these consist of the yathā ahū vairyō [Ys.27.13], kэmnā mazdā
[Ys.46.7], kэ vэrэθrэm.jā [Ys.44.16], followed by the uniquely
Vendīdādic formula pāta.nō – “Protect us … O Mazda!”: all of these
are the Avestic nirang-i kushti-bastan prayers. At the
baršnūm-gāh the same sequence follows the cleansing after corpse
contact.
In Chapter XII, the
upamana for all categories of the deceased in a family always includes
the thrice-recited Gāthās. In Chapter X, on Exorcisms and Incantations
against the demonic forces of pollution, it is the Gāthās – and not some
jantar-mantar – that are brought in as apotropaic spells – those to
be recited twice, thrice and four times: the biš-āmrūta, θriš-āmrūta,
and the čaθruš-āmrūta [Cf. IX.46]. To a student of the
Gāthās, it becomes quickly obvious that they have been diverted from their
original purpose and, as Darmesteter remarked [Introd. to Ch.X.], “as
happens in all religions, advantage was taken of whatever there might be
in the old sacred hymns which could be more or less easily applied to the
special circumstances of the case”. We believe also that the frequent
recitation of these ancient verses was largely responsible for their
preservation over the millennia – and praise be to Mazda, the
mantras
have once more reverted to
măθras!
Sexual Conduct and
Misconduct.
The Vendīdād is very strict on sexual mores and their infringements. It
places great emphasis on family ties and values, and vehemently abhors
deviations from these norms. We mention again the Geography Chapter I.
There, Ahriman’s counter-creations in Margiana/Marv and Hyrcania/Vehrkāna
are “sinful lusts” and “unnatural sin”, and in Varena and Hapta Hindu
“abnormal issues” in women. The Earth Chapter III inculcates healthy
family values among farming communities [§2]. Fallow land which remains
unsown is likened to a buxom maiden long without a husband and yearning
for children [III.24]. The diligent and industrious farmer’s reward from
the earth’s bounty is likened to “a loving bride on her bed; unto her
beloved she will produce children just as the good earth will bear fine
fruit” [III.25]. These happy vignettes, alas! do not last for long:
The question sadly arises
when a woman gives birth to still-born and miscarried babies [V.45f.]. We
shall forgo details of her treatment, except to say that it was very harsh
by our modern standards. These matters are repeated in another chapter
[VII.60-69] with the proviso that should she suffer as a result, then the
treatment is to be in abeyance, for “the first thing for her is to have
her life saved” [§71]. Male problems to do with pollutio nocturnis
and self-abuse are also presented [VIII.26,27; XVIII.46].
Homosexuality is outrightly
condemned: the offenders are likened to male and female daēvas
[VIII.31,32] – demonic presences in Mazdayasnian society.
A very great horror of the
menses has been expressed in several ancient civilizations, and in
Vendīdādic Mazdaism it is no exception. There are entire sections dealing
with the treatment of women in their courses [XVI.1-12], and it would be
indelicate of me to detail their facts before a genteel audience. It
suffices to say that intercourse during menses is forbidden, as is
intercourse with a woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy [XV.7,8;
XVI.13-18; XVIII.67-69f.]. Our text comes down heavily against abortion,
it being regarded as wilful murder, and all three parties – the man, the
woman, and the one arranging it are equally guilty of the deed [XV.9-14].
Also considered as wilful
murder is the case where a child is conceived from an
illicit union,
and the man fails to stand by his responsibility with harm resulting to
the new-born [XV.15-16, 18,19]. It is noteworthy that the Pahlavi
commentator Gogushnasp, exhibiting a remarkable open-mindedness on this
issue, declared: “andar varomandih-e kunet, ramišn-e kunišn” –
“Where there is doubt in the matter, there shall be rejoicing”!
Additionally, the man’s responsibility as guardian is to last until the
child reaches the age for initiation: 15 years.
Another post-Sasanian
commentator, the 10th century Ēmēd-i Ašavahištān from a
renowned priestly clan, compiled his Pahlavi Rivāyat, and in Q & A 42 we
encounter a problem all too familiar to us today: the Question is “A
Mazdaean who commits the sin of sexually consorting with a woman of evil
religion (akdēn)
and she conceives a child by him, then what is the degree of his sin? … If
she marries, and that child isborn and brought up in the evil religion,
what would then be the degree of his sin? …” (It should be noted that
zāne akdēn means “a woman of evil religion”, the unnamed evil
religion being Islam.). Ēmēd’s answers are succinct in that, in the first
instance, the fact of fathering the child on an akdēn woman is an
accountable sin. If, however, the child attains the age of fifteen and
remains an akdēn, on that account the father is a margarzān
sinner (= worthy of death). // The father’s involvement in the child’s
religious upbringing, and the child’s initiation into the Mazdayasnian
faith are implicit. Ēmēd’s responses reflect his staunch commitment to his
Zoroastrian faith.
The other wicked canard
floated in our midst is that the religious status as a Mazdayasnian of an
out-married Zoroastrian woman is compromised, and that neither she nor the
children born from her exogamy can be admitted into fire-temples, jashans,
gahanbars, and finally onto the dakhmas. Furthermore, as recorded by a
Bombay High-priest – in direct contradiction to the Vendīdād – she is no
more than a prostitute, and her children are all born into bastardy. Is
that really the case? Here is our text’s perspective [XVIII.61-65] on
prostitutes: (Zarathushtra) – “Who distresses
You with the greatest grief?”
(Ahura Mazda) –
“It is the Jahi, O Spitama Zarathushtra! who
prostitutes herself with the faithful and the unfaithful, with the
Mazda-worshippers and the Daēva-worshippers, with both the wicked and the
righteous”. The
zand agrees with the Avestic, and both add that such women are to be
killed (!): r-e-a-l-l-y ?
Why then does Ahura Mazda, in the very next fargard [XIX.26-30],
allow Zarathushtra to urge Mazdaism upon the sinful daēva-worshipper
to save him and her from post-mortem Hell? Someone has crossed wires
here!
Our text is clear enough,
and its context assured in both the Avestic and its Pahlavi zand.
Nowhere is there the remotest suggestion that an out-married Zoroastrian
woman has either automatically forfeited her religious status (unless, of
course, she makes some official statement to that effect!), or is debarred
from marrying out, or has become a prostitute, or even that her children
are born out of wedlock. Serious enquiry ought instead to be made as to
whence such prelates obtained their un-Zoroastrian teachings, and,
further, why and on whose authority they deliberately spread such
malicious slanders. At any given benchmark, they have failed to conform
to the Vendīdādic rejection of alien religious teachings, and even less to
the 15-point list of desirable priestly qualities. It calls into question
also the Indian priests’ knowledge of their own Bible, and their authority
to disseminate the Mazdaean religion: the Gāthic precepts of Zarathushtra
are nowhere to be seen on their religious horizon! The Iranian priesthood,
by contrast, follows our Zoroastrian texts in both letter and spirit. How
do we reconcile these very different positions?
On Healing
The last three
chapters of the Vendīdād may be termed “healing texts”. Each of these end
with the recitations of the Airyэmā išyō, the yaθā, and the
full Avestic nirang-i kushti-bastan. They are invocations and
exorcisms based on the three methods of healing introduced by the
legendary first healer Thrita or Thraetaona: the knife; herbal treatment;
and the Măθra Spэnta or religious formulas [See esp. VII.44; note
that the ancient Greek demi-god of healing, Asklepios, practised all three
methods]. These last, including the nirangs, are invoked to combat
various listed illnesses and diseases, as also witchcraft and sorcery. The
long Chapter 157 on Medicine in the Third Book of the Dēnkard
distinguishes six kinds of healing: (1) that in
conformity with the regulations of the religion, (2) by fire (cautery),
(3) by herbal remedies, (4) with the knife (surgery and blood-letting),
(5) by the use of needles, nēšag (acupuncture), and (6) through the
măθra spэnta, or sacred formulas (mānsar).
There are invocations to
the gav spenta, the Primeval Bull; the Sea Vouru.kasha; the Sun,
Moon, and Stars, against a further list of ailments which we cannot
determine today. The last Chapter has invocations to the Măθra spэnta,
and Airyaman as yazata of Healing, with final exorcisms
for the expulsion of Ahriman’s myriad plagues:
“mā mэrэńčainīš gaēθĺ
astvaitīš ašahē” :
“nevermore to harm the Living World of the Righteous”
[Yt.III.17 (Ardibehešt)]
Thus ends our Vendīdād
proper, as also our presentation of it.
MAY AHURA MAZDA BLESS ALL
HERE !!!
Farrokh Vajifdar,
London, 25.VI.2005
[i]
This article was presented at the 8th World Zoroastrian
Congress in London, England on June 25, 2005 and was published on
vohuman.org on July 8, 2005 courtesy of its author.
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