(1912) L. H. Mills, Yasna 30 As The Document of Dualism

Yasna XXX as the Document of Dualism
Author(s): Lawrence Mills

Source: The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, urnal of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Jan., 1912), pp. 81-106
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Ill
YASNA XXX AS THE DOCUMENT OF DUALISM
By Professor LAWRENCE MILLS
T HAVE elsewhere (see SEE. xxxi) thus designated t

chapter. Yet, as in the case of the " eschatology
and of the " moral idea ", I by no means intend here
imply that either of those concepts or this " Dualism
had never been mooted elsewhere in any obscure form
any period previous to the composition of this Yasna XXX
The most of such ideas as these issue inevitably fr
the human consciousness in many places in the cou
of ages ; here, however, they are definitively gras
and pointed in synoptic statement, whereas elsewhere t
were, if at all, loosely surmised, and to be gathered o
through inference. I call attention to this chief doctr
of the piece with especial care on account of its ep
making importance as offering the initiative in the ab
sense to all analogous subsequent suggestion.
Translation with Comments

1. (a) And now I will proclaim, O (ye who are) comi
and-wishing-l (to-be-taught), those animadversions2 w
(are the mental-instructions) for the one (desiring to
thoroughly informed,3
1 ISei?to, " coming-with-desire " ; that the idea of " coming

involved in ihnt?, to the i ml. i$, is tho more probable from the par
expressions in Yasna XLV, 1, "from near and from far." One wr
long since corrected (?) to Mazda Bid = "Thou, O Mazda". T
precludes a voc. in i.sei?t? ; yet see the following second personals,
which tho voc. is harmonious.
2 Some render us if the faculty of "memory" were here espec
involved ; "memorable things." I cannot quite see this ; the "anim
versions " were, however, to bo regarded as " memorable".
a Recalling v(a)?diSt? of Yasna XLVI, 19, I formerly preferred
the-all-knowing one " ; this I would now put in the alternative.
JRAS. 1912. 6
82 YASNA XXX AS THE DOCUMENT OF DUALISM
(b) both the praise-songs for Ahura, and the sacrificial -

offerings1 of Vohu Manah * (the Good Mind's follower),
(c) and the joyful counsels (held) with ASa's3 (just
truthfulness), and what-two-(doctrines4 are those) whereby
propitious results are (or " may be ") seen through the
lights (on high, and on holy altar).6
2. (a) Hear ye (then) with your ears ; behold ye the
flames 6 with the best mind ;?
1 Tesnyd far more naturally renders "offerings", "sacrifices " than
' ' prayers " j for the latter see rather the forms of i$, yds. Yesnyd is properly
yaaniy?, as e is merely the result of a perhaps false epenthesis ; e is?a + i,
the latter i being anticipated from the terminal y, of which it may be
considered to be an element.
2 That is, "offerings to the Archangel by the one inspired by him,"
as offered to him in the "spirit which he represents", i.e. offerings
" deeply sincere and earnest, with good will ". The interior sense is not
lost in the proper name, or in the word as otherwise understood, though,
wherever possible, Vohu Manah should be understood as the "correct
citizen in whom V. M. dwells " ; and so, analogously, of Aha, this word
should often be taken to represent "the Holy Community" in whom
ASa {Area) was dominant. This treatment would be more realistic, and
at Yasna L, 2, we are constrained to adhere to such an interpretation of
Vohu Manah. This was the favourite point of procedure preferred by
a great Vedist, who suggested so much for the G??as. Wherever
a realistic result of treatment is possible we should resort to it, as being
the more critical.
3 So, "joyful counsels which have truth as their basis and inspiration,"
humdzdr? ASa [ArSd), i.e. "ind. .sa + mand + tra " (I write ASa, as
the more correct Area is not euphonious). An instr. should not be
expected amidst nom. ace. neut. pl.'s, except where it is unavoidable,
as in the case of ASa here. Otherwise, where intellectual action on the
part of the subject of the sentence is involved, all terms expressing
"thought", "speech", and "action" demand a semi-adverbial Atta
or Vohu Mananhd in the instr. being tho form of any such word which
may bo so taken ; here personality seems also indicated.
4 So my former alternative as now preferred to y?c? when read as =
y??? = "I beseech"; y{?)?cd, as the lost ace. dual, neut., is better,
referring to the "two main divisions" of the creation, of "good and
evil ", of which the statement immediately follows.
6 " Propitious indications from the heavenly bodies," or " from the
altar flames". Some others, following very old suggestions, render
" the rapture(?)" ; but the more realistic and objective rendering is rather
the more scientific ; urvaz- is vraz-, to ind. vraj as nrvan is ruvan, etc.
6 Some others, "Hear the best things, the illustrious (?) with the
mind." VahiStd has indeed the place of an ace. pi. neut., but it is rather
characteristic in its application to ASa {Area) elsewhere, and so the more
YASNA XXX AS THE DOCUMENT OF DUALISM 83
(b) at this decision as to faiths man and man, (each) for

himself * (deciding),
(c) in presence of2 the great endeavour-of-the-Cause
(be) awake to this our teaching.3
3. (a) Thus are the two first4 spirits (primeval), who,
natural here for "Voh?" Mana?hd. Some render "with enlightened
mind" behold, but "the flames upon tho altar" or "the flaming
heavenly bodies" is a far more realistic suggestion ; and the "carried
over " sense should be always only reluctantly followed anywhere.
Cf. Ved. Suca', Su'?i. Recall RV. ii, 35 (226), 8, y? apav ? Su'?in?
dai'iryena rtavoVjasra urviy? vi b'?ti, "shines with heavenly light," not
"with pure Godhead" (!) ; RV. iv, 2 (298), 16, . . . Su??d ayan . . .
arun\r dpa wan ; see also 17 . . . Sucdnt? Agntm. The " carried over "
sonso "illustrious" is a bad guess with av{a)?nat? close by; see also
dara8at? with rao??hiS; "seeing" and "looking" demand "flame"
here, and not " mental enlightenment " ; " lights," " stars," and
"flames"are homogeneous to "sight". Realism should dominate our
detailed exegesis wherever possible.
1 " For his own person."
2 So with Ved. para, but possibly = " before " ; cf. Yasna XIX, 1, (3).
3 Or, sazdydi to sad (?), "to our favouring," " that it may eventuate
to our favour," cf. Haug, "in our favour," but the most immediate,
and not the most remote idea, should be always selected. " To our
teaching " to sah ? Sank is far more immediate ; and would even call for
a reconstruction of text in its favour ; see also the hint of the Pahl. trl.
lit is not favourable to a scientific procedure to place doubtful, if
interesting, suggestions in our text when making a serious report to the
learned world outside the extremely small number of even professed
experts. All conceivable new suggestions should be made ; and the
present writer has often led the way there, but hazardous suggestions
should not be put in the body of a text intended for the general learned
public, without at least the most fully prepared alternatives. The
faculty of sound judgment should be allowed its full play here, valuable
and startling suggestions being placed in the notes. It was a very
eminent Sanskritist who recommended me to oiler "all the possibilities"
?this early in the eighties.]
4 So, deciphering p(a)o(u)rviy?, p(a)ourvy?, as a loc. adverbial, not
being here accepted, as a loc. would make hero a somewhat awkward
contrast as an adverbial form, in this strophe 3, with the ace. adverbial
in the next strophe, 4 ; ? is a false decipherment of the last sign
AS= ^J =J(j) ; readKJ = A* 4- J -yd, which K5 = .jYj is Pahl

Av. of the transitional period. [Otherwise, indeed, -vy?, if so deciphered,
can bo again only taken as a dual, this time as a neut. with rahy?,
akejn?a, which would, however, afford a meaning almost too significant
to be credible : "Thus are two spirits, two first (principles?), . . . these
two, a better thing (or ' principle ') and a worse ..." I have here
as a pair,1 (contrasting their opposing attributes, yet)

independently2 (acting, each in His person) have been
famed (of old),
(6) (as regards) these two (principles), as to the better
and the worse, in thought, in word, and in deed ;?
(c) and between the two let the wisely-disposed choose3
aright ; (choose ye) not as the evil-minded.4
taken hl as ace. dual. neut. used adverbially?this for " safety " only ;
for there is no denying the fact that, were it not for the exceedingly
profound results of the interpretation involved, it would be quite
impossible to avoid the force of the language as it stands. With
the neuter the profoundest concepts are- here adumbrated, so also in
numberless similar cases ; aside from a neuter, see Yasna XXIX, 4. WTe
must, however, be carefully upon our guard in accepting ideas too modern.
The deepest philosophic point is, however, everywhere anticipatively
adumbrated ; the diction is very close upon it, and must have called
the attention of many a hearer, or reader, to it, so becoming the cause
of later more definitive recognitions of the interior elements present in it.]
1 "Two spirits, two twins" (sic ; cf. the Vedic yam?, dual, of the
ASvins, etc. Others, with well-meant efforts at novelty, cf. Indian yama =
" night watch " ; cf. my Persian translation of Pahlavi in C??as, pp. 40,
41, 437, 438. Some writers fully venture upon the rendering "two
things", "a better thing, or principle, or a worse, as to thought, word, and
deed." Here I hesitated, though greatly admiring the literal force and
desiring to accept it ; see just above. This would be philosophy
unquestioned of the highest or "deepest" description, cf. the Greeks.
For the various alternative suggestions see SBE. xxxi, at the place,
and The Five ZaraduStrian Gd0as as just cited.
2 Some would read ahvafnd, from long since antiquated authority =
"sleepless"; others again "in dream", or "in apparition". Sva-h
dpah[-8) should, naturally, give the indication here, not svap = " to
sleep". Or even, as ever, in plain cases like this, the text should
invariably be restored to its original and rational form to this effect,
sva + dpah(-8). Tho theme is the " highor creation" here, and hardly
either " sleeping " or " dreaming". Recall 11V. x, 38 (8?4), 5, svavr'ja?i
hi tram ahdm Indra SuSrdva (notice the same verb Sru in the two con
nexions ; the analogies here are, of course, not here cited as being
absolutely exact) ; see RV. i, 54, 3, drea div? brhat? SftSy?th vd?ali
8vdkSatraih ydaya dfrSat? d'rSdn mdnah ; RV. iii, 21 (255), 2, svdd'arman
devdrltaye Sr?Sfath no d'ehi v?ryam (of Agni) ; cf. svlkarana.
3 All the preterital verbal forms should be read conjunctively, as in
a conjunctively future sense, where this is at all feasible ; in urgent
crises thoughts dwelt rather on the present and the immediate future
than upon the past; "let them choose" is better than "they did choose".
4 " Evil - disposed " means more than " unintelligent", though it
includes "mental obscurity", and tho force of the "evil" element
4>. (a, b) (Yea) when these two spirits came together to

make1 at first2 life and life's3 absence, (determining) how
at last the world shall be (constituted),
(c) the worst (life) of the faithless, but for the holy the
best mental state,4
5. (a) He who (was) the evil of these two Spirits (chose
the evil, thereby) working the worst of (possible) results;5
should not be modified in a translation ; some writers seem inclined to
accept a dd (?) = " to know ".
1 Or, emending, " they have made," as a 3rd dual perf. contracted to
fit the metre, or possibly, again, 3rd sing, "(each) makes"; let the
general reader notice that the important "meaning" is here but little
alfected by these differences in the choice of text or rendering.
2 The adverbial ace. sing, neut., which, in the Indian, together with
the instr. adverbial, outnumbers in its occurrences those of the locative
by a heavy multiple. Notice that loc. adverbial is not used here, which
renders its occurrence just previously in s. 3 the more doubtful ; see also,
again, the impossibility of -im as ace. sing. neut. ; the -i- is a false
decipherment ; ^f = long Pahl. J ~ A v. y in the body of an A vesta word
with the inherent a = -yam; cf. an ind. purryam* ; so likewise with
haidlm ; -im is here ridiculously impossible as an ace. sing. neut. The
supposed -i- is again a false decipherment for Pahl. -y with its inherent a,
as always in Pahlavi.
3 It seems incredible that the worst " life " or " world " should be
actually meant here directly as a punishment in a full modern subjective
sense ; yet so the language stands, and it would be a gross misuse in a
commentator not to report the fact, for, if the language was not meant
to have its full force uncurtailed, then most certainly the sentences fore
shadow the deepest possible of religious-philosophical concepts. But as
regards our attempt to discover the exact idea immediately present in
the mind of the composer, it is perhaps better to hold the inner meaning
to bo that "the Evil Spirit fostered the worst life for the wicked", in
view of its punishment ; and so the Good Spirit " fostered the best
mental state " with its rewards for the holy. Here predestination does
not particularly occur to me. Also the "world at last " or " life at last"
need not have exclusive reference to an ultimate future state in a higher,
or lower, world, though this is undoubtedly our first impression; a beatified
existence upon a restored earth was also held in view : see the related
passages throughout the Avesta.
4 It is hard to understand how even distinguished writers could render
the "best abode" ; it might, however, well pass as a "free translation".
6 Acihd-wrezy?, as nom. sing. maso. ; others as ace. sing. neut. for
verezy?. I prefer to recognize the nom. at the end of a sentence, or
before a oajsura, wherever it may bo possible ; and I would also see
a mase, everywhere when feasible as being more personal, and therefore
the more realistic.
(b) but the most bounteous1 Spirit (chose) ASa2 (the

sanctity of the Holy Law) ; yea, He so chose who clothes
upon-Himself the most firm stones (of Heaven, as His robe,
(c) and He chose likewise) those who content Ahura*
with true actions (really done) in-accordance-with-the-faith.4
6. (a) And between these two spirits the Demon
worshippers 6 could make-for-themselves no correct choice,6
since deception, (as AHSta Manah,7 the Worst Mind),
came upon them, as-they-were-questioning (the great
decision);?(he came), the Worst Mind,7 that he might
be chosen 8 ;?(they made their fatal decision) ;
(b) and thereupon they rushed together to the Demon
of-Fury that they might pollute 9 the life of mortals.10
1 Notice that Sp??iStd Mainyti seems to be here indubitably used of
Ahura ; the usage vacillates. Recall also Semitic analogies as regards
the use of the term "Holy Spirit"; it is often difficult to decide
whether the terms apply to an Attribute of the Supreme Deity, or to
His highest creature. I only object to the rendering of sp?t?iSt? os
" holiest" from fear of conceding too refined a sense ; I should greatly
desire it.
2 u Personification " is here next to impossible ; to say that " Ahura
' chose ' His own Archangel " would be fatuous.
5 Notice this usage "Ahura" of the Deity who was Himself the
"chooser"; the word "Ahura" used for "Him".
4 Fra + var seems characteristic of "acting in the spirit of the Faith".
Some of the others render "gladly". The neut. ace. of the part. pr?s,
is used adverbially, as in the Indian ; recall dravdt and drahydt
adverbially used with changed accent.
5 So, far more realistically, d(a)?va unquestionably means "d(a)^va
worshippers " here, as most often in the G?flas ; and this view is far
more realistic than that which renders the " D(a)eva-gods ", who would
not so naturally "rush together " toward one of their own number.
6 So, the preterite conjunctively understood ; otherwise " they did
not choose aright " ; cf. strophe 2.
7 Notice this important instance of rhetorical personification ; " the
(personified) Worst Mind 'came* with ASa" {ArSa), etc. To assert that
all the meaning of two such words as a?iStem mano was lost in a mere
proper name would be here ridiculous ; and if this is ridiculous here,
what is an analogous procedure elsewhere ?
8 Or " so that they might choose the worst intention " ; but I prefer,
where feasible, always the nom. at the end of a line, or at the end before
a c s ura.
9 That they might disease the " life " of man ; so the Pahl., Pe
Skt. : recall the name B?ndva, XLIX, 1. 10 " Of the mo
7. (a) Upon this1 came then Aramaiti (the Zeal of

God, and His Saints) ; and with her came XkiOrds
(Sovereign-Power), with Vohu Manah's (Good Mind), and
with A8a!s (faultless Law) ;?(she came as creation's act
was finished) ;
(b) and strenuous-strength to-the-body she gave 2 (she,
Aramaiti) the-eternal-ever-abiding ;3?
(c) and for these4 Thy (strengthened saints) so let (that
body ever) be, as (when) Thou earnest5 first with (Thy)
creations.
8. (a) (And when that strife shall have been concluded?
begun by those erring D(a)ei;a-wor8hippers), and when
Vengeance 6 for those wretches comes,
(b) thereon, O Mazda, the X&iOra's7 (Sovereign Power)
shall have been gained for Thee (benevolently), through
(Thy) Good Mind (for Thy Saints, and in their souls, as
beatified in Thy Reign),
1 " At this juncture in the creation," or " to this one" ; others, " to
man." Notice how indifferent, as ever, the "difference" is in view of
the higher moral theology involved.
2 "She gave steadfastness to the body" ; dnmd to an au = ind. in.
" She, the unbending quality," to a-{-nam as a neut. in apposition, is also
far from being so impossible as one might suppose. The Pahl. translator
suggests an a priv. ; see my Pahl., Pers., and Skt. texts at the place.
3 One writer seems boldly to render the form here as a neut. sing.
4 " Holy ones assembled for the contest."
5 Or "with iron bonds"; so a great Vedist first suggested; see
O??as, 431-49; and another seems to have understood "the metal" of
the "molten lake" with dddndiS as = "TIcimzahlungen". The "molten
metal " of the " ordeal "(?) was, however, a dolinito concept which
developed only later. If ?<n = Thy, this second personality should
dominate the sentence; "Thou earnest" is better than "with iron".
If the text aya?h? could not be regarded as adequate here, it should be
emended in the needed sense. "Iron "seems only remotely indicated,
while dddndiS could well express "creations" ; and "creation" is the
subject in hand.
6 See strophe 6 ; the vengeful punishment of them.
7 In several places political expectations seem to be adumbrated ;
the Archangel XSaBra is here all but positively excluded. The word
can only mean "the Government"; I am the only writer who would
even mention the personification here?this for the sake of consistent
continuity.
(c) and for those declared,1 O Ahura, who will deliver

the Druj-(L\e-2Demon of the Foe) into-the-two-hands of
ASa 8 (Archangel of thine armed Folk).
9. (a) And may we be such as those who make this
world (fully) progressive (till perfection shall have been
reached),4
(b) (as) the Ahnras of Mazda,5 bringing6 benefits-with
meeting-help, and with the Holy Law ;
1 Reading saste, middle for passive. Otherwise read the act. sastl ;
so I, in SBE. xxxi, "he(?) declares."
8 Everywhere in the later Avesta and in the Inscriptions the root word
drnj in its various forms is expressive of " falsification ", in the Indian
seldom or never ; " injury " is there the prevailing sense.
3 Of course, a State standing in the Holy Law is here intended ;
cf. the first arising of the "Church" ; "into the Power of the holy
congregation." I held (see above) that ASa (ArSa) expresses the
"Holy Congregation" frequently, as well as the Law, in the Ga0a,
as Vohu Manah often means "the individual saint"?this even in
the Gtt?a ; notice the quasi-military character of the figure, and recall
Yasna XXXI, 18, "Hew ye them all with the snaiOiS" ; war, civil
or international, is indicated. ASa seldom or never represents the
"Fire" here, as it may at times in the later Avesta, and in the later
Zoroastrianism.
4 This is the document of FraSakard, the first recorded "call" of
a millennial propaganda ; for extended comment see Ga?as at the place.
FraSakard derives from here y?i im fraS?m (or fraSim(1), fraSyam)
kerenaven ahum.
6 As Ahura at Yasna XXIX, 2, and elsewhere refers to the human
subject, the pi. may well be so applied to tho leading princely priests
here. Or, with others, changing the subject to the second personal,
"O Ahuras of Mazda, do ye (?) bring (2nd pi. imp.?) companionship
and help with the Holy Law," -ana as 2nd pi. imp. term for -tand ; but
tho I would seem to bo especially organic in tho Vedic 2nd pi. It is
never so well to change the personal from the first to the second within
a single strophe, where this change can be avoided, and at the dictate of
such a doubtful recognition as that of -tana in -and ; rather read
baramnd, which would not affect the metre ; surely after line a it is not
going too far to refer barand to the 1st pers. pi.
6 The added -?d might tempt us to regard aSd-?d as an ace. pi. neut. ;
for the added -dSrl would seem to belittle the expression as the proper
name of an Archangel here, but an instrumental aSd is very much in
place where the personal subject of the sentence is represented as
pointedly thinking, speaking, or acting ; a voc. would be here especially
clumsy. ?moyastrd might, however, better be rendered as in the ace.
pi. neut.
(c) for there will the collected-minded-one be where

Wisdom shall abide in the home.1
10. (a) Then shall the blow (of destruction)2 fall for
the host3 of the Druj-Lie-Demon (of our foes),
(b) but swiftest4 in the abode of Vohu ManaKs (Good
Mind),
(c) of Ahura, and of ASa's (Holiness) shall gather5 those
1 So, more "objectively" than "there will our thoughts be (centred)";

so the Pahl. Or "that the collected-minded-one may be there where the
knowledge was (once) astray"; so Roth; see G?flas, Comm., at the place ;
recall havlr-mdl'ln?m of the ydtiCs "disturbing the offering". Cisti,
however, seems very nearly a rhetorical personification. She " comes",
in XLVIII, 11 ; see Yasna LI, 16, 18, etc. Cisti seems almost to correspond
to the "wisdom " of the Proverbs ; see also Vedic ?itti, as mase, and adj.
of Agni ; see also Pouru-?isld as the proper name. Of course, we can
accept an Avestic use of ??8ti = ?itti as being "astray", but only in case of
necessity. Imagine our finding such a G??ic expression as Vohu Manah
being "astray", yet G??ic cisti almost approaches in sanctity that
concept ; Vohu Manah, as the correct citizen, is only ceremonially
"defiled" even in the "later Avesta". Where could the " wisdom" of
Proverbs be said to be "astray"??the sinner "strays" from wisdom,
while the latter hardly " errs". I prefer the familiar idea of " abode".
Of. gar? nman?. A very interesting distinction intervenes here.
M{a)?d? seems to be undoubtedly adverbial in the sense of "in the
abode " ; at XXXIII, 9 see baratil ; see also adrd-yaOrd as adverbs of
place at XLVI, 16; see also XLIII, 2, where Ahura is spoken of as
"dwelling", Sa&itl (Sayati) ; the "dwelling" of Ahura and His " Cisti"
seems to be especially congruous. The sense may be "where wisdom
is propitious".
2 See Gaflas, Comm., p. 4. So the Pahl. aipah. Some others,
"of good fortune," so less realistically, to hd (?) ; recall Svdnta;
cf. spe?ta.
3 Read dsiStd ; the apparent short vowel reading of asi&td may, as it
does in numberless other instances, have resulted from one of the
confusions necessarily prevaleut in the transitional period, when Pahl.
characters still lingered in many Avesta words; short Pahl. i* = Avesta
long jii.
4 Or " they hasten ", to yuz.
5 Others seem to recall asi&d yaojaiit? (so reading) in the sense of
"joining the a + si.sta", the unversehrt^.) ; see Haug, to US, sina'sti. Then,
again, some writers see asiStd, d-sistd, as the " promised (things) ", " the
rewards", to SiS, SiSydt. The hint of the Pahl., Pers., and Skt. (far
more graphicall}') points to dSn = "swift"; consider also yaozefite,
"swiftest they hasten"; recall also the original meaning of aS, "to
attain."
who (now) walk (upon earth) (or " are regenerated ")* in
good fame.
11. (a) When (therefore), O ye men, ye learn these
doctrines which Mazda has established
(b) with-regard-to-(our)-well-being2 (upon the one side)
and (our) hindering-disasters (upon the other) ;3 and when
also (ye learn that there will be) a protracted punishment
(a long wounding) for the Faithless-evil,
(c) and blessings for the holy ;?then upon these things
(when these doctrines shall have been heeded and obeyed,
upon this) there shall be (the salvations-hail-with) uStd I4
I. Concluding Remarks upon the Alternative Treat
ment, and the General Principles of Procedure
The above translation of Yasna XXX is intended to be
a study looking toward a possible second edition of the
thirty-first volume of the Sacred Books of the East, which
has been officially and pointedly mentioned.
As the Sacred Books of the East are addressed by close
experts to the general learned public, being regarded
as the reproductions of subject-matter of the highest
1 Zazent? to hd, ji'hale* = " to go forth " ; otherwise to zan ~ ind. jan,
" are (re)generate. "
2 See strophe 10, and for all the alternatives see Ga0as, text, pp. 36-52 \
and Comm. pp. 431-49. Few, if any, serious opinions have ever been
published which may not be found in that work, though Pischel's kind
and distinguished remark, ZDMG., 1896, that "everything necessary to
the understanding of the G??as is contained in the book ", of course,
refers to it as including its Lexicon, which still lacks some eighty page?
of its completion; see also the identical remark by Dr. West, JRAS.,
1896, Professor Wilhelm, Bombay Iranian Catalogue, 1901 (Geiger only
in a private letter), while Professors Kuhn and Gcldner edited my
translation into Sanskrit of Yasna XXVII in Roth's Festgrnss, itself cited
pointedly by Oldenberg ; see Ved. Relig., p. 27.
3 See Yasna XXIX, 1.
4 Others simply "then will it be well". This was an interesting
suggestion emanating from a high source, whose point was always to
bring things down to the commonplace where possible ; unquestionably
a correct canon of procedure, where feasible. But uStd, loc. sing,
adverbial of -ti, is a most emphatic expression and almost idiomatic ;
see Yasna XLIII, 1. (Or the uStd might also possibly be a nom. neut. pi.
with singular verb. This would, however, be a rather tame suggestion.)
importance to the History of Religion, those volumes of

them in which portions of the detail involve considerable
uncertainty should be treated with alternative exposition,
citing the various opinions of ancient and modern writers
as well as suggestions from the translator himself.
II. (1) Reasons for such a procedure in SBE. XXXI

The most prominent reason for this re SBE. xxxi is
the somewhat exaggerated variations in the views of
a few translators. These well-meaning scholars not
unnaturally pique themselves upon reproductions of such
difficult matter which differ from those of all other
writers, as also not infrequently from their own previous
efforts, and this sometimes without sufficient intimation
as to what those previous views were, or where they are
to be found, while this ever-changing super-rotation of
views continues on indefinitely. That this course has
been pursued with the express purpose of keeping readers
in ignorance of the detailed opinions upon the subject,
seems hardly possible, yet from this neglect it not
unnaturally results that eminent scholars, engaged upon
closely kindred subjects, find it next to impossible to get
any satisfactory synoptic view of the materials upon
which to form general opinions without becoming close
experts themselves, the acme of error being reached when
these unintentional obscurantists themselves reproach great
Vedists with this very want of information which they
themselves have solely contributed to produce. In view
of this, translators should at least record the more
respectable of those suggestions which, through external
or genuine influences, have managed to get a hearing, so
that persons desirous of getting information upon the
subject might find it possible to form an approximate,
provisional, and independent judgment without a mass of
study such as only a laborious specialist should be
expected to undertake.
(2) AN IMMEDIATE OBJECTION MAY RE ANSWERED

AT ONCE
That even the most interesting of alternatives, if

multiplied, would harass the readers, is not the fact, fo
to some of them these matters are of vital, if collateral,
professional and literary importance, though they may n
be specialists, while interest is rather increased by th
reproduction of homogeneous detail.
III. More interior considerations
1. But the best defence for alternatives in this particular
case of the G??as and of Yasna XXX is?and it is of th
last possible importance to make it indubitably clear?tha
what we most value in them, the G??as, is already plain
and unmistakable at once and prima facie, so that we ca
the more patiently tolerate the ever-changing treatmen
of the secondary elements ; whichever one of two, thre
or even four pointings of the sense may be the correct
one, this seldom, or never, affects the main principles
which are really immense in their character and force?
to speak of them.
[I said " secondary elements ", for I divide the questio
of exegesis here into three departments, the first two o
crucial interest. First, the treatment of the central term
expressing the main ideas, whether personified or not, f
all that is epoch-making in this pregnant subject reside
in those terms; secondly, the treatment of these G?i?Hc plac
where these ideas are not so pointedly involved ; thirdly
these ideas as they appear in the later Avesta, in som
Pahlavi commentaries, and in the later familiar househo
use of them.] As said, the first object of a series like t
SBE. is to discover the existence and trace the history
the "moral idea" in interior religions, and in the Ga
we have this vital element focussed at once in a manne
unprecedented ; for certain terms recur continuously whic
can express only such an idea with the first exposition
" subjective recompense " in history?and these words can

have no meaning at all here apart from their actual
literal sense as language, making the Ga#as far and away
the first documents of their kind of equal antiquity.
2. All possible interior notions, with the moral idea,
can, of course, like all other conceivable thoughts, be
discovered in isolated expression everywhere in antiquity,
as in our present later times, but here subjective religious
morality is brought into focus and apex as never before,
and established in a remotely early system, which also
became later widely known in the religion of the
Aehaemenian Persian Empire, the then dominant Asiatic
power, and it was never lost at any date of which we
have a record. [Recall even Plutarch's astonishing report
of these ideas from distant Greece in his reference to
the " Gods of Persia " ; see below, see also this Journal
for July, 1910. The points of this clearness come out
with especial force when we transcribe the G??as
into their closely related Indian forms, reading them
then, in their obvious sense, prima facie ; see my
publications in this form.1 Here all the more closely
defined interpretation as to the various shades of possible
ultimate meaning may be, for the moment, suspended
with no prejudice to the results.] There is also nothing
interior which can be excluded even from any one of
the several possible points in the "secondary" stage of
our inquiry into the detailed ideas which may occur to
us; for the tone of the G??as remains unaltered. The
advantage here is great, if we adequately estimate these
particulars. We can therefore the more patiently submit
to differences in opinion here.
3. The interior - moral - religious concept so pervades
1 Yasna XXVIII, translated into Sanskrit in Roth's Festgruss,
p. 193, so Y. XLIV, similarly treated in the Actes of the Eleventh
Congress of Orientalists, held in Paris, 1897, re-edited ZDM??., July,
1911, and later ; see also my recently published lengthy Yasna I in its
Sanskrit equivalents.
the whole G??ic system that the words which constitute

the so-called names of the Amesaspends?to expand the
remarks just made above?even when indubitably so
used by speech-figure, as such (proper names) exclude
all ideas save those which they represent as words, while
in the greater part of these occurrences it is extremely
difficult for us to decide whether the personification be
merely that of rhetoric, or of literal statement, and in
many places we are even entirely at a loss to discover
whether any personification at all, either rhetorical or
literal, is meant, or simply, and far more grandly, the
" abstract thought " ; [that is to say, we are often at
a loss to determine whether A ?a merely names the Arch
angel rhetorically or literally, or whether it directly means
the Truth-Law. Where is Vohu Manah, the mere name,
and where " the Good and Sane Benevolence " ? When
is X?aOra the Archangel and when " the Sovereign
Authority " ? And when is Aramaiti the personal being
and when the Energetic Zeal (the active piety) ? In
one remarkable place, indeed, Yasna XXXII, 2, we have
the two things together : God evidently " speaks with
His Truth, A$a" (as always with verbs of such speech,
thought, and deed in the subject of the sentence), yet he,
ASa, is at once and in the same sentence called "the
Good Companion ", a most refined and subtle rhetorical
personification]. And these primal crucial ideas in the
words which express them, whether personified or not,
rhetorically or otherwise, or used immediately in their
clear sense, lie, as just said, already every where irresistibly
evident before us, prima facie, in the folios of the Ga0as.
We might even strike out every line which points outside
their scope (N.B.),1 and what we chiefly value in the
G??as as the first documents closely applying the interior
1 Remark repeated on account of its crucial importance to the spread

of G??ic reading as preliminary to Ga0ic study.
moral thought at from 700 to 900 B.c.,1 would still be left.

Alternatives therefore in the lesser particulars need not
disturb us.
4. Outside the scope of the chief epoch-making terms
this does not by any means continue to be the case,
yet this characteristic still dominates while it pervades
the mass, and entirely outside the G??as we have widely
divergent parallel development. To explain?and here
I first mention that sphere which lies most remote from
the first section (as I term it) of the G??ie exegesis?
ASa vahiSta, only the Truth-Law in the G??as in either
of two first divisions of the subject seems there, in the
later Avesta and later Zoroastrianism, sometimes to be
used for the Fire, doubtless because ASa ruled the ritual
which grouped itself about the altar. Vohu Manah became
the special guardian of living creatures, men, flocks, and
herds?this from the G??ic use of it, Vohu Manah, for
" the Good Citizen in whom the Good Mind dwelt ", this
was even pushed so far in the later Avesta that the
" Good Mind " or the " Good Citizen " might be even
" ceremonially defiled " ; see above ; Xsadra even came to
represent metals, chiefly bronze?this from the melted metal
of Yasna LI, 5 ; while Aramaiti was " the Holy Earth ",
so also in the Veda?this doubtless because agriculture
could alone save mankind from perennial murder; she
was the ara-mind; the ploughshare-zeal; so or in aratrum,
while in the G??as little of this last appears except in
adumbration : for this reason, again, so emphasizing, we
can again the more willingly "support" the various
1 As the Oaflas were addressed to throngs "coming from near and
from afar", they were written in a vernacular spoken at the time ; see
also their personality ; but the Gfi0ic language could not have been
spoken later than 200 years before that of the first Achaimenian Inscrip
tions, which is in so far degenerated from the Ga0ic that 200 years at
least alone can account for the change. If, then, the Gaflas were recited
in a living language, and that language lived only before B.c. 700-900,
we have the Ga0ic date, within two hundred years, this being as close
as we should expect to fix the date of such ancient matter.
alternatives in the first and second stages of our inquiry,

for they do not at all touch this last and third division
of our work.
[As is generally known, I endeavoured in my Gatfas in
1892-4 to reproduce nearly every conceivable variation
in opinion, ancient or modern?this either in following,
or in coincidence with, the advice of the first of our
then living Sanskritists in the eighties, which advice
was "to reproduce all the possibilities"?this re that
book in the eighties; but in SBE. xxxi such a mass of
collected opinion would have been both mechanically
impossible and also artistically out of place.]
5. To resume : Focussing our attention here still more
closely?for we are here at the supposed central point
of all such study, and we need to fortify, as well as
establish, our position against all superficial treatment?
let the serious reader mark well that these first crucial
original ideas?to return for a moment to the "first"
section of the Ga0ic exegesis?which stand here so apart,
held their own also historically, and this at times and
places parallel with those in which fantastic supervening
growths took place; see this Journal for July, 1910.
First, this is obvious in the Religion of the Pahlavi
Expositors,1 almost a separate faith among the various
shades of Sasanian Zaratfustrianism, a matter of most
vital historical importance ; and this phase most signally
shows this persistence of tho vitally essential ideas. As
a phase in the recrudescence of the original essential
moral force, as this appears in the Ga#as, it cannot be that
original force itself, though many an inexperienced inquirer
might well think so, for it is one of the most striking
resumptions of first principles that ever occurred in
any ancient system, going back to its first documents,
B.c. 700-900, from such a date as that of 200-900 A.D.,
1 See my study of Yasna I (Leipzig, 1910), Introduction, pp. iv-ix.
a surprising manifestation of incisively energetic, intel

lectual, and spiritual life-force ; and it should be long
and carefully considered, all the more because of the
exceedingly fantastic side-growths which surround it, pre
dated it, and postdated it ; for when the Sasanian Persian
commentators first began to develop their comments upon
the Yasna, they for the moment set aside, if they did
not actually repudiate, all, or nearly all, of those less
interior traditional accretions, and even things like those
which we see in the later, but still genuine, Vendid?d?
in the Avesta text itself?a truly astonishing psychical
phenomenon, let me repeat it ; that is to say, " remarkable"
when we gauge it soberly ; for let no beginner suppose
that this "tradition" of the commentators predominates
as fantastic, or degenerate, like that " tradition " of the
later Zoroastrianism which at times loses itself in non
realistic detail. A Sa was Aharayih in the commentaries,
that is to say, it was "sanctity", "holiness", "righteousness",
with scarce a thought of " Fire " ; Fire was God's Son,
not unnaturally, and as the "mode of motion", Vohu Manah
had the rarest allusions to " flocks and herds ", except
with Neryosangh, who only later especially gathered up
such items. Where is xSaQra, " bronze," or other metal ?
in these Pahlavi translations ? Somewhere, perhaps, but
where ? Strangest of all, Aramaiti, plainly the " earth "
in Vendid?d, as in Veda, is, forsooth, carefully translated
as a word in the Pahlavi, by "perfect thinking", a very
noteworthy circumstance, much more so than any " item ".
Hour vot?t is very seldom " water ", and Amerctat?t seldom
"plants" ; see also this Journal of July, 1910.
We might almost say that insufficient expression has
been at times given by the commentators even to
those fully justified ^personifications, whether rhetorical
or literal, of the six main Ga?ic ideas, the AmcSo
Sj>entas, as they were oyily later called, this deficiency
appearing even in the Pahlavi of the G??as, and this
jRAs. 1912. 7
in occurrences where they are beyond all doubt thus

personified in the original?this, as if the main interior
meaning of the words, as plain language, in these com
mentaries everywhere enveloped and absorbed all such
subordinate association of ideas, for " personification "
in the light of philosophical research is, of course,
" subordinate ", even where such an exalted " personi
fication " as that in question is concerned ; and yet all
this has been passed over uncoordinated and unobserved
by writers who make Orientalism their life's study,
whereas it is one of the most practical and extensive
manifestations of religious energy in history, vast material
interests having been also once involved, and this if but
one person per one thousand were inspired by its animus ;
the force of the ideas continues on unabated, and can well
afford to bear discussion.
6. Exactly parallel with this is the still more striking
evidence of this interior life of the main Zoroastrian
doctrines as reported by the far distant Greeks (see above),
one quoting still another of B.c. 378-300 ; see this
Journal for July, 1910. [Plutarch actually reports from
Theopompos the abstract ideas as " gods " six in number
(with Ahura seven), and in their G??ic order of sequence,
a startling item* ; this without a trace of the later
degenerated accretions. In fact Plutarch himself seems
to underrate a faith so abstract, which proves all the
more his loyalty ; he states the facts apparently as if
they were distasteful, and this in a report of " Persia "
without distinction as to separate provinces or kingdoms,
or even as to closer dates x ; see also Herodotus, who cites
the " reproaches " of the Persians against those who
lower (!) their ideas of God by " building temples " for
1 This passage from Plutarch is justly considered to be one of the

most "precious" of the kind in ancient literature (see Windischmann),
as it reports the greatest and most pointed conservative theistic scheme
of religion.
Him.] And this system of ideas survived while half

buried among the rubbish of fantastic growths, and as
such it is most wonderful indeed to those who understand
such searches : we therefore the more freely welcome the
reports of the varying less interior views.
7. Yet while these passages, which so simply and yet
so impressively express those primary concepts which
alone give the G??as their value to us, are thus, as I have
shown, so clear, for the purpose mentioned, yet?to return
here more fully to what I term " the secondary detail " in
exegesis (see above)?though pervaded by the same
animus, they are, when regarded as syntactical literary
matter, perhaps the most obscure of all relics of antiquity,
when we feel constrained to decide as to what precisely
may be their exact ultimate incidence of thought. This
is owing to the extreme meagreness of the G??ic diction,
which so lacked expressive power that the authors of the
sentences themselves?or " the author of them himself ",
if there was but one original composer?would have been
baffled, had he, or they, been later asked what precise
ideas they had themselves, or he had himself, intended to
convey in their own strophes, now some decades old, for
he or they would have been unable to answer such
a question,1 unless he, or they, had fallen back upon the
acute and strenuous exercise of " memory " ; for this
reason, again, alternatives seem to me to be the more
imperative, here, in this secondary department of G??ic
search.
And further, to explain my point above, not only did
those main controlling ideas hold their own as in a clearly
separate existence side by side with much later trivial
development in the later Zoroastrianism, for Theopompos
wrote at a time when this latter was in fullest growth (see
above), but in these renderings of this secondary, if hardly
1 No one of them could have always told what precisely as to minute
detail he had himself intended to say.
extraneous, detail in the Ga#a itself?there likewise, as

was natural, the interior documentary life, as above
implied, vehemently persists almost unaltered from its
character in the first section. However multiplied our
opinions may be as to the actual ultimate pointing of
the detailed ideas?even there, so far as the G??as are
concerned, the range of possibilities as to the pointing
of the sense is likewise limited in this secondary section
of our exegesis as regards its interior force (see above),
for the interior moral ideas in so far dominate the whole
situation throughout, especially here, and limit the scope
of " possibilities "-1 Whichever particular one, then, of
two, three, or even of four, different pointings to the sense
we may prefer, even here, in this secondary department
of our exegesis, as in the first section, no one of
these obscure expressions of idea can at all possibly
fail to express that supreme value of the moral-religious
intellectual life which is the chief, if not the sole element
of interest involved.
Readers can also, for this reason, if I have been able
to make myself clear, with all the more gratitude study
even the multiplied citations of slightly, or radically,
differing reported views here at this secondary stage, as
they could so freely tolerate them in dealing with the
leading words in the "first section", as well as in the later
tradition in the "third" ; they need not remain, as they
might otherwise, under a quasi-cataleptic incubus of alarm,
so to speak of it, lest all their treasured theories of G??ic
life should perish in obscurities ; the interior elementary
1 We have here a crisis, in an armed religious propaganda, complicated
with political intricacies, much detailed material interest having been
also doubtless involved ; Church and State-?so to speak of it?were here
apparently combined in either a defensive, or offensive, dynastic struggle,
widely dilfering from those in the Veda, where interior religion was
seldom a prominent element in the clashing sub-political issues ; for this
reason all theso secondary elements in Ga0io thought feel likewise, as do
the primary ones, the incisive religious animus which centres in the
expression of the Attributes ; see above.
moral force, which is so dear to history, remains here also,

almost, or totally, undiminishcd.1 The various alternative
suggestions here also, however divergent they may be
from my own first presented views, as also from one
another, cannot fail when combined even to contribute
directly, as well as indirectly, toward what we most prize ;
for the invaluable main ideas loom over the entire repre
sentation in their epoch-making and unquestioned power
and depth, and every detail of serious discussion brings
out the more their force.
8. [The Achannenian Inscriptions of that Empire also
confirm my view ; expressing, let us never forget it, these
same principles throughout, though similar inscriptions
would seem to be the last of all places where one should
look for such an expression of interior moral principle.]
IV. Numerical, Territorial, and Political

Predominance
needs also to some extent to*be taken into consideration
as a reason for strengthening the claims of close dis
cussion, for as our subject appears even from such causes
to come into higher light, we become more docile under
extended illustration. Buddhism became, and still remains,
a large political and moral power over wide portions of
the globe, as did Islam, with Christianity, while Mazda
worship as regards its mere numerical and territorial
predominance was fatally checked at Nehavend, A.D. 041,
Buddhism having only gradually disappeared from India
for other fields, and Islam is still trenchant; but as
1 These focussed and collected points are, in fact, so needed, even for
specialists, that a very able expert in Avesta, a leading teacher of others,
actually refrained personally from dealing much in translations of the
Avesta because of its occasional or frequent obscurities, whereus in any
place ono of two, three, or four renderings must of necessity be the right
one, while that for which we altogether the most value Avesta can never
bo mistaken, whichever one of the detailed views we may choose. That
supreme interest cannot be avoided either in prima facie reading or in
exhaustive study.
searchers in religious intellectual history for the existence

of intense epoch-making ideas, we should rise above all
consideration of such external circumstances. For how
very narrow has been the apparent immediate scope of
many another sublime theory ;?recall alone the Stoa.
V. Philosophical and Literary Influence
presents itself as a reason for more thorough examination
on the part of eminent non-specialists. Then consider the
earlier Avesta influence beyond its native borders. The
susceptible Jews, who had scarce a dream of a definitive
Heaven before the Exile, could not have escaped hearing
something of the religion of that Empire of which they
became a part for twTo centuries, in the creed of the great
Sovereigns whose edicts of restoration fill Ezra with their
spirit, and awoke Isaiah, our Bible sections often dating
from their reigns, as was but natural; and while articles of
the Exilic creed x may have arisen spontaneously in Israel,
in parallel development, no sane expert denies their
actual identities1 with those of Iran, aside from all
question of reciprocal influence ; but could the vast
Persian Church, so to speak of its throngs of hierarchy,
have failed to foster, encourage, and develop, though it
may not have originated, the new-found creed of its
cherished Jewish fellow-citizens, on those points where
Persia and Israel were already one, if this union were
indeed already thus the fact ? Then recall the Gnosis
(with its often lofty theories, so Avestic) ; see also the
pure creed of Mithra worship; while, as many hold,
even modern thought may preserve an echo of Avesta in
the Philosophy of limit so dear to Fichte and Hegel?
this through Jakob Boehme, possibly (?)?anticipating
even the now prevalent acceptance of two first forces
in the Universe?" it must needs be that the offence
1 As to God-unity, Angelology, Satan, Demonology, Immortality,
Soteriology, Millennium, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.
come"; all this closes in more and more upon our

convictions, even where it may be impossible for us to
become close experts.
VI. Translation of the Chief Terms,

which I have reserved till this place, is the crucial question
of all.
This most urgent point naturally involves the others,
as it is also involved in them ; it is the immediate
treatment of the chief terms in actual translation both
when those ideas are, in a sense, personified, whether
rhetorically or literally (as actually believed-in Archangelic
beings; see above), or also otherwise, when the words
occur in their simple, if epoch-making, clear and natural
verbal force. Some writers leave the terms entirely
untranslated whenever they can be at all regarded as
being used, whether rhetorically or literally, as the
proper names, but translate them significantly when the}'
incontrovertibly express the interior ideas aside from
personification?a very defective usage, as I hold. In
SBE. xxxi I hit upon a plan which I can now only
partially modify ; I translated the words fully everywhere,
instead of leaving them at times entirely to themselves,
so to say?this, except in a few obvious cases. For ASa
I used the " Divine Righteousness ", " the Holy Order ",
" the Truth ", etc. ; for Vohu Manah I wrote " the Good
Mind ", printing with capital initials, however,?and this
last for the most part even where the ideas were
left as the expressions of the pure mental and moral
force not yet personified. As ASa meant the " Divine
Righteousness ", " the Holy Law ", " the Truth " in the
G?tfic-Avesta language itself, beyond dispute, and this
even when expressing the proper name, and as it was
still so used in that sense later on, why should not its
equivalent in English be used in the same application ?
Recall the Puritanic English where persons were called
" Prudence ", " Hope ", " Deliverance ", etc. ; see also
" Sophia ". If ASa means " the Divine Righteousness ",
" the Holy Order ", why should not the Archangel ASa
be so called " the Divine Righteousness ", " Holy Order ",
"Truth", "Sanctity", etc., which last I used in the
G??as?Latin verbatim?as being somewhat more realistic,
because more ceremonial. [What motives us all here,
as critical reproducers, is, of course, our anxiety to be
well upon our guard against the imbecility of reporting
too much of the interior sense of the words; for it
would be fatuous for us to talk about the " Divine
Righteousness ", " the Holy Law ", " the Truth ", when
there stood before us the mere meaningless name of
a non-existent Archangel ; and so of Vohu Manah,
analogously; yet, on the other hand, to fail in rendering
these interior ideas when they are unquestionably present
leaves the entire essential force of the GdOas unexpressed
for the non-specialist reader.]
To resume : The lurking interior sense of ASa, Vohu
Manah, etc., even when the words are used for the proper
names, as the " Divine Righteousness ", " the Good Mind",
etc., is not contested by anyone as being present in the
G? as, and this (even when those words are used as the
expression of the proper names) ; no writer, ancient or
modern, so far as I am aware, denies this, for the words
so used as proper names were immediately after such an
application used in their undisputed interior meaning at
the next sentences ; see above, see even the distant and
late Greek Plutarch, who reported them in this sense ; see
above ; in fact, he, Plutarch, curiously enough, lends us his
own assistance in making sure of the meaning of ASa ;
see his ?Xijdeia, etc.?a most remarkable side-circumstance.
Why did he, Plutarch, not also write the untranslated
ASa, if we are not to use the corresponding word in our
language, as he did in his ? If, then, ASa is universally
conceded to mean originally " the Divine Righteousness "
in its most interior possible and exclusive sense, with this

sense obviously and unmistakably, as also necessarily,
applied practically to it in numbers of instances, why
should we not use this meaning as being still alive
uncancelled in the proper name ? Why, again, should we
not use the translated Avesta word, even when that word
is used as a name, when we are translating the rest of the
G??as into English ? How is it also possible that this
" lurking sense " should not have been actually felt by
some,1 at least, of the reciters of the G??as themselves of
old, even when uttered as a proper name, for the same
word, as said, was immediately aftenvards used in its full
interior meaning at the next sentences ; and this when
(see above) it is often next to impossible in many of these
same occurrences for us to decide whether the name, 01*
the idea, is the more immediately intended ; and when,
even where we fully see the personification, it is also often
next to impossible for us to say whether it was intended
to be merely rhetorical like " O Death, O Victory " or the
literal thing, while the interior tone of the entire Hymns
throughout2 makes it obvious that the words could not
have failed to impress upon constant hearers their interior
meaning, even in the most doubtful connexions. [Gabriel,
God's hero, may have lost its meaning to many a devout
Hebrew, as also Michael, " who like God." Recall the
most significant possible of all our proper names ; how
soon they lose their force ! But how could ASa and
Vohu Manah lose all their meaning in the Ga#as with
their interior sense expressed everywhere as absolutely
necessary to an intelligent sentence, and in the next
strophe ? (Note how fully the abstract ideas retain their
vitality as thoughts even in our statuesque representations.
Who forgets Justice, Truth, etc., in the pictures of them
and the statues ? So, in like manner, ASa, Vohu Manah,
1 One in a thousand would give an important aggregate here.
2 "In thought, in word, in deed."
XSaOra, and Aramaiti never lose their interior sense in

the G?#as, even when used as the Archangel's names, any
more than " Justice " loses its sense while holding its
scales blindfolded in a picture or as a statue.)]
To conclude : If, then, my innovation was too bold in
SBE. xxxi in 1887, in giving the words in intelligent
translation in a book which was itself a translation, what
was the inadequacy upon which it supervened ? Here we
have, as all concede, the apex of all historical expression
as to interior religion closely searching the utmost recesses
of the will as to thought, as to word, and as to deed,
and leading the world at its period as to the doctrine of
subjective recompense ; and yet some writers have treated
its chief terms, aSa, etc., as mere meaningless names in
one line, while, in a closely following sequent, its epoch
making meaning fully appears, so leaving the whole
structure with half its keystone, or indeed with half its
foundation ; and this point is of far profounder import
than any other in the subject. I have therefore introduced
the words ASa,Vohu Manah, XSadra, Aramaiti, Haurvatdt,
and Ameretatdt with the same, or slightly varied trans
lations following them, which I used before in 1887.1
1 I do not at all apologise for having alluded to appreciative notices
above, as Avesta, like other branches of Orientalism, has long been
notoriously the field for an wholly irresponsible polemik.

(1912) L. H. Mills, Yasna 30 As The Document of Dualism

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(1912) L. H. Mills, Yasna 30 As The Document of Dualism

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Yasna XXX as the Document of Dualism

Author(s): Lawrence Mills

T HAVE elsewhere (see SEE. xxxi) thus designated t

Translation with Comments

1 ISei?to, " coming-with-desire " ; that the idea of " coming

(b) both the praise-songs for Ahura, and the sacrificial -

(b) at this decision as to faiths man and man, (each) for

AS= ^J =J(j) ; readKJ = A* 4- J -yd, which K5 = .jYj is Pahl

as a pair,1 (contrasting their opposing attributes, yet)

4>. (a, b) (Yea) when these two spirits came together to

(b) but the most bounteous1 Spirit (chose) ASa2 (the

7. (a) Upon this1 came then Aramaiti (the Zeal of

(c) and for those declared,1 O Ahura, who will deliver

(c) for there will the collected-minded-one be where

1 So, more "objectively" than "there will our thoughts be (centred)";

importance to the History of Religion, those volumes of

II. (1) Reasons for such a procedure in SBE. XXXI

(2) AN IMMEDIATE OBJECTION MAY RE ANSWERED

That even the most interesting of alternatives, if

" subjective recompense " in history?and these words can

the whole G??ic system that the words which constitute

1 Remark repeated on account of its crucial importance to the spread

moral thought at from 700 to 900 B.c.,1 would still be left.

alternatives in the first and second stages of our inquiry,

1 See my study of Yasna I (Leipzig, 1910), Introduction, pp. iv-ix.

a surprising manifestation of incisively energetic, intel

in occurrences where they are beyond all doubt thus

1 This passage from Plutarch is justly considered to be one of the

Him.] And this system of ideas survived while half

extraneous, detail in the Ga#a itself?there likewise, as

moral force, which is so dear to history, remains here also,

IV. Numerical, Territorial, and Political

searchers in religious intellectual history for the existence

come"; all this closes in more and more upon our

VI. Translation of the Chief Terms,

in its most interior possible and exclusive sense, with this

XSaOra, and Aramaiti never lose their interior sense in

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