^ New moon and full moon are not used here in the English meaning : the month was divided into six parts, of five days each (the Norse fimt or five days' week; see Vigfusson, Icelandic Dictionary, s. v.): the first five days (pan/^ak fartum) formed the new moon or awtare-mcz/ngha, literally ' the moon within ;' the next five days (pan/^ak datigar) formed the peren6-maMngha, literally ' the moon full,' which in fact partly answered to our first quarter ; the next five days (pan/^ak sitigar), belonging to the full moon, were called the Vishaptatha; no mention is made of the last three pan;6ak, forming the second half of the month. It may be they were not mentioned, as belonging to the waning period, when the powers of the moon are suffering an eclipse. Cf. Neriosengh to Yasna I, (23.)
Mah Ya5t. 9 1
5. I will sacrifice unto the Moon, that keeps in it
the seed of the Bull, the liberal, bright, glorious,
water - giving \ warmth - giving, wisdom - giving ^,
wealth-giving ^ riches-giving, thoughtfulness-giving ^,
weal-giving, freshness -giving^, prosperity -giving^,
the liberal, the healing.
6. For its brightness and glory, I will offer unto it a sacrifice worth being heard, namely, unto the Moon that keeps in it the seed of the Bull.
Unto the Moon that keeps in it the seed of the Bull, we offer up the libations, the Haoma and meat, the baresma, the wisdom of the tongue, the holy spells, the speech, the deeds, the libations, and the rightly-spoken words.
Ye?/he hatam : All those beings of whom Ahura ]\Iazda ....
7. Yathaahiivairyo: The will of the Lord is the law of holi- ness ....
I bless the sacrifice and prayer, and the strength
and vigour of the Moon, that keeps in it the seed of
the Bull, and of the only-created Bull, and of the
Bull of many species.
Ashem Vohu : Holiness is the best of all good.
Give unto that man brightness and glory, give him health of body, .... give him the bright, all-happy, blissful abode of the holy Ones.
^ Or possessing: giving may be replaced by possessing in this word as in the following.
^ Vare>^angha«tem: danak (Phi.); ^wanitaram (Sansk.).
* Khjtavawtem : lakshmivantam (Sansk.).
* Yaokhjtiva«tem, 'pondering on what good is to be done' (vi/^aryavantam karyanyayanam ; J jj: . XS sjo ,b dLo is^AJl).
^ Zairimyavawtem: haritavarwavantam, kila pr/thivi(m) sardra- taram karoti (Sansk.).
* Vohvavawtem: uttamasamr/ddhimantam (Sansk.).
92 YA5TS AND SIROZAIIS.
VIII. TIR YA^T.
Tijtrya is the leader of the stars against the planets, as stars and planets belong, respectively, to the worlds of Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu (Vend. Introd. IV, 36 ; Bund. II, 5 seq.).
This Yast is a description of the production of the rain through the agency of the star Tij-trya. It has to struggle against the Daeva of Drought, Apaosha, is first overcome and conquers at last. This seems to be a refacimento of the old storm myths, which have been in so far renewed as the role of the hero in the original myth has been transferred to a star. It is to be noticed, however, that Apaosha is not described as a planet.
Tijtrya is Sirius \ It presides over the first month of summer (21 June-2i July). This Ya^t appears thus to have been written in a part of Iran where the dog-days must have fallen in July, and the rainy season began in the last days of July, unless the place of Tijtrya in the calendar has been changed at some later period.
This Yajt is recited on the days of Tijtrya, Haurvata/ (as the Genius of Waters), Farvardin (as the Fravashis are his allies in the struggle; § 34), and Bad (the wind; § 32).
The struggle between Tiotrya and Apaosha is described in the Bundahij- (VII), but it has there a cosmological character : it has not for its object the annual and regular return of the rains after the dog-days, but the production of the seas and lakes in the first ages of the world.
o. May Ahura Mazda be rejoiced I . . . .
Ashem Voh{i : Holiness is the best of all good ....
I confess myself a worshipper of Mazda, a follower of Zara- thujtra, one who hates the Daevas and obeys the laws of Ahura ;
For sacrifice, prayer, propitiation, and glorification unto [Havani], the holy and master of holiness ....
Unto Ti.ytrya, the bright and glorious star, and
unto the powerful Satavaesa, made by Mazda, who
pushes waters forward ^,
^ "Eva S' dcrrepa npo ndvTcov, olov (})v\aKa Koi Trpoonrrjp fyKarearrjae, top
2(ipiop (Plutarchus, de Iside et Osiride, § 47 ; cf. infra, § 48). ^ Sirozah I, 13.
Tir Vast. 93
Be propitiation, with sacrifice, prayer, propitiation, and glorification.
Yatha ahu vairyo: The will of the Lord is the law of holi- ness ....
1. Ahiira Mazda spake unto Spitama Zarathui-tra,
saying : ' We worship the lordship and mastership
[of Ti^trya], whereby he protects ^ the Moon, the
dwelling, the food, when my glorious stars come
along and impart their gifts ^ to men. I will sacri-
fice unto the star Tijtrya, that gives the fields their
share [of waters].
2. ' We offer up libations unto Tij-trya, the bright
and glorious star, that gives happy dwelling and
good dwelling ; the white, shining, seen afar, and
piercing ; the health-bringing, loud-snorting ^, and
high, piercing from afar with its shining, undefiled
rays ; and unto the waters of the wide sea, the Van-
guhi of wide renown ^, and the species ^ of the Bull,
made by Mazda, the awful kingly Glory, and the
Fravashi of the holy Spitama Zarathui-tra.
3. ' For his brightness and glory, I will offer unto
him a sacrifice worth being heard, namely, unto the
star Ti.ytrya.
' Unto Ti^trya, the bright and glorious star, we
offer up the libations, the Haoma and meat, the
baresma, the wisdom of the tongue, the holy spells,
the speech, the deeds, the libations, and the rightly-
spoken words ".
^ Doubtful. 2 The rain.
^ In his disguise as a horse ; § 18,
* See Vend., pp. 3, 5, note 2.
^ Numa; see Etudes Iraniennes, II, 124. ^ Cf. p. 47.
94 Ya5'Ts and Sirozahs
'Ye;2he hatam: All those beings of whom Ahura Mazda ....
4. ' We sacrifice unto Ti^trya, the bright and
glorious star, who is the seed of the waters,
powerful, tall, and strong, whose light goes afar ;
powerful and highly^ working, through whom the
brightness and the seed of the waters come from
the high Apam Napa/^.
' For his brightness and glory, I will offer him a sacrifice worth being heard ....
5. * We sacrifice unto Tirtrya, the bright and glo-
rious star ; for whom long ^ flocks and herds and
men. looking forward for him and deceived in their
hope*: "When shall we see him rise up, the bright
and glorious star Ti^trya ? When will the springs
run with waves as thick as a horse's size and still
thicker ? Or will they never come ?"
' For his brightness and glory, I will offer him a sacrifice worth being heard ....
6. 'We sacrifice unto Tii-trya, the bright and glo-
rious star ; who flies, towards the sea Vouru-Kasha ^,
as swiftly as the arrow darted through the heavenly
^ Powerfully.
^ Or, 'through whom the beauty of the waters comes from Bereza, and their seed from Apfun Napa/.' Bereza, the high, the tall, an epithet of Apam Napa/, became one of his names (Ized Bor^ ; cf. § 34) ; for Apam Napa/, see above, p. 6, note i.
^ Paiti^marewti ; cf. Yt. V, 123.
* Or better, ' in their looking.'
° See above, p. 54, note 6.
Tir Yast. 95
Space \ which Erekhsha ^, the swift archer, the Arya
amongst the Aryas whose arrow was the swiftest,
shot from Mount Khshaotha to Mount //zja.nv3.nl ^
7. * For Ahura Mazda gave him assistance ; so did
the waters and the plants ; and Mithra, the lord of
wide pastures, opened a wide way unto him.
' For his brightness and glory, I will offer him a sacrifice worth being heard ....
8. *We sacrifice unto Ti^trya, the bright and
glorious star, that afflicts the Pairikas, that vexes
the Pairikas, who, in the shape of worm-stars^, fly
* Mainivas^?/=mainyu-as«?^ (meaning pun minoi ^ivakih, svargasthanam, Yasna LVII, 27 [LVI, 11, 3]).
^ Erekhsha khshviwi-ishuj, in Pahlavi Avis Shivatir (see Etudes Iraniennes, II, 220), or ' Aris of the swift arrow,' was the best archer in the Iranian army. When Mino/^ihr and Afrasyab determined to make peace and to fix the boundary between Iran and Tiiran, ' it was stipulated that Arii- should ascend Mount Damavand, and from thence discharge an arrow towards the east ; and that the place in which the arrow fell should form the boundary between the two kingdoms. Axis thereupon ascended the mountain, and discharged towards the east an arrow, the flight of which continued from the dawn of day until noon, when it fell on the banks of the Gihun (the Oxus),' (Mirkhond, History of the Early Kings of Persia, trans, by David Shea, p. 175; cf. Noeldeke, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, i88i, p. 445.)
^ Mount Khshaotha seems to be the same as Mount Damavand (see preceding note) ; Mount ffvanvan/ may be the same as Mount B ami an, from which the Balkh river springs, as according to Tabari (trans, by Noeldeke, 1. 1.), Ans' arrow stopped at the Balkh river (an affluent of the Oxus). But it may be that the limits given refer to the course of Tijtrya; cf § 38, text and note.
* Doubtful. Shooting stars are alluded to. IMr. Geiger remarks that there is a swarm of shooting stars falling every year just at the time when Tijtrya, in the European climate, is supposed to be most active, on the loth of August.
96 YA^TS AND SIROZAHS.
between the earth and the heavens, in the sea
Vouru-Kasha, the powerful sea, the large-sized, deep
sea of salt^ waters. He goes to its lake in the shape
of a horse, in a holy shape ; and down there he
makes the waters boil over, and the winds flow
above powerfully all around.
9. * Then Satavaesa ^ makes those waters flow
down to the seven Karshvares of the earth ^, and
when he has arrived down there, he stands, beau-
tiful, spreading ease and joy on the fertile countries
(thinking in himself): " How shall the countries of
the Aryas grow fertile ? "
* For his brightness and glory, I will offer him a sacrifice worth being heard ....
10. ' We sacrifice unto Ti^trya, the bright and glo-
rious star, who spake unto Ahura Mazda, saying :
" Ahura Mazda, most beneficent Spirit, Maker of the
material world, thou Holy One!
IT. ' " If men would worship me with a sacrifice in
which I were invoked by my own name, as they
worship the other Yazatas with sacrifices in which
they are invoked by their own names, then I should
have come to the faithful at the appointed time*;
I should have come in the appointed time of my
^ See above, p. 66, note 3.
^ Satavaesa is said to be the leader of the western stars (to be read southern stars, Bund. II, 7), and has in its protection the seas of the southern quarter (ibid. XIII, 12); the Satavaesa sea is the Persian gulf.
^ This seems to be an allusion to the tide in the Arabian sea (the sea Vouru-Kasha) and in the gulf of Oman, which, being a southern sea, is under the control of Satavaesa (cf. preceding note and Vend. V, 18, note i).
* At the right time of the year when rain is expected.
t{r vast. 97
beautiful, immortal life\ should it be one night, or two nights, or fifty, or a hundred nights."
12. 'We sacrifice unto Tii'trya ;
* We sacrifice unto the rains of Ti^trya ^.
*We sacrifice unto the first star^; we sacrifice unto the rains of the first star.
*I will sacrifice unto the stars Haptoiri/^ga'*, to oppose the Yatus and Pairikas.
*We sacrifice unto Yanan^^, the star made by
Mazda; for*' the well-shapen strength, for the Victory,
made by Ahura, for the crushing Ascendant, for the
destruction of what distresses us, for the destruction
of what persecutes us.
* We sacrifice unto Tii^trya, whose eye-sight is sound ^.
13. 'For ten nights, O Spitama Zarathu^tra! Ti^- trya, the bright and glorious star, mingles his shape
^ Cf. §§ 23-24 and Yt. X, 54-55, 74.
^ AsTijtrya is the producer of the rain: Tijti7enyas/^a=Tistara-
tarakasya vr/sh/im (Khorshe^ Nyayij- 8, Sansk. tr.).
^ Tijtrya ; cf. p. 105, note 3.