Zend Avesta Part 02

SR No.: 007672
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Darmesteter
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1883
Total Pages: 2221
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 41 MB

Page 1906

xvi
PAHLAVI TEXTS.
regarding Zaratûst to be found scattered about in Pahlavi literature, to which we shall return after mentioning the manuscript authorities for the texts translated in this volume.
21. The chief existing authority for the Pahlavi text of the Dînkard, Books III-IX, and the only independent one for Book VII, is the MS. B in Bombay, which has been fully described in S. B. E., vol. xxxvii, pp. xxxiii-xxxvii ; it will therefore be sufficient here to give a short statement of the information which was there detailed at full length. This MS., written in 1659, was an unbound quarto volume of 392 folios when it was brought from Irân to Surat in 1783; after which time 70 folios became detached from various parts of the MS., but nearly all these had been discovered more than twenty years ago.
22. The writer of the MS. not only recorded the date of his own work, but also copied two previous colophons of his predecessors, with dates corresponding to A. D. 1516 and 1020, and it appears that there had been an intermediate copy about 1355. The MS. of 1020 had been copied at Bakdâd, possibly from the original MS. of the last editor of the Dînkard, which must have been completed about A. D. 900.
23. For the text of Dk. V we have a second authority, independent of B, in the MS. K43 at Kopenhagen (see S. B. E., vol. xxxvii, pp. xxxvii-viii), written shortly after 1594 and also descended from the MS. of 1020.
24. The Selections of Zâd-sparam are found in some of the old MSS., which also contain the Dâdistân-î Dînîk (see S. B. E., vol. xviii, pp. xv-xvii). Of the two MSS. used for the text of Zâd-sparam's Zaratûst-nâmak, K35 was brought from Irân to Kopenhagen in 1843. It has lost many folios, both at the beginning and end ; but, before it was so mutilated, a copy (BK) of it was made, which is now in Bombay and contains a copy of its colophon, the date of which corresponds to A. D. 1592. For the text of Zs. xxii, 4-xxiv, 19, which has been lost from K35, the translator is indebted to this old copy. The other MS. authority T, belonging to Ervad Tehmuras in Bombay
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