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 1936

xlvi
PAHLAVI TEXTS.
five extra days were removed to the end of the original eighth month Abân, where they remained until Albîrûni's own time (Alb. p. 56), about A.D. 1000. The reason for intercalating two months at once, was because the time for the seventh intercalation (A.D. 363) was already long past; so the eighth was added three or four score years in advance, being due in 487.
88. All that Albîrûnî says about this double intercalation is quite in accordance with the original establishment of the calendar by Darius Hystaspes, and would render any date more than thirty-seven years later than his reign impossible. With regard to the earlier intercalations (which must have occurred to account for the movement of the five extra days) that of A.D. 115 was neither in the reign of Vologeses I, nor in that of Vologeses III, one of whom must have been the Askânian renovator of the Avesta.
That of A.D. 239, if carried out punctually, would have been at the extreme end of the reign of Ardashîr ; but the intercalations seem to have been usually delayed, as in the case of that of 363 which was delayed for thirty to fifty years, although it ought to have been carried out under the direction of one of those ultra-orthodox high-priests, Aturpâd son of Maraspend, or his son Zaratust, in the reign of Shahpûhar II.
89. It is worthy of notice that the names of both the days and months, which have come down to us in this calendar of Darius, include the names of the six Ameshaspentas, which, according to Darmesteter's hypothesis, were not invented till the time of Vologeses I, in the first century A.D. We have positive evidence that the calendar of twelve months of thirty days each, with five extra days to complete the year, must have been established in the time of Darius. This fact being recorded mechanically by the extent of the retreat of the Persian Parsis' new-year's day down to the present time, and by the number of months intercalated in their religious calendar down to the fifth
If the calendar had been established thirty-eight years after the death of Darius, the seventh intercalation would not have been due till one year after the death of Yazdakard I.
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