^{page 81 note 1} Išeñtō, “coining-with-desire”; that the idea of “coming” is involved in išeñtō, to the ind. iš, is the more probable from the parallel expressions in Yasna XLV, 1, “from near and from far.” One writer long since corrected (?) to Mazdā θvā = “Thou, O Mazda”. This precludes a voc. in išeñtō; yet see the following second personals, with which the voc. is harmonious.

^{page 81 note 2} Some render as if the faculty of “memory” were here especially involved; “memorable things.” I cannot quite see this; the “animadversions” were, however, to be regarded as “memorable”.

^{page 81 note 3} Recalling v(a)ēdištō of Yasna XLVI, 19, I formerly preferred “to the-all-knowing one”; this I would now put in the alternative.

^{page 82 note 1} Yesnyā far more naturally renders “offerings”, “sacrifices” than “prayers”; for the latter see rather the forms of iš, yās. Yẹsnyā is properly yasniyā, as ẹ is merely the result of a perhaps false epenthesis; ẹ is = a + i, the latter i being anticipated from the terminal y, of which it may be considered to be an element.

^{page 82 note 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 Aša, this word should often be taken to represent “the Holy Community” in whom Aša (Arša) 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 Gāθas. Wherever a realistic result of treatment is possible we should resort to it, as being the more critical.

^{page 82 note 3} So, “joyful counsels which have truth as their basis and inspiration,” humāzdrā Ašā (Aršā), i.e. “ind. su + mand + tra” (I write Aša, as the more correct Arša is not euphonious). An instr. should not be expected amidst nom. acc. neut. pl.'s, except where it is unavoidable, as in the case of Aša 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 Ašā or Vohū Manaṅhā in the instr. being the form of any such word which may be so taken; here personality seems also indicated.

^{page 82 note 4} So my former alternative as now preferred to yēčā when read as = yāčā = “I beseech”; y(a)ēčā, as the lost acc. dual, neut., is better, referring to the “two main divisions” of the creation, of “good and evil”, of which the statement immediately follows.

^{page 82 note 5} “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 urvan is ruvan, etc.

^{page 82 note 6} Some others, “Hear the best things, the illustrious (?) with the mind.” Vahištā has indeed the place of an acc. pl. neut., but it is rather characteristic in its application to Aša (Arša) elsewhere, and so the more natural here for “Vohū” Manaṅhā. Some render “with enlightened mind” behold, but “the flames upon the 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. šuča′, šu′či. Recall RV. ii, 35 (226), 8, yó apsv ắ šu′činā dai′vyena ṛtắvā'jasra wrviyắ ví b'ắti, “shines with heavenly light,” not “with pure Godhead” (!); RV. iv, 2 (298), 16, . . . šučīd ayan . . . aruṇīr ápa vran; see also 17 . . . šučántō Agním. The “carried over” sense “illustrious” is a bad guess with av(a)ēnatā close by; see also darasatā with raočēbīš; “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.

^{page 83 note 1} “For his own person.”

^{page 83 note 2} So with Ved. párā, but possibly = “before”; cf. Yasna XIX, 1, (3).

^{page 83 note 3} Or, sazdyāi 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 = šaṅh is far more immediate; and would even call for reconstruction of text in its favour; see also the hint of the Pahl. trl. [It 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 offer “all the possibilities” —this early in the eighties.]

^{page 83 note 4} So, deciphering p(a)o(u)rviyā, p(a)ourvyē, as a loc. adverbial, not being here accepted, as a loc. would make here a somewhat awkward contrast as an adverbial form, in this strophe 3, with the ace. adverbial in the next strophe, 4; ē is a false decipherment of the last sign ; read = + -yā, which = is Pahl.- Av. of the transitional period. [Otherwise, indeed, -vyē, if so deciphered, can be again only taken as a dual, this time as a neut. with vahyō, akemča, 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 taken hī as acc. 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. We 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.]

^{page 84 note 1} “Two spirits, two twins”(sic; cf. the Vedic yamắ), dual, of the Ašvins, etc. Others, with well-meant efforts at novelty, cf. Indian yắma = “night watch”; cf. my Persian translation of Pahlavi in Gates, 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 Zaraθuštrian Gāθas as just cited.

^{page 84 note 2} Some would read ahvafnā, from long since antiquated authority = “sleepless”; others again “in dream”, or “in apparition”. Sva + ápaḥ(-s) 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 + ápaḥ(-s). The theme is the “higher creation” here, and hardly either “sleeping”or “dreaming”. Recall ṚV. x, 38 (864), 5, svavṛ′jaṁ hí tvắm ahám Indra šušráva (notice the same verb šru in the two connexions; the analogies here are, of course, not here cited as being absolutely exact); see ṚV. i, 54, 3, áṛča divé bṛhaté šūšyàṁ váčaḥ svákšatraṁ yásya d'ṛšató d'ṛšán mánaḥ; ṚV. iii, 21 (255), 2, svád'arman devdávītaye šréšt'aṁ no d'ehi vắryam (of Agni); cf. svīkaraṇa.

^{page 84 note 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”.

^{page 84 note 4} “Evil-disposed.” means more than. “unintelligent”, though, it includes “mental obscurity”, and the force of the “evil” element should not be modified in a translation; some writers seem inclined to accept a dā (?) = “to know”.

^{page 85 note 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 affected by these differences in the choice of text or rendering.

^{page 85 note 2} The adverbial acc. 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 -īm as acc. sing. neut.; the -ī- is a false decipherment; = long Pahl. = Av. y in the body of an Avesta word with the inherent a = -yam; cf. an ind. pṹrvyam*; so likewise with haiθīm; -īm is here ridiculously impossible as an acc. sing. neut. The supposed -ī- is again a false decipherment for Pahl. -y with its inherent a, as always in Pahlavi.

^{page 85 note 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 be 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.

^{page 85 note 4} It is hard to understand how even distinguished writers could render the “best abode”; it might, however, well pass as a “free translation”.

^{page 85 note 5} Ačištā-verezyō, as nom. sing. masc.; others as acc. sing. neut. for verezyō. I prefer to recognize the nom. at the end of a sentence, or before a cæsura, wherever it may be possible; and I would also see a masc. everywhere when feasible as being more personal, and therefore the more realistic.

^{page 86 note 1} Notice that Spēṇištā Mainyū 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 spēṅištā as “holiest” from fear of conceding too refined a sense; I should greatly desire it.

^{page 86 note 2} “Personification” is here next to impossible; to say that “Ahura” “chose' His own Archangel” would be fatuous.

^{page 86 note 3} Notice this usage “Ahura” of the Deity who was Himself the “chooser”; the word “Ahura” used for “Him”.

^{page 86 note 4} Fra + var seems characteristic of “acting in the spirit of the Faith”. Some of the others render “gladly”. The neut. acc. of the part. pres. is used adverbially, as in the Indian; recall dravát and drahyát adverbially used with changed accent.

^{page 86 note 5} So, far more realistically, d(a)ēva unquestionably means “d(a)ēva worshippers” here, as most often in the Gāθas; and this view is far more realistic than that which renders the “D(a)ēva-gods”, who would not so naturally “rush together” toward one of their own number.

^{page 86 note 6} So, the preterite conjunctively understood; otherwise “they did not choose aright”; cf. strophe 2.

^{page 86 note 7} Notice this important instance of rhetorical personification; “the (personified) Worst Mind ‘came’ with Aša” (Arša), etc. To assert that all the meaning of two such words as ačištem mano was lost in a mere proper name would be here ridiculous; and if this is ridiculous here, what is an analogous procedure elsewhere?

^{page 86 note 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 cæsura.

^{page 86 note 9} That they might disease the “life” of man; so the Pahl., Pers., and Skt.: recall the name Bēñdva, XLIX, 1.

^{page 86 note 10} “Of the mortal.”

^{page 87 note 1} “Af 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.

^{page 87 note 2} “She gave steadfastness to the body”; ānmā to an an = 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.

^{page 87 note 3} One writer seems boldly to render the form here as a neut. sing.

^{page 87 note 4} “Holy ones assembled for the contest.”

^{page 87 note 5} Or “with iron bonds”; so a great Vedist first suggested; see Gāθas, 431–49; and another seems to have understood “the metal” of the “molten lake” with ādānāiš as = “Heimzahlungen”. The “molten metal” of the “ordeal” (?) was, however, a definite concept which developed only later. If tōi = Thy, this second personality should dominate the sentence; “Thou camest” is better than “with iron”. If the text ayaṅhā could not be regarded as adequate here, it should be emended in the needed sense. “Iron” seems only remotely indicated, while ādānāiš could well express “creations”; and “creation” is the subject in hand.

^{page 87 note 6} See strophe 6; the vengeful punishment of them.

^{page 87 note 7} In several places political expectations seem to be adumbrated; the Archangel Xšaθra 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.

^{page 88 note 1} Reading sastẹ, middle for passive. Otherwise read the act. sastī; so I, in SBE. xxxi, “he(?) declares.”

^{page 88 note 2} 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.

^{page 88 note 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 Aša (Arša) expresses the “Holy Congregation” frequently, as well as the Law, in the Gāθa, as Vohu Manah often means “the individual saint”—this even in the Gāθa; notice the quasi-military character of the figure, and recall Yasna XXXI, 18, “Hew ye them all with the snaiθiš”; war, civil or international, is indicated. Aša seldom or never represents the “Fire” here, as it may at times in the later Avesta, and in the later Zoroastrianism.

^{page 88 note 4} This is the document of Frašakard, the first recorded “call” of a millennial propaganda; for extended comment see Gāθas at the place. Frašakard derives from here yōi īm, frašēm (or frašīm (?), frašyam) kerenaven ahūm.

^{page 88 note 5} As Ahura at Yasna XXIX, 2, and elsewhere refers to the human subject, the pl. may well be so applied to the leading princely priests here. Or, with others, changing the subject to the second personal, “O Ahuras of Mazda, do ye (?) bring (2nd pl. imp.?) companionship and help with the Holy Law,” -anā as 2nd pl. imp. term for -tanā; but the t would seem to be especially organic in the Vedic 2nd pl. 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 -tanā in -anā; rather read baramnā, which would not affect the metre; surely after line a it is not going too far to refer baranā to the 1st pers. pl.

^{page 88 note 6} The added -čā might tempt us to regard ašā-čā as an acc. pl. neut.; for the added -čd would seem to belittle the expression as the proper name of an Archangel here, but an instrumental ašā 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. Āmoyastrā might, however, better be rendered as in the acc. pl. neut.

^{page 89 note 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 Gāθas, Comm:, at the place; recall havīr-mát'īnām of the yātu's “disturbing the offering”. Cistī, however, seems very nearly a rhetorical personification. She “comes”, in XLVIII, 11; see Yasna LI, 16, 18, etc. Čistī seems almost to correspond to the “wisdom” of the Proverbs; see also Vedic čitti, as masc. and adj. of Agni; see also Pouru-čistā as the proper name. Of course, we can accept an Avestic use of čistī = čἵtti as being “astray”, but only in case of necessity. Imagine our finding such a Gāθic expression as Vohu Manah being “astray”, yet Gāθic čistī 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”. Cf. garō nmanē. A very interesting distinction intervenes here. M(a)ēθā seems to be undoubtedly adverbial in the sense of “in the abode”; at XXXIII, 9 see baratū; see also aθrā-yaθrā as adverbs of place at XLVI, 16; see also XLIII, 2, where Ahura is spoken of as “dwelling”, Šaēitī (Šayatī); the “dwelling” of Ahura and His “Čistī” seems to be especially congruous. The sense may be “where wisdom is propitious”.

^{page 89 note 2} See Gāθas, Comm., p. 4. So the Pahl. sipah. Some others, “of good fortune,” so less realistically, to Švā (?); recall Švắnta; cf. speñta.

^{page 89 note 3} Read āsištā; the apparent short vowel reading of asištā may, as it does in numberless other instances, have resulted from one of the confusions necessarily prevalent in the transitional period, when Pahl. characters still lingered in many Avesta words; short Pahl. = Avesta long .

^{page 89 note 4} Or “they hasten”, to yuz.

^{page 89 note 5} Others seem to recall asištā yaojañtē (so reading) in the sense of “joining the a + sišta”, the unversehrt (!); see Haug, to Šiš, šna′sti. Then, again, some writers see asišta, ā-sištā, as the “promised (things)”, “the rewards”, to šiš, šišyāt. The hint of the Pahl., Pers., and Skt. (far more graphically) points to āšu = “swift”; consider also yaozeñte, “swiftest they hasten”; recall also the original meaning of aš, “to attain.”

^{page 90 note 1} Zazeñtē to hā, ji′hate* = “to go forth”; otherwise to zan = ind. jan, “are (re)generate.”

^{page 90 note 2} See strophe 10, and for all the alternatives see Gāθas, 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 Gāθas is contained in the book”, of course, refers to it as including its Lexicon, which still lacks some eighty pages 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 Geldner edited my translation into Sanskrit of Yasna XXVII in Roth's Festgruss, itself cited pointedly by Oldenberg; see Ved. Relig., p. 27.

^{page 90 note 3} See Yasna XXIX, 1.

^{page 90 note 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 uštā, loc. sing, adverbial of -ti, is a most emphatic expression and almost idiomatic; see Yasna XLIII, 1. (Or the uštā might also possibly be a nom. neut. pl. with singular verb. This would, however, be a rather tame suggestion.)

^{page 93 note 1} Yasna XXVIII, translated into Sanskrit in Roth's, Festgruss, p. 193Google Scholar, so Y. XLIV, similarly treated in the Actes of the Eleventh Congress of Orientalists, held in Paris, 1897, re-edited ZDMG., July, 1911, and later; see also my recently published lengthy Yasna I in its Sanskrit equivalents.

^{page 94 note 1} Remark repeated on account of its crucial importance to the spread of Gāθic reading as preliminary to Gāθic study.

^{page 95 note 1} As the Gāθas 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 Gāθic language could not have been spoken later than 200 years before that of the first Achæmenian Inscriptions, which is in so far degenerated from the Gāθic that 200 years at least alone can account for the change. If, then, the Gāθas were recited in a living language, and that language lived only before b.c. 700–900, we have the Gāθic date, within two hundred years, this being as close as we should expect to fix the date of such ancient matter.

^{page 96 note 1} See my study of Yasna I (Leipzig, 1910), Introduction, pp. iv–ix.

^{page 98 note 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.

^{page 99 note 1} No one of them could have always told what precisely as to minute detail he had himself intended to say.

^{page 100 note 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 differing from those in the Veda, where interior religion was seldom a prominent element in the clashing sub-political issues; for this reason all these secondary elements in Gāθic thought feel likewise, as do the primary ones, the incisive religious animus which centres in the expression of the Attributes; see above.

^{page 101 note 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, whereas in any place one 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 be 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.

^{page 102 note 1} As to God-unity, Angelology, Satan, Demonology, Immortality, Soteriology, Millennium, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

^{page 105 note 1} One in a thousand would give an important aggregate here.

^{page 105 note 2} “In thought, in word, in deed.”

^{page 106 note 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.