AvestaZoroastrianismAccepted ScriptureAvestanShareVendidad Fargard 3Darmesteter and Mills / Sacred Books of the East - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableDarmesteter and Mills / Sacred Books of the EastLanguageEnglishEspañol‹Vendidad Fargard 1Vendidad Fargard 2Vendidad Fargard 3Vendidad Fargard 4Vendidad Fargard 5Vendidad Fargard 6Vendidad Fargard 7Vendidad Fargard 8Vendidad Fargard 9Vendidad Fargard 10Vendidad Fargard 11Vendidad Fargard 12Vendidad Fargard 13Vendidad Fargard 14Vendidad Fargard 15Vendidad Fargard 16Vendidad Fargard 17Vendidad Fargard 18Vendidad Fargard 19Vendidad Fargard 20Vendidad Fargard 21Vendidad Fargard 22Sirozah Sirozah 1Yashts KhorshedSirozah Sirozah 2Yashts Ormazd YashtYashts ArdibehioT 1 YashtYashts Khordad YashtYashts Aban YashtYashts Khorshed YashtYashts Mah YashtYashts Tlr YashtYashts G oS YashtYashts Mihir / Mithra YashtYashts Sraosha Yasht HadhoKhtYashts Rashn YashtYashts Bahram YashtYashts Ram YashtYashts Ashi YashtYashts Aytad YashtYashts Zamyad YashtYashts Van Ant YashtYashts Yasht FragmentYashts Vtetasp YashtNyayis Khorshed? NyayiyNyayis Mihir / Mithra NyayiyNyayis Aban NyayiyNyayis Atay NyayisYasna Yasna 28Yasna Yasna 34Yasna Yasna 30Yasna Yasna 31Yasna Yasna 32Yasna Yasna 33Yasna Yasna 43Yasna Yasna 44Yasna Yasna 11Yasna Yasna 45Yasna Yasna 46Yasna Yasna 47Yasna Yasna 48Yasna Yasna 49Yasna Yasna 50Yasna Yasna 51Yasna Yasna 60Yasna Yasna 53Yasna Yasna 1Yasna Yasna 2Yasna Yasna 3Yasna Yasna 4Yasna Yasna 5Yasna Yasna 6Yasna Yasna 7Yasna Yasna 8Yasna Yasna 9Yasna Yasna 10Yasna Yasna 12Yasna Yasna 13Yasna Yasna 22Yasna Yasna 14Yasna Yasna 15Yasna Yasna 16Yasna Yasna 17Yasna Yasna 19Yasna Yasna 18Yasna Yasna 20Yasna Yasna 21Yasna Yasna 29Yasna Yasna 23Yasna Yasna 24Yasna Yasna 25Yasna Yasna 26Yasna Yasna 27Yasna Yasna 35Yasna Yasna 36Yasna Yasna 37Yasna Yasna 38Yasna Yasna 39Yasna Yasna 40Yasna Yasna 41Yasna Yasna 42Yasna Yasna 52Yasna Yasna 54Yasna Yasna 55Yasna Yasna 56Yasna Yasna 57Yasna Yasna 58Yasna Yasna 59Yasna Yasna 61Yasna Yasna 62Yasna Yasna 65Yasna Yasna 66Yasna Yasna 68Yasna Yasna 70Yasna Yasna 71Yasna Yasna 72Visparad Visparad 1Visparad Visparad 2Visparad Visparad 11Visparad Visparad 3Visparad Visparad 4Visparad Visparad 5Visparad Visparad 7Visparad Visparad 8Visparad Visparad 9Visparad Visparad 10Visparad Visparad 12Visparad Visparad 13Visparad Visparad 14Visparad Visparad 15Visparad Visparad 16Visparad Visparad 18Visparad Visparad 19Visparad Visparad 20Visparad Visparad 21Visparad Visparad 23Afrinagan AfrinaganGahs Gah 1Gahs Gah 2Gahs Gah 3Gahs Gah 4Gahs Gah 5Miscellaneous Fragments Fragment 1Miscellaneous Fragments Fragment 2Miscellaneous Fragments Fragment 3Miscellaneous Fragments Fragment 4Miscellaneous Fragments Fragment 5Miscellaneous Fragments Miscellaneous FragmentsMiscellaneous Fragments Fragment 9›Vendidad: Fargard 3Vendidad Fargard 3ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1The five places where the Earth feels most joy. II (7-1 1). The five places where the Earth feels most sorrow. III ( 1 2-35). The five things which most rejoice the Earth. IV (36-42). Corpses ought not to be buried in the Earth. There is a resemblance as to words between the first and truth, as the inhabitants of the Vara were primitively the departed and therefore immortal. second parts, but there is none as to matter; no clause in the former has its counterpart in the latter. There is more resem¬ blance between the second part and the third; as the first three clauses of the third part (§§ 12, 13, 22) relate to the same things as the second, third, and fourth clauses of the second part (§§ 8, 910). Parts I and II are nothing more than dry enumerations. Part III is more interesting, as it contains two long digressions, the one (§§ 14-21) on funeral laws, the other (§§ 24-33) on the holiness of husbandry. The fourth part of the chapter may be considered as a digression relating to the first clause of the third part (§ 1 2). The things which rejoice or grieve the Earth are those that pro¬ duce fertility and life or sterility and death, either in it or on it. The subject of this chapter has become a commonplace topic with the Parsis, who have treated it more or less antithetically in the Mainy6-i-khard (chaps. V and VI) and in the Ravaets (Gr. Rav. pp. 434-437)- The second digression (§§ 24-33) *s translated in Haug’s Essays, p. 235 seq. 1O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the first place where the Earth feels most happy? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ It is the place whereon one of the faithful steps forward, O Spitama Zarathustra! with the holy wood in his hand \ the baresma1 2 in his hand, the holy meat in his hand, the holy mortar 1 in his hand, fulfilling the law with love, and beseeching aloud Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, and Rama //bistra2.’ 23 (6-10). O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the second place where the Earth feels most happy? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ It is the place whereon one of the faithful erects a house with a priest within, with cattle, with a wife, with children, and good herds within; and wherein afterwards the cattle go on thriving, holiness is thriving 3, fodder is thriving, the dog is thriving, the wife is thriving, the child is thriving, the fire is thriving, and every blessing of life is thriving.’ 4(11). O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the third place where the Earth feels most happy? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘It is the place where one of the faithful cultivates most corn, grass, and fruit, O Spitama Zarathostra! where he waters ground that is dry, or dries ground that is too wet.’ 5O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the fourth place where the Earth feels most happy? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ It is the place where there is most increase of flocks and herds.’ while reciting their hymns (ras 817 eircpSas iroiovvrai iro\vv xpovov pafihtov pvpiKivav \eirTav deaprjv KaTe\ovTes, XV, 3, 1 4). 6O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the fifth place where the Earth feels most happy? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘It is the place wh^re flocks and herds yield most dung.’ 7O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the first place where the Earth feels sorest grief? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ It is the neck of Arezfira1, whereon the hosts of fiends rush forth from the burrow of the Drug2.’ 8O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the second place where the Earth feels sorest grief? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ It is the place wherein most corpses of dogs and of men lie buried 3. 9O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the third place where the Earth feels sorest grief? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘It is the place whereon stand most of those Dakhmas on which corpses of men are deposited4.’ 10O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which is the fourth place where the Earth feels sorest grief? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ It is the place wherein are most burrows of the creatures of Angra Mainyu V Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ It is the place whereon the wife and children of one of the faithful 2, O Spitama Zarathuitra! are driven along the way of captivity, the dry, the dusty way, and lift up a voice of wailing.’ 12O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Who is the first that rejoices the Earth with greatest joy? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘It is he who digs out of it most corpses of dogs and men 3.’ 13O Maker of the material world, thou resurrection’ (Gr. Rav. 435, 437). Although the erection of Dakhmas is enjoined by the law, yet the Dakhma in itself is as unclean as any spot on the earth can be, since it is always in contact with the dead (cf. Farg.VII, 55). The impurity which would otherwise be scattered over the whole world, is thus brought together to one and the same spot. Yet even that spot, in spite of the Ravaet, is not to lie defiled for ever, as every fifty years the Dakhmas ought to be pulled down, so that their sites may be restored to their natural purity (V. i. Farg. VII, 49 seq. and this Farg. § 13). 511. Holy One! Who is the second that rejoices the Earth with greatest joy? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘It is he who pulls down most of those Dakhmas on which corpses of men are deposited/ 14Let no man alone by himself carry a corpse b If a man alone by himself carry a corpse, the Nasu1 2 rushes upon him, to defile him, from the nose of the dead, from the eye, from the tongue, from the jaws, from the sexual organ, from the hinder parts. This Dru^, this Nasu, falls upon him, stains him even to the end of the nails, and he is unclean, thenceforth, for ever and ever. 15O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! What shall be the place of that man who has carried a corpse alone 3? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘It shall be the place on this earth wherein is least water and fewest plants, whereof the ground is the cleanest and the driest and the least passed through by flocks and herds, by Fire, the son of Ahura Mazda, by the con¬ secrated bundles of baresma, and by the faithful/ 16O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! How far from the fire? How far from the water? How far from the consecrated bundles of baresma? How far from the faithful? 17Ahura Mazda answered: ‘Thirty paces from the fire, thirty paces from the water, thirty paces from the consecrated bundles of baresma, three paces from the faithful. 1819 (58-63). ‘There, on that place, shall the worshippers of Mazda erect an enclosure 1, and therein shall they establish him with food, therein shall they establish him with clothes, with the coarsest food and with the most worn-out clothes. That food he shall live on, those clothes he shall wear, and thus shall they let him live, until he has grown to the age of a Hana, or of a Zaurura, or of a Pairista-khshudra 2. 2021 (64-71). ‘And when he has grown to the age of a Hana, or of a Zaurura, or of a Pairbtakhshudra, then the worshippers of Mazda shall order a man strong, vigorous, and skilful 3 4, to flay the skin off his body and cut the head off his neck i, on the top of the mountain: and they shall deliver his corpse unto the greediest of the corpse-eating creatures made by Ahura Mazda, to the greedy ravens, with these words: “ The man here has re¬ pented of all his evil thoughts, words, and deeds. If he has committed any other evil deed, it is re¬ mitted by his repentance 1: if he has committed no other evil deed, he is absolved by his repentance, for ever and ever2.’” 22O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Who is the third that rejoices the Earth with greatest joy? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘It is he who fills up most burrows of the creatures of Angra Mainyu.’ Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ It is he who cultivates most corn, grass, and fruit, O Spitama Zarathustra! who waters ground that is dry, or dries ground that is too wet 3. 24‘Unhappy is the land that has long lain unsown with the seed of the sower and wants a good husbandman, like a well-shapen maiden who has long gone childless and wants a good husband. 25‘He who would till the earth, O Spitama Zarathustra! with the left arm and the right, with the right arm and the left, unto him will she bring forth plenty, like a loving bride on her bed, unto her beloved; the bride will bring forth children, the earth will bring forth plenty of fruit. 2627 (87-90). 1 He who would till the earth, O Spitama Zarathustra! with the left arm and the right, with the right arm and the left, unto him thus says the Earth: “ O thou man! who dost till me with the left arm and the right, with the right arm and the left [hither shall people ever come and beg (for bread *)], here shall I ever go on bearing, bringing forth all manner of food, bringing forth profusion of corn 2.” 2829 (91-95). ‘He who does not till the earth, O Spitama Zarathustra! with the left arm and the right, with the right arm and the left, unto him thus says the Earth: “ O thou man! who dost not till me with the left arm and the right, with the right arm and the left, ever shalt thou stand at the door of the stranger, among those who beg for bread; ever shalt thou wait there for the refuse that is brought unto thee 3, brought by those who have profusion of wealth.” ’ 30O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! What is the food that fills the law of Mazda4? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘It is sowing corn again and again, O Spitama Zarathustra! 31‘ He who sows corn, sows holiness: he makes the law of Mazda grow higher and higher: he makes the law of Mazda as fat as he can with a hundred acts of adoration, a thousand oblations, ten thousand sacrifices 1. 32‘When barley is coming forth, the Daevas start up 2; when the corn is growing rank 3> then faint the Daevas’ hearts; when the corn is being ground 4, the Daevas groan; when wheat is coming forth, the Daevas are destroyed. In that house they can no longer stay, from that house they are beaten away, wherein wheat is thus coming forth 5. It is as though red hot iron were turned about in their throats, when there is plenty of corn. 331 Then let (the priest) teach people this holy saying: “No one who does not eat, has strength to do works of holiness, strength to do works of husbandry, strength to beget children. By eating every material creature lives, by not eating it dies away 6.” ’ 34(116). O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Who is the fifth that rejoices the Earth with greatest joy? And sore surpris’d them all. forth.’ Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ [It is he who tilling the earth, O Spitama Zarathustra! kindly and piously gives1 to one of the faithful.] 35‘He who tilling the earth, O Spitama Zarathastra! would not kindly and piously give to one of the faithful, he shall fall down into the dark¬ ness of Spewta Armaiti 2, down into the world of woe, the dismal realm, down into the house of hell.’ 36O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! If a man shall bury in the earth either the corpse of a dog or the corpse of a man, and if he shall not disinter it within half a year, what is the penalty that he shall pay? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ Five hundred stripes with the Aspah6-astra 3, five hundred stripes with the Sraosho-zc'arana.’ 37O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! If a man shall bury in the earth either the corpse of a dog or the corpse of a man, and if he shall not disinter it within a year, what is the penalty that he shall pay? Ahura Mazda answered: ‘ A thousand stripes with the Aspahe-aitra, a thousand stripes with the Sraosho-Airana.’ 38O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! If a man shall bury in the earth either the corpse of a dog or the corpse of a man, and if he shall not disinter it within the second year, what s The earth. See Introd. V, 19. is the penalty for it? What is the atonement for it? What is the cleansing from it? 39Ahura Mazda answered: ‘For that deed there is nothing that can pay, nothing that can atone, nothing that can cleanse from it; it is a trespass for which there is no atonement, for ever and ever.’ 40When is it so? ‘ It is so, if the sinner be a professor of the law of Mazda, or one who has been taught in it h But if he be not a professor of the law of Mazda, nor one who has been taught in it1 2, then this law of Mazda takes his sin from him, if he confesses it3 and resolves never to commit again such forbidden deeds. 41‘The law of Mazda indeed, O Spitama Zarathustra! takes away from him who confesses it the bonds of his sin4; it takes away (the sin of) breach of trust 5; it takes away (the sin of) mur¬ dering one of the faithful6; it takes away (the sin of) burying a corpse 7; it takes away (the sin of) deeds for which there is no atonement; it takes away the heaviest penalties of sin 1; it takes away any sin that may be sinned. 42‘ In the same way the law of Mazda, O Spitama Zarathustra! cleanses the faithful from every evil thought, word, and deed, as a swift-rushing mighty wind cleanses the plain 2. ‘So let all the deeds thou doest be henceforth good, O Zarathuitra! a full atonement for thy sin is effected by means of the law of Mazda.’ ‹Previous chapterVendidad Fargard 2Next chapterVendidad Fargard 4›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public-domain 1880/1883/1887 English translation