Zand-Akasih Iranian Or Greater Bundahishn
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ZAND-AKASIH IRANIAN OR GREATER BUNDAHISHN TRANSLATED BY BEHRAMGORE TEHMURAS ANKLESARIA, M. A. Formerly Principal, Sir Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy Zarthoshti Madressa and Mulla. Feeroze Madressa, Bombay. Published for the Rahnumae Mazdayasnan Sabha by its Honorary Secretary Dastur Framroze A. Bode. Edited by Joseph H. Peterson, 2002 avesta.org, Kasson, MN This digital edition copyright © 2002 by Joseph H. Peterson. If you find texts in this archive useful, please do not copy except for private study (“fair use”). Originally published BOMBAY 1956. ISBN 13: 978-1-xxxxx-xxx-x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Jehan Bagli for sending me a copy of this rare and valuable text. -JHP. i FOREWORD “Bundahishn has been preserved in two recensions, known respectively as the Indian and the Greater or Iranian Bundahishn. As its name implies, the latter is the more complete and contains much matter that is unknown to the Indian recension.” Comments in {} added by JHP, mainly to facilitate searches. Punctuation and spelling have also been normalized to conform with other texts in this series. -JHP iii ABBREVIATIONS Zs. Zadspram iv PREFACE Individuals and nations are governed by destiny operating under a Divine Law; the same is equally true of the literary works of such individuals. Misfortune seemed to hover all along with the literary works of the late Mr. Behrarngore Tehmuras Anklesaria, who devoted over fifty years of his precious life in the pursuit of knowledge of the Zoroastrian lore and in study and research of the Avesta, Pahlavi, Pazand, and Persian languages and literature. In 1900 the Trustees of the Funds and Properties of the Parsi Punchayet, Bombay, entrusted the work of publication of a facsimile of the Iranian Bundahishn MS. TD2, to Ervad Tehmuras Dinshaji Anklesaria (born at Anklesar on the 15th July 1842) to whom this MS. belonged. On 19th October 1903 Ervad Tehmuras died carrying in his bosom untold wealth of Iranian Lore without having had opportunities to unfold it to his contemporaries. Professor Darmesteter wrote about him as under:- I had the good fortune to meet a guide, as learned as modest in the person of a simple Herbed, a printer by profession, who reminds me of the learned printers of the Renaissance, Ervad Tehmuras Dinshawjee Anklesaria, the person who possesses the most certain and most extensive knowledge of the Pahlavi literature. It fell to the lot of his illustrious son Mr. Beheramgore to watch the progres3 of the last sheets of the facsimile, to prepare the notes on the variants of DH, and to write an Introduction. This Facsimile of Bundahishn TD Manuscript No. 2 brought from Persia by Dastur Tirandaz was published in Bombay in 1908 with an Introduction by Mr. Behramgore T. D. Anklesaria. (240 folios of text, 36 pages Introduction, 84 pages variants of DH.) [p2] Mr. Behramgore devoted many years on the Bundahisn, also known as Zand-akasih, which is a symposium of informations from the commentatries as regards the “Original Creation” as is evident from the Mazdayasnan Religion and the “Possessions held from the Kayans.” This unique text of Zand-akasih known as Iranian Bundahisn or Greater Bundahishn together with its translation and transcription in English, with the Introduction written in 1908 have now been published by the Rahnumae Mazdayasnan Sabha (Founded on 3rd August 1851) with the hope that this memorable work of the latte Savant – Mr. Behramgore T. Anklesaria will prove of immense value to the students and scholars of Iraniun Studies. The purpose of this Preface is to give in brief the history behind v vi GREATER BUNDAHISHN this publication and other relevant matters connected with it. The author of this monumental work, the late Mr. B. T. Anklesaria started the work of publishing this book some thirty years before his death on 25th November 1944. He succeeded at long last to publish this entire book, after long and arduous labour and many untoward and unavoidable delays and countless cares and worries. Everything, so far as text and translation were concerned, was ready since 1935, but he intended to write an exhaustive Introduction on the subject matter of the text and even started writing this Introduction, but the cruel hand of sudden death prevented him from completing the same. Thus, this entire work was ready in the press awaiting the Introduction at the time of the author’s death in 1944. Misfortunes come not singly but together. The Fort Printing Press which was founded by the late Ervad T. D. Anklesaria and originally belonged to him and in which all the important Avesta, Pahlavi texts and such other works on Iranian Studies were printed and published, suddendly caught fire during the night, on the 14th July 1945 and all the printed copies of the Bundishn, together with [p3] all the copies of the Vichitakiha-i Zatsparam, the Zand-i-Vohuman Yasht, and the Rivayat-i-Hemit-i Ashavahishtan (these three books were also quite ready and printed, awaiting only the Introductions to them) and many of his other valuable notes, articles and books were reduced to ashes. Luckily, with foresight the author Mr. B. T. Anklesaria and his brother Mr. Hoshang the owner of the Fort Printing Press, who also died on 23rd May 1953, had both entrusted to me one copy of the printed Bundahishn for safe custody. The present work however, is printed by photo zinco block process from the printed copy in possession of Mrs. B. T. Anklesaria. The late Mr. B. T. Anklesaria who was a life long teacher of the Avesta, Pahlavi, Pazand, and other oriental languages and in later part of his life the Principal of the two Madressas for teaching these languages, used to give printed or handwritten copies of his books and writings to his pupils and friends much before the books were finally published. Thus some of Mr. Anklesaria’s works have survived the ravages of fire. The author had already started writing a fresh and exhaustive Introduction on the materials contained in the Zand-akasih, but death laid its icy hands on him and thus we have included the Introduction written by him while publishing the facsimile of his father’s Mss. in 1908. It is a strange irony of fate, that Mr. B. T. Anklesaria’s work could not come out in his life time for want of an Introduction, he so keenly desired to write. Both these works – the facsimile with the Introduction and the present one – were destined to be posthumous publications of both the father and the son. It is very significant, nay PREFACE vii prophetic to recount what Mr. B. T. Anklesaria wrote in his Introduction to his father’s work in 1908. The words ttnd sentiments exactly apply to him in the present context as he applied them then to his father. None can have greater reason than myself to regret that my father was not spared to write the Introduction to his Mss. himself. [p4] During the last six months of his life he was anxious that the Bundahishn should come out during his own lifetime; ......... but circumstances willed it otherwise. ......... He carried in his bosom untold wealth of Iranian Lore without having had opportunities to unfold it to his contemporaries. As fate would have it, the turmoils of a busy life and premature death frustrated all his noble aspirations, and he passed away leaving after him the vestiges of his noble career in his devoted pupils, like my humble self. This important Pahlavi book Bundahishn or Zand-akasih, which appears to be a collection of fragments relating to the progressive development of creation, cosmology, mythology, and legendary history attracttd great attention of scholars in Europe. Here we will summarise the main attempts made so far in editing the text and translating it. It was Anquetil du Perron who first took the manuscript of Bundahishn to Europe in a codex of miscellaneous Pahlavi texts which had been copied from K20 (Folio 88 rr. line 5 to Folio 129 v. line 2) at Surat in 1734 and who published a French translation in 1771. In 1820 this very old codex K20 which appears to have been written by the erudite Irani scribe Mihir-Awan Kai-Khushru at Khambayet (Cambay) in the year 720 A.Y. (1351 AD) and which is aout 180 years older than the oldest Iranian codex TD was itself brought to Kopenhagen from Bombay by the Danish Scholar Rask. 19 folios of another incomplete Mss. of the Bundahishn of about the same age are catalogued as K20 b. A lithographed facsimile of the text in K20 was edited by Westergaard in 1851. Another old codex written in Bharuch (Broach) in 1397 was obtained at Surat by Dr. Martin Haug in 1864 and now known as MH6 and which appears to have been copied from an older Ms. Haug translated the first three chapters into German in 1854. Spiegel in his Traditional Literature of the Parsis, published in 1860 a German translation of many passages of the Bundahishn, [p5] together with a transcript of chapters I, II, III, and XXX in Hebrew characters. In 1863 Windischmann published in his Zoroastrian Studies a complete viii GREATER BUNDAHISHN German translation of the Bundahishn with commentary on its contents. Another German translation of the Bundahishn with a lithographed copy of the Pahlavi text, its transcription in Persian characters and a glossary, was published by Justi in 1868. It must be remembered that most of these translations were based upon Westergaard’s facsimile edition of the text in K20. These translators achieved the utmost that could be done on the authority of a single Ms.