The poem follows the form of a traditional supplication to gods, reverently uttered with hands upraised, to come into the worshipper’s presence and give assistance.
I pray You all in reverence with outstretched hands for his help –
the Bounteous Will’s in first place, Mindful One, with Right – through action
by which Thou wouldst satisfy Good Thought’s wisdom and the cow’s soul:
I who will approach You, Mindful Lord, with good thought,
to give me of both existences, the material one and that of thought,
those blessings in line with Right by which one could keep one’s supporters in well-being;
I who will hymn You, Right and Good Thought, as never before
and the Mindful Lord, You whose unimpaired dominion also
is increased by Piety: come to my calls to give help.
I who have taken my soul in mind for praise-song together with Good Thought,
and knowing the Mindful Lord’s repayments for actions,
so long as I have the ability and strength, will look out in search of Right.
O Right, shall I see Thee, as I acquire good thought
and, as a path1 for the most mighty Lord, the Mindful One, compliance?
Through this prescript may we convince the predators2 most fully with our tongue.
Come with Good Thought, give with Right Thy enduring gift
in upright utterances, Mindful One, strong support for Zara- thushtra
and for us (all), Lord, with which we may overcome the foe’s acts of enmity.
Give, O Right, that reward, the blessings of good thought;
give Thou, Piety, enablement to Vishtaaspa and myself;
give Thou, Mindful One, showing Thy authority, the prescript in which we might hear Your caring.
For the best gift, Best One who art of one mind with best Right,
Lord, I pray Thee earnestly on behalf of the upstanding Frashaushtra and myself
and those on whom Thou mayest bestow it for ever out of Good Thought.
With these prayers may we not anger You, Lord, nor Right
and Best Thought, we who are busy offering Your praises:
Ye are the promptest ones; Your powers and domain are of strengths.
Those then whom Thou knowest to be upright before Right and Good Thought
and worthy, Mindful Lord, fulfil their desire with attainment;
I know that well-purposed hymns of devotion to You are not in vain.
Thou who with their aid dost protect Thy Right and Good Thought for ever,
teach me, Mindful Lord, to voice in line with Thy will
through Thy mouth (those teachings) by which the pristine existence may come about.
This remarkable composition is concerned with the tribulations of cattle-owners in Zoroaster’s society. He adverts to the topic in several other poems (31. 9–10, 32. 8–14, 33. 4, 44. 6, 20, 51. 14), where it appears that cattle are repeatedly driven off from their pastures and condemned to sacrifice. Here he imagines the feelings of the cow herself and frames them into an appeal to the powers above, which leads to a concerned debate among them.
To You the cow’s soul complains: ‘For whom did Ye shape me? Who made me?
Fury and force, cruelty, violence, and aggression hold me bound.
I have no pastor but You; so show Yourselves in good pasturing.’
Then the Maker of the Cow asks Right: ‘How was Thy ruling for the cow,
when Ye powers put her there? Cattle-tending lies with the pastor;
(but) whom did Ye want to be her lord, that might repulse fury by the wrongful?’
To him Right, no breacher of unity, no enemy of the cow, will answer:
‘Of those things there is no knowing. He by whom the upright invigorate the weak
is the mightiest of beings; to his calls I will respond, my ear reaches no further:
‘the Mindful One, the most heedful of initiatives, both those taken in the past
by Daevas and mortals, and those that may be taken hereafter.
He is the lord that judges; it will be as He will.’
But we two are here with outstretched hands propitiating the Lord,
my soul and the milch cow’s, as we put the Mindful One to our questions:
‘Is there no prospect for the righteous-living one, none for the stock-raiser, among the wrongful?’
Then the Lord speaks, the Mindful One, knowing the designs in his wisdom:
‘Indeed no patron has (yet) been found, nor a ruling in line with Right;
the Shaper has created thee for the stock-raiser and the herdsman.’
Milk and butter, this is the prescript that the Lord, of one mind with Right, made
for the cow, He the Mindful One; He is bounteous to the needy through his teaching.
– Whom hast Thou who by good thought could establish those things for mortals?
‘This man here I have found, the only one who listens to Our teachings:
Zarathushtra Spitāma. He desires, mindful, on Our behalf and Right’s,
to broadcast Our praises, as I harness his well-constructed utterance.’
Yet the cow’s soul laments, ‘That I am to put up with an ineffective carer,
the voice of a powerless man, whom I wish enabled with authority!
When will there ever be one who will give him physical assistance?
‘Grant Ye them, Lord, strength with right, and that authority
with Good Thought, by which one may establish fair dwelling and peace:
I for one realize Thee, Mindful One, to be the first procurer of that.’
Where are Right and Good Thought and Dominion? It is me, with Right,
that Ye in Your providence must acknowledge, Mindful One, for the great rite.
Lord, (come) down to us now, in return for our liberality, Your followers’.
This is a poetical sermon addressed to those who have gathered to hear it (the ‘proselytes’ of the first line; cf. 45. 1, 47. 6), or more broadly to mankind at large (final stanza).
Now I will speak, O proselytes, of what ye may bring to the attention even of one who knows,
praises for the Lord and Good Thought’s acts of worship
well considered, and for Right; the gladness beheld by the daylight.
Hear with your ears the best message, behold with lucid mind
the two choices in the decision each man makes for his own person
before the great Supplication, as ye look ahead to the declaration to Him.
They are the two Wills, the twins who in the beginning made themselves heard through dreaming,
those two kinds of thought, of speech, of deed, the better and the evil;
and between them well-doers discriminate rightly, but ill-doers do not.
Once those two Wills join battle, a man adopts
life or non-life, the way of existence that will be his at the last:
that of the wrongful the worst kind, but for the righteous one, best thought.
Of those two Wills, the Wrongful one chooses to do the worst things,
but the most Bounteous Will (chooses) Right, he who clothes himself in adamant;
as do those also who committedly please the Lord with genuine actions, the Mindful One.
Between those two the very Daevas fail to discriminate rightly, because delusion
comes over them as they deliberate, when they choose worst thought;
they scurry together to the violence with which mortals blight the world.
But suppose one comes with dominion for Him, with good thought and right,
then vitality informs the body, piety the soul:
their ringleader Thou wilt have as if in irons:
and when the requital comes for their misdeeds,
for Thee, Mindful One, together with Good Thought, will be found dominion
to proclaim to those, Lord, who deliver Wrong into the hands of Right.
May we be the ones who will make this world splendid,
Mindful One and Ye Lords, bringers of change, and Right,
as our minds come together where insight is fluctuating.
For then destruction will come down upon Wrong’s prosperity,
and the swiftest (steeds) will be yoked from the fair dwelling of Good Thought,
of the Mindful One, and of Right, and they will be the winners in good repute.
When ye grasp those rules that the Mindful One lays down, O mortals,
through success and failure, and the lasting harm that is for the wrongful
as furtherance is for the righteous, then thereafter desire will be fulfilled.
Minding these rules of Yours, we proclaim words unheeded
by those who with the rules of Wrong are disrupting Right’s flock,
but the best for those who will trust in the Mindful One.
If hereby the better way is not in plain view to the soul,
then I appeal to You all according to the ruling known to the Lord, the Mindful One,
(the ruling) on those two lots, so that we may live in accord with Right.
The atonement that Thou didst establish with Thy will and with fire and with Right assign to the two parties,
the rule that is for the prudent – tell us that, Mindful One, for our knowledge
with the tongue of Thy mouth, and with it may I convince everyone alive.
When the time comes to invoke Right and the Mindful One and the Lords
with Reward and Piety, I shall petition with best thought
for a strong authority for myself, by whose increase we might vanquish Wrong.
Tell me, so I may distinguish it, that better lot Ye appointed for me with Right,
so I may know and take to heart with Good Thought, whose prophet (I am),
those things, Mindful Lord, that will not be, or will be.
– ‘It will go best for him who knows and speaks my truth,
the prescript of health, right, and continuing life.
What he increases for Him through good thought, that is dominion for the Mindful One.’
He who first conceived these amenities permeating the world of light,
He by his sapience is the creator of Right, with which He upholds Best Thought.
Through that will, Mindful One, Thou dost increase, which even unto now, Lord, is the same.4
I think of Thee first, Mindful One, as being young in my thought,
the father of Good Thought, when I catch Thee in my eye,
the true creator of Right,5 lord over the world’s doings.
Thine was piety, Thine too was the cow-fashioner sapience
of will, Mindful Lord, when Thou gavest her a path
to come either on the herdsman’s side or (on his) who is not a herdsman.
But she of these two chose the herdsman, the stock-raiser
as her lord, the righteous one, the cultivator of good thought:
the non-herdsman, Mindful One, drive her as he might, did not get her goodwill.
Since first, Mindful One, Thou didst fashion our living bodies and moral selves
with Thy thought, and our intellects, since Thou gavest bodily vitality
and actions and pronouncements, (it has been the case that) where the free agent makes his choices,
there it may be one of false words who speaks forth, or one of straight words,
one with knowledge or one without it, through that man’s heart and thought:
point for point Piety debates with the will where there is hesitation.
The questioning that is overt, Mindful One, or the secrets that the two (voices) debate,
or if someone for a minor misdeed receives the greatest punishment –
all those things, watchful with Thy flashing eye, Thou regardest with Right.
I ask Thee, Lord, about the things that are approaching and will come,
the requitals that will be given of gifts from the righteous one
and those from the wrongful, Mindful One – how they will be at the Reckoning.
I ask this: what the punishment is for him who is initiating dominion for the wrongful one,
for the evil-doer, Lord, who cannot find a livelihood without
wronging the herdsman that is innocent before man and beast.
I ask this: how that munificent man who is zealous to promote with Right
his authority over house or district or region,
one of Thine, Mindful Lord – when he will be there, and how acting.
Which is to be the more persuasive, the righteous one or the wrongful?
Let the knowing one speak to the knowing; let the unknowing delude no longer.
Be for us, Mindful Lord, our teacher of good thought.
Let none of you listen to the wrongful one’s prescripts and teachings,
for he will give house or manor or district or region
into chaos and ruin; so cut them down with the axe.
Let him listen (rather) to him who has thought on Right, a healer of existence, a knowing one, Lord,
who for true voicing of words is free master of his tongue
under Thy flaming fire, Mindful One, when the good is allocated between the two parties.
Whoso comes to the righteous one, radiance is his to possess hereafter;
(but) a long age of darkness, foul food, cries of woe by way of speech,
that is the existence to which, ye wrongful, through your own actions your morality will bring you.
The Mindful Lord gives, for the union of health and continuing life
and rightness, from His rich sovereign domain,
the permanence of good thought to him who is His ally in will and deeds.
These things are clear for the well-doer even as he apprehends them in his mind:
he with good command holds on to Right in word and deed.
He, O Mindful Lord, shall be Thy most welcome house-guest.
The dominant theme of this poem is the opposition between the good people who inhabit Zoroaster’s region and the wrongful Daeva-worshippers who disrupt their peaceful lives with their thefts of cattle.
Suppose for His the clan prays, for His the village with the tribe,
for His the Daevas, in my fancy, for the Mindful Lord’s gladdening, (saying)
‘We will be Thy messengers, to demolish those who hate You’:
to them the Mindful Lord, united with Good Thought,
answers as befits his authority, as the good friend of Right the sunlit,
‘Your liberal piety, as it is good, We adopt: it shall be Ours!’
But ye Daevas are all spawned from Evil Thought,
as is the grandee who worships you, and from Wrong and Contempt;
your duplicitous deeds too, for which ye have become renowned in earth’s seventh part,
ever since ye have been enjoining those worst of things that mortals are to do
to wax in the Daevas’ favour, retreating from Good Thought,
losing the way from the Mindful Lord’s wisdom and from Right.
So ye lure the mortal from good living and security from death,
as the Evil Will does you who are Daevas, by evil thought
and that evil speech with which he assigns the deed to the wrongful one’s control.
The many offences against peace by which he seeks renown (if that is what he is doing),
O Lord that rememberest our deserts, Thou knowest with Best Thought.
In Thy domain, Mindful One, and Right’s let Your decree be given out.
Of such offences I declare I know nothing in my rectitude,
which are decreed mortal, for which one is tried by the glowing metal,
and of whose consequences Thou, Mindful Lord, art the para- mount provider.
For such offences Vivahvant’s son was renowned, even Yima,
who sought to gratify our mortal race by feeding them portions of the cow.
As to these deeds, I rest on Thy decision, Mindful One.
The false teacher perverts good repute, perverts life’s reason with his pronouncements;
he robs me of the capability esteemed of Good Thought.
These plaints of my will, Mindful One, I utter to Right and to You (all).
That is the man who perverts good repute, who declares that the worst thing to behold
with the eyes is the cow, and the sun; and he who makes the upright wrongful,
and he who despoils the pastures, and he who raises his weapon against the righteous one.
They are the ones that pervert life, the wrongful who, with the grandees, have distinguished themselves
by depriving matrons and masters of the possession of their inheritance,
and who will divert the righteous, Mindful One, from best thought.
Because of the ‘deed of repute’ by which they divert mortals from best action,
the Mindful One answers them with ill, who pervert the cow’s life by shouting ‘Move along!’
and with whom the Karpan chooses gluttony instead of right, and the dominion of those who promote wrong,
the dominion by which the glutton bids to stand in the house of Worst Thought:
the destroyers of this existence, and those, Mindful One, who decry in their lust
Thy prophet’s message, (the lust) that will keep them from the sight of Right.
Into its bonds the glutton, the very Kavis surrender their reason
and their dignity daily, when they stand ready to assist the wrongful one
and when the cow is spoken for killing, (the wrongful one) who makes the resistant juice flare up.
By these activities the Karpanhood and the Kavihood have lost their way.
Those whom they implicate in them, not being in free control of their lives,10
will be borne away from them both into the house of Good Thought.
There is nothing finer than if one just draws back to the safe haven of the enlightened one,
in control, Mindful Lord, of that whose danger is a threat.
Whatever is for the wrongful one’s hurt, I will set in place11 throughout the desirable people.
This is one of Zoroaster’s most personal and inward-looking poems. He addresses no one but the divine entities and makes no reference to current tensions or conflicts. His subject is his own piety and his claims to receive his due reward from the Mindful One. We have the impression that he is well on in years and looking towards the end of his life.
The ruling will be so implemented as by the statutes of the first existence,
by action most just both for the wrongful one and as regards the righteous
and for him whose false and straight deeds are put in the balance.
He that does evil to the wrongful one, whether by word or thought
or hands, or instructs his comrade in goodness,
such men will be prompt to His will, in the Mindful Lord’s favour.
He that is best to the righteous one, whether with clan or village
or tribe, Lord, or by tending the cow with care,
will be in the pasture of Right and Good Thought.
I that by worship will seek to keep from Thee, Mindful One, disregard and bad thought
and the clan’s arrogance and the village’s closest neighbour, Wrong,
and the detractors in the tribe, and from the cow’s pasture the worst counsellor,
I that will invoke (my) all-surpassing compliance to Thee at the journey’s end12
after achieving long life, the realm of Good Thought,
the paths that lead straight from Right, on which the Mindful Lord dwells,
I that minister straight in accord with right: from this my best will I
desire,
with that mind by which one takes it in mind to do pastoral works
I long, Mindful Lord, to see Thee and confer with Thee.
Come to me, Best ones, come, Mindful One, in Thine own person and confidently13
with Right and Good Thought, for which I am renowned above the sacrifice-patrons:
let there be seen among us manifest reverential offerings.
Take note of my endeavours that I will prosecute with good thought,
Your follower’s worship, Mindful One, or my words of praise in accord with Right.
Continuing life was created as Your portion, and health with vitality.
Let that intent, Mindful One, of the two rival ones, the one that brings increase through right
with well-being, be brought Thee with best thought when I am uncertain;
the fellowship of those two is established, whose souls agree.
All those good lives that have been and those that are
and those, Mindful One, that shall come to be, give them shares in Thy favour;
grow in substance with Good Thought, Dominion, and Right as Thou wilt.
Thou who art the strongest Lord and the Mindful One, and (Thou) also Piety,
and Right that promotes its flock, and Good Thought, and Dominion,
hear me, have mercy on me at the dispensation of whatever it may be.
Come forth to me, Lord, through (my) piety assume strength,
through (my) most bounteous will, Mindful One, promptness with good dispensation,
through (my) right, powerful force, through (my) good thought, respect.
For (my) support, O Far-seeing one, show me the virtues that are Yours,
those of dominion, Lord, which are the reward of good thought;
O bounteous Piety and Right, teach (me) moral principles.
As offering, Zarathushtra dedicates his own body’s energy
to the Mindful One and Right, the prime of his good thought
and deed and utterance, his compliance and authority.
This poem has some thematic similarities with the previous one, but here there is more reference to Zoroaster’s community, and its conflicts with the enemy appear in the background.
The deed, the word, the worship through which Thou assumest for Thyself
continuing life and Right, Mindful One, and the domain of health,
of these is offering made Thee, Lord, by us in our great numbers.
They are all dedicated to Thee by the thought and from the good intent
and by the deed of a liberal man, whose soul accords with Right,
in Your follower’s hymn before his flock, Mindful One, with songs of praise.
As Thy oblation, Lord, and Right’s, we will reverently give
into Thy sway all our living bodies, that Ye have nurtured with good thought;
for it is established by (You) all, Mindful One, that the munificent giver is furthered among Your followers.
We wish for Thy fire, Lord, which is mighty through Right,
very potent and strong, to be present as a manifest help to Thy supporter,
but to Thy foe, Mindful One, a visible hurt by main force.
What is Your power, what Your ability for action, Mindful One, as I am in Your hands,15
with Right and Good Thought to protect Your poor dependant?
‘We have declared you beyond all predators,16
both Daevas and mortals.’
If Ye are truly thus, Mindful One with Right and Good Thought,
then prove that to me through all the vicissitudes of this life,
so that I may approach You the more gladly with worship and praise.
Where are Thy zealous ones, Mindful One, who by acquiring Good Thought’s
edicts and inheritance can make even misfortunes, even sorrows innocuous?
I know none such other than You, with Right; so protect us!
For they intimidate us by those actions of theirs in which there was previously danger to many,
as a strong man does a weaker one, in hostility to Thy law, Mindful One;
from those who were not thinking on Right, Good Thought was far away.
Those who abandon the bounteous piety esteemed of Thy adept, Mindful One,
the evil-doers, from their failure to acquire Good Thought,
from them it will retreat a great distance with Right, as far as the savage predators do from us.17
The wise man says seize hold of this Good Thought’s actions
and of bounteous Piety, knowing her the creator and companion of Right,
and of all those excellences, Mindful Lord, that are in Thy domain.
Thou hast both health for nourishment and continuing life.
Through the wisdom of Good Thought Piety together with Right increases
(Thy) vitality and might; with (all) these, Mindful One, Thou puttest the enemy in fear.
What is Thy rule, what dost Thou wish, what of praise, or what of worship?
Tell for our hearing, Mindful One, how the rewards of (Thy) rulings might be distributed;
teach us with Right the paths of Good Thought that are well to travel:
that road, Lord, of which Thou tellest me, the one of Good Thought,
the well-paved one on which the Promoters’ moral selves18 set forth with Right itself
to the reward Ye assigned to well-doers, Mindful One, of which Thou art the gift.
For this, Mindful One, is the prize Ye will bestow on material life
from the enactment of good thought by all those in the community of the milch cow:
Your enlightenment, Lord, in the wisdom that promotes communities with Right.
Mindful One, tell me the best things to be known for and to do,
those things, Thou with Good Thought and with Right, in return for my hymn of praise;
through Your dominion, Lord, make real the existence that is splendid in my desiring.
YASNA 28
(1) Zoroaster prays for supportive intervention from above. As its primary source he emphasizes the Positive Will, that is, the impulse that chooses good over evil (cf. Yasna 30 and 45 for the significance of the Positive Will).
Within this opening stanza he mentions all three of his favourite divine entities, the Mindful One, Right, and Good Thought. He prays for an intervention that will make it possible to fulfil what Good Thought, in its wisdom, requires for the alleviation of the cow’s distress; to understand what this refers to one must read the following poem, Yasna 29.
(2–4) Zoroaster affirms his devotion to the three entities, holding that their power in the world is increased by human piety (3), and that goodness (born of good thought) is rewarded and badness punished (4). But at present he is looking for material as well as spiritual benefit: a change of circumstances that will give him and his followers the status they want (2).
(5) In his quest for Right he will cultivate good thought and compliance, that is, the habit of listening to and following the guidance that good thought gives. This creates a place or a way in for the Mindful Lord, enabling him to be recognized as the supreme authority. By insisting on these principles Zoroaster has the best hope of persuading the oppressors to mend their ways.
(6–7) A string of direct requests to the divine powers, some general, others referring specifically to the situation in which Zoroaster wants help. To his own name he appends ‘and us’, meaning probably his whole group of supporters, the ones alluded to in stanza 2. But in the next stanza he names another individual, his influential patron Vishtaaspa, the man in whom his hopes chiefly rest. The Mindful One is asked to prove his concern by providing Zoroaster with an effective ‘mantra’ or prescript, perhaps meaning the one that was to overcome the enemy in stanza 5.
(8) A somewhat empty stanza, added for the sake of bringing in the name of Frashaushtra, an associate of Vishtaaspa who appears in several other poems (Yasna 46, 49, 51, 53).
(9) Zoroaster begins to round off his poem. He expresses the hope that his importunities will not irritate the addressees. A parallel in the Rigveda (2. 33. 4) suggests that this was a traditional motif in Indo-Iranian prayers that Zoroaster is using for the sake of form. Again he names his trinity, the Mindful Lord, Right, and Good Thought, ascribing to them the power of strengthening their devotees.
(10) He emphasizes the worthiness of the supplicants, and asks for them to be given what they want. This is again a conventional element in prayer hymns.
(11) Zoroaster concludes with a reference to his own role as the Mindful Lord’s hymnist. He hopes that the Lord will inspire him to compose poems embodying teachings that will do justice to the highest truths and will promote the restoration of the original, perfect state of existence.
YASNA 29
(1) As a cow does not have the faculty of speech, Zoroaster does not put words in her mouth but in her mind; it is her soul that articulates them.
They are nevertheless heard by the addressees. She finds herself in circumstances at odds with her presumed role in life and with the purposeful design that she assumes in the world. Who then created her, and for whose benefit? As those around her cannot guarantee good pasturing for her, let those above see to it.
(2) Her cause is taken up by her maker in heaven. What, he asks Right, is the answer to the mismatch she complains of? She and her herdsman are meant to conduct a peaceful pastoral life, and yet they are continually beset by Wrong’s violent followers. Who is to protect her and drive them away?
(3) Right, while in no way out of accord with the others, and not unsympathetic to the cow, replies in non-committal terms. He does not see clearly what the answer is. It is the role of the upright to assist the weak and stimulate them to resistance, but they do that at the instance of another, higher being who exercises the supreme power, and whom Right will attend when he makes his requirements known: (4) this is the Mindful Lord, who possesses an all-embracing knowledge of past and future circumstances.
He will consider the matter, as he considers everything, in the light of that; but it will be his decision, and it will have to be accepted, however it goes.
(5) This response has not resolved the problem. Zoroaster now joins the cow and questions the Mindful Lord directly in his own person.
(6) The Mindful Lord replies, addressing the cow. His answer covers her original questions as to who made her and for whom, and her maker’s questions as to whether there is any protector appointed for her. There is none, because her maker (now called Thworshtar, the Shaper, a traditional figure corresponding to the Vedic creator Tvashtr) put her in the charge of the cattle-breeder and herdsman and left it to them to uphold her interests.
(7) Here Zoroaster reverts to his own voice. There, he says, you have the Mindful Lord’s righteous ordinance. The cow is there to provide dairy products (not meat, as the sacrificers think). In his bounty he has provided for dairy farming to feed the hungry. But at present its benefits, as conceived in heaven, are withheld from the earth. If the cow has no divine patron, whom can the Lord suggest as the agent who, guided by good thought, will be able to put things right?
(8) The Mindful Lord replies, not speaking specifically to Zoroaster but making a pronouncement before the whole company involved in the dialogue; it is heard equally by the cow. He says that there is just one such person, namely Zoroaster, who listens to the higher powers’ guidance and composes poems promoting their cause. His poetry is like a well-built chariot that the Mindful Lord harnesses to his racing steeds for victory.3
(9) But this exchange has still not solved the original problem, and the cow resumes her lament. It is not sufficient to have Zoroaster as her champion, as he lacks influence. When will there be someone with the means to back up his teaching with a show of force? (10) She prays for Zoroaster and his supporters to be given the strength and authority necessary for the maintenance of peaceful conditions. She has trust in the Mindful Lord and looks to him to provide.
(11) Zoroaster concludes in his own voice. As things are, that combination of authority with right and good thought is not in evidence. Why are they not to be seen here? Zoroaster declares that he himself is the one who may be able to bring about reform, the one whom the Mindful Lord must prepare and sponsor for a certain critical event that is to come. Let his and his followers’ devotion now be repaid with support from above.
YASNA 30
(1) Zoroaster is proclaiming a message of importance to everybody, whether they have heard it before or not. It is headed by the naming of the familiar trinity, the Mindful Lord, Good Thought, and Right. They are to be celebrated with praise, thoughtful worship, and cheerful activity in the light of day (cf. 32. 10).
(2) The audience must not just hear the prophet’s words but ponder his message. The choice is between good and evil. Everyone has to make this choice for himself, but he should be aware that he will one day have to account for himself to the Mindful Lord, and that reward and punishment will be dispensed.
(3) Good and evil now assume more definite form as a pair of opposed Wills or Mentalities (many
). They came into being in the beginning, they make their way into people’s minds as voices in dreams, and they manifest themselves in the contrasting tendencies of human thought, speech, and action. Much depends on making the right choice between them.
(4) From the first occasion when they contest with each other in a man’s mind, he is faced with decisions that will determine his ultimate fate; he becomes either a Wrong-follower (drǝgvant-) or a Right-follower (ašavan-).
(5) The two Wills are now labelled the Wrongful one and the Bounteous or Positive one. The latter is picturesquely described as clothing himself in adamant, literally ‘the hardest stones’; that is, he is Right’s warrior who wears impenetrable armour and cannot be killed. He always opts for the true and good, as do all who act rightly and so please the Mindful Lord.
(6) The Daevas, the traditional gods of Iran whom Zoroaster has replaced with his own moral-intellectual deities, but who still guide (and here stand for) the aggressive groups that harass his community, make the wrong choice from lack of clear thinking, and swarm to commit acts of violence. People who do this afflict the life of the world as with a disease.
(7) The alternative is to build up the Mindful Lord’s power by allying oneself with Good Thought and Right. This results in health and vigour of body and soul, and the outcome will be that the Mindful Lord will hold the chieftain of the evil ones, namely the Wrongful Will, fettered and impotent.
(8) When that time comes and they are made to pay for their crimes, the Mindful One (and his representatives on earth) will be left exercising their right-thinking sovereignty and proclaiming it to all who battle against and defeat the forces of Wrong.
(9) May we be the ones who accomplish this and see the world restored to its ideal condition! – Such is the prayer that Zoroaster addresses to the Mindful Lord and Right and his other deities, to whom he here applies a specially coined epithet meaning probably ‘bringers of change’. In striving to achieve the victory we must focus our minds in those areas where we do not yet see clearly and continuously, where the two Wills are still tussling.
(10) When the victory comes, those who have prospered under Wrong will be ruined. The contest for fame and glory, pictured metaphorically as a horse race, will be won by those from the stables of the Mindful One, Good Thought, and Right.
(11) So, people, you must learn, by experience and by observation of your own and others’ successes and failures, the principle that governs life: Right prospers in the end, and Wrong suffers. If you take that to heart and act on it, the future that we hope for can be brought about.
YASNA 31
This longer sermon is for the most part formally addressed to the Mindful One, though the human audience is acknowledged towards the end. The opening (1) seems to pick up from the close of Yasna 30 with its mention of the Mindful Lord’s rules. They are the basis of Zoroaster’s message, which the wrongdoers ignore but which offers the greatest rewards to the faithful.
(2) If Zoroaster’s words are not sufficient to make it clear which is the right path, he appeals to the powers above to confirm the contrasted fates that the Lord has established for the righteous and the wrongful, to persuade people to live in accord with truth.
(3) The Mindful One himself is invited to state the nature of these contrasted fates, which are allocated with the help of fire; by reporting his words Zoroaster hopes to convert everyone. (But the clear statement is held back to the end of the poem, stanza 20.)
(4) This stanza develops the theme of the prophet’s ministry. When the time comes, he will call upon all the higher powers, including the figure of Reward that is central to his present message, and petition them to extend his influence in the land and overcome Wrong.
(5) After this slight digression the Mindful One is asked again to declare what the better fate is that the faithful can expect (and by implication the alternative that will face their antagonists).
(6) A reply comes, though not a very explicit one. It will go best for the one who knows and proclaims the reality that the Mindful Lord represents: this is the recipe for an existence not diminished by sickness, corrupted by wrong, or cut short by premature death. Such a preacher, as he widens his influence (as Zoroaster hopes to, stanza 4), builds up the Mindful One’s dominion.
(7) Those blessings are to be enjoyed in the light of day, in this life under the sun, where The Mindful One created them in the beginning by his intellect. He also created Right, which sustains Good Thought; here is Zoroaster’s regular trinity, with their relationships defined. The Mindful One’s beneficent and purposeful will remains unchanged to this day, and by exercising it he grows ever greater.
(8) Zoroaster continues his reflections on the Mindful One’s first creation, imagining him as a young deity, fathering Good Thought and fashioning Right, and all the while presiding over the world’s doings.
(9) Within this cosmogonic frame Zoroaster brings in another of his favourite topics, the cow and her place in the world. The Mindful One, here identified as her maker, showed his wisdom and right thinking by letting her choose whether to be in the herdsman’s care or that of others.
(10) She chose the righteous herdsman as her master, and showed no favour to the non-herdsman who tries to disturb the proper ordering of things by driving her away for his own ungodly purposes.
(11) Zoroaster now begins working back to his main theme, easing the transition by remaining for the moment in creationist mode. The Mindful One equipped us with bodies and minds, moral outlooks, the faculties of speech and action, and the power of choice.
(12) When a choice is to be made, a man hears inner voices urging him to go one way or the other (the two conflicting Wills described in Yasna 30); the knowing one speaks aright, the uninstructed one speaks falsely. Considered another way, it is a dialogue between Piety and the undecided man’s personal will.
(13) But whether it is a matter involving such an inner struggle, or an open debate, or – here Zoroaster throws in an apparently unrelated topic, but one that must be on his mind in his actual situation – a case of excessive punishment by the authorities for a small transgression, all these things are taken note of by the Mindful One.
(14) Zoroaster reprises his questions about things to come. When the time of reckoning comes, how will the righteous one and the wrongful be repaid for their respective contributions? (15) What is the punishment for those who foster the power of the malevolent cattle-raiders?
(16) We expect, ‘and what is the reward for the good who defend them?’ But Zoroaster is diverted into a more pressing question about the good contender in the power struggle, the wealthy and pious man who will use his means to acquire retainers and build up his own area of control. When will such a man appear on the scene? What will he see fit to do?
(17) Meanwhile the promoters of the right and wrong doctrines compete. Let the enlightened instruct the enlightened, that is, let the (partly) enlightened take their instruction from the enlightened, and listen no longer to the misleading talk of the unenlightened. Let the Mindful One guide our thinking in the right paths.
(18) Do not give a hearing to the spokesmen of Wrong (priests of the old religion, with their demands for animal sacrifices?), who will ruin our local economy and way of life. No, take up your axes and attack them!
(19) Listen instead to the enlightened and eloquent devotee of Right, who improves life rather than impairing it, in preparation for that time of reckoning when (as already signalled in stanza 3) the Mindful One, deploying his flaming fire, will allocate the blessings he has to bestow between the two parties, the righteous and the wrongful.
(20) Now at last we hear what their fates consist of. Those who come to hear and join the true prophet will enter a realm of light and bliss. The wrongful will find themselves in a place of lasting darkness and woe, with only foul food to eat.
(21) So that we may achieve that conjunction of life, health, and rightness which is the most desirable state under the sun (stanzas 6–7), the Mindful Lord bestows from his bounty, upon people of good will and good actions, the gift of consistent good thought, which is the essential quality that keeps us on the right road.
(22) Equipped with this good thought, the well-doer sees all these things clearly. In all that he says and does, he keeps firm hold on right. He will dwell with the Mindful Lord, and be most welcome in his abode.
YASNA 32
(1) Zoroaster begins with the hypothetical vision of a whole tribal region united in devotion to the Mindful Lord; even its old gods, the Daevas, submit to him in Zoroaster’s imagination. All declare their readiness to spread the Lord’s gospel and confound his enemies.
(2) The Mindful Lord for his part, supported by his regular partners Good Thought and Right,6 and enjoying the dominion that he draws from the piety of the faithful, acknowledges their virtuous character and declares that he and they are united in their outlook.
(3) But now Zoroaster contrasts the vision with the reality, addressing the unregenerate Daevas. They are the offspring of the opposites of Good Thought and Right, namely Evil Thought and Wrong, and of Contempt or Arrogance, qualities that characterize the conduct of the man of power and influence who follows them. (Probably one particular such man is here in view.) From the same wellsprings come the evil deeds that have made them notorious over the whole land.7
(4) Some of the worst things that men do are done in order to satisfy the demands of the Daevas (for sacrifices) and to win their greater favour. But by such actions they are turning away from the Mindful Lord, Good Thought, and Right.
(5) In prompting men to do these things, the Daevas are seducing them away from the peaceful settled existence in which they are (relatively) secure from premature death. The Daevas themselves are misled by the Evil Will, who makes them think evil; and hence comes the evil speech with which that Evil Will induces the wrongdoer to take over responsibility for the evil deed.
(6) From here on Zoroaster speaks no more of the Daevas, only of the human evildoer(s). The powerful man is guilty of many offences against peace in his efforts to win a name for himself (as a warrior, or as a patron of great sacrificial banquets). But these offences are known to the Mindful Lord, who keeps all men’s deserts in mind. Wherever he and Right are respected, let his edict be broadcast, namely that the good will be rewarded hereafter and the bad punished.
(7) According to this edict the outrages aforementioned – of which Zoroaster declares his own innocence – are capital offences, which, following the trial of the sinner by molten metal, will be visited with the severe penalty that the Mindful Lord ordains.
(8) These evil practices of cow-slaughter go back to Yima, the mythical institutor of animal sacrifice. Zoroaster, being innocent of them, is content to submit himself to the Mindful Lord’s judgment.
(9) Those who instigate such activities pervert the good fame that the warrior class aspires to, turning it into infamy; they pervert the intelligence proper to living creatures, and deny Zoroaster the fulfilment of purposes inspired by good thought.8 Such are the thoughts that he is moved to express to the Mindful Lord as he protests at the actions of the wrongful.
(10) Yes, they pervert good fame, those who teach people to hate the sight of the cow living peacefully in the light of the sun and to take her away for slaughter; who induce good men to do evil things, disrupt pastoral life, and attack the innocent cattle-breeders and herdsmen.
(11) They, if anyone, are the perverters of life, those preachers of wrong and their patrons; for what is it but perversion, to seek to deprive respectable men and women of their rightful possessions, and to seduce people of honest nature away from right thinking?
(12) What they see as a heroic exploit adding to their fame and repute, when it leads other men to do bad things, in fact brings them ill repute with the Mindful Lord. Here is more perversion: of the cow’s existence as they drive her away from her pastures, and of the Karpan priest’s due devotion to Right as they induce him to accept the feasting on beef(?) and subjection to masters who promulgate Wrong.
(13) The result of this subjection will be that they will end up condemned to dwell for ever in the House of Evil Thought,9 for corrupting this life of ours and opposing the message of Zoroaster, the Mindful Lord’s ‘mantra-man’.
This they do from an appetite that will not allow them to see Right, (14) an appetite that holds them fast, so that they, and even the Kavi priests, constantly give in to it and surrender their reason to it, as they assist with the rites of cow-sacrifice, presided over by the impious master of ceremonies who pours into the fire the libation of the holy juice (haoma, = the Indian soma) pressed from a certain mountain plant.
(15) In cooperating with these activities the Karpans and Kavis have gone astray. The innocent people whom they force to play a part in them, such as the stock-raisers compelled to provide animals as victims, will not share their fate hereafter, but will go to live in the House of Good Thought.
(16) The difficult final stanza, which contains thoughts and vocabulary not paralleled elsewhere in the Gāthās, brings a suitably optimistic conclusion to the poem, though one that does not connect clearly with what has gone before. Zoroaster seems to revert to the wishful thinking of the opening. He imagines a country made safe by a strong, enlightened ruler, where the bad people will run into trouble at every turn and their endeavours will come to grief.
YASNA 33
The first three stanzas are couched in general terms. (1) The principles laid down for the original existence continue to be applied: people will receive their just deserts according to whether their lives have been good, bad, or some mixture of the two. (2) It matters how one acts towards other good or bad people. One gains credit with the Mindful Lord for opposing the bad by any means, including physical encounter, or by showing others how to be good; (3) if one assists the righteous, not only those of one’s own clan but across wider social networks, and looks after the cattle properly, one will be looked after oneself with equal care by Right and Good Thought.
(4) Zoroaster now focuses on his personal qualifications, stating some of them initially in a series of parallel relative clauses. By his worship he strives to counter a cluster of evils: failure to hearken to the Mindful Lord, bad thought, hybristic attitudes, opprobrium, anti-pastoral acts. To emphasize the country-wide scope of his concerns he repeats the list of arenas from the preceding stanza – clan, village community, tribe, pastures – and (rather artificially) distributes the list of evils among them.
(5) At the end of life’s journey, in an old age in which Good Thought has established its control, on that path that leads direct from and to Right and the Mindful Lord, Zoroaster will call upon Sraoša (literally Hearkening, Obedience), the embodiment of his own devotion to the Mindful One, which is supreme (literally ‘all-greatest’; that is, probably, surpassing anyone else’s), to testify for him and provide the reward that he deserves for it (cf. 43. 12).
(6) In short, he is an unimpeachable minister (zaotar-, the traditional word for the priest who poured out the libation). His impulses are of the best, and once again their pastoral dimension is not to be forgotten. (It is not clear whether this refers strictly to the pasture of animals or has a wider metaphorical reference to the guidance of the human community.) With these credentials he desires to meet and confer with the Mindful Lord face to face.
(7) The meeting is now solicited through the format of a traditional invocational prayer for the god or gods to come into the worshipper’s presence. At a conventional ceremony the patron of the sacrifice would hope for their coming to receive the gifts offered; Zoroaster has a higher claim on their attention on account of his righteousness and good thought. Let us all make manifest these oblations that will attract the entities invoked. For the kind of offerings envisaged compare stanza 14.
(8) Let the Mindful One take note of Zoroaster’s virtuous endeavours, of how he worships him as a kindred spirit and composes worthy hymns to him. Let him reward his priest-poet with those blessings that are in his gift from the original dispensation: continuing life (literally ‘not dying’), health, and vitality.
(9) When Zoroaster is uncertain what course of action to take, there takes place (as in 31. 12) a tussle between two inner voices. These are the two rival intents described in Yasna 30 and 45. 2, the good one and the bad, but they are identified here only by the allusion to one of them bringing increase through Right. This is the one that Zoroaster wants to make his own; ‘let it be brought Thee’ (literally ‘let one bring Thee’) continues the language of conventional divine service and offerings. In adopting the good intent and making it an offering, Zoroaster shows a soul in accord with the Mindful Lord’s, and this is an earnest of their enduring association.
(10) All who have lived good lives in the past, are living them now, or will do so in the future, deserve a place in the Mindful Lord’s favour. By taking them to himself, with their good thought and adherence to Right, he can increase his own being and extend his sway as much as he wishes.
(11) Zoroaster now appeals in traditional prayer form to the whole collectivity of divine beings. The conventional expressions ‘hear me, have mercy upon me’ are given an individual turn by the specification ‘at the allocation of whatever it may be’, that is, when his life is judged.
(12) He continues with a development of the idea in stanza 10 that the Mindful Lord is himself augmented and fortified by his worshipper’s qualities. The indeterminate ‘allocation’ of the previous stanza is now qualified as a ‘good’ dispensation: Zoro- aster hopes that it will be good in his case, and that his adherence to the Positive Will in his moral decisions will lead the Mindful Lord to be prompt in enacting the allocation.
(13) To assist him in his endeavours, he prays to see the several facets of temporal power that are the reward of good thought; and he prays to Piety (the divine projection of his own piety) to keep his religious conceptions on the true course.
(14) Following a traditional practice, the priest-poet names himself at the end of his song. This is not a hymn accompanying an actual ritual of dedication, but it shows the influence of such hymns (stanzas 6, 7, 11), and now Zoroaster identifies his own offering, not a material but a spiritual one. As people dedicate the first and best specimens of their produce to the gods, so he dedicates the ‘firstness’ of his good thought, speech, and action, as well as the devotion of which he spoke in stanza 5, and such authority or empowerment as he has achieved or hopes yet to achieve.
YASNA 34
The first stanzas take up the idea at the end of Yasna 33, that the worshipper’s pious thought, speech, and action are his offering to the Mindful Lord. (1) From such offerings the Lord builds up his stock of those desirable qualities, continuing life and health in the way of Right, that are his to bestow on deserving mortals. We offer these to Thee, Lord – and there are many of us! (2) But it is one man, Zoroaster himself, who makes this dedication in the presence of his whole ‘flock’ through his songs of praise. (3) He commends the whole flock, which has been raised on the fodder of good thought, to the Mindful Lord and to Right. Its collective worth assures the benefit sought by the one who so generously offers it.14
(4) They pray for the Lord’s powerful fire, which will help their cause and harm the enemy’s. If, as other passages would suggest, this is the fire that is instrumental in the allocation of their deserts to the good and the bad after death, the present prayer will mean, ‘we look forward to meeting this test and seeing our foes finally undone by it’.
(5) Zoroaster asks the three principal entities about the extent of their power to protect him, their poor dependant who is at their disposal. They answer that they have pronounced him worthier than all those who harass his community, both the human marauders and the gods they worship. This is not a guarantee of his safety, but the implication is that the divine Lords will give him their best support.
(6) If that is really so, he continues, let them demonstrate it in every situation as he goes through the ups and downs of life. Then, when he goes to meet them with worship and praise, he will do so all the more joyfully.
(7) We could wish that the Mindful Lord had a whole regiment of agents, trained in the principles laid down by Good Thought and in the consequences of following or neglecting them, to combat all the contrarieties of life. But where are they? Zoroaster knows only the Mindful One himself and his immediate associates; so let them give us the protection we need against the wrongful.
(8) We are fearful of them because of the way they have behaved in the past, with their aggressive actions that threatened the welfare of many in the region. They repudiated the Mindful One’s law and failed to think on Right, and Good Thought removed itself far from them.
(9) That is what happens when perpetrators of bad acts reject the Zoroastrian’s piety because they are lacking in Good Thought: it and its companion Right distance themselves as far from them as those marauders that instigate evil (stanza 5) are removed from us (by our rejection of them).
(10) Anyone wise will advise holding firm to the course of action that springs from good thought; holding firm to Piety, which produces and abides with Right; holding firm to the whole set of virtues that belong in the Mindful Lord’s sphere.
(11) Good thought and piety are essential to the Mindful Lord’s strength against the enemy. Where Good Thought’s wisdom prevails, he feeds on continuing life and health (compare stanza 1); Piety and Right build up his vitality. Thus he takes on the aspect of a well-nourished, formidable warrior, at the sight of whom the enemy quails.
(12) But Zoroaster desires more detailed guidance on how the Mindful Lord wishes to be worshipped and praised, and on how the rewards for following his rules (and the punishments for violating them) will be assigned. Let the Lord proclaim these things, and teach us exactly how to follow the recommended path of good thought.
(13) It is a well-paved path on which one may walk without stumbling. On this road the moral perceptions of the Promoters, that is, those committed adherents of the faith whose mission is to strengthen it and make the world better, move forward, following the track laid down by Good Thought. It leads to the reward that the Mindful Lord has appointed for the good. And when that reward is given, it turns out to be wisdom itself, what the Mindful Lord personifies. (14) For this is the prize to be won by the people of the pastoral community, if they put good thought into practice: enlightenment in the wisdom that enables communities to prosper.
(15) So Zoroaster repeats his appeal to the Mindful Lord (not forgetting Good Thought and Right) to instruct him, in return for his hymn of praise, in the best ways of acting and winning repute. Zoroaster has a vision of a new world, restored to its pristine perfection: let the Mindful Lord, by exercising his sway, bring it about.