ra FriyānaThis hymn, addressed to the Mindful Lord almost throughout, combines praise of his beneficence with expressions of Zoroaster’s piety and aspirations.
To anyone whose wishes he grants at all
may the Mindful Lord, ruling at will, grant his wishes.
Vitality and strength are what I wish to attend me
for taking hold of Right – grant me that, O Piety –
(those) compensations for wealth, (and) the life of good thought.
But best of all could a man
add well-being to well-being for himself
by understanding through Thy most bounteous will, Mindful One,
the transforming powers of good thought that Thou hast created with Right,
all his days as he enjoys long life.
But may that man attain yet better than the good,
who should teach us the straight paths of advancement
in this material existence and that of thought,
the true gradients that the Lord inhabits:
a zealous follower of Thine, Mindful One, well-born, bounteous.
I will think Thee bold and bounteous, Mindful One,
when by that hand, in which Thou holdest those
rewards that Thou didst set for the wrongful one and the righteous
through the heat of Thy fire that Right makes mighty,
the force of good thought comes to me.
Bounteous I think Thee, Mindful Lord,
when I see Thee at the first in the genesis of the world,
when Thou didst set wages for actions and for speech:
evil for the evil one, a good reward for the good
by Thy genius, at the last bend of creation.1
At that bend where Thou comest with Thy bounteous will
mindful in dominion, there, with Good Thought
by whose actions the flock prospers with Right,
Piety announces to them the verdicts
of Thy wisdom, which2 no one deceives.
Bounteous I think Thee, Mindful Lord,
when one approaches me with good thought
and asks me, ‘Who art thou? Whose art thou?
How mightest thou take a day (for me) to ask teaching
about thy flock and thyself?’
To him I say in the first place, ‘Zarathushtra am I:
may I be in reality, as I would wish, the bane of the wrongful one
and to the righteous a strong support,
so I may obtain the offices of Him who rules at will
as long as I am praising and hymning Thee, Mindful One.’
Bounteous I think Thee, Mindful Lord,
when one approaches me with good thought,
(and) at his question, ‘Whom dost thou wish to serve?’
I declare, Thy fire; the tribute of reverence
of Right, so far as I can, I shall hold in mind.
Show me Thou Right, that one I constantly invoke –
in company with Piety I have started towards it –
and ask us what Thou hast to ask us
(for the question asked by Thee is like that of the proselytes),3
so that one might be enabled to make Thee potent and strong.
Bounteous I think Thee, Mindful Lord,
when one approaches me with good thought,
as I am learning by Your utterances first of all –
(for) trust in mortals reveals itself to me as pain and grief –
to do that which Ye tell me is best;
and when in Thy providence Thou tellest me, ‘Go to Right’,
Thou givest me advice that will not go unheeded,
to start out before there comes to me
Compliance accompanied by Reward that confers riches,
who should distribute the two parties’ rewards in the allocation of strength.
Bounteous I think Thee, Mindful Lord,
when one approaches me with good thought
to take note of the endeavours of this desire Ye have given me
for the long life, to which no one forces You to accede,
a desirable commodity said to lie in Thy domain.
What a man of means, possessing it himself, would offer a friend,
give me, Mindful One: Thy providential support,
which under Thy dominion is attained in accord with Right,
to start out and drive off the detractors of Thy law
in concert with all those who mind Thy prescripts.
Bounteous I think Thee, Mindful Lord,
when one approaches me with good thought:
silent meditation teaches me the best things to say.
Let a man not be one to gratify the many wrongful:
they have declared all the righteous their enemies.
O Lord, this Zarathushtra chooses that will,
whichever, Mindful One, is Thy most bounteous one.
May Right be there in bodily form, vigorously strong;
may Piety be there in sight of the sun with Dominion;
may she grant reward on account of actions with Good Thought.
This poem of just 100 lines, the longest in the collection and perhaps the finest, stands exactly in the middle of the series. It is a cardinal document for the beginnings of Zoroastrianism, giving us a vivid picture of its precarious foothold among a small body of supporters and the prophet’s efforts to gain converts.
Formally the poem consists of a series of questions to the Mindful Lord, every stanza but the last beginning with the same line. We have seen something similar on a small scale in 31. 14–16. The ‘I ask Thee’ formula and the raising of cosmological issues in question form are also found in the Rigveda and appear to have been traditional motifs. The questions about the ordering of the physical cosmos in stanzas 3–5 are the purest echoes of this tradition. For the rest, Zoroaster’s usual preoccupations prevail: how one should live, how the good religion is to be promoted and triumph over the adherents of Wrong, and how at present the prophet lives in uncertain and unsatisfactory circumstances.
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord,
(I ask) out of reverence, how Your kind is to be revered:
Mindful One, I hope one like Thee may declare it to a friend such as me.
We (worshippers) have friendly relations to maintain with Right,
so that it will come to us with Good Thought.
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
how can the best existence’s beginning
be furthered by the man of good will who is to take those things forward?
For it is such a man, liberal with Right, observing the outcome for all,
who by his intent is a healer of existence, an ally, Mindful One.
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
who was the father-begetter of Right in the beginning?
Who set the path of the sun and stars?
Who is it through whom the moon waxes or wanes?
These things, Mindful One, I desire to know, and others besides.
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
who held the earth from beneath, and the heavens
from falling down? Who the waters and plants?
Who yoked the wind’s and the clouds’ swift pair?
Who is the creator, Mindful One, of Good Thought?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
what skilful artificer made the light and the darkness?
What skilful artificer made sleep and waking?
Who is it through whom there are morning, noon, and eve,
that make the prudent man mindful of his endeavour?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
if these propositions are true,
that Piety in action confirms Right
and assigns dominion to Thee together with Good Thought,
for what (class of) people didst Thou fashion the gladdening milch cow?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
who fashions the piety that we esteem together with dominion?
Who by his wisdom made the son respectful to the father?
I with these questions am providently promoting Thee, Mindful One,
the ordainer of all things through Thy bounteous will.
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord,
so I may take Thy instruction to heart, Mindful One,
and the words spoken by Good Thought that I obtain in consultation,
and those fitly to be apprehended through Right about existence:
to what good destinations will my soul journey?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
the religion of mine that I am to perfect,
how might the master of a beneficent dominion proclaim it for me
with righteous rule, a very potent follower of Thine, Mindful One,
abiding with Right and Good Thought?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
that religion which is the best in existence –
may it promote my flock in union with Right –
do they with pious words and deed have a true conception of it?
My insight is Thine to command at Thy discretion, Mindful One.
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
how might piety spread to those
to whom Thy religion, Mindful One, goes forth?
I with them am the first to find my way to Thee:
all others I regard with hostile spirit.
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
who is righteous or wrongful of those I question?
Which is my enemy, this one or that one?
‘The wrongful one who takes pleasure in attacking thy gains,
he it is, not the other, who thinks as an enemy.’
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
how are we to drive Wrong out from ourselves
down upon those who, being full of non-compliance,
do not strive for the companionship of Right
and have not had the pleasure of consulting Good Thought?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
how might I give Wrong into the hands of Right
to destroy her with the prescripts of Thy law,
to deliver a crushing blow on the wrongful,
to bring pains upon them, Mindful One, and harassments?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
if Thou hast this power with Right, to protect me
when the two hostile armies meet
on those terms which Thou, Mindful One, wouldst uphold,
where between the two and to whom dost Thou give the victory?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
who is the victorious one to protect with Thy law (all) who exist –
let me be given clarity – the healer of the world? Assign his role,
and let Compliance come to him with Good Thought,
Mindful One, to whom Thou wilt soever.
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
how am I to journey in accord with You towards my goal
of attachment to You, and make my voice effective
in working for union with health and continuing life
by means of that prescript which cleaves to Right?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
how am I to earn that reward with Right –
the ten mares with stallion, and the camel –
which was promised me, Mindful One, with health
and continuing life, even as Thou takest these for Thyself?
This I ask Thee, tell me straight, Lord:
he that does not give that reward to one who earns it,
the man who awards it to himself when it has been promised,
what punishment for that will strike him at the first?
For I know the one that will strike him at the last.
What, Mindful One, has the Daevas’ dominion been good –
that is what I ask – they that blaspheme for the sake of those
with whom the Karpan and the Usij subject the cow to violence
and (to all the ills) that the Kavi makes her lament to her soul?4
They do not care for her so as to promote the pasture with Right.
This poem is related to Yasna 30. As there, Zoroaster addresses a congregation of people who have become interested in his discourses and have gathered from several quarters to hear another one. As in Yasna 43 and 44, the device of a repeated refrain is used to thread a series of stanzas together: the first six all begin with the phrase ‘I will tell forth’.
I will tell forth – now listen ye, now hear ye,
you proselytes from near and from far;
now all take it to heart, for it is clear.
May the false teacher not be ruining the world a second time
with his bad option, the wrongful one cloaked in his prating.
I will tell forth the two Wills at the world’s beginning,
of whom the Bounteous one speaks thus to the Hostile one:
‘Neither our thoughts, nor our pronouncements, nor our intellects,
nor our choices, nor our words, nor our deeds,
nor our moralities, nor our souls, are in accord.’
I will tell forth this world’s beginning,
as the Mindful Lord told me of it from His knowledge.
Those of you who do not act on this prescript
in the way that I conceive and speak it,
for them ‘Woe!’ will be their worldly life’s end.
I will tell forth this world’s Best One
in accord with Right; the Mindful One who made him knows him,
(him) the father of Good Thought that stimulates to action;5
and he has a daughter who does good deeds, Piety.
There is no deceiving the all-observant Lord.
I will tell forth what the most Bounteous One tells me,
the word that is best for mortals to hear.
Whatever people comply with it for me
will attain health and continuing life:
enactments of good thought make the Lord mindful.
I will tell forth the Greatest One of all,
praising with Right Him who is a benefactor (of all) who are:
with the Bounteous Will let the Mindful Lord hear.
Let Him in whose lauding I have consulted with Good Thought
by His sapience teach me the best lessons.
The Caring One whose strengthening all may set in train,
those living, and who have been, and who will come to be –
(for) the righteous man’s soul is active in continued life
and in vitality, which is vexation to the men of Wrong;
of those realms too the Mindful Lord is the creator –
Him, seeking to envelop Him in our reverent praises,
I have just now discerned in my eye,
of the Good Will’s deed and utterance
apprised with Right, Him the Mindful Lord;
for Him we have dedicated laudations in the house of song:
seeking (also) to make Him, together with Good Thought, pleased with us,
Him who makes our fortune and misfortune at His discretion,
mindful in His dominion: may the Lord make us vigorous
for betterment of our herds and men
from our familiarity with thought that is good through Right:
seeking (also) to magnify Him with Piety’s acts of worship,
Him that is heard now in my soul, the Mindful Lord.
When with Right and Good Thought He assigns (them) to one,
into his control (then) health and continuing life
they give to be his, (and) strength and vitality.
Whoever so follows us in scorning
the Daevas and mortals who scorn Him –
all but that one who is properly disposed towards Him –
he by his liberal morality is the Promoter householder’s
ally, brother, or father, O Mindful Lord.
Here Zoroaster is preoccupied with external circumstances, with his reception among men. There is a shift of perspective in the course of the poem. In the early stanzas the situation is bad: Zoroaster is something of an outcast, and his religion is not flourishing. Later on he appears in a more confident and cheerful mood, able to name and address a series of allies or potential allies.
What land for refuge, where am I to go for refuge?
They set me apart from clan and tribe;
I am not pleased with the communities I consort with,
nor with the region’s wrongful masters.
How am I to please Thee, Mindful Lord?
I know why I am ineffectual, Mindful One:
because of my poverty in cattle and poverty in men.
I complain to Thee: look to the matter, Lord,
affording support as a friend would to a friend;
behold6 the potency of thought that is good through Right.
When, Mindful One, will those Oxen of Days7
set forth on the path of Right to uphold the world
with stouter declarations, the sapient Promoters?
What people will it (Right) come to aid with Good Thought?
For myself I choose Thee, Lord, for direction.
But the wrongful one keeps them, Right’s draught
oxen, from coming forth in district or region,
abominable as he is, disagreeable in his deeds.
Whoever dispatches him from authority, Mindful One, or from life,
will make those oxen advance on the trajectory of enlightenment.
As for one who on his own authority should take into his house one coming
on the basis of a promise or agreements, a man of good birth
living in rectitude, a righteous man (receiving) a follower of Wrong,
a man of discrimination, he should inform his clan
to help it8 escape, Mindful Lord, from bloodshed.
But if one who is not wanted should come to him,
it is Wrong’s abodes of partnership that he will be entering;
for he is wrongful who is good to the wrongful,
and he is righteous who has a righteous one as his friend,
as Thou didst establish the original moralities, Lord.
Whom dost Thou, Mindful One, set as protector for my kind
when the wrongful one seeks to take hold of me for maltreatment,
other than Thy fire and (Good) Thought,
that pair by whose actions Ye nourish Right, Lord?
Tell forth that teaching for my religion.
As for him who is putting my flock to maltreatment,
may harm not reach me from his actions:
may they recoil on him with hostility,
on his person, so as to keep him from good living
and not from bad living – yes, with whatever hostility, Mindful One!
Who is that zealous one who will be first to recognize
how I found Thee out as the promptest,
bounteous in action, the Righteous Lord?
What Right said to Thee, what the Maker of the cow to Right,
are they setting that in train for Thee with good thought?
The man or woman, Mindful Lord,
who should give me what Thou knowest are the best things in this life,
reward for right, authority with good thought,
and those I join for the lauding of Your kind,
with all of them I shall cross the Arbiter’s Crossing.
The Karpans and Kavis by their authority yoke
the mortal to bad deeds for the ruination of life.
Their own soul and their own morality will torment them
when they come to where the Arbiter’s Crossing is,
to lodge for all time in the abode of Wrong.
When He came forth with Right among the famed
kin and descendants of Tra Friyāna
who promoted Piety’s flock with care,
then He brought them into union with Good Thought
to proclaim it for their support, He the Mindful Lord.
He who among mortals has gratified Spitāma Zarathushtra
by his concern, that man is worthy of renown.
The Mindful Lord grants him worldly life,
his flock He promotes together with Good Thought;
we apprehend him as Your and Right’s good friend.
‘O Zarathushtra, which righteous one is thy ally
for the great rite? Who wishes for renown?’11
He is the Kavi Vishtaaspa, with whom Thou art.
Those whom Thou, Mindful Lord, bringest together in Thy abode
I will invoke with the utterances of good thought.
O Haecataspa Spitāmas, I will say to you:
when ye distinguish between the just and the unjust,
by those actions ye shall win yourselves Right.
By the Lord’s original ordinances,
* * * * *12
O Frashaushtra son of Hugava, go with those zealous ones
whom we two wish to have their heart’s desire
to where Piety is together with Right,
to where the realm of Good Thought is at one’s disposal,
to where the Mindful Lord abides in abundance,
so that I may proclaim verses for you,
nothing less than verses, Djāmaaspa son of Hugava,
so that ye have, besides compliance, praises of the Caring One
who discriminates between the just man and the unjust
with His sage adviser Right, He the Mindful Lord.
Whoever confers weal on me, on him for my part the best things
at my disposal I confer, with good thought,
but hostilities on him who would subject us to hostility,
so doing justice, Mindful One and Right, to Your preference:
that is how my sapient thought discriminates.
Whoever in accord with Right will make real for me,
for Zarathushtra, the utmost splendour of my desiring,
on him – who deserves the world beyond as his reward
with all spiritual acquisitions – (I confer) two milch cows;13
of those (other) things Thou, Mindful One, showest Thyself the best provider.14
YASNA 43
(1) Different people want different things, and so far as Zoroaster is concerned, the Mindful Lord may give any of them what they want, at his pleasure; but what he himself wants is the strength and energy to hold firm to Right, and the life governed by good thought. He deserves them as ‘rewards for wealth’, or perhaps rather ‘in exchange for wealth’: not returns for wealth that he has expended, but compensations for the wealth that has been denied him.
(2) A man who enjoys material well-being may compound it by acquiring, and maintaining throughout his life, an understanding of how good thought can transform everything for the better, a property conferred on it by the Mindful Lord and Right.
(3) But even better than the best is appropriate as reward for whoever could teach us the most direct path to material and spiritual advancement, that upward path towards the abode of the Mindful One. Such a man would be a faithful follower of the Lord, with the same generosity of spirit, and of some standing in society by virtue of his birth.
(4) The generosity of the Lord, who dispenses their various deserts to good and bad through the fire of Right, will be proved when he grants Zoroaster the power of good thought that brings those benefits.
(5) But there is already much evidence of his generosity, and for the remainder of the poem each pair of stanzas starts from the same affirmation, ‘Bounteous I think Thee, Mindful Lord,’ followed by a reason. (But the formula soon becomes mechanical, and its relationship to what follows in each case is not easy to see.) Zoroaster begins by again (as in 31. 8) picturing the Mindful One at the beginning of creation, when he established the system of rewarding people according to their merits when they come into the final straight on the racecourse of life.
(6) There they learn their fates from Piety and Good Thought, who can testify to the degree of piety and good thought that those arriving have shown in their lives. The Mindful Lord judges them wisely and accurately, and none can deceive him.
(7) As an occasion for affirming his own faith, Zoroaster imagines himself being questioned by a well-disposed enquirer. A standard enquiry about someone’s identity was ‘who are you, and whose (son)?’ Here the ‘whose?’ is probably to be understood in a more general sense, so that if Zoroaster had answered it explicitly, the answer would have been ‘the Mindful Lord’s’.
(8) In answer to the enquirer Zoroaster proudly declares his name and his moral orientation. His aims are to oppose the wrongful and support the righteous, in the hope of obtaining the good offices of ‘Him who rules at will’ (the title adapted from stanza 1, with no special point here) and of enjoying them for as long as he goes on praising him, by which he no doubt intends ‘all my life’. In the last line he switches from third to second person as he resumes his address to the Mindful Lord.
(9) The same switch takes place at once in the reply to the enquirer’s next question. The Mindful Lord’s fire is identified as the focus of Zoroaster’s devotion; he may be thinking both of the sacred altar fire and of the fire which he mentions elsewhere in connection with the judgment of mortals and dispensation of their deserts. This fire is closely associated with Right (31. 3, 34. 4, 43. 4), and so here the service of the fire is equated with reverence of Right.
(10) With his piety to support his prayer, Zoroaster asks for Right to be revealed to him, and declares himself ready to answer more questions; the Mindful One’s questions will be (for his poetic purpose) equivalent to those asked by the enquirer of the earlier stanzas. The questioning will give the pious prophet the opportunity to broadcast his convictions and so strengthen the Mindful One.
(11) From here on, although ‘Bounteous I think Thee…’ continues to be followed with ‘when one attends me…’, this person no longer plays a role. It is all between Zoroaster and the Mindful Lord. Zoroaster has come to rely on his guidance to do what is right, instead of following what mortals say. (12) The guidance is to take his lessons from Right. This Zoroaster will be sure to do in good time, before that day when Compliance will come, with his attendant Reward, to identify those who have honoured him and who deserve to be rewarded (cf. 33. 5).
(13) It is good when well-disposed people take note of the good things that Zoroaster does from his desire for the reward which, as he has heard (from the divine voice), the Mindful Lord has in his gift: the long life. The Lord (who rules at will, as has been mentioned) is free to give it or withhold it. (14) But an affluent man might be expected to share his possessions with his friend, and so may the Mindful One give his friend Zoroaster his providential support, who deserves it because he has followed Right, so that in alliance with the whole army of the faithful he can drive away their detractors.
(15) The idea of this stanza is similar to that of stanza 11: Zoroaster derives what he has to say from silent meditation (in which he hears the Mindful Lord’s words), not from listening to others, whose discourses (poems?) often express the viewpoint of the wrongful.
(16) Naming himself again at the end of the poem, the prophet affirms his commitment to the Bounteous Will that urges a man to choose the better courses of action. He prays to see Right and Piety flourishing in the world about him, coupled with Dominion, in other words prevailing and able to operate unhindered; and to receive from Piety (as in stanza 1) the reward for what he has done under Good Thought’s guidance.
YASNA 44
(1) The first question is the general one of how the Mindful Lord ought to be worshipped, which amounts to asking what are the basic principles of the religion. Zoroaster is the Mindful One’s friend and deserves his confidence. He and his followers need this advice because they need to be on good terms with Right, to secure its presence and that of Good Thought among them.
(2) The aim is to bring the world into the best possible state. How is the well-intentioned man to set about mending it and consolidating the improvement? For this is the kind of man who is needed to cure the sickness of existence as an ally of the Mindful Lord: outgoing, generous, guided by Right, conscious of the outcomes awaiting everyone in accordance with their conduct.
(3–5) Who gave birth to Right in the first place? The question about origins leads Zoroaster into the more general and more traditional series of questions about the cosmos and who created it and controls it. In the middle of these questions he works in one about Good Thought, to complement the initial one about Right. We would guess that his answer to all these questions would have been ‘the Mindful Lord’, but he leaves them open.
(6) Two further favourite concepts are now brought in, piety and dominion. Piety, the proper attitude of mind, when expressed in action, confirms Right and widens the Mindful Lord’s dominion. But if that is so, what are we to make of the unhappy situation of the cow (as depicted in Yasna 29)? Who was she made for: the stock-raiser and the herdsman (as the Mindful One himself declared in 29. 6), or those who claim her for sacrifice?
(7) Piety and dominion are now added to the list of those whose origins are asked about. The question about the son’s respect for his father does not make an obvious sequel, but Zoroaster may be thinking of the principle of obedience or compliance (sraoša-), which is important in connection with moral and religious instruction, and the father–son relationship may stand symbolically for that between teacher and disciple (cf. 45. 11), or between the Mindful Lord and his whole creation. – All these questions, Zoroaster affirms, are designed to further the recognition of the Mindful One as ordainer of all things through his bounteous will.
(8) Zoroaster now narrows the focus to his personal aspirations. He is anxious to follow the guidance of the Mindful Lord and his two associates, Right and Good Thought; he makes consultation with Good Thought, and Right presides over the correct perceptions concerning the way of existence. What are the good ends that his soul can expect to attain?
(9) And can he hope for his religion to be taken up and set on a firm footing by someone with temporal power?
(10) It is the best religion there is; he prays that its practice, and the influence of Right, will benefit his community; but have they got the right conception of it, and do they speak and act in accordance with true piety? The prophet has his pure vision, but what effect it will have lies in the Mindful One’s hands.
(11) When Zoroaster teaches his religion to others, how can he imbue them with the requisite piety? They are the ones he relies on, the first converts to his new religion; he looks askance at everybody else.
(12) He questions people about their beliefs, but he cannot be sure of the sincerity of their responses. Which of them is genuinely on the side of Right? Which is a genuine supporter, and which is really an opponent? The Lord replies: the enemy is the one who deliberately opposes and obstructs the progress that Zoroaster makes in promoting the Mindful One.
(13) Zoroaster continues: how can we at least expel Wrong from our own party and confine it to the opposition, those irredeemably unwilling to listen to instruction, who make no effort to associate themselves with Right and never ask themselves what Good Thought would recommend?
(14) How might we go further and defeat Wrong altogether by means of the ‘mantras’ of the Mindful Lord’s edict, that is, by means of Zoroaster’s formulations of the Lord’s instruction; deal the adherents of Wrong a crushing blow, and afflict them with pain and grief?
(15) Zoroaster’s language has by this stage become quite bellicose, as if he were looking forward not just to a conflict of religions but to actual fighting. Now he speaks of hostile armies coming together in a battle over the principles that the Mindful Lord would uphold. But which will prevail? There is a suggestion that Zoroaster himself may be in danger and need protection.
(16) Who is the human champion, dedicated to following the Mindful One’s injunctions, who will protect everyone in the community? Zoroaster longs for a clear and manifest answer to his needs, a man with the will and capability to put the world to rights. Let the Lord assign this role to someone with the power and authority to sort things out, and let this man, whoever it may be, be led by good thought to sraoša-, consistent obedience or hearkening to the Mindful Lord.
(17) In short, how is Zoroaster to fulfil his ambition of a secure relationship with the higher entities (cf. stanza 1)? How is he to make his voice effective, as he diligently pursues his goal of continued life and health by formulating in verse the requirements of Right?
(18) This stanza develops the same idea. How is he to earn that boon of life and health, now represented as a reward that the Mindful Lord (who enjoys those properties himself) has promised him? The unexpected intrusion of ‘ten mares with stallion and a camel’ assimilates the situation to that of the priest-poet who, like the Vedic Rishi, expects and receives substantial rewards of livestock from his patron. Probably Zoroaster has no actual expectation of these animals from anyone, but uses them as a symbol of the highest level of reward.
(19) If the Mindful Lord does not give the reward that Zoroaster has earned, despite having awarded the same boons to himself, he is like a mortal patron who keeps for himself what he has promised to his praise-poet. Such a man will surely be punished hereafter.
(20) Zoroaster’s campaign certainly deserves the Mindful Lord’s support. After all, he cannot say that the religion of the traditional gods is acceptable, considering the sufferings of the cow at the hands of the various priestly orders, sufferings that prompt her soul to such laments as were portrayed in Yasna 29. These rites conflict with the proper development of pastoralism, which is what Right requires.
YASNA 45
(1) Let the hearers listen well and take his message to heart. Those who (first) propagated the old religion were responsible for corrupting the pristine perfection of life by leading people along the wrong path (cf. 30. 6). This must not be allowed to happen a second time.
(2) Again as in Yasna 30, Zoroaster starts from the doctrine (here treated as if already familiar) of the two contrasted Wills or Mentalities that came into being at the beginning of the world. The total antithesis between them is expressed in a declaration made by the Positive Will in which he dissociates himself entirely from the Negative one.
(3) Zoroaster proposes to tell about the world’s beginning, literally its ‘first (thing)’. He actually means what he has just told us in the previous stanza; we might have expected this announcement to come first. As it is, the intention is to explain how he knows what the Positive Will said at the beginning. The Mindful Lord has told him of it. His ‘mantra’ or prescript, his poetic statement of what the Lord has communicated to him, is to be taken as a guide on how to live. Those who fail to follow it will be sorry at the last.
(4) After telling of the world’s First (thing, neuter), Zoroaster will now tell of its Best (one, masculine). This again refers back to stanza 2, for the Best One must be identified as the Positive Will; there is no other plausible candidate, given that he was created by the Mindful Lord and is the father of Good Thought and Piety. Good Thought prompts people to virtuous actions, and so does Piety. We have thus a causal hierarchy, partly expressed in genealogical terms: the Mindful Lord > the Positive Will > Good Thought and Piety > good actions. The Mindful Lord, at the top of the chain, observes all that goes on and cannot be deluded. (So beware, because he observes your conduct too and controls the outcome.)
(5) Zoroaster repeats that his message comes from the Mindful Lord. It is the best of messages to listen to and obey; those who do so will attain the goal of continuing life and health. The essence of the message is that the all-observant Lord takes note when people translate good thought into good action, and will reward them.
(6) After the First (stanza 3) and the Best (stanza 4), now Zoroaster will tell of the Greatest: the Mindful Lord himself, the benefactor of all who exist. Let him hear the praise-song, together with its other principal honorand, the Positive Will, for it is a well-considered composition: in formulating it Zoroaster has sought guidance from Good Thought. And let him continue to instruct him in the best lessons to pass on to his audiences.
(7) He is not only the benefactor of those currently alive, for the blessings he offers are available equally to the righteous who are no longer on earth or are yet to be born: to those no longer on earth, because their souls enjoy a form of continuing life (to the chagrin of the wrongful) in a realm which is – like the Positive Will, etc. (stanza 4) – the creation of the Mindful One.
(8) This beneficent deity Zoroaster sees in his mind’s eye while in the process of composing a hymn that will engage his attention: the picture forms as he contemplates the workings of the Good Will as manifested in the words and deeds of those motivated by him. The Mindful Lord is recognized behind all this, and it is to him that the singer’s praises are offered on behalf of the group.
(9) The hymn aims also to make him (and his associate, Good Thought) pleased with the worshippers, since he exercises his power with intelligent discrimination and brings fortune or misfortune on us at his discretion. May he see to it that we are well acquainted with good thought and endowed with the strength and vigour to conduct our affairs in a good way, to the benefit (and not the disruption) of the pastoral economy.
(10) And thirdly the hymn, as a pious act of worship, seeks to magnify him, the Lord whom Zoroaster not only sees in his mind’s eye but hears in his soul. When he, together with Right and Good Thought, decides that someone is worthy of it, they put within his reach those two desirable pairs: continuing life and health, strength and vitality.
(11) Whoever follows the lead of Zoroaster and his followers and is not cowed by the hostility of those who uphold the old religion, but opposes all who do not show the proper attitude towards the Mindful One, counts as the ally and brother, or (if senior enough) as the father, of the ‘Promoter householder’ who is the pillar of the movement, the stock-farmer who has determined to support it. The faithful are a family.
YASNA 46
(1) Where can I find a congenial milieu? At every level of society – clan, village, tribe, province – I feel alienated; the land is ruled by men who practise the old religion and have little sympathy for mine. Evidently the Mindful Lord is not satisfied with me. What must I do to please him?
(2) I lack influence because I lack wealth, I lack a good-sized establishment of livestock and men. I am your friend, Mindful Lord, so help me. Look how little my right-mindedness avails me.
(3) When and where will the good religion take hold? When will its apostles appear, like new days dawning on the world, to preach the word and restore life to what it should be? And in what district will Right and Good Thought establish themselves? Personally I do not need such intermediaries, as I receive my enlightenment directly from the Mindful Lord.
(4) But the prevalence of the infidel with his hostile attitudes makes it impossible for them to achieve a decisive position of influence anywhere. Anyone who can take away a traditionalist’s authority, or eliminate him, will make it easier for the true religion to rise like the sun in the sky.
(5) It may happen that a pious and godly man is obliged by some agreement to receive a ungodly one in his house. (Zoroaster is probably alluding to some actual situation of which we cannot know the details. One might think of an itinerant priest to whom certain households had to provide hospitality.) In such a case he should warn the clan, to avoid it becoming implicated in any blood sacrifice the man performs; or perhaps it is to avoid the man suffering at their hands, when he has protected status.
(6) But if such a man comes uninvited and without a valid claim to hospitality and is received, the host is compromising himself; the house to which he admits such a partnership becomes identified with the metaphorical House of Wrong (stanza 11; 49. 11, 51. 14). For by aiding the wrongful, one becomes wrongful; the righteous should have the righteous as their friends. This is the clear dichotomy that the Mindful Lord made in the beginning.
(7) What defence do I have against the wrongful ones’ aggression, Mindful One? I have my devotion to Right, and my knowledge that your fire will separate us from them, consigning us to bliss and them to damnation. But who will protect me here and now? That is what I want you to tell me in support of my religious stance.
(8) Where it is my followers who suffer the aggression, may I be kept safe, and may the aggressor suffer such consequences of his actions as will condemn him to a wretched existence, as wretched as may be.
(9) Where am I to find more supporters? Who will be the first (or next) to apprehend what I have discovered, that the Lord of Right is both benevolent and prompt in action? Are my potential converts starting to act on the message of my poetical discourse about the cow (Yasna 29)?
(10) Anyone who helps me to get the proper return for my adherence to Right, or to obtain a measure of authority that I can exercise with my good thought, as well as the existing congregation of worshippers with whom I give praise to the Mindful Lord, may be sure of their reward: when we come to the Arbiter’s Crossing they will be allowed across with me to the region of bliss.
(11) The Karpan and Kavi priests, on the other hand, by their authority, commit mortals (who at death must answer for their lives) to bad deeds that corrupt our world. When they approach the Crossing, their souls and consciences will vex them, as they realize that it is their fate to remain for ever in the dismal House of Wrong.
(12) In the following stanzas Zoroaster refers to a number of notable individuals who have shown themselves to be in the right camp or who may be willing to give him the desired support. Tra, son of Friya, became a sympathizer together with his family and gave support to the Zoroastrians. The Mindful Lord showed his approval of them by making them right-thinking.
(13) Anyone who has given Zoroaster material help deserves to be celebrated for it and may expect praise in his poems. He counts as a friend of Right and of the Mindful Lord, who rewards him with a life and prospers those in his care.9
(14) ‘Who, then,’ the Mindful Lord asks, ‘fulfils these requirements and looks for the fame that you can confer by naming him?’ Zoroaster replies that Vishtaaspa does so: a Kavi, but not a typical one, for the Mindful Lord is with him, and he dwells in the Lord’s house, where the souls of Right’s followers consort with Good Thought and other virtues (49. 10; compare 44. 9, and stanza 16 below). All who dwell in that house Zoroaster will address in favourable terms. (This presumably applies to those addressed in the three following stanzas.)
(15) The Haecataspa Spitāmas must be a branch of the prophet’s own family, as he has the same surname.10 If the grammar is rightly interpreted, they are not yet completely free from the danger of entanglement with the wrongful: they must still make a decisive break with them, and then they must follow the principles of conduct laid down by the Mindful Lord at the beginning.
(16) Frashaushtra, a man especially close to Zoroaster (28. 8, 49. 8, 51. 17, 53. 2), is also encouraged to go further on the true path that leads to everything desirable, to the place where the Mindful Lord abides. (17) Then Zoroaster will be able to celebrate his and his brother Djāmaaspa’s acceptance of the faith in the verses with which he hymns the Lord, who will not fail to recognize their righteousness and give them their due.
(18) Whoever promotes his interests Zoroaster repays as best he can, and whoever shows him hatred he requites with hatred, thus discriminating in the same way as do the Mindful One and Right. (19) To the man who will help him realize his vision of restoring the world to its ideal state, he pledges the most generous reward he can afford: two cows. Besides this prize from the material world, such a man will deserve all the spiritual riches of the world beyond – but those things are in the Mindful Lord’s gift.