THE FOURTH GĀTHĀ
YASNA 51
This carefully articulated composition is one of the most substantial in the collection; only Yasna 31 has as many stanzas, though other poems are longer by line-count. It may be divided into five segments: (1–3) prefatory; (4–11) presentation of Zoroaster’s anxieties, appeal for support, antithesis of righteous and unrighteous; (12–14) denunciation of unrighteous individuals; (15–20) praise of righteous ones; (21–2) closing affirmations.
Good authority is the thing to choose, most productive of fortune,
certainly for one liberal with libation. It descends best
through actions with Right, Mindful One, and this I will put into practice for us here and now.
So first I will show to You, Mindful Lord, and to Right
and to Thee, Piety, the authority at my command:
Yours of enhancement apply Thou with Good Thought to my laudation.
Let Your ears focus on those who by their actions are uniting with You,
O Lord and Right, and by their tongue’s utterances of good thought,
those of whom Thou, Mindful One, art the first teacher.
Where does respect appear instead of harm, where mercy?
Where lustre-giving Right? Where bounteous Piety?
Where Best Thought? Where Thy areas of control, Mindful One?
All this I ask: how in accord with Right the cow is acquired
by the herdsman upright in his actions, prudent, reverent,
one who, with the two rewards at his disposal, discerns aright the ruling made for the just.
If one is choosing what is better than good, and if one will be prompt to His will,
the Lord is mindful in His dominion; but it is worse than bad for him
that will not serve Him, at the last bend of worldly life.1
Grant me, Thou who didst fashion the cow and the waters and plants,
continuing life and health through Thy most bounteous will, Mindful One,
strength and vitality with good thought in my teaching.
For I will tell Thee, Mindful One – of course a man can only say what Thou knowest –
that amid ill for the wrongful one, but in bliss for him who has embraced Right
(happy that prophet who speaks to one who knows!)
is the atonement that Thou didst set for the two parties through Thy flaming fire, Mindful One,
and through molten metal, to establish proof about our characters
for the harm of the wrongful one and the strengthening of the righteous.
The man who harms me otherwise than that, Mindful One,
is a son of the Creator of Wrong, and thus a malefactor (of all) who are:
for myself I will call upon Right to come with the good reward.
What man is ally to Spitāma Zarathushtra, Mindful One?
Or who has taken counsel with Right? With whom is bounteous Piety?
Or what upright man has gained the insight for Good Thought’s rite?
He was not pleased with the Kavi catamite at the crossing in the winter,
(he,) Zarathushtra Spitāma, when the emissary had barred his way at it,
when those two draught animals of his were trembling from the journey and the cold.
So the wrongful one’s morality may ignore the just one’s reality;
(but) his soul will torment him at the Arbiter’s Crossing when it confronts him,
lost through his own actions and his tongue’s from the path of Right.
The Karpans are not fit allies from the standpoint of (Your) ordinances and the pasture,
manifesters of harm to the cow by their actions and proclamations –
proclamation that will consign them at the last to the house of Wrong.
As for the reward that Zarathushtra earlier assigned to the patrons of the rite,
the Mindful Lord enters the house of song first:
so it was assigned to You together with Good Thought, and to Right, because of (Your) power to strengthen.
That insight the Kavi Vishtaaspa, with his control of the rite, attained
by the paths of Good Thought, the one which he meditated with Right,
to proclaim for us as we desired, ‘Bounteous is the Mindful Lord’.
Frashaushtra son of Hugava exposes his person that I esteem
to the Good Religion; let it be made desirable to him
by the one who has the power, the Mindful Lord, for his attaining Right’s favour.
That insight Djāmaaspa son of Hugava, illustrious in his competence,
chooses to find with Right, that realm of Good Thought.
Grant him, Mindful Lord, that of Thine which gives support.
The man, O Madyaimāha Spitāma, gets that (support) for himself,
apprehending it with his moral self, who, petitioning for worldly life,
speaks the Mindful One’s ordinances, (and gets it) all the better because of his lifetime conduct.
This strengthening is ours to give you, all ye of one mind
who worship Right with good thought and utterance – and with you is Piety –
in reverence of the Mindful One who affords succour.
The man of Piety, he is bounteous in insight, words, conduct,
morality. Right with prosperity, authority with good thought,
the Mindful Lord bestows: to Him I pray for the good reward.
I know in whose worship in accord with Right is my best (interest):
the Mindful Lord.3 Those (immortals) who have been and are
I will worship under their own names, and attend them with devotion.
Commentary
YASNA 51
(1) Zoroaster begins with remarks on the importance of good 
, authority or control that gives one freedom of action in a given area. It brings notable benefits – not least to the patron of a religious ceremony at which dairy produce is offered. (This must be an allusion to the occasion; cf. stanzas 15–16.) For it to ‘travel across’ between heaven and earth, linking divine principle and earthly reality, the best medium is its righteous exercise in actual situations. Such mediation between heaven and earth was a traditional Indo-Iranian concept in the context of a religious ceremony; in the Rigveda it may be performed by the sacred fire or by the poet’s hymn, and so here Zoroaster is going to mediate with his hymn for those present.
(2) The authority that he himself exercises is over the art of poetic composition, and this he will display in what follows, addressing first the Mindful Lord, Right, and Piety. He prays that they will exercise the authority that they have of strengthening or enhancement to the advantage of (or in return for) his song of praise.
(3) Let them turn their ears toward those who are siding with them by thought, word, and deed, and who have taken the Mindful Lord as their number one teacher.
(4) After this introduction we come to the substance. The situation is far from good. There is much misery and cruelty; right, piety, and good thought are not much in evidence. The Mindful Lord does not seem to be in command of those areas where he ought to be.
(5) To be more specific, the honest herdsman has not got complete control of the cattle, as he should have according to Right. This despite his prudence and piety: faced with the moral choice that will determine whether he is rewarded or punished, he correctly discerns that the righteous will get their just deserts.
(6) If someone makes the best choices and is zealous in following the Lord’s preferences, he takes note of him and, in exercising his power over his fate hereafter, gives him his just reward; but anyone who fails to serve him suffers grievously for it at the end of the course.
(7) It was the Mindful One who made the cow and those features of the natural world that provide her and us with nourishment, the waters and the plants. May he sustain them and preserve Zoroaster from sickness and death, debility, lassitude, and bad thought, so that he can go on preaching the word.
(8–9) Continuing to address the Mindful Lord, Zoroaster repeats the message of stanza 6. (The Lord, he acknowledges, does not need to be told it; there is nothing a man knows that he does not. So Zoroaster can speak without fear of disagreement.) The message is that the follower of Wrong pays dearly for it, whereas he who has embraced Right gets what he would wish, in that judgment by fire and molten metal which identifies the bad people and condemns them to their wretched fate.
(10) If Zoroaster were to suffer in consequence of that, it would be because he deserved it, and he could not complain. But anyone who attacks him otherwise is a wrongdoer. For his part he expects the good reward, and he calls upon Right to bring it to him.
(11) Let us review individual cases. Who is on Zoroaster’s side and who is not? Who, in his mental deliberations, has consulted with Right and Piety? Which upright man has taken thought for the maga-, the great religious event that Zoroaster mentions several times elsewhere?
(12) To begin with the bad people: the Kavi and Karpan priests come to mind (cf. 32. 12–15, 44. 20, 46. 11). As for the Kavis, not all of them are bad (cf. stanza 16), but Zoroaster can point to a servant of a Kavi or of Kavis who has shown him hostility.
(13) That episode of a difficult crossing illustrates how those with a false value system disregard the truth recognized by the upright. When that wrongdoer dies and comes to another crossing, the Arbiter’s, and meets his own soul standing there on the path of Wrong because of the things he has said and done, then he will be sorry.
(14) The Karpans likewise have sinned in word and deed, promoting and practising cruelty to the cow. They too will ultimately be condemned to follow the path that leads to the House of Wrong.
(15) Now Zoroaster turns to those who merit praise. This is the reward that the poet can confer, the one that he says he has promised earlier to those who undertook to hold the ceremony and provide the offerings.2 (Perhaps he is recalling stanza 1, where he held out the prospect of ‘fortune’ for the patron of such an event as this.) The Mindful Lord, of course, must precede them in the sequence of those to be praised in the song; under the guidance of Good Thought, Zoroaster has vowed to praise him and Right for the benefits they confer.
(16) Vishtaaspa, the principal patron, has followed Good Thought, meditated on Right, and arrived at the insight, ‘Bounteous is the Mindful Lord’, which he now proclaims to others to the Zoroastrians’ satisfaction.
(17) Frashaushtra, as elsewhere (46. 16, 49. 8), appears as someone dear to Zoroaster and interested in his religion – he ‘exposes his body’ to it, as one might to the sun – but not yet fully committed to it. May the Lord, who has the power to do so, make him an enthusiast, so that Right will look on him with favour.
(18) His brother Djāmaaspa is already converted. He has opted for the religion’s insight and the province in which Good Thought holds sway. May the Mindful One give him his support.
(19) Madyaimāha, a member of the prophet’s own Spitāma family, gets an honourable mention, but nothing positive is actually said of his piety. He is told that the support of the Mindful Lord referred to in the previous stanza is sought through religion. One must pronounce the Lord’s ordinances, and better still live in accord with them; that is the way to win a life.
(20) Zoroaster sums up with a collective address to his followers. The benefit he has described is available to all of them who agree in worshipping Right with good thought, good speech, piety, and reverence of the Mindful Lord.
(21) One’s moral and religious outlook and positive thought, speech, and conduct are in one’s own control. For further blessings such as (righteous) prosperity and (wisely exercised) authority we depend on the Lord, and Zoroaster prays to him for them.
(22) In conclusion he affirms his faith that the worship of the Mindful One is his best course. He rejects the traditional religion with its pantheon of named deities: the immortal powers who are for ever he will call by their real names, Good Thought, the Bounteous Will, Piety, and so forth, and attend them with devotion.