Vendîdâd
(Pahlavi)
The first book (Nosk) in the collection of Zend fragments usually known as the Zend‐Avesta. The Vendidâd is a corruption of the compound‐word “Vidaêvo‐dâtern”, meaning “the anti‐ demoniac law ”, and is full of teachings how to avoid sin and defilement by purification, moral and physical — each of which teachings is based on Occult laws. It is a pre‐eminently occult treatise, full of symbolism and often of meaning quite the reverse of that which is expressed in its dead‐ letter text. The Vendîdâd, as claimed by tradition, is the only one of the twenty‐one Nosks (works) that has escaped the auto‐da‐fé at the hands of the drunken Iskander the Rûmi, he whom posterity calls Alexander the Great — though the epithet is justifiable only when applied to the brutality, vices and cruelty of this conqueror. It is through the vandalism of this Greek that literature and knowledge have lost much priceless lore in the Nosks burnt by him. Even the Vendidâd has reached us in only a fragmentary state. The first chapters are very mystical, and therefore called “mythical” in the renderings of European Orientalists. The two “creators” of “spirit‐matter” or the world of differentiation — Ahura‐ Mazda and Angra‐Mainyu (Ahriman) — are introduced in them, and also Yima (the first man, or mankind personified). The work is divided into Fargards or chapters, and a portion of these is devoted to the formation of our globe, or terrestrial evolution. (See Zend‐ Avesta.) (TG).
The bibliography refers to James Darmesteter’s translation in The Zend-Avesta, part I, Sacred Books of the East IV. (BCW 2:547).
For its bibliography, de Zirkoff refers readers to the entry on the Avesta. (BCW 3:535).
The appendix refers the reader to Avesta. (BCW 4:669).
Some links:
- Quotes: H. P. Blavatsky, Zirkoff, Boris
- CTD article in Russian: Вендидад
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Shortly: The first book (Nosk) in the collection of Zend fragments usually known as the Zend‐Avesta. ...