Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 18.djvu/38



1. For all divisions into chapters and sections the translator is responsible, as the manuscripts merely indicate the beginning of each question and reply.

2. Italics are used for any English words which are not expressed, or fully understood, in the original text, but are added to complete the sense of the translation.

3. Italics occurring in Oriental words, or names, represent certain peculiar Oriental letters (see the 'Transliteration of Oriental Alphabets' at the end of this volume). The italic d, l, n, r, v may be pronounced as in English; but g should be sounded like j, hv like wh, k like ch in 'church,' s like sh, and z like French j.

4. In Pahlavi words the only vowels expressed in the original text are those circumflexed, initial a, and the letter ŏ; italic d is written like t, r and l like n or the Avesta o, v and z like g and zd like d in the Pahlavi character (see the latter part of § 1 of the Introduction).

5. In the translation, words in parentheses are merely explanatory of those which precede them.

6. For the meaning of the abbreviations used in the notes, see the end of the Introduction.

7. The manuscripts mentioned are :—

BK, an old imperfect copy of K35 written in Kirmân, but now in Bombay.

J (about 60 years old), belonging to Dastûr Jâmâspji Minochiharji in Bombay.

K35 (probably written 1572), No. 35 in the University Library at Kopenhagen ; upon the text of which this translation is based.

M5 (written 1723), a MS. of miscellaneous texts in Persian letters, No. 5 of the Haug Collection in the State Library at Munich.

M14 (a modern copy of a MS. in the library of the Parsi high- priest in Bombay), No. 1 4 in the same Collection.

TD, a MS. of the BundahLr belonging to Môbad Tehmuras Dinshawji in Bombay.