Thereupon came Angra Mainyu, who is all death, and he counter-created the serpent in the river[1] and Winter, a work of the Daêvas[2].
4 (9). There are ten winter months there, two summer months[3]; and those are cold for the waters[4], cold for the earth, cold for the trees[5]. Winter falls there, the worst of all plagues.
5 (13). The second of the good lands and countries which I, Ahura Mazda, created, was the plain[6] which the Sughdhas inhabit[7].
Thereupon came Angra Mainyu, who is all death,
- ↑ 'There are many Khrafstras in the Dâitîk, as it is said, The Dâitîk full of Khrafstras' (Bund. XX, 13). Snakes abound on the banks of the Araxes (Morier, A Second Journey, p. 250) nowadays as much as in the time of Pompeius, to whom they barred the way from Albania to Hyrcania (Plut.)
- ↑ Arrân (Karabagh) is celebrated for its cold winter as well as for its beauty. At the Naurôz (first day of spring) the fields still lie under the snow. The temperature does not become milder before the second fortnight of April; no flower is seen before May. Summer, which is marked by the migration of the nomads from the plain to the mountains, begins about the 20th of June and ends in the middle of August.
- ↑ Vendîdâd Sâda: 'It is known that [in the ordinary course of nature] there are seven months of summer and five of winter' (see Bund. XXV).
- ↑ Some say: 'Even those two months of summer are cold for the waters…' (Comm.; cf. Mainyô-i-khard XLIV, 20).
- ↑ Vend. Sâda: 'There reigns the core and heart of winter.'
- ↑ Doubtful.
- ↑ Old P. Suguda; Sogdiana.
known as Arrân seems to have been known to the Greeks as ᾽Αριανία (Stephanus Byz.), which brings it close to our Airyanem. On the Vanguhi Dâitya, see following note.
The Vanguhi Dâitya, belonging to Arrân, must be the modern Aras (the classic Araxes). The Aras was named Vanguhi, like the Oxus, but distinguished from it by the addition Dâitya, which made it 'the Vanguhi of the Law' (the Vanguhi by which Zoroaster received the Law).
