Note 499 — Chapter V · LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS AND FESTIVALS

R. Roth, “Der Kalender des Avesta und die sogenannten gahanbâr,” Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 1880, xxxiv, 710; L. H. Gray, “Der iranische Kalender,” Geiger and Kuhn’s Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, ii, 675 sq. There is extant a Pehlevi tract, said to have been composed in Persia during the fourth century A.D., which mentions among other matters five days in every month, namely, the 1st, 7th, 14th, 22d, and 30th, as times to be observed by abstinence from all worldly business. The manuscript sets forth in detail the peculiar virtues of all the days of one of the Zoroastrian months. “Some are best for beginning a journey or voyage, others for the regulation of matters of domestic economy, some again for social gatherings and festivities, and others again for the pursuit of learning, while not a few are reserved for rest and pious contemplation.” These precepts are no longer observed; in fact, their very existence is unknown to most Parsis at the present day. See D. F. Karaka, History of the Parsis, London, 1884, i, 132 sqq.