A Suggestion about the Meaning and Derivation of Two Words of the Second Chapter of Vendidad

The present article deals with the re-examination of two words from the second chapter of Vendidad, which considerations of scholars about their meaning and derivation are not satisfactory. One of these two words is the vīuuīse, which according to Bartholomae is an infinitive but the construction of which and its syntactic relationship with other parts of the sentence do not confirm it to be an infinitive. The evidence shows that this word can only be the second singular perfect of vīuuīs- from the root vaēs- “to be ready as”. The other is a word that Bartholomae corrected as astǝm, and in the phrase astǝm iθra fracarǝṇta pasuuasca, he considered it the object of the verb fracarǝṇta. However, in the Geldner's edition, the mentioned word is recorded as two independent words as tǝm, and apparently this reading was the focus of the Pahlavi translators of Vendidad. In addition, there are great linguistic reasons that show fracarǝṇta cannot be a form derived from fra + car- “to establish” and correcting as tǝm as astǝm, and to conceive the late form as the object of the verb fracarṇta is incorrect.
 
Extended Abstract
1.Introduction
The second chapter of Vendidad is a narrative of the golden reign of Yima, the Iranian mythical king. This chapter is divided into two parts in terms of content. The first part contains a report about the conversation between God and Yima, Yima's effort to expand the earth in three times, and the second part contains an account about the arrival of a devastating winter at the existence and the construction of a wonderful fortress by Yima to save Ahurian creatures from the danger of destruction. The present article deals with the meaning and derivation of two Avestan words used in the first part of the story.
 
2.Results & Discussion

vīuuīse

The word vīuuīse is used in Avesta, only once, in the following sentence of V.2.4:
yezi mē yima nōit̰ vīuuīse mǝrǝtō bǝrǝtaca daēnaiiāi, āat̰ mē gaēθāͦ frāδaiia …
On the word vīuuīse in the above-mentioned Avestan phrase, scholars of Avesta have presented different explanations. Some, including Lommel, Malandra and recently Pierre Lecoq, without giving any explanation about the form and structure of the word, assume it to be a 2^nd singular present of the root vaēs- “to be or keep ready as, to serve as”. Bartholomae and his followers also considered the word in question, as an infinitive. But these interpretations are not satisfactory; the simplest reason for rejecting the possibility that vīuuīse is a 2^nd sg. present is that in the Vedas and Avestan texts the reduplicated present stem of vaēs- is not used. The possibility of the word being infinitive cannot be correct, because the use of infinitive with conditional conjunction is not compatible with syntactic rules.
 Michiel de Vaan, following Geldner, prefers to explain vīuuise as a corruption of ^*vīse, and as the context requires a second person verb form, he assumes vīse “I serve” as a 1^st singular indicative middle present used for the 2^nd sg. just like the 1^st sg. subjunctive vīsāi is used for the 2^nd sg subj. in the same stanza. This interpretation is also not acceptable; the only evidence provided by de Vaan for the use of the 1^st sg. present for the 2^nd sg. is vīsāi in the same paragraph; but vīsāi is almost certainly a corruption of vīsāhi, 2^nd sg. subjunctive of vaēs- cf. mrauuāi instead of mrauuāhi in Y71.15. In this way, it is completely clear that by referring to vīsāi, it is not possible to justify the use of vīse as a 1^st sg present for 2^nd sg.
   In the existing Avestan texts, there is no example for the 2^nd singular of middle perfect. The ending of the second singular of middle perfect in Vedas is -se, which appears as -ṣe after the vowel i, cf. bubudh-i-ṣe from the perfect stem bubudh- from budh- “to know, to understand”. The equivalent of this ending in the Avestan language is undoubtedly -he, which usually changes to -še after the vowels i and u. Therefore, I suggest to take vīuuīse with the ending -he < -se, the middle perfect 2^nd sg from the perfect stem vīuuīs- from vaēs- and consider its development as follows: vīuuīs-he > vīuuīs-se > vīuuīse. If this interpretation is accepted, not only a justification is found for one of the ambiguous words in the Avestan texts, but also a missing link in the perfect endings is identified. Therefore, we can confidently translate the above-mentioned phrase from V2.4 as follows: “If you, O Yima, are not prepared [to be] the rememberer and bearer of my religion, then make you my worlds to increase...”.

astǝm

The Avestan word astǝm is used only once in V 2.11. The text of this paragraph, is as follows:
āat̰ yimō imąm ząm viš́āuuaiiat̰ aēuua θrišuua ahmāt̰ masiiehīm yaθa para ahmāt̰ astǝm iθra fracarǝṇta pasuuasca …
The reading of astǝm is based on the most Avesta manuscripts. Bartholomae considered it as accusative singular of asta- (Vedic ásta-) “home”, and accordingly, fracarǝṇta is the third plural of middle imperfect from the root kar- “to make” with fra “to establish”. Based on Batholomae's explanation, the phrase is translated as follows: “then Yima made the earth expand herself by one-third larger than she (was) before, and there a home established cattle...”.
But this interpretation has a serious problem; that is, in Avesta, the present stem from kar- “to make” is not formed  with thematic a, and as the existing examples show, the present stem from this root is formed with the suffix -nav- / nao- / -nu-,  such as kǝrǝnao- (vedic: kṛnóti) and kǝrǝnu- (vedic kṛnuté).
the manuscript Jb has the word in question as as təm, and from the translation of the Pahlavi translators of Vandidad, it also appears that the manuscript used by them also had the same reading, therefore it is not unlikely that astəm later emerged from the combination of these two independent words. If this is the case, it can be assumed that the original text had here as (3^rd singular of active imperfect from ah- “to be”) and təm (accusative singular of ta- referring to the extended part of the earth). In fact, fracarǝṇta has nothing to do with the root kar- “to make”, rather it could be an imperfect 3sg of present stem (fra)cara- from the root car- “to walk, move”, with fra “to move forward, to wander”. Now, based on this interpretation, we can translate the whole clause as follows: “then Yima made expand this earth, one-third larger than she was before, there they went the cattle and...”.
 
3.Conclusion & Suggestion
During this article, all evidence about the construction and meaning of the Avestan words vīuuīse and astǝm were examined. This study clearly shows that the opinions of the researchers about this words are not satisfactory, and it is better to take vīuuīse as the perfect second singular of  vīuuīs- from the root vaēs- “to prepare” and correct astəm as two independent words as (imperfect third singular from ah- “to be”) and təm (accusative singular from demonstrative pronoun ta-).
 
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