Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

square, to be an abode for men; an enclosure, long as a riding-ground on every side of the
square, to be a fold for flocks.
39. O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! What are the lights that give
light in the enclosure which Yima made?
40. Ahura Mazda answered: There are uncreated lights and created lights. 29 The
one thing missed there is the sight of the stars, the moon, and the sun, and a year seems
only as a day.
41. Every fortieth year, to every couple two are born, a male and a female. And
thus it is for every sort of beast. And the men in the enclosure which Yima made live the
happiest life. 30
42. O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Who is he who brought the
Religion of Mazda into the enclosure which Yima made? Ahura Mazda answered: 'It was
the bird Karshipta, O holy Zarathushtra!'
Yima's garden has accordingly been formed in connection with a terrible winter,
which visited the earth in the first period of time, and it was planned to preserve that
which is noblest and fairest and most useful within the kingdoms of organic beings. That
the garden is situated in the lower world is not expressly stated in the above-quoted
passages from Vendidad; though this seems to be presupposed by what is stated; for the
stars, sun, and moon do not show themselves in Yima's garden excepting after long,
defined intervals - at their rising and setting; and as the surface of the earth is devastated
by the unparalleled frost, and as the valleys are no more protected therefrom than the
mountains, we cannot without grave doubts conceive the garden as situated in the upper
world. That it is subterranean is, however, expressly stated in Bundahishn, ch. 29, 14, 31
where it is located under the mountain Yimakan; and that it, in the oldest period of the
myth, was looked upon as subterranean follows from the fact that the Yima of the ancient
Iranian records is identical with Rigveda's Yama, whose domain and the scene of whose
activities is the lower world, the kingdom of death.
As Yima's enclosed garden was established on account of the fimbul-winter,
which occurred in time's morning, it continues to exist after the close of the winter, and
preserves through all the historical ages those treasures of uncorrupted men, animals, and
plants which in the beginning of time were collected there. The purpose of this is
mentioned in Menog-i khard, a sort of catechism of the legends and morals of the Avesta
religion (Chap. 27, 24-31). There it is said that after the conflagration of the world, and in
the beginning of the regeneration, the garden which Yima made shall open its gate, and
from there men, animals, and plants shall once more fill the devastated earth:
24. The advantage from the well-flocked Yim, son of Vivanghat, was this,
25. That an immortality of six hundred years, six months, and sixteen days is
provided by him for the creatures and creation, of every kind, of the creator Ohrmazd
(Ahura Mazda);
29 The commentary reads: "The uncreated light shines from above; all the created lights shine from below."
30 The commentary reads: "They live there for 150 years; some say, they never die."
31 "The enclosure formed by Yim is in the middle of Pars, in Sruva; thus, they say, that what Yim formed is
below Mount Yimakan." E. W. West translation, Sacred Books of the East, Volume 5, Oxford University
Press (1897).