names from the records of the Achaemenian kings or the works of classical writers down to the map of modern Iran.
For the other lands we are confined for information to the Pahlavi Commentary, from which we get:
| zend name. | pahlavi name. | modern name. |
| Vaêkereta (7) | Kâpûl | کابل Kâbul |
| Urva (8) | Mêshan | Mesene |
| Varena (14) | Patashkvârgar or Dailam | Tabaristân or Gîlân |
| Rangha (16) | Arvastâni Rûm | Eastern Mesopotamia |
The identification of Nisâya (5) and Kakhra {13) remains an open question, as there were several cities of that name. We know, however, that Nisâya lay between Balkh and Marv. The first province Airyanem Vaêgô, or Irân-Vêg, we identify with the mediaeval Arrân (nowadays known as Karabagh).
There must have been some systematical idea in the order followed, though it is not apparent, except in the succession of Sughdha, Môuru, Bakhdhi, Nisâya, Harôyu, Vaêkereta (numbers 2-7), which form one compact group of north-eastern provinces; the last two provinces, Hindu and Rangha (numbers 15-16), are the two limitroph provinces, east and west (Indus and Tigris); and the Rangha brings us back to the first province, Irân-Vêg, whose chief river, the Vanguhi Dâitya, or Aras, springs from the same mountains as the Rangha-Tigris.
The several plagues created by Angra Mainyu to mar the native perfection of Ahura's creations give instructive information on the religious condition of several of the Iranian countries at the time when this Fargard was written. Harât seems to have been the seat of puritan sects that pushed rigorism to the extreme in the law of purification. Sorcery was prevalent in the basin of the Helmend river, and the Paris were powerful in Cabul, which is a Zoroastrian way of saying that the Hindu civilisation prevailed in those parts, which in fact in the two centuries before and after Christ were known as White India, and remained more Indian than Iranian till the Musulman conquest.
1. Ahura Mazda spake unto Spitama[1] Zarathustra, saying:
- ↑ Or Spitamide. Zarathurtra was descended from Spitama at the fifth generation.
