§ 4. The Legal group contains:—
- The Nîkatûm (Dk. VIII, 16);
- The Ganbâ-sar-nigat (Dk. VIII, 21);
- The Hûspâram (Dk. VIII, 28);
- The Sakâtûm (Dk. VIII, 38);
- The Vendîdâd (Dk. VIII, 44);
- The Kitradât (Dk. VIII, 13);
- The Bakân Yast (Dk. VIII, 15).
Only the first five of these Nasks are strictly legal; the last two deal with cosmogony and mythology.
Of those five legal Nasks, one has been preserved in its entirety, the Vendîdâd[1] The Nîkatûm, the Ganbâ-sar-nigat and the Sakâtûm are represented by a few fragments. An important section of the Hûspâram has been preserved, in text and translation, in the Pahlavi Erpatistân and Nîrangistân[2].
The Kitradât, which gives an historical account of mankind and Iran from the creation of the world till the advent of Zoroaster, has been indirectly preserved in part of the Bundahis and in the Shâhnâma.
The Bakân Yast was a collection of prayers in honour of the several Yazatas. From that Nask are derived sixteen of our Yasts, to which may be added the Hôm Yast (Yasna IX-XI) and the Srôsh Yast (Yasna LVII).
§ 5. The third group of Nasks, the Hadhamãthra, is the least known and the least well preserved. It contained:—
- The Dâmdât (Dk. VIII, 5);
- The Nâtar (Dk. VIII, 6);
- The Pâgag (Dk. VIII, 7);
- The Rat-dât-îtag (Dk. VIII, 8);
- The Baris (Dk. VIII, 9) ;
- The Kaskîsrav (Dk. VIII, 10);
- The Vîstâsp-sâst (Dk. VIII, 11).
The Dâmdât was the Zoroastrian Genesis; the cosmogonic part of the Bundahis is derived from it. There remains one Zend fragment of it[3].
