All Living Beings, Great and Small: From Zoroastrianism’s Bundahishn, Part 1 of 2

Today, we are excited to present excerpts from Chapter 14 of the Bundahishn, where we are reminded of the many different wondrous species of animal-people created on Earth.

“On the nature of the five classes of creatures it says in revelation, that, when the primeval ox passed away, there where the marrow came out grain grew up, of fifty and five species, and twelve species of medicinal plants grew; as it says, that out of the marrow is every separate creature, every single thing whose lodgment is in the marrow. From the horns arose peas, from the nose the leek, from the blood the grapevine, […] from the lungs the rue-like herbs, from the middle of the heart thyme for keeping away stench, and every one of the others as revealed in the Avesta.

The seed of the ox was carried up to the Moon station; there it was thoroughly purified and produced the manifold species of creatures. First, two oxen, one male and one female, and, afterwards, one pair of every single species was let go into the Earth, and was discernible in Aîrân-vêg [land] for a Hâsar (‘mile’), which is like a Parasang (‘league’); as it says, that, on account of the valuableness of the ox, it was created twice, one time as an ox, and one time as the manifold species of creatures. [Thirty] days and nights they were without eating, and first water and afterwards herbage were devoured by them. And, afterwards, the three classes of creatures were produced therefrom, as it says that first were [tame], [those who are beastly]. […] the second created were [the birds which are not cade], which are wide-travellers […]; the third created were those dwelling in the water. […]”

“As they say that the bat is created of three races, the race of the dog, the bird, and the musk animal; for it flies like a bird, has many teeth like a dog, and is dwelling in holes like a musk-rat. These hundred and ten species of birds are distributed into eight groups, mostly as scattered about as when a man scatters seed, and drops the seed in his fingers to the ground, large, middling, and small. [Twelfth], fish were created of ten species […] Afterwards, within each species, species within species are created, so the total is two hundred and [sixty-two] species. […]”