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Gopatsah1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

J. M. Unvala
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Extract

A Mong many mythological beings mentioned in Zoroastrian literature and enumerated by the late Professor Louis Casartelli in his La Philosophie religieuse du Mazdéisme, Paris, 1884, p. 120, Gõpatšōh deserves our special mention. He is the man-bull of the ancient Babylonians, adopted into the mythology of the later Zoroastrian period most probably through the intermediary of the Elamites saturated with Babylonian culture. Gōpatšōh is the name given to him in Pahlavi literature, and is said to be another name for Aγēraθ, son of Pašang and brother of Afrāsiāb, king of Turan. He resides in the country called Sōkapastān or Saukavastān, which is situated between Chinistan and Turkistan (Bundahišn, 29, 5; for the legend of Aγrēraθ, cf. Darmesteter, Zend–Avesta, ii, p. 436, No. 23). Dātistān-i-Dēnīk 90, 4, explains the name Gōpatšāh by “ king of Gōpat”, and says that Gōpat is a country coterminous with Ērān–Vej on the bank of the river Dāitīk.

Type
Papers Contributed
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , October 1929 , pp. 505 - 506
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1929

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References

1 The name is written in Bd. TD. (the Great Bd.), fol. 100, 1.6: dn p t n šāh (ideogr.), i.e. gōpatsāh; d has two diacritical points under it, which indicate a later, though false pronunciation of the name reflected also in Riv. ii, p. 70 as yāvadšāh also BY t. 2, 2, has dn k p t n šāh (ideogr.), i.e. gokpatsah. Gōpat would mean “ the lord of the bull ”, perhaps of the HaoyõŠ–bull, over whom he keeps watch. It seems to me that gōpat is rather a corruption of gōpāo “ having the feet of a bull ”, most probably caused by a Pazand or plene orthography. This reading would suit the description of the mythological being given in MX. 62, 31–6, very well. Later on the real meaning of the word was lost and gōpat was considered to be the name of a country, as in Dd. 90, 4. The probable stages of this corruption are: dn p ddd—dn p ddd d (Av. a)—dn p ddd t—dn p dd t—dn p t—or dn p t n.