¹ The word dāytī is an Avestan loan, literally “law,” and its occurrence in “the Peak of Law,” which functions as the fulcrum of eschatological balance, reflects strong symbolism.

² Tafazzoli, “Činwad Puhl,” 594b.

³ Gignoux, Le Livre d’Ardā Vīrāz, 53, 64-65; Tafazzoli, Mīnūy e Xerad, 25, 27.

⁴ Great Bundahišn here and elsewhere is quoted from Pakzad, Bundahišn; and Skjærvø, “Pahlavi Sade.” In the translations here the English word blade is used in the sense of “broad and flattened part of an instrument or utensil” (Oxford English Dictionary, sub verbo).

⁵ Middle Persian dār could refer to a cutting-edge weapon (see Tafazzoli, “Notes Pehlevies [I],” 89–91), and this corresponds with the description of the bridge being “like a sword” in GBd 30.2. Still, it is noticeable that different forms of the same word (dār, dahra, etc.) are used in Persian and other new Iranian languages in rural regions to indicate an agricultural tool used for cutting crops and grass with a wooden pole attached to a scythe-like blade that, unlike a scythe, is extended along the pole and does not have a curve like a scythe; this makes it much more similar to a ditch-bank blade. If the word had the similar agricultural connotation in Middle Persian, its application in eschatological contexts might be an attempt to resort to the agricultural metaphor ESCHATOLOGICAL DESTINY IS REAPING. This might be influenced by the wrong interpretation of the word činwad as a word meaning a tool for cutting; cp. New Persian (NP) čīdan “to cut, to trim.”

⁶ Mackenzie translated the sentence nūn pad pahnā meh paydāg kū čiyōn pad dranā as “now it appears greater in width than length,” which is the translation of **nūn pad pahnā meh kū pad dranā. There are also other pieces of evidence indicating that the width of Činwad in its largest and ideal form will be equal to its length (see below); this means it will become square, which is an ideal form, and also the form of the world and the stereotype of humankind; cp. GBd 1a.15: Gayōmard … 4 nāy paymānīg bālāy būd pahnāy čiyōn bālāy rāst “Gayōmard … his height was 4 nāys, his width (was) exactly equal to his height;” and GBd 28.3: ōwōn čiyōn gētīy pahnāy abāg dranāy rāst mardōm-iz hamgōnag “Just like the width and length of the world are equal, the same is true for people.”

⁷ Gignoux, Les quatre inscriptions du mage Kirdīr, 85; reading and translation mostly follow MacKenzie, “Kerdir’s Inscription,” 252, §30.

⁸ MP texts reflect the versions of Zoroastrianism believed in and practiced in the Sasanian realm. Out of this region, more significant differences might be found; e.g., on a house-shaped stone coffin (580 CE) of a Sogdian immigrant couple, excavated in Xi’an (Shaanxi Province, China) in 2003, the souls of the couple are depicted crossing Činwad Bridge. The bridge seems to be fixed, most probably out of wood, and had several pillars in the river. The bridge does not seem to have been designed with any way of being reshaped. The demonic monsters under the bridge might represent the hellish state of the river. Going to hell, according to this portrait, occurs by falling in the river under the bridge. For the interpretation and many other interesting details about this sarcophagus, see Grenet et al., “Zoroastrian Scenes on a Newly Discovered Sogdian Tomb,” 273–84; Huang, “Deciphering the Shi Jun Sarcophagus,” 1–18; and Xu, “A Journey Across Many Realms,” 145-65.

⁹ What is called here war ī harburz is mentioned in GBd 30.23 as bālist ī harburz “the highest (point) of Harburz,” which might be a Pahlavi rendering of Avestan taērəm haraiθiiå barəzō “the Peak of the lofty Haraitī” (Yašt 12.25; see Goldman, Rašn Yašt, 42; and Panaino, Walk Through the Iranian Heavens, 73). The Zand of this phrase reads tērag ī harburz, in which tērag might be just the Pahlavicized form of Avestan taēra-. According GBd 9.3a we know that “also other mountains, including … Tērag ī Harburz and Čagād ī Dāytī … have been grown from Harburz” (abārīg kōfīhā az harburz frāz rust estēnd … tērag ī harburz ud čagād ī dāytī …), and based on GBd 9.2 we already know that “Harburz continued to grow for eight hundred years until it was complete: two hundred years to the star station, two hundred years to the moon station, two hundred years to the sun station, and two hundred years to the summit of the heavens” (translation from Agostini and Thrope, Bundahišn, 58). So, the last phase of growth in Harburz must end in the tallest peak, that is Tērag ī Harburz, which reaches the summit of the heavens, which must be Garōdmān “the highest place in heaven.” In other words, whereas Mount Harburz with its chains surrounds earth, its peak, namely tērag ī harburz, which is located in the center of earth (GBd 5B.1; also see Panaino, Walk Through the Iranian Heavens, 73), plays the role of axis mundi in the Iranian myth (Panaino, Walk Through the Iranian Heavens, 85), and it is not far from čagād ī dāytī “Peak of Dāytī,” which is located again in the center of earth. Therefore, it is to be expected that Činwad Bridge will end at tērag ī harburz, and there the righteous people will ascend to the highest level of heaven (by a cosmic ladder; see Tafazzoli, “Notes Pehlevies [I],” 87–89).

¹⁰ The Middle Persian word dagrand was not used just for the duration of time; see Husraw ī Kawādān ud Rēdag-ē, 96: u-š … angustān dagrand, “her … fingers are long” (Azarnouche, Husraw ī Kawādān ud Rēdag-ē, 62).

¹¹ Each nāy equals 10 feet (MacKenzie, Concise Dictionary of Pahlavi, 143), so 27 nāy-s (9 lances × 3 nāy-s) = 270 feet ≈ 82 meters. The width is different in other sources, for example, it is 1 frasang = 4 miles in Mēnōy Xrad 1.123 (Tafazzoli, Mīnūy e Xerad, 25).

¹² See Dēnkard 9 20.3: ahlawān widār nō nēzag pahnāy ēk ēk dagrandīh sē nāy frāxīhēd ud pad druwandān widār čiyōn awestarag tēx bawēd “For the righteous, the width of passage will be widened to nine lances, each lance being 3 nāy-s, and for the wicked, the bridge (will be narrow even to the degree that it) will be like a razor blade.”

¹³ See Tafazzoli, “Notes Pehlevies (II),” 272.

¹⁴ Krech et al., “Metaphors of Religion,” 1.

¹⁵ Lamberg-Karlovsky, “Archaeology and Language,” 149.

¹⁶ Now we know that “the bridge described in detail bears no resemblance to what was excavated,” but it may “have been at Nineveh, and if so, there is no need to try and make sense of it in the context of Babylon. Incidentally, in connection with the water-channelling works Herodotus names the village of Ardericca; the same name comes in a later passage lying 26 miles north of Susa. This would support a location for the waterworks east of the Tigris. If this is so, H[erodotus] would have relied upon a written source for his description of the bridge, which he does not claim to have seen” (Dalley, “Herodotos and Babylon,” columns 525, 531).

¹⁷ How and Wells, in Commentary on Herodotus (145), believed that “these ξύλα were no doubt a sort of drawbridge in the middle, pulled up on both sides.”

¹⁸ A. D. Godley, Herodotus, vol. 1, 231–33.

¹⁹ Huff and Kleiss, “Bridges,” 449a; Rollinger, “Herodotus vii.,” 271b.

²⁰ Huff and Kleiss, “Bridges,” 450a, 51b; Hill, “Engineering,” 763; Safari Aqqalʾe, “Barresī ye Vāže ye Jesr o Tōsīf e Jesr e Baqdād.”

²¹ Thomson and Howard-Johnston, Armenian History attributed to Sebeos, 16, 17, 84, 85, 170, 220; I express my gratitude to Daniel Alford, who drew my attention to this.

²² Saadat, “Weighing the Girl Called Dēn.”

²³ Introducing the scale was already a step toward automating the afterlife judgment process. “Vain is every protest of the individual that he has been dealt with unfairly or that there are mitigating circumstances by which judgment should be postponed or rendered lighter. In a very real sense the judgment is automatic, the foregone conclusion of one’s own personal choices” (Smith and Haddad, Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, 78).

²⁴ Seidenberg and Casey, “Ritual Origin of the Balance.”

²⁵ It is noteworthy that in the Islamic period the science of ingenious devices (ʿilm al-ḥiyal), “Apart from the science of constructing ‘simple machines’ and their combinations, also includes the ‘science of water lifting.’ Exactly this narrower sense was given to ‘mechanics’ in the majority of medieval oriental encyclopedias” (Rozhanskaya and Levinova, “Statics,” 277; see also Hill, “Engineering,” 752–57, 769-84). Donald Hill says that “The earliest machine used by man for irrigation and water supply is the shadūf. It is illustrated as early as 2500 BC in Akkadian reliefs and about 2000 BC in Egypt. It has remained in use until the present day and its application is world-wide, so that it is one of the most successful machines ever invented. Its success is probably due to its simplicity, because it can easily be constructed by the village carpenter using local materials. For fairly low lifts it delivers substantial quantities of water. It consists of a long wooden pole suspended at a fulcrum to a wooden beam supported by columns of wood, stone or brick. At the end of the short arm of the lever is a counterweight made of stone or, in alluvial areas where stone is not available, of clay. The bucket is suspended to the other end by a rope. The operator lowers the bucket into the water and allows it to fill. It is then raised by the action or the counterweight and its contents are discharged into an irrigation ditch or a head tank” (Hill, “Engineering,” 769).

²⁶ Hill, Book of Ingenious Devices, 221.

²⁷ Hill, Book of Ingenious Devices, 21. Although Hill does not provide any evidence for possible Sasanian contributions to the science of ingenious devices in the Islamic period, the prevailing circumstantial evidence appears to support such a conclusion. It is therefore reiterated in the words of distinguished scholars. In his discussion on the renowned throne of Khusraw II, which has been interpreted as a large and automatic representation of an astronomical dial, Antonio Panaino writes, “Within an empire such as the Sasanian, where astrology, astronomy, calendrical sciences, and time in general, were part of courtly practice and noble education, the existence of these marvellous devices should be seriously considered, in particular if we take into account the never-ending rivalry with the Byzantine Empire” (Panaino, “‘Klimova Cup,’” 160). In a recent discussion on the structure of Khusraw II’s throne, Alessia Zubani concludes: “The automatic arrangement, combined with the astral image of Khusraw II, can therefore be considered an active element of his royal propaganda. This imposing throne, whose spectacular features made it a recurring motif in Arab-Persian and Christian European literature, became a model for several mobile seats created a few centuries later, among which the ‘Throne of Solomon’ in the Byzantine context is a major example. Similarities between the installations in Persian and Abbasid throne halls, as well as their use for similar political purposes, suggest that the Sasanian example also served as a model for the caliphs” (Zubani, “De Ctésiphon à Bagdad,” 31; the English translation is provided by the author of the article).

²⁸ Blumenberg, Geistesgeschichte der Technik, 78.

²⁹ Here Dēn means “Zoroastrian authoritative textual tradition.”

³⁰ “It is stated in the Dēn that there is a ridge of the height of a hundred men in the middle of the visible world which is called the Ridge of the Law. The yoke of the scales of Rašn Yazd has one point on the base of the Mountain of Harburz in the northern region and one point on the head of the Mountain of Harburz in the southern region. The middle rests upon the Ridge of the Law. At that central place it is like the edge of a sharp sword, which is nine spears in height, in length and in width” (Bailey, “Greater Bundahišn,” 953). A yoke is a wooden framework joining two oxen, horses, etc., at the neck and enabling them to pull a plough or wagon together.

³¹ Bailey, “Bundahišn,” 236, n7.

³² “1) One says in the Scripture: A peak, which is of the height of a hundred men, in the middle of the world, which they call the peak of the Dâiti, is the fulcrum of the balance of the Yazat Rašnu; one scale is on the base of Mount Alborz in the northern direction, one scale is on the summit of Mount Alborz in the southern direction, and the middle rests upon that peak of the Dâiti. 2) In that middle place, is a floor sharp like the sword, the height, length, and width of which are nine spears” (Anklesaria, Zand-Ākāsīh, 257–58).

³³ “1) It says in the dēn: “A peak in the middle of the world, as tall as the height of one hundred men, which they call the Peak of Dāitī, is the fulcrum of divine Rašn’s scales. One edge stands on the base of Mount Harburz in the north, and the other edge on the peak of Mount Harburz in the south, and the middle stands upon the Peak of Dāitī. 2) In the middle, there is an edge as sharp as a sword that is as high, long, and wide as nine lances (Agostini and Thrope, Bundahišn, 159).

³⁴ “Man sagt in der Religion, daß der Gipfel, der eine Höhe von 100 Männern hat und sich in der Mitte der Welt befindet, den man den Dāiti-Gipfel nennt, der Ort ist, wo sich die Waage des Yazat Rašn befindet. Ein Endteil ist am Fuße des Alburzberges in der nördlichen Richtung und ein Endteil am Kopfe des Alburzberges in der südlichen Richtung, während die Mitte auf dem Dāiti-Gipfel ist. An diesem mittleren Ort findet sich eine Spitze, einem Schwerte gleich, deren Höhe, Länge und Breite neun Speere sind” (Widengren, Iranische Geisteswelt, 177).

³⁵ Bahar, Bundahiš, 129:

گوید به دین که چگادی )هست( یکصد مرد بالای، میان جهان که چگاد دائیتی خوانند؛ )آن( یوغِ ترازویِ رشن ایزد است. تیغهای به بُنِ کوه البرز به سوی اباختر و تیغهای به سر کوه البرز به سوی نیمروز )دارد(؛ بر میانِ آن، چَگادِ دائیتی ایستد. بدان میانه جایْ تیغی تیز، شمشیروار، ایستاده که او را نُه نیزه بالا، درازا و پهنا است.

³⁶ Bahar, Pažūheš-ī dar Asātīr e Īrān, 336:

گوید به دین که چَگادی ]هست[ یکهزار مرد بالای، میان جهان، که چگـاد دائیتی خوانند ]که[ یوغ ترازوی رشن ایزد است. تیغهای به بُنِ کوه البرز به سوی شمال و تیغهای به سَرِ کوه البرز به سوی نیمروز ]دارد[، بر میان آن چگاد دائیتی ایستد. بدان میانه جای، تیغی تیز، شمشیروار ایستد که او را نه نیزه بالای، درازا و پهنا است.

³⁷ Bahar, Bundahiš, 169, n19.

³⁸ Bahar, Pažūheš-ī dar Asātīr e Īrān, 339, n 1. NP shāhīn (lit. “falcon”) is defined in Persian dictionaries as “beam of scales,” but also as “tongue of a balance” (Tabrizi, Burhān i Qātiʾ, sub verbo; Steingass, Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary, sub verbo; Dehkhoda, Loghatnāme, sub verbo). Interestingly, today shāhīn (of a balance) is understood by the Persian speakers mostly as the “tongues of the balance” and even as “fulcrum” in other sorts of balances; for example, as I could observe, in the translation of GBd 30.1, when they see the phrase “the Peak of Dāytī as the shāhīn of Rašn’s balance,” they understand the word shāhīn as “fulcrum.”

³⁹ Bahar, Pažūheš-ī dar Asātīr e Īrān, 141:

چگادی یکهزارمردبالا در میان جهان است که چگاد دائیتی خوانند، یوغ ترازوی رشن را تیغی به بُنِ کوه البرز در سوی اباختر )= شمال( و تیغی به سر کوه البرز در سوی نیمروز )= جنوب( آفریده شد. بر میان آن، چگادِ دائیتی ایستد.

⁴⁰ In his commentary on this translation, Bahār employed the New Persian words shāne and shāhīn respectively for “beam” and “fulcrum.” Bahār’s understanding of the beam of Rašn’s scale as a mountain range stretching from north to south might have led to an inaccuracy in his translation. He translated ǰuγ ī tarāzūg … mayān abar ān Čagād ī Dāytī estēd as “the summit called Dāytī stands on the middle of the beam of the scale.” It appears that the text suggests that the central point of an object is positioned at (abar “over, on”) the summit, which is referred to as Dāytī. Consequently, it is not feasible to liken the beam of scale to a mountain range.

⁴¹ Plate: see contemporary NP tīghe “thin wall, partition; microscope slide”; also see the similar semantic coincidence although in the opposite direction in English blade “leaf of a herb or plant” > “broad and flattened part of an instrument or utensil” > “the thin cutting part of a sword, chisel, knife, etc.” > “edged weapon” (Oxford English Dictionary, sub verbo). Rod: Cp. Early New Persian (ENP) sitēγ “straight and tall; lofty peak” and its variant sitēx, which could be cognate with tēx, and both could be from Indo-European (IE) *(s)tei̯g- “be pointed.” From sitēx we also have ENP sēx “roasting-spit, skewer” (Qaemmaqami, “Naqd e Farhang e Rīšešenāxtī ye Zabān e Fārsī,” 167). Mayrhofer thought that from IE *(s)tei̯g- we have “im Iir. offenbar keine *s-haltigen Formen (ganz unsicher stegá-)” (Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen, vol. 1, 669); however, it seems that the Sogdian ʾstʾyg “upright, erect” (Gharib, Sogdian Dictionary, 67a, n 1695) and NP sitēγ “straight and tall; lofty peak” may be two candidates. Also cp. Armenian tēg “lance, spear” (< Iranian), which had a similar semantic shift (maybe in the very Armenian) from the “Spitze der Lanze (nizak) im Unterschied vom Schaft (bun)” (Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik, 253, n 651).

⁴² In Saadat, “Weighing the Girl Called Dēn,” I demonstrated that after death, to determine one’s eschatological destiny, a female figure called Dēn, who is the embodied form of the person’s deeds, is weighed. In a different article, I will discuss that in other narratives the deeds of a person may be embodied not just as a female figure, but rather as several different figures, including the form of a cow and the form of a garden.

⁴³ In the previous lines, the form of a cow, the form of a maiden, and the form of a garden (gāw kerb … kanīg kerb … bōyestān kerb) are mentioned as the manifestations of the person’s deeds, who will come to meet the soul. Then the text continues with section 21. Therefore, these forms must be (among) the ones who will conduct the soul further.

⁴⁴ Terry L. Koglin started the chapter “Bascule Bridges” as follows: “The word bascule is French for ‘seesaw.’ The word was applied to a balanced bridge that pivoted on a horizontal axis at a right angle to its longitudinal centerline. Bascule strictly applies only to those bridges that consist of a single moving element, which pivots about a horizontal line near its center of gravity so that the weight on one side of the pivot axis nearly balances the weight on the other side” (Koglin, Movable Bridge Engineering, 33). Elsewhere in the book, Koglin wrote, “Earlier than the Middle Ages, there is evidence of bascule-type structures built in Egypt as early as the fourteenth century B.C. These were movable bridges across moats that provided protection from marauding armies or robbers” (ibid., 3).

⁴⁵ Gignoux, Les quatre inscriptions du mage Kirdīr, 86; MacKenzie, “Kerdir’s Inscription,” 236, 253, §31.

⁴⁶ Indeed, the extant texts do not explicitly mention either of the pans; however, the presence of the term “balance scale” (tarāzūg), rather than a simple beam, suggests the need for a structure that incorporates an additional element, beyond a mere beam, which can only be the pan. Another indication of the pan is that, as described, the cow and the garden will likely remain there (in the pan) and will not accompany the soul on its journey toward Činwad Bridge on the beam.

⁴⁷ This explanatory phrase makes it difficult to translate pahlūg as “(in geometry:) side” and was-pahlūg as “polygon,” although pahlū has this meaning in New Persian. Apparently, in this context, MP pušt also refers to the edges. For the translation “surface”/”side,” cp. similar meanings for New Persian pusht (Anvari, Farhang e Bozorg e Sokhan, sub verbo).

⁴⁸ Quoted from Corpus Avesticum Berolinense.

⁴⁹ The verb wizīhēnēd, however it should be read, is used in apposition with tarist harburz “over (the mountain range) Harburz,” and translates from Avestan āsənaoiti “raises,” which makes it difficult to translate it as merely “separates.”