Pahlavi Texts, Part II (SBE18), E.W. West, tr. [1882], at sacred-texts.com
1. As to the sixty-third question and reply, that which you ask is thus: Whence was the first creation of mankind, and how was the formation of the original race of men? 2. What issued from Gâyômard 4, and what did it really become; and from what have Mashyâîh and Mashyâyôîh 5 arisen?
3. The reply is this, that Aûharmazd, the all
ruling, produced from the endless light the shape of a fire-priest (âsrûkŏ) whose name was that of Aûharmazd, and its brilliance that of fire; its incombustibility was like that inside the light, and its expansion like the western (khûrbarag) land. 4. And in the shape of the fire-priest was created by him the material existence (stih) that is called man, and for three thousand years 1, when it did not progress and did not eat, it did not speak; likewise, it did not utter, but it thought of, the righteousness of the perfect and true religion, the desire for the pure glorification of the creator.
5. Afterwards, the contentious promise-breaker 2 injured the life of it, and produced a burdensome mortality; and the mortality is clear from the appellation, Gâyômard 3, of the nature produced. 6. The seed which was the essence of the life of the leader (mîrakŏ) of life, who was Gâyômard, flowed forth on his passing away, came on to the earth of the beneficent angel 4, and is preserved in the earth until, through the protection of the angels, a brother and
sister of mankind 1, connected together, have grown from it, have attained to movement and walking upon the earth, and have advanced even to intercourse and also procreation.
7. The ground where the life of Gâyômard departed is gold, and from the other land, where the dissolution of his various members occurred, as many kinds of decorative metals flowed forth it is said 2.
197:4 See Chap. II, 10.
197:5 The same as the Marhayâ and Marhîyôih of Chap. XXXVII, 82.
198:1 This is the second of the four periods of three thousand years of which time is said to be composed (see Chap. XXXVII, 11 n). The 'shape of the fire-priest' is one of the spiritual creations of the first period, in which shape man was created during the second period, and this primeval man became Gâyômard (that is, 'a living mortal') through the persecution of the evil spirit (see § 5) at the commencement of the third period. The first two steps of this creation are not described to the text of the Bundahis known to Europeans.
198:2 The evil spirit, who is said to be the origin of falsehood (see Chap. XXXVII, 17).
198:3 Which means 'the living mortal,' or 'the mortal living one.'
198:4 The female archangel Spendarmad, who has special charge of the earth. Or the phrase may be 'came on to the earth which the beneficent spirit produced.'
199:1 The Mashyâîh and Mashyâyôîh, or man and woman, of § 2, who are said to have grown up, in the course of forty years, connected together in the shape of a plant; but, after a breathing soul had entered them, they became human beings, and fifty. years later they began to be the progenitors of mankind (see Bd. XV, 1-30).
199:2 Zs. X, 2 states that eight kinds of metal arose from the various members of the dead Gâyômard, namely, gold, silver, iron, brass, tin, lead, quicksilver, and adamant.