Weeping in Sun’s temple (2)

Text
Ibn Waḥshīya, Nabatean Agriculture 296:
Thus the idols also wept for Yanbūshādh that night in the clima of Bābil, separately in their temples, the whole night till morning. Towards the end of the night there was a great inundation, with great and heavy thunder and lightning and a great earthquake which extended from Ḥulwān to the bank of Tigris in the region of Binārwāyā on the eastern side of Tigris. When the inundation started, the idols returned to their places; they had stirred somewhat from their places. They caused this inundation as a punishment to people of the clima of Bābil because they had left the body of Yanbūshādh under the open sky on the steppe of Shāmāṣā until the inundation washed his body to wādī al-Aḥfar from where the body was further washed to the sea. Famine and plague befell the clima of Bābil for three months until the living had no time to bury the dead. These are the stories which they have written down and read in their temples after the prayers. Then they weep and lament much. When I join the people in the people, especially in the feast of Tammūz which is in his month and they read his story and weep, I always weep with them, helping them and feeling sympathy with their weeping, but not because I would believe in what they relate. Yet I do believe in the story of Yanbūshādh. When they read his story and weep, I weep with them unlike I weep for Tammūzā. The reason for this is that the time of Yanbūshādh is closer to our own time than the time of Tammūz, and accordingly his story is more reliable and true. It may also be that part of the story of Tammūz is also true, but I do doubt some of the story because his time is so remote from ours.

Source (list of abbreviations)
Ibn Waḥshīya, Nabatean Agriculture 296

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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