The Zoroastrian Vendidad has 22 fargards, or chapters. The title Vendidad comes from the Avestan Vīdēvdād, meaning roughly “Law repudiating the demons,” and the text is primarily concerned with religious law, ritual purity, morality, and protection from spiritual pollution.
The Vendidad is one of the major surviving divisions of the Avesta. Its chapters are traditionally called fargards, a term meaning a larger section or division. The first chapter presents a creation account in which Ahura Mazda names the lands he created and Angra Mainyu introduces destructive counter-creations. Other chapters discuss purity rules, corpse disposal, bodily contamination, agriculture, sin, punishment, and ritual procedures.
The received text is numbered through fargard 22, although its transmission is complicated. Chapter 12 is missing from the standard textual sequence, which jumps from 11 to 13; some manuscripts contain a later replacement chapter 12. This gap does not change the conventional total of 22 numbered fargards.
The final three fargards, 20 through 22, focus particularly on healing, disease, medicinal plants, and the struggle against illnesses created by the evil power.