AET. 11. PAESEE CEREMOIs^IAL OBJECTS CASANOWICZ. 6 



and pure niitiire, who arose as a prophet and reformer of the old 

 religion of the Iranians. At first his preaching met with much oppo- 

 sition and for years was without eilect. But at last he succeeded in 

 winning the king Hystaspes ( Vishtap, Gushtap, not to be confounded 

 with Hystaspes, the father of Darius) for his teaching, and with 

 his aid converted by force in religious warfare the whole kingdom. 

 At the age of 77 the aged warrior-prophet fell in one of these religious 

 wars, while fighting against the fierce Turanians— says tradition. 

 (Plate 1.) 



TUB .SACRED LITERATURE OF THE PARSEBS. 



The oldest and original Zoroastrian literature goes under the gen- 

 eral name of Avesta or Zend Avesta, which is rendered, " text " or 

 " law " and commentary. It consists of the following divisions : 



1. Yas?ia, the chief liturgical work and the oldest and most sacred 

 part of the Avesta, including as it does the 6-athas, hymns or psalms 

 composed in an older dialect, some of which may have been com- 

 posed by Zoroaster himself. 



2. Visparad, containing minor litanies, invocations to the various 

 chiefs of the spiritual and terrestrial creation. 



3. Yashfs, invocations and hymns to the ancient Iranian divini- 

 ties and heroes. 



4. Khorcla Avesta, or Little Avesta, comprising minor liturgical 

 texts, as the Nyaishes and Gahs, or the five daily prayers, the 

 Afringans, or benedictions, etc., a kind of extract from the Avesta 

 for laymen. 



5. Vendidad, a code of religious and civil laws and precepts, a 

 kind of Zoroastrian Pentateuch.^ 



Besides the Avesta scriptures, the language of which is akin to 

 Sanskrit, the Parsee religious literature includes many works of a 

 later date written in other languages, chiefly in Pahlavi. Among 

 these are the Dinkard, the Bundahish, the historical account of the 

 reformer-king Ardeshir, the vision of Arda Viraf in his journey 

 through heaven and hell, a crude forerunner of Dante, and his 

 Divina Commedia, etc. 



ZOKOASTRIAN THEOLOGY. 



The supreme figure in Zoroastrianism is Ormuzd {Ahura-M azda, 

 "Wise Spirit," properly "Lord Wisdom"), the all- wise Lord, the 

 God, who made heaven and earth and all that is therein, who gov- 



sThe present Avestti. which equals perhaps one-tenth of the Bible in extent, is believed 

 to be but a small remnant of the original Zoroastrian sacred literature which was lor.t 

 during the invasions of Persia by Alexander the Great (330 B. C.) and the Arabs 

 (641 A. D.). According to the Arabian chronicler Tabari (died 923 A. D.) the Persian 

 sacred scriptures were ir.scribed on 12,000 cowhides, and Hermippus, a Greek philosopher 

 of the third century B. C, credits Zoroaster with the composition of 2,000,000 verses. 



