AHT. 11. PAESEE CEREMONIAL OBJECTS CASANOWICZ. V 



is over, the fire will melt the metal in the mountains till it over- 

 pours the whole world and makes it pure. To the righteous it will be 

 like warm milk; to the wicked it will be like molten metal. Sao- 

 shyant then sacrifices the ox Hadhayous, and of his marrow and 

 the juice of the Haoma is prepared the ambrosia which is given to 

 the righteous as the food of immortality. All men become of one 

 speech. Those who died old are restored to the age of forty, and if 

 young to that of fifteen.^ Ahriman and his hordes of evil spirits will 

 he conquered and slain, or driven unresisting into outer darlmess. 

 Hell itself is purified by the molten metal and added to the earth. 

 And in this enlarged world, where there will be no more ice and no 

 more mountains, which had been created by the evil one, men are to 

 be immortal, and to live forever united with their families and rela- 

 tions, but without further offspring, in pure and peaceful bliss.^" 



THE COLLECTION. 



1. Fire urn. — Brass, nickel-plated. The Zoroastrian ritual consists 

 mainly in the tending of the sacred fire and in the offering of Haoma. 

 On account of the former part of the worship the Zoroastriaris are 

 frequently denominated "fire worshipers." The Parsees reject this 

 imputation with indignation. They pay reverence, not worship, to 

 fire as bearing by reason of its brightness, activity, purity, and incor- 

 ruptibility the most perfect resemblance to the nature and perfec- 

 tions of the supreme God, and therefore as his most adequate symbol. 

 All the elements, as the pure creatures of Ahura-Mazda, are invested 

 by the Zoroastrians with sanctity, but fire especially was considered 

 as the earthly form of the heavenly light, the eternal, infinite, divine, 

 the first creature of Ahura-Mazda, and in the Avestan scriptures, 



" Accordins to another version, vegetarians are raised young, and the eaters of flesh as 

 of middle age. 



1" Mohammedan eschatology has borrowed much from the Zoroastrian. The conscience 

 of the departed is in the Mohammedan version personated in a male figiire in place of 

 the female of Zoroaster's system. " To the good a man with beautiful face comes, ele- 

 gantly dressed and perfumed, .and says : ' Be joyful in that which made thee so ; this is 

 the day which was promised thee.' Then the dead person says to him : ' Who art thou, 

 for thy face is perfectly beautiful?' And the man replies: 'I am thy good deeds.' To 

 the wicked a man with a hideous countenance comes, shockingly dressed and of a vile 

 smell, and says : ' Be joyful in that which makes thee miserable, for this is the day which 

 was promised thee.' Then the dead man says: ' Wlio art thou? Thy face is hideous 

 and brings wickedness.' He says : ' I am thy impure deeds.' " The balance (mizan) is 

 held by the angel Gabriel and is so vast in size that its two scales, one of which haugs 

 over paradise and the other over hell, are capacious enough to contain both heaven and 

 earth. The bridge which is laid over hell, and named by the Mohammedans Cirat (prop- 

 erly, road, path), is finer than a hair and sharper than the edge of a razor and beset 

 on each side with briars and hooked thorns. The good will pass with wonderful ease 

 and swiftness, like lightning or the wind, Mohammed leading the way, while the wicked 

 will miss their footing and fall down into hell which is gaping beneath them. (T. P. 

 Hugh, Dictionary of Islam, 1885,. pp. 79, SO, 543, and 544.) The bridge of separation 

 has also a parallel in the log over which the American Indian has to come to get to the 

 happy hunting grounds. If an Indian has been virtuous (that is, brave) the log lets 

 him over, but otherwise he can not pass over it, but slips into tlie foul swamp never 

 to emerge. 



