182 BULLETIN 148, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



After seven visions he was tempted by Angra-Mainyu (Ahriman), 

 the Evil One, who, foreseeing the discomfiture he and his creatures 

 were to suffer at Zoroaster's hands, first sent demon emissaries to 

 kill him, but Zoroaster routed him by reciting the confession of faith, 

 not to speak of rocks as big as houses that he had ready to pelt the 

 devils with, defiantly declaring his purpose to destroy the fiends' 

 creation. Angra-Mainyu thereupon offered him vast possessions and 

 earthly dominion if he renoimced the good religion (daena). But 

 Zoroaster rejects the offer and declares that he will put the devils 

 to flight with the apparatus of worship and the holy words. There- 

 upon the whole host, with cries of terror, precipitately flee down to 

 the world of darkness. 



What with some plausibility can be gathered from Zoroaster's own 

 words and the earliest parts of the Zoroastrian scriptures, is that 

 he was a man of good birth, belonging to the noble family of Spitama, 

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

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

 sition and for years was without effect. 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 70.) 



SACRED LITERATURE OF THE PARSEES 



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. Yasna, the chief liturgical work and the oldest and most sacred 

 part of the Avesta, including as it does the Gathas, 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. YasTits, invocations and hymns to the ancient Iranian divini- 

 ties and heroes. 



4. Khorda Avesta, or Little Avesta, comprising minor liturgical texts, 

 as the Nyaishes and GaJis, 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.** 



" The present Avesta, 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 lost 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 inscribed 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. 



