188 BULLETIN 148, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



in which she bathes, will appear, and all the dead will be raised, 

 their bodies being reconstituted of their original materials. The 

 risen dead will be assembled in one place and will know one another; 

 the deeds of all will be manifest. Then the righteous and the wicked 

 will be separated, the former going to heaven, while the latter are 

 cast into hell to be punished in the body for three days, certain mon- 

 sters of iniquity being subjected to exemplary sufferings. When this 

 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 40, and if 

 young to that of 15.^° Ahriman and his hordes of evil spirits will 

 be conquered and slain, or driven unresisting into outer darkness. 

 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.^^ 



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 Zoroastrians 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 m^ost adequate symbol. 



M According to another version, vegetarians are raised young, and the eaters of flesh as of middle age. 



5' Mohammedan eschatology has borrowed much from the Zoroastrian. The conscience of the departed 

 is in the Mohammedan version personated in a male figure in place of the female of Zoroaster's system. 

 "To the good a man with beautiful face comes, elegantly 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 thj^ 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: 'Who art thou? Thy face is hideous and brings wickedness.' Ue 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 hangs 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 (properly, 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. Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, 1885, pp. 79, 80, 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 the foul swamp never to emerge. 



