PARSES WEDDING. 23 



commentary, and Avesta — original or sacred text) to 

 Zoroaster, the spiritual head of the ancient Persians. 

 His doctrine is founded on the worship of the Sun 

 — "Fire," its emblems on earth — as representing the 

 creative and preserving elements, the source of all 

 organic life. The earliest fragments of the Avesta, 

 the five Gathas, his followers believe to have been 

 composed fifteen hundred years B.C., and the whole 

 collected about a thousand years later, thus accord- 

 ing closely with Buddha's appearance in India (as 

 also with a great historical event, the capture of 

 Babylon by Cyrus, B.C. 538, which foreshadowed the 

 period of the most glorious dynasty in Persian 

 history, and which came to an end when two cen- 

 turies later Alexander the Great conquered Persia). 



One afternoon I was asked to witness the curious 

 ceremony of a Parsee wedding, and a very grand and 

 costly afiair it was to be. On reaching the quarter 

 inhabited by these so-called " Fire worshipj)ers," I 

 found the entire street lined with men and women 

 in their festive attire, the former in white, and 

 the latter in gay-coloured silks, and covered with 

 jewellery. The inside of the parental house, the 

 bridegroom's father's, where the company assembled, 

 was crowded to excess with relations and friends of 

 the betrothed couple ; and here were exhibited the 



