EASTERN DOGS IN EARLY TIMES 



importance to man in those early days. " The dog, O Spitama 

 Zarathustra ! I, Ahura Mazda, have made, self-clothed and 

 self-shod, watchful, wakeful, and sharp-toothed, born to take 

 his food from man and to watch over man's goods. I, 

 Ahura Mazda, have made the dog strong of body against the 

 evil-doer and watchful over your goods, when he is of sound 

 mind. If those two dogs of mine, the shepherd's dog and 

 the house-dog, pass by the house of any of my faithful 

 people, let them never be kept away from it. For no house 

 could subsist on the earth made by Ahura, but for those two 

 dogs of mine, the shepherd's dog and the house dog." 

 The sacred writer lays down special injunctions for the 

 breeding of dogs, the care of young dogs, and for the general 

 treatment of the race. " If the bones stick in the dog's teeth 

 or stop in his throat, or if the hot food burn his mouth or his 

 tongue, so that mischief follows therefrom, and the dog dies, 

 this is a sin that makes a man a Peshotanu." * The reasons 

 for which the canine race has the characters of a priest, a 

 warrior, a husbandman, a strolling singer, a thief, a wild 

 beast, a courtezan, and a child are explained at length. The 

 holy writer explains that at death a dog's ghost passes to the 

 spring of the waters and that there, out of every thousand 

 males and every thousand females are formed a male and 

 female water-dog. To each of the water-dogs, the holiest of 

 all dogs, was ascribed an extraordinary measure of sanctity. 

 So extravagant was the penalty allotted on paper by the 

 Zoroastrians for the murder of a water-dog that it has been 

 doubted whether their legislation ever existed as real and 

 living law. The penalties imposed for such a murder in- 

 cluded the infliction of twenty thousand stripes, the carrying 

 of a similar number of loads of wood, the killing of ten 

 thousand snakes, ten thousand cats, ten thousand tortoises, 



* Zend Avesta, " Sacred Books of the East," vol. iv, pp. 160, 163, 173. 



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