OUR ARYAN FOREFATHERS 



cattle. Then Ahura-Mazda made a third hab- 

 itat, which was called the high and holy Muru ; 

 but the dark demon now whispered evil reports 

 and stirred up strife, until here, too, life became 

 unendurable, and the beautiful land of Bakhdhi, 

 or Baktria, was created as a fourth home for 

 the children of light. So the warfare went on, 

 until no less than sixteen countries are enumer- 

 ated as successively created and made uncom- 

 fortable. In the last region of all the complaint 

 is again of cold weather and hoar-frost ; but 

 perhaps in comparison with all the other plagues 

 this now seemed endurable. At all events, the 

 account here ends, with the admission that there 

 are also other regions and places besides those 

 described ; as much as to say that we are not 

 here concerned with the history of all mankind, 

 but only with the worshippers of Ahura-Mazda. 

 The book from which this legend is cited is 

 one of the oldest in the literature of the world. 

 It belongs to a more primitive age than the 

 Homeric poems, and may probably be regarded 

 as contemporary with the oldest hymns of the 

 Veda. Written not in the court language of 

 ancient Persia, but in the closely related archaic 

 dialect of Baktria, very much as the ecclesias- 

 tical services of Russia to-day are written in Old 

 Bulgarian, the Zendavesta was, in the time 

 of Darius Hystaspes, the sacred book of the 

 most prominent nation in the world. For eleven 

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