ANCIENT RELIGION OF THE PERSIANS. 
567 
find how rapidly that simplicity became magnificence, how soon 
the images of men usurped the altars of God. The Desatir, a 
very ancient Pehlivi work, and the Dabistan , compiled from the 
old Gueber writers, give accounts to support the conclusions we 
may draw from Xenophon and others, to the fact of such early 
changes. We learn that the primeval religion in Persia was 
the worship of the Great First Cause, typified in the solar orb ; 
and that he was adored in the open air, from an idea that any 
human temple would have seemed to exclude the Deity. Burnt 
sacrifices could hardly be otherwise than open to a space whence 
the flame of the pyre might freely ascend; but some altar 
must always have been demanded; some spot distinguished 
from the common rock or earth, on which the holy offering was 
to be laid; therefore, whether it were a mere platform of 
marble, or an elevation of stones, it mattered not; the shape 
was nothing ; such an appropriated place, sanctified by its use, 
was an altar, to be recurred to again and again for the same 
purposes of worship. The simplest principles and rites of the 
Mithratic religion, appear to have prevailed in Persia till the 
Assyrian conquerors (long previous to the time of Cyrus) over¬ 
ran the country, and encumbered it, first with the polytheism 
of the moon and stars, and secondly with a train of graven 
images. The earliest native annals extant, some of which I 
have just named, notice these changes from their primitive 
faiths. After the pure ages of the Mah-abad kings, and a 
grievous interregnum, when all sorts of anarchy broke loose, 
they tell us, that a Distributor of Justice appeared in the person 
of Kaiamurs, who founded a new royal line, and lived in all ways 
according to the precepts of their first prophet, the holy Mah- 
abad. But Houshong, the son and successor of the Distributor 
