this purpose he has to obtain the consent of the first, and furnish her alimony.13 The Avesta is extremely careful of the conjugal relation and denounces all vices which tend to impair its sanctity or disturb its harmony, with a severity extended to no other offences. Even acts which our lax morality whitewashes with the euphemism of youthful indiscretion, are, to the Zoroastrian, sins of a very grave character. Scores of citations to this effect might be given from the Vendidad, but that they may be found almost anywhere. Bigamy, except in the case just mentioned, is unlawful.44

The duties enjoined by the Zend religion are numerous and important; and its precepts, by a liberal interpretation, are easily made to embrace all the relations and events of life. The daily existence of the Mazdayasna, like that of the primitive Christian, is represented as a warfare. He is to destroy the works of the Evil One and combat his hosts. in whatever shape they may present themselves. He is to wrestle not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and the spiritual rulers and servants of darkness. In this daily conflict the arm of one man is weak, and he has every moment need of help from on high, to be procured through the medium of prayer. Prayer is his "vital breath," "his native air," the inseparable accompaniment of almost every act. Awaking with the first crowing of the cock, he rises from his couch with prayer, his morning ablutions and dressing are accompanied with many prayers, he washes and prays before every meal, and at night, after carefully reviewing all the actions of the day, to see if he had sinned in thought, word, or deed, he retires to rest with prayer.45 There are besides special prayers for particular days and for particular hours of every day. There are prayers to be repeated on sneezing, on paring the nails or cutting the hair, and for a number of other acts that need not be specified;-on approaching fire or water, or seeing an excellent or beautiful object.46 There are prayers to make a refractory wife docile, and prayers to make one who has run away return to her home; 47 and all this aside from the public ordinances of religion. Moreover the Parsee, in his worship, professes to unite his prayers with those of all the faithful that are, or were, or shall be 43 Spiegel's Avesta ii. Einleit. xxvi., Parsees 90. 45 Spiegel's Av ii. Einleit. 1. 46 Ibid. 47 Anquetil's Zendav. ii. 139. 2

VOL. XVIII.

44 Ibid.

hereafter; for the righteousness of all constitutes one common fund, from which every member draws profit alike,48 -a notion that was anciently very widely spread, if it is not yet. The prayers for all these various occasions are of a very stereotyped character, the same ones being often deemed appropriate to almost every occasion. Some are very ancient, the Gâthâs, and supposed to possess extraordinary sanctity and efficacy. One in particular, the Ahuna Vairya is called the Word created by Ormazd before the heaven and the earth, the fire and the water 49: it is equal in worth to a hundred other Gâthâs, and Paradise is promised to him who shall recite it without mistake.50

But all these daily and hourly prayers are to be accompanied by their appropriate fruit of good works. A pious, but idle, contemplation or a barren holiness finds no favor. Each man must take his place in society, perform its duties, and bear a share of its burdens. He is to wage war against the kingdom of darkness by destroying, as far as possible, whatever is injurious, and increasing what is good and useful. It is a religious duty to destroy noxious creatures, remove nuisances, drain and reclaim marshes and irrigate parched land. The deevs are said to find no shelter in a house filled with the fruits of industry 52; and it is declared that he who cultivates the earth in uprightness, does a work of as much merit as if he had celebrated ten thousand liturgies.53 The door of the Mazdayasna should ever open to the knock of the traveller and the stranger, and the poor have a claim to share in his abundance. But fasting and pennance are forbidden, as profiting no one.55 Cruelty to, or neglect of, animals is strictly inhibited, and even the wanton injury of useful trees; for as every creature, not noxious, is under the protection of a celestial spirit and is part of the good creation, any wrong done to it is an offence against its angelic guardian. Herodotus remarked that the Persian youth were carefully taught three things,-to ride, to draw the bow, and to speak the truth.57 If there is one virtue more than any other enjoined by all the authorities, from the solemn memorial of Darius on the rock of

48 Parsees 254.

49 Yasna xix. 5. 50 Id. xix. 10. 51 Vd. xiv. 9, xviii. 144, iii. throughout. 52 Id. iii. 109. 53 Id. iii. 99. 54 Patet of Iran, Sadder p: xxi., xxiii.

56 Id. xxv.

56 Patet of Iran.

57 Lib. i. 136.

Behistun down to the latest commentary and pamphlet of the sect, it is veracity. In nothing do Christians commit a greater error or a greater wrong than when they would arrogate to themselves a monoply of all the morals of the world. Morality is the common property of mankind, differing widely indeed under different degrees and types of civilization, but always present in some form; and the Parsees, we think, may fairly be called a moral people. We have nowhere met in their books with the golden rule of Confucius and of Christ; not that the ideas seem to be wanting, but that they have not been so distinctly and beautifully expressed. Admirable moral precepts are not wanting. Thus it is forbidden to requite evil for evil 58; and it is out of place to inquire whether such fine sentiments are always reduced to practice until we answer the nearer question if Christians always practice theirs. Nor is it a mere outward eye service that is required; but the purity of conduct so ceaselessly enjoined is to be accompanied by purity of speech, springing from an equal purity of thought. Yet as no human care can fulfil all righteousness, some means of expiation was necessary; and this was found in the performance of meritorious works, in order that, when fairly tested by the divine balance, the good actions of each individual might as far as possible outweigh his transgressions.

It is in the hour and article of death that religion usually asserts it chief supremacy; and we would here make a remark in reference to Magism which each reader is at liberty to carry out and apply to other systems as far as he thinks the facts will warrant. The remark is this, that while the reputed Zoroaster has, in reference to the practical affairs of daily life, often shown a clear perception, sound judgment, and statesman-like sagacity, the ceremonies and observances, strictly religious, attributed to him are superstitious, silly, and sometimes hardly decent. This is one of the thousand examples of the sacred intelligence being far behind the secular. We proceed, then, to consider with what consolations and solemnities this religion surrounds the death-beds of its votaries. When the Mazdayasna is seen to be near his latter end, prayers are recited in his hearing, some of which are prescribed in the Yasna, and others appear to be later additions. As soon as life is ex

58 Patet of Iran.

tinct the Drukhs Nasús, or demon of destruction, or of decomposition, coming from the region of the North in the form of a carrion-fly, alights upon the body; but to prevent this a dog is brought into the chamber and caused to look upon the corpse,50 for the eye of the dog has the power to drive away evil spirits. And now that the breath is out, what shall be done with the body? It is unclean, and all who touch it become unclean. To bury it would defile the earth, to burn it would pollute the fire, and to sink it in the sea would contaminate the water. In each house, or at least in each village, there should be three catas prepared for the temporary reception of the dead. These are low

structures of stone or tiles, adapted to different ages, for they have a Procrustean quality, and must not be much larger or smaller than necessary.60 Here the body lies until the necessary preparations are made for the funeral, and is covered for the time with an old cloth, for it is strictly forbidden to employ the smallest shred of new material for such a purpose.61 Those who have occasion to lift the corpse must have on their hands mittens made of old rags If the weather is favorable and the death did not occur at too late an hour, the funeral takes place the same day. In stormy weather it may be deferred even for a month.63 When all is ready, and the friends are assembled, two priests recite a multitude of prayers and selections from the Avesta, which are not made more edifiying by the circumstance that they are in languages wholly unknown to the auditory, if not to the officiating clergy. The dog is introduced a second time to look on the body. The bearers then place the corpse upon an iron bier and proceed with it to the dokhma, or tower of silence, followed by the friends, until within ninety paces of the gate. At the entrance of the dokhma the ceremony with the dog is repeated for the third and last time, the body is taken in and laid on its back, but so as not to touch any other corpse, securely fastened, and left without any covering-if we understand the passage correctly,-and exposed to be devoured by the fowls of the air and the beasts of the wilderness. ("Zwei Männer sollen ihn nehmen, reine und kräftige. Nackt und ohne

59 Spiegel's Avesta ii. Einleitung xxxiii., Vd. viii. 120.

60 V d. v. 36.

61 Id. v. 172, v. ii. 52, viii. 65, Sadder P. xii. 62 Spiegel's Avesta ii. Einleitung xxxiii. 63 Vd, v. 42.

Kleider auf Ziegeln, Stein oder Mörtel hin zum Kata. Sie sollen ihn auf dieser Erde niederlegen. Wo am meisten auf ihn aufmerksam werden fleischfressende Hunde und fleischfressende Vögel." 64) On this last point, so startling to us, the authorities are numerous, explicit, and unanimous.65 The dokhma is usually placed on the top of some high, barren hill, is a round tower of variable height, without any roof, and with generally a single narrow entrance on the east side. The floor is a bed of cement two or three inches thick and several feet higher than the ground outside. In the centre is a pit, covered with an iron grating, into which the bones are annually collected. Chardin relates that there was in his time a cemetery, half a league from Ispahan, consisting of a round tower thirty-five feet high, without any door-way. Here the Guebres de

posited their dead by means of a ladder, and left them to be devoured by the crows, which were seen in large numbers about the place. Such towers exist throughout India wherever the Parsees are numerous.

66

The very road that the funeral procession followed has now been defiled by their use, and is to be purified and made fit for the purposes of ordinary travel by leading over it three times a yellow dog with four eyes,"-that is, we presume, having, like the Scotch colley, two spots over the eyes-" or a white dog with yellow ears." The bearers, on returning from the dokhma have also to undergo purification, and their mittens are buried. All the proceedings are, of course, accompanied by continuous recitation of prayers; and alms are given to the poor or to the priests, for the benefit of the deceased. The first three days the relatives perform a number of religious serviecs in behalf of the departed soul, and during this time they cook no food; for immediately on the death of a man or a dog the fire and all sacred utensils are to be carried out of the house and are forbidden to be returned under nine days in winter and a month in summer.67 According to some accounts the soul lingers the first day about the chamber of death, the second around the cata, or place of temporary deposit, and the third at the dokhma.68 It is said to be at first as helpless

64 Vendidad viii. 25.

65 Id. iii. 66, v. 128, vi, 94. Horodot. i. 140. Strabo xv. Agathias ii. p. 60. Parsees 97. 66 Vd. viii. 41. 67 Vd. viii. 130. is Spiegel's Avesta ii. Einleitung xxxix.