The bride answers:
Priestly master of the feast:
THE YASNA.
The word Yasna means worship including sacrifice. This was the principal liturgy of the Zarathuśtrians, in which confession, invocation, prayer, exhortation and praise are all combined. The Gāthas are sung in the middle of it and in the Vendīdad Sadah; the Visparad is interpolated within it. Like other compositions of its kind, it is largely made up of the fragments of different ages and modes of composition. We have no reason to suppose that the Yasna existed in its present form in the earlier periods of Zarathuśtranism, but the fragments of which it is composed, may, some of them, reach back to that era, and even its present arrangement is comparatively early in the history of Mazdean literature. The following extracts have been chosen as representing the finest specimens of poetic fervor to be found in the Yasna:
COMMENCEMENT OF THE SACRIFICE.
The sacrifice is long continued, and the gods are again approached with interminable ritual, and the naming of the objects of propitiation; the offerings are then made to each of the gods, the fire of earth receiving especial attention, as well as the stars of heaven and all the Bountiful Immortals.
At each presentation of the offering by the priest, the object of propitiation is named. There are invocations and dedications almost without number, Zarathuśtra being also mentioned as an object of worship.
COMMENTARY ON THE FORMULAS.
This commentary is written in the Zend language, and is valuable as a specimen of early exegesis. Zarathuśtra is here represented as holding a conversation with Ahūra Mazda, and in reply to his questions Ahūra says: “Whoever in this world of mine shall mentally recall a portion of the Ahuna-vairya (formulas), and having thus recalled it, shall undertone it, and then utter it aloud; whoever shall worship thus, then even with threefold safety and speed I will bring his soul over the bridge of Kinvaḍ (Chinvat). I who am Ahūra Mazda will help him to pass over it to heaven, the best life, and to the lights of heaven.”
“And whoever, O Zarathuśtra, while undertoning the parts of the Ahuna-vairya, takes aught therefrom, I who am Ahūra Mazda will draw his soul off from the better world; yea, so far will I withdraw it as the earth is large and wide.
“And this word is the most emphatic of the words which have ever been pronounced, or which are now spoken, or which shall be spoken in the future, for this utterance is of such a nature that if all the living world should learn it, and learning, hold fast by it, they would be redeemed from their mortality.”[182]
THE YASNA HAPTANG-HĀITA.
This Yasna of the “Seven Chapters” appears to rank next in antiquity to the Gāthas, but the tone is considerably changed, although the dialect remains the same. We have here a stronger personification of the Bountiful Immortals, while fire is still worshipped; also the earth and grass. We find here praise to Ahūra and the Immortals, to fire, to the creation, to the earth and to sacred waters. The sacrifice to the “Soul of the Kine” is also given, and the sacrifices to both earth and heaven, to the stormy wind that Mazda made, also to the peaks of the beautiful mountain.
“And we worship the Good Mind and the spirits of the saints. And we sacrifice to the fish of fifty-five fins, and to the Unicorn which stands in Vourūkasha, and to the sea where he stands, and to the Haoma, golden flowered, growing on the heights. We sacrifice to Haoma, that driveth death afar, and to the flood streams of the waters, and to the great flight of the birds, and to the approach of the Fire-priests as they approach us from afar,[183] and seek to gain the provinces and spread the ritual law.”[184]
The Yasna also includes several Yaśts, or hymns of praise, some of which contain poetry as well as praise. As Sraosha is the only divinity of the later groups mentioned in the first four Gāthas, the Yaśt which is dedicated to him appears to rank in antiquity next to those fragments which are found in the Gāthic dialect. The name of Sraosha appears still to retain its meaning as the abstract quality of obedience although it is personified.
THE SRAŌSHA YAŚT.
THE YASNA CONCLUDING.
This Yasna, having been composed long after the supposed time of Zarathuśtra, can hardly be genuine in its present shape. It may, however, be an elaboration of an earlier document.
“Frashaośtra the holy, asked the saintly Zarathuśtra, ‘What is, in very truth, the memorized recital of the rites? What is the completed delivery of the Gāthas?’”
“Zarathuśtra said, ‘We worship Ahūra Mazda with our sacrifice as the holy lord of the ritual order, and we sacrifice to Zarathuśtra likewise as the holy lord of the ritual order, and we sacrifice to the Fravisha of Zarathuśtra, the saint.
‘And we sacrifice to the Bountiful Immortals, the guardians of the saints, and we sacrifice to all the good, heroic and bounteous Fravishas of the saints.... And we worship all the five Gāthas, the holy ones and the entire Yasna, and the sounding of its chants.
‘And we sacrifice to all the springs of water and to the water streams as well, and to growing plants and forest trees, and to the entire land and heaven, and to all the stars, and to the moon and sun, even to all the lights without beginning....
‘We sacrifice to the active man and to the man of good intent, for the hindrance of darkness, of wasting of the strength and life, and to health and healing.
‘We sacrifice to the Yasna’s ending words, and to them which end the Gāthas, and we sacrifice to the bounteous hymns themselves, which rule in the ritual course, the holy ones....
‘And we sacrifice to the souls of the dead which are the Fravishas of the saints, and we sacrifice to that lofty Lord who is Ahūra Mazda himself.’”
CHAPTER VII.
TEACHINGS OF THE ZEND-AVESTA, CONCLUDED.
THE VENDĪDAD—FARGARD II—THE VARA OF YIMA—THE LAWS OF PURIFICATION—DISPOSITION OF THE DEAD—PUNISHMENTS—THE PLACE OF REWARD—THE VISPARAD—TEACHING OF THE MODERN PĀRSĪS.
This portion of the Zend-Avesta is also a collection of fragments, although the Pārsī tradition claims that it has been preserved entire. The Vendīdad has often been called the book of the laws of the Pārsīs, but the greater portion of the rules here given pertain to the laws of purification. The first two chapters deal largely with mythical matter, and are remnants of an old epic and cosmogonic literature—the first dealing with the creation of Ahūra and the marring of his work by the evil principle, and the second treating of Yima as the founder of civilization. Three chapters of a mythical nature about the origin of medicine are placed at the end of the book, and the nineteenth Fargard or section treats of the revelation of the law by Ahūra to Zarathuśtra. The other seventeen chapters deal largely with observances and ceremonies, although mythical fragments are occasionally met with, which have more or less connection with the text, many of them, perhaps, being interpolations of a later date. About eight chapters[186] are devoted to the impurity of the dead and the method of dispelling it; this subject is also treated in other Fargards, while two long sections are devoted to the care of the dog, the food which is due him and the penalties for offenses against him.[187] The apparent lack of order is, perhaps, largely due to the form of expression which was adopted by the first composers of the Vendīdād. The law is revealed by Ahūra in a series of answers, which are given in reply to the questions of Zarathuśtra, and as these queries are not of a general character, but refer to details, the matter is presented in fragments, each of which (consisting of a question with its answer) appears as an independent passage.
FARGARD II.
This is the most poetical chapter in the work, and is devoted to Yima. Ahūra here proposes that Yima, the son of Vīvanghat, shall receive the law from him and carry it to men. Yima, however, refuses to do so, whereupon Ahūra gives him a commission, bidding him to keep his creatures and make them prosper. Yima, therefore, makes the creatures of Ahūra to thrive and increase, keeps death and disease away from them, and three times enlarges the earth, which had become too small for its inhabitants. On the approach of a dreadful winter, which was to destroy every living thing, Yima, being advised by Ahūra, built a Vara to preserve the seed of all animal and vegetable life,life, and there the blessed still live happily under his rule. The world, after lasting a long year of twelve millenniums, was to end in a dire winter, to be followed by an everlasting spring, when men, being sent back to earth from the heavens, should enjoy upon the earth the same happiness which they had found after death in the realms of Yima. But when a more definite form was taken by the Mazdean cosmology the world was made to end by fire, and therefore the Vara of Yima, instead of remaining the paradise from which the inhabitants of earth return, came to be a comparatively modern representative of Noah’s Ark. In the Vedas, Yama is the first man, the first priest and “the first of all who died”; he brought worship here below, as well as life, and “first he stretched out the thread of sacrifice.”
Yima had at first the same right as his Hindū prototype to the title of a founder of religion, but he lost it, as in the course of the development of Mazdeism, Zarathuśtra became the law-giver. Zarathuśtra asked of Ahūra Mazda:
Ahūra answered:
And Yima made the earth grow larger by one-third than it was before, and there came flocks and herds and men, at his will, as many as he wished.
THE VARA OF YIMA.
Ahūra Mazda then called a council of the gods, and here he spake to Yima saying, “Upon the material earth the fatal winters are going to fall that shall make the snow-flakes thick and deep on the peaks of the highest mountains, and all the beasts shall perish that live in the wilderness, and those that live on the mountains, and those that live in the bosom of the vale. Therefore make thee a Vara, long as a riding-ground on every side of the square, to be an abode for men and a fold for flocks. There thou shalt make the waters flow, there thou shalt settle birds by the evergreen banks that bear the never-failing food. There shalt thou establish dwelling places and bring the greatest, the best and the finest of the earth, both men and women; thou shalt bring the animals, and the seeds of the trees, two of every kind to be kept there, so long as men shall stay in the Vara.”
And Yima made a Vara, and brought into it all the varieties of cattle and of plants, and the men in the Vara which Yima made, live the happiest life,[190] and he who brought the law of Ahūra into the Vara was the bird Karśipta. And Yima sealed up the Vara with the golden ring, and he made a door and a window which was self-shining within. And Ahūra Mazda said “There the stars, the moon and the sun, only once a year seem to rise and set, and the year seems only a day.”
THE LAWS OF PURIFICATION.
The larger portion of the Vendīdad is devoted to a description, with numberless repetitions, of the Mazdean laws of purification and the long ceremonies pertaining to them. Impurity or uncleanness may be described as the condition of a person or thing that is possessed of a demon, and the process of purification is for the purpose of expelling the evil presence. Death is the triumph of the demon, and therefore it is the principal cause of uncleanness; when a man dies, as soon as the soul has left the body, the Drūj Nasu, or Corpse-Drūj, comes from the regions of hell, and falls upon the body, and whoever thereafter touches the corpse is not only unclean himself, but every one whom he touches is also unclean.
The Drūj is expelled from the dead by the Sag-dīd, or “the look of the dog;” “a four-eyed dog,” or “a white one with yellow ears,” must be brought near the body, and made to look upon the dead, and as soon as he has done so the Drūj hastens back to hell.[191] The Drūj is expelled from the living by a process which is too revolting for description. The ceremonies are accompanied by the constant repetition of spells like the following: “Perish, O fiendish Drūj! Perish, O brood of the fiend! Rush away, O Drūj! Perish away to the regions of the north, never more to give unto death the living world.”
The feeling out of which these ceremonies grew was not original with Mazdeism; the Hindū also considered himself in danger while burning the corpse, and he cried aloud, “Away, go away, O Death! injure not our sons and our men.”[192]
The Pārsīs, not being able to find a four-eyed dog, interpreted the law to mean a dog with two spots above the eyes, while in practice they are still less particular, and the Sag-dīd may be performed by a house-dog, or by a dog four months old. As birds of prey are fiend-smiters as well as the dog, the devotee may claim their services when there is no dog at hand. The four-eyed dog, which the ceremony originally called for, is doubtless a reproduction of “the four-eyed dogs of the tawny breed of Saramā,” belonging to Yama,[193] which guard the realms of death in Hindū mythology. The identity of the four-eyed dog of the Pārsīs with the dogs of Yama is confirmed by the tradition that the yellow-eared dog watches at the head of the Chinvat bridge, and, as the souls of the faithful pass over, he barks to drive away the fiend who would drag them down to hell. Wherever a corpse is carried, death walks beside it all the way, from the house to the last resting-place, and the fatal presence constantly threatens the living who are near the path-way.
DISPOSITION OF THE DEAD.
As the centre of contagion is in the corpse, it must be disposed of in such a way that death may not be spread abroad. The old Indo-European customs have in this respect been completely changed by Mazdeism. The corpse was formerly either burned or buried; both of these customs, however, are held to be sacreligious in the Avesta. The elements, fire, earth, and water, are holy, and even during the Indo-Īrānian period they were already so considered, being represented in the Vedas as objects of worship. But this did not prevent the Hindūs from burning their dead, and the dead man was really considered as a traveler to the other world, while the kindly fire was supposed to carry him on flashing pinions to his heavenly abode. The funeral fire, like that of the sacrifice, was the god that goes from earth to heaven, the mediator most friendly to man.
In Persia, however, it remained more distant from him and represented the purest offspring of the good spirit; therefore no uncleanness could be allowed to enter it. Its only function appears to be the repelling of the fiends by its blaze. In every place where the Pārsīs are settled, an everlasting fire is still kept, which is always fed by perfumes and costly woods, and wherever its flames are carried by the wind, it kills thousand of fiends. No degradation must be inflicted upon this sacred element, even blowing it with the human breath is a crime, because the outgoing breath is unclean; burning the dead is therefore the most criminal act; in the time of Strabo[194] it was a capital crime, and the Avesta places it in the list of sins for which there is no atonement.
Water was looked upon in the same light, and throwing dead matter into it was as unpardonable as to pollute the sacred flame with its presence. The Magi are said to have overthrown a king for having built bath-houses, and the Jews were forbidden to practice their ablutions; in some cases the sick were even forbidden to drink it, unless it was decided that death would be caused by longer abstinence. The earth was equally holy, for in her bosom there dwelt Spenta Ārmaiti, the goddess of the earth, and to defile her sacred dwelling by burying the dead was also a deed for which there was no atonement.
In earlier times the Persians practiced burial even after burning had been forbidden. Cambyses aroused the national indignation by cremating the body of Amasis, and years later the Persians were still burying their dead. Afterward, however, when the Mazdean law became dominant, the worship of the earth was included, although it was sometime before it was considered as sacred as fire and water. In later times the Persians builded Dakhmas, or “Towers of Silence” for the bodies of their dead; these towers were about twenty feet high, and they enclosed an annular stone pavement on which the bodies were placed. These towers were usually built on the summit of a mountain far from the haunts of men. A barren cliff was chosen, free from trees or water, and the tower was even separated from the earth herself, for it was isolated by a layer of stones and bricks, while it was claimed that a golden thread ran between the tower and the earth. Here, afar from the world of men, the dead were left to lie “beholding the sun.” The Avesta and commentary are especially emphatic upon this point, for “it is as if the dead man’s life were thus prolonged, since he can still behold the sun.”
PUNISHMENTS.
The penalties for the violation of the Persian law were very severe, and human life was considered of very little value, capital punishment being inflicted even for the killing of a dog. Their laws were far more barbarous than those of England in Sir William Blackstone’s time, when one hundred and sixty offenses[195] were declared by act of Parliament to be worthy of instant death;[196] and death was the most humane of the Persian punishments, when it was promptly inflicted, for their methods were too terrible for description. Two hundred stripes were awarded if one tilled land in which a corpse had been buried within a year, or if the mother of a very young child drank water. Four hundred stripes were the penalty if one covered with a cloth a dead man’s feet, and eight hundred if he covered the whole body. The penalty for killing a puppy was five hundred stripes, six hundred for killing a stray dog, eight hundred for a shepherd’s dog, and ten thousand stripes for killing a water-dog.[197]
In the old Āryan legislation there were many crimes which were considered more criminal than murder, and Persians who defiled the earth were not more severely punished than were the Greeks who defiled the ground of Delos, nor would the Athenians, who put Atarbes to death, have wondered at the awful punishment inflicted for the killing of the Persian water-dog. There are but few laws in the Vendīdad, however absurd, that may not find a counterpart in the legislation of the Greeks or Latins.
Every crime, according to the Persian law, makes the guilty man[198] liable to two penalties, one here on earth and another in the next world, but in ancient Persia, as in modern legislation, there was a money value attached to many crimes, and the rich criminal escaped by paying his fine, so far as this present world was concerned. In the next, however, his money is of no value to him; when he comes to the head of Chinvat bridge, his conscience becomes a maiden, either of divine beauty, or of fiendish deformity, according to his merits. The bridge itself, which reaches over the awful chasm of hell to the heavenly shore on the other side, widens, if he be a good man, to the width of nine javelins; but for the souls of the wicked it narrows to a thread and they fall down into hell.
THE PLACE OF REWARD.
“O, Maker of the material world! where are the rewards given? where does the rewarding take place?”
Ahūra Mazda answered: “When the man is dead, when his time is over, then the hellish evil-doing Daevas assail him; and when the third night is gone—when the dawn appears and brightens up, and makes Mithra, the god with the beautiful weapons, reach the all-happy mountains, and the sun is rising. Then the fiend carries off in bonds[199] the souls of the wicked, who live in sin. The soul enters the way made by Time, and open both to the wicked and the righteous. At the head of the Chinvat bridge, the holy bridge made by Mazda, they ask for the reward for the goods which they have given away here below. Then comes the well-shapen, strong and noble maiden, with the dogs (that keep the Chinvat bridge) at her side—she is graceful and of high understanding.
“She“She makes the soul of the righteous one to go up above the Hara-berezaita; above the Chinvat bridge she places it in the presence of the heavenly gods themselves; Vohu-manō from his golden seat exclaims, ‘How hast thou come to us, thou holy one, from that decaying world into this undecaying one? Gladly pass the souls of the righteous to the golden seat of Ahūra Mazda—to the abode of all the other holy beings.”[200]
THE VISPARAD.
The word Visparad means “all the chiefs,” referring to “the lords of the ritual,” therefore the various chapters are merely used in the course of the sacrifice. The following extracts will give the reader a definite idea concerning the literary merit of this portion of the Zend-Avesta:
TEACHING OF THE MODERN PĀRSĪS.
This résumé of the ancient books will be closed by a brief explanation of their faith in Dualism, as given by some learned Indian Pārsīs of Bombay to Sir M. Monier-Williams during his stay in India. In speaking of the Dualism of Zoroaster, as understood in modern times, Prof. Williams says:
“The explanation given to me was that Zoroaster, although a believer in one Supreme Being, and a teacher of Monotheism, set himself to account for the existence of evil, which could not have its source in an all-wise Creator.
He therefore taught that two opposite—but not opposing, forces, which he calls ‘twins,’ were inherent in the nature of the Supreme Being, called by him Ahūra Mazda (or in Persian Ormazd), and emanated from that Being, just as in Hindūism, Vishṇu and Śiva emanate from the Supreme Brahmā. These two forces were set in motion by Ahūra Mazda, as his appointed mode of maintaining the continuity of the Universe.
The one was constructive, the other destructive.
One created and composed. The other disintegrated and decomposed, but only to co-operate with the creative principle by providing fresh material for the work of re-composition.
Hence there could be no new life without death, no existence without non-existence.
Hence, also, according to Zoroaster, there was originally no really antagonistic force of evil opposed to good.
The creative energy was called Ahūra Mazda’s beneficent spirit (Spento-Mainyus), and the destructive force was called his maleficent spirit (Angro-Mainyus, afterwards corrupted into Ahriman), but only because the idea of evil is connected with dissolution.
The two spirits were merely antagonistic in name.
They were in reality co-operative and mutually helpful.
They were essential to the alternating processes of construction and dissolution, through which the cosmical being was perpetuated.
The only real antagonism was that alternately brought about by the free agent, man, who could hasten the work of destruction, or retard the work of construction by his own acts.
It is therefore held, that the so-called dualistic doctrines of Zoroaster were compatible with the absolute unity of the one God (symbolized especially by fire).
Ultimately, however, Zoroastrianism crystallized into a hard and uncompromising dualism. That is to say, in process of time, Spento-Mainyus became merely another name for Ahūra Mazda, as the eternal principle of good, while Angro-Mainyus or Ahriman became altogether dissociated from Ahūra Mazda, and converted into an eternal principle of evil.
These two principles are believed to be the sources of two opposite creations which were incessantly at war.
On the one side is a celestial hierarchy, at the head of which is Ormazd; on the other side, a demoniacal, at the head of which is Ahriman. They are opposed to each other as light to darkness—as falsehood to truth.
The whole energy of a religious Indian Pārsī is concentrated on the endeavor to make himself—so to speak—demon-proof, and this can only be accomplished by absolute purity (in thought, word and deed), symbolized by whiteness. He is ever on his guard against bodily defilement, and never goes out to his daily occupation, without first putting on a sacred white shirt and a sacred white girdle. Even the most highly educated and Anglicized Pārsīs are most rigorous observers of this custom, though it is probable that their real creed has little in common with the old and superstitious belief in demons and evil spirits, but rather consists in a kind of cold and monotheistic pantheism.
How far Zoroastrian dualism had affected the religion of the Babylonians at the time of the Jewish captivity is doubtful, but that the Hebrew prophets of those days had to contend with dualistic ideas seems probable from these words: ‘I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.’[202] The New Testament, on the other hand, might be thought by a superficial reader to lend some support to dualistic doctrines.... I need scarcely point out, however, that the Bible account of the origin, nature, and destiny of Satan and his angels differs, toto cælo from the Zoroastrian description of Ahriman and his host. Nor need I add that the various monistic, pantheistic, and dualistic theories, briefly alluded to in this paper, are utterly at variance with the Christian doctrine of a Personal, Eternal and Infinite Being, existing and working outside man, and outside the material universe, which He has Himself created, and controlling both, and in the case of human beings, working not only outside man, but in and through him.”[203]