different Gâthas, in order that Ahriman and his lieutenants may be expelled from
men and women who have been in contact with the dead, and from houses,
cities, and provinces into which they have obtained an entrance.
The twelfth Fargard treats of various funeral ceremonies, and repeats a number
of injunctions relative to the cleansing of places, of clothes and other articles,
polluted by lifeless bodies. It concludes with elaborate warnings against a two-
footed dev, called Ashmog. The thirteenth and fourteenth run riot in praise of the
noble qualities of dogs, and severe in their rebuke of the “superior animals” who
ill-use them. The fifteenth reads like a Commination Service, in its denunciation
of certain crimes which can never be undone even by the profoundest penitential
offices, and are punished by Ahura-Mazda with eternal condemnation. The
seventeenth, like the sixteenth, is tediously liturgical, and discusses such
minutiæ as the arrangement of the hair of the head, the extraction of bad or gray
hairs, and the cutting of nails. If these operations are performed without certain
prescribed ceremonies, the devs come upon earth, and parasitical organisms are
produced to the great discomfort and injury of man. The eighteenth lays down
the distinctions which should characterise an Athrava, or priest. He must wear
the padan, a mouth-cover, of two fingers’ breadth; must carry an instrument for
disposing of parasitical insects; devote his nights to study, keep alive the sacred
fire, and succour the distressed. The nineteenth chapter recounts the perils to
which Zarathustra was exposed, when he had left the south on his mission, from
the murderous assaults of Ahriman and his host, who hastened up from the
north; the north, to an inhabitant of the warm sunny south, naturally appearing
the fit home and haunt of the Spirit of Evil. The twentieth is devoted to the
praise of Taneslied, who is represented as having swept away disease, death,
bloodshed, war, evil-doers, falsehood, and all kinds of wickedness. The twenty-
first enjoins the salutations to be paid to the sacred Bull, and extols some of its
illustrious qualities. Finally, the twenty-second narrates the mission of
Zarathustra, and describes the evil he will dispel through the influence of the
Word; Ahura-Mazda having ordered him to establish his worship in the region
called Airya-Mava, or Irman, so that it may become bright, pure, and happy as
the abode of Ahura-Mazda himself, free from sin, and, consequently, free from
sorrow and suffering.
From this brief summary it will be seen that the religion of the Parsees in its
present form is a definite Dualism, recognizing the existence of two distinct
principles, Good and Evil, impersonated by spirits of equal power, named
Ahura-Mazda, (or Spento-Manyus,) and Ahriman, (or Angro-Manyus.) But no