RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESfrom father to son. Hirbadhs also taught children to memorize and
recite the Yashts by shaking their heads in time to the rhythm. Religious
training started early. By the age of seven, Mihramgushnasp had been
introduced to Persian literature and the Magian religion, could recite
the Yashts, and knew how to hold properly the bundle of rods (M.P.
barsom) used in the fire cult. Shlrln, who was the daughter of a dihqiin,
was entrusted to a woman from Fars who initiated her into the Magian
cult and taught her how to recite the Yashts.^82 This incidentally in-
dicates that it was possible even for Magian children taken captive
during the conquest and raised as Muslims to remember something
of their former religion.
At the end of the Sasanian period, religious education was becoming
institutionalized. Education in the scribal school apparently included
memorizing the Yashts, the Videvdiit, and other liturgical pieces, just
as a hirbadh would, and listening to the Zand passage by passage.^83
When he was crown prince, Shlroe is said to have been sent to such
a school run by a mobadh.^84 Priests trained as hirbadhs were supposed
to return to their villages to instruct the people and to establish schools
(M.P .. herpatistiin), and there is a fifth-century reference to a Magian
school in a village near Hulwan.^85 Chaumont describes the hirbadhs
as Magian missionaries,86 and it seems plausible to suggest that the
importance of hirbadhs during the last decades of Sasanian rule was
related to this activity. This would seem to be the period when the
importance of respecting and imitating those who memorized the Avesta
and Zand began to be emphasized. Magians were encouraged to follow
such a spiritual guide (M.P. dastavar, N.P. dastur) who was able to
make people aware of their duty and were told to avoid Hell by
attending the herpatistiin.^87
Although the priestly office of moghiin andarzbadh (N.P., M.P.
andarzpat) has been understood as a kind of teacher,88 it seems rather
to have been that of a counselor of the Magians. This office is attested
82 Chabot, "Jesus-Sabran," p. 491; Chaumont, "Herbad," pp. 63-64; Devos, "Sainte
Sirin," p. 95; Hoffmann, Persischer Miirtyrer, p. 94; Jamasp-Asa, Ardii Virii( Nameh
(Bombay, 1902), p. xi.
83 Bailey, Zoroastrian Problems, p. 160.
84 Tha'alibJ, Ghurar, p. 712.
85 Chaumont, "Herbad," p. 70; Hoffmann, Persischer Miirtyrer, pp. 68-69.
86 Chaumont, "Herbad," pp. 72-73.
B7 De Menasce, Denkart, p. 190; F. Kotwal, The Supplementary Texts to the Sayest
ne-layest (Copenhagen, 1969), p. 73; Tarapore, Andarz-Namak, pp. 3, 7.
B8 Christensen, Sassanides, p. 99; Hoffmann, Persischer Miirtyrer, pp. 50-51.