'"
The rest of the Vendidad is taken up with the praises of agriculture,
injunctions as to the care and pity due to the dog, the guardian of the
home and flock, the hunter and the scavenger. It includes an elaborate
code of ceremonial purification, resembling on this point the Leviticus
of the Bible, and it prescribes also the gradations of penance for sins
of various degrees of heinousness.
E.W.
DISCOVERY OF THE ZEND-AVESTA
The "Zend-Avesta" is the sacred book of the Parsis; that is to say, of
the few remaining followers of that religion which reigned over Persia
at the time when the second successor of Mohammed overthrew the
Sassanian dynasty (A.D. 642), and which has been called Dualism, or
Mazdeism, or Magism, or Zoroastrianism, or Fire-worship, according as
its main tenet, or its supreme God, or its priests, or its supposed
founder, or its apparent object of worship has been most kept in view.
In less than a century after their defeat, most of the conquered people
were brought over to the faith of their new rulers, either by force, or
policy, or the attractive power of a simpler form of creed. But many of
those who clung to the faith of their fathers, went and sought abroad
for a new home, where they might freely worship their old gods, say
their old prayers, and perform their old rites. That home they found at
last among the tolerant Hindoos, on the western coast of India and in
the peninsula of Guzerat.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82