The History of Antiquity Volume V Part 12

[317] "Vend." 18, 1-17.

[318] "Vispered," 3, 13, 14. Above, p. 165.

[319] The Mobedh of Middle Persian is _magupat_, i.e. lord of the Magians (p. 60). The derivation of the name Magus from the Turanian _imga_ (apparently = honourable) can only be adopted by those who regard the Magians as descendants of the Turanians, or at any rate as containing a strong admixture of Turanians; a view which rests on the theory that the second series in the inscriptions of the Achaemenids is the Median translation of the Persian inscriptions. With this view I cannot agree; all that we learn from the Greeks of the customs, manners, and names of the Medes bears the mark of an Arian origin, and is in harmony with what is attributed to the Persians. In the inscription of the second cla.s.s at Behistun, Gaumata is not called _imga_ but _magush_.

[320] "Cyri inst.i.t." 8, 1, 23.

[321] Herod. 3, 79.

[322] Herod. 3, 73.

[323] Strabo, p. 727; Pausanias, 5, 27, 3.

[324] Ammian. 23, 6, 32-35; Agathias, 2, 26.

[325] Philostratus in Rapp, "Z. D. M. G." 20, 71.

[326] Herod. 1, 120.

[327] "Cyri inst.i.t." 7, 5, 20; 8, 1, 8.

[328] Arrian, "Anab." 6, 29.

[329] Herod. 7, 191.

[330] Curtius, 3, 7; Ammian. 23, 6, 34.

[331] "Alcibiad. I." p. 122.

[332] Nic. Dam. fragm. 67, ed. Muller.

[333] Plut. "Artaxerxes," c. 3.

[334] Diog. Laert. prooem. 6.

[335] Fragm. 66, ed. Muller; cf. infra Bk. 8, c. 4.

[336] Herod. 1, 128; Ctes. "Pers." 15. The excerpt says 40 Chaldaeans, but obviously Magi are here meant.

[337] Prooem. 7. Above, p. 190. The further statements of Diogenes about the white robes of the Magians, their avoidance of all ornament and gold, of their lying on the ground, and staff of reed, deserve little notice, inasmuch as the source whence they are derived is unknown.

[338] "Cyri inst.i.t." 8, 7, 3.

[339] "Cyri inst.i.t." 8, 7, 3; 7, 5, 20; 8, 1, 8; Curtius, 3, 3, 8.

[340] Strabo, p. 733.

[341] Pausan. 5, 27, 5, 6.

CHAPTER IX.

THE LAW OF THE PRIESTS.

The rules concerning purity and purification, the expiations and penances necessary to avert the Daevas, which we possess in the Vendidad of the Avesta, are only the remnant of a far more comprehensive law.

From the list of books and chapters traditional among the Pa.r.s.ees, we can see that it was intended to include not only all the invocations and prayers which the wors.h.i.+p required, the rules of sacrifice, and the entire ritual, together with the Calendar of the year of the Church, but also the arrangement of the process of law, the civil and criminal code, and, moreover, rules for agriculture and medicine. If to this we add the statements and quotations of the Greeks (p. 53), we may a.s.sume that the scriptures of Eastern Iran comprised the whole sum of the knowledge of the priests. In the Avesta the Athravas had sketched the ideal picture of the correct conduct pleasing to Auramazda in every department of life. How far the princes of Bactria and the viceroys of Cyaxares and the Achaemenids, or even these princes themselves, and the judges, wished or allowed themselves to be bound in their decisions by these regulations of the priests, may be left out of the question. The priests here, like the Brahmans in India, could only influence the action of the State and those charged with it, so far as the reverence for the principles of religion and the force of their own authority extended.

The existing part of the law has obviously arisen out of the questions and considerations sketched above, which in consequence of the reform must have forced themselves into the circles of the priests. The reform also required above all things purity from men, but no supernatural purity, such as the Brahmans demanded. The body is not in the Avesta, as it was to the Brahmans and after them to the Buddhists, the impure prison of the soul which must be abandoned; on the contrary the Avesta rejoices in its health and vigour. It requires that the body should be kept pure from filth, from contamination by the impure, which gives the Daevas power over mankind, _i.e._ it demands the exclusion of the harmful side of nature; it desires that the soul should be pure from pollution, freed from untruthfulness, lying, and deceit, which are contradictory to the nature of the clear bright G.o.ds, and Auramazda, and make men companions of the Daevas, and sharers in their nature. In other words, it demands the invigoration of the light and wholesome side of man. The kingdom of the good spirits is truth, increase, and life; the kingdom of the evil is deception and falsehood, lying, destruction, and death. The Avesta praises Auramazda as purity itself; and next to him Asha vahista, _i.e._ the best purity; the G.o.ds are chiefly extolled as "the pure," and Zarathrustra as the master and teacher of purity. The Avesta repeatedly declares "that purity after birth is the best thing for men." Hence it is the foremost of all duties to keep the soul and body pure. The wors.h.i.+pper of Auramazda must preserve his purity by good thoughts, words, and works; truth is required in thinking, speaking, and acting; uprightness and honesty in all the relations of life; the sacredness of promises and pledges, and solemn a.s.surances, at which Mithra is summoned to bear witness. It is an old function of the G.o.d which appears here. He is the guardian of the word, and the compact.

"Mithra is twenty-fold between friends and kinsmen, thirty-fold between tradespeople, forty-fold between companions who live together, fifty-fold between man and wife, sixty-fold between a.s.sociates in sacrifice, seventy-fold between scholar and teacher, eighty-fold between step-son and step-parents, ninety-fold between brothers, a hundred-fold between son and father." "Miserable are the houses, without descendants the dwellings, inhabited by those who deceive Mithra. Miserably does the cloven-footed cow go on the wrong path, which is oppressed by the burden of Mithra-deceiving men."[342] In accordance with this view deception is in the eyes of the law the worst offence; worse than robbery or theft.

Evil-speaking and calumny also are, according to the Vendidad, "lies and sins" against Mithra. The gravest offence of this kind is the calumny by which "a pure man" is disparaged "with a man of another religion," for this sin is committed with full knowledge, and by a man's own intelligence; and the worst of all lies is teaching a false law. "One who teaches such a law," says the Vendidad, "does no better than if he killed a thousand horses, slew the men in a village inhabited by wors.h.i.+ppers of Auramazda, or carried off the cows on the wrong way."[343]

It is not the least proof of the currency of the doctrines of the Avesta in the West of Iran that their ethical side, which gathers round the command of truthfulness, was there most distinctly recognised. King Darius has already told us that "the lie" had brought his kingdom into rebellion; the leaders of the rebellious lands, who gave themselves out to be descendants of the ancient royal families, he calls "liars against the kingdom." From their youth up, Herodotus tells us, the children of the Persians were instructed in truthfulness. He adds: Among the Persians it was forbidden to speak of that which it was forbidden to do; the Avesta requires truth "in thought, speech, and action." Lying and borrowing, Herodotus says, pa.s.sed with the Persians for the most disgraceful acts, for they were of opinion that any one who contracted debts was generally compelled to tell lies. The Avesta says: "He who does not restore that which has been borrowed, seeks day and night to deceive the creditor." Plato states that the heirs to the Persian throne had, besides three others, a teacher whose special business it was to instruct them in truth. Xenophon a.s.sures us that pledges and oaths were religiously kept among the Persians; and Diodorus, that the pledge of hands was the strongest security among them.[344] Practice in Persia was, it is true, not equal to these injunctions, however sharply expressed; on the contrary, we often find the two in the most glaring contradiction.

Not falsehood and lies only, but also laziness and sloth pollute the soul of man. The pious man must rise early. craosha awakes the bird Parodarsh, we are told in the book of the law. At the return of the divine Ushahina, _i.e._ of the morning (p. 108), this bird speaks to those who are in their beds: "Friend, up, arise. Praise purity, and the Daevas will fly away. Long sleep, O man, is not good for thee. The Bushyancta runs up to thee, who lays again in sleep the whole corporeal world. Turn yourselves not away from the three best things: good thinking, speaking, and acting. He who rises first will come into Paradise; he who first brings pure, dry, old, well-hewn wood to the fire of Auramazda, him will the fire bless (p. 122)."[345] The pious man should be industrious and work; the best work is that which increases nourishment and fruit for men and animals, which furthers the increase and life of the world, and thus diminishes the kingdom of the evil, the power of the dark spirits. For this reason running water and growing fruits should be spread over the earth; "the field should be tilled, and trees planted which produce food." "When there are shoots," the law-book says, "the Daevas are in alarm; when there are stalks, the Daevas weep; when there are ears, the Daevas hiss; when there are grains, the Daevas fly."[346] "In the house where there are most ears, the Daevas are smitten most heavily." "The earth is not glad which lies untilled. The greatest pleasure is given to the earth where a pure man builds his house, provided with fire and cattle, and good flocks, with wife and child, where most corn, fodder, and grain is produced by husbandry, where the dry land is most watered, where fruit-bearing trees are planted, where cattle and beasts of draught leave the most urine."[347]

"He who plants fruits and trees, who gives water to the earth where it is needed, and takes it away where too abundant, he wors.h.i.+ps the earth."

When a man tills the earth she bestows life upon him; "as a friend to a beloved friend, she gives him descendants and wealth." To him who tills her, the earth says: "O man, who tillest me with the left arm and the right, with the right arm and the left, in love will I bear thee all kinds of fruit." But to him who tills her not the earth says: "Thou wilt go to the doors of others and there stand, in order to beg for food; in idleness thou wilt ask for it and get but little." He who sows corn, sows purity; the law of Auramazda increases with the fruits of the field; they extend the law of Auramazda by 100, 1000, and 10,000 meritorious works.

These regulations of the Avesta were fully accepted in the West. The great reverence paid to splendid trees by the Achaemenids is shown by Herodotus' story of Xerxes, that he furnished a beautiful plane tree, which he saw in Lydia, with golden ornaments, and appointed a perpetual guardian for it.[348] Ameretat, as already observed, was the special protecting spirit of trees (p. 164). Xenophon tells us that the Persian kings gave special attention to agriculture; on their journeys they inquired into the tillage of the land, and demanded similar attention from their satraps. Round their palaces and wherever they came they caused the most beautiful gardens to be laid out, planted with trees and all the most excellent shrubs in the world.[349] The satraps also had gardens of this kind (_pairidaeza_) round their residences, and the younger Cyrus a.s.sures Lysander, "in the name of Mithra," that he never took food before he had induced perspiration by work in the garden or exercise in arms.[350] The satraps, says Xenophon, whose provinces were found deficient in population and poorly cultivated, were punished and removed from their office, while those whose provinces were in good order, were rewarded by presents. When the king of the Persians conferred distinctions, those were summoned first who had distinguished themselves in war, and next came those whose districts were best cultivated.[351] Respect and reverence for trees was so deeply rooted in Iran, that even Islam did not extirpate the feeling. To this day in s.h.i.+raz old trees are presented with dedicatory offerings, and hung with amulets; and the pious prefer to pray under tall trees rather than in the neighbouring mosques; while in the barren regions of Iran even groups of bushes receive offerings.[352]

Besides the care of trees, plants, and the soil, the labour of mankind must be directed to the care of the flocks, to the increase of the animals of the good G.o.d, and the destruction of the Khrafctras, or animals belonging to the evil spirit (p. 171). Cows are not held in such veneration in Iran as beyond the Indus, yet even here the "cow is not to be driven on the wrong way," and gomez (the urine of oxen) is the most effectual means of purification; in the theory of the priests Auramazda began the creation of living things with the bull. We have already mentioned the rank taken among the animals of Auramazda by the c.o.c.k and dog. In the Vendidad Auramazda says: "I have created the dog with clothes and shoes of his own, with keen scent and sharp teeth, attached to men, savage against the enemy, for the protection of the flocks. No thief or wolf comes to the village or the fold and carries away anything un.o.bserved, if the dog is healthy, in good voice, and among the flocks.

The houses would not stand firm upon the earth if there were not dogs in the villages and flocks. The dog is patient, contented, and satisfied with little food, like a priest; he goes forward, and is before and behind the house, like a warrior; he sleeps less than the husbandmen, is talkative like a child, and friendly as a mistress."[353] The dogs are to receive good food, "for of all the creatures of Auramazda old age comes upon them the most quickly;" especially must the watch-dog be provided with milk, fat, and flesh, "the proper food" for a dog; and a dog must never be among those who are eating without receiving something to eat. Any one who gives unbroken bones or hot food to a sheep-dog or house-dog, and the bones injure him, and the hot food burns his mouth and tongue, so that he dies--is worthy of death.[354] Dogs with young are treated with the same care as pregnant women. It is a sin to chase or beat a dog which has brought forth; if she is injured or dies in running the sinner is worthy of death; and any one who beats a pregnant dog is to receive twice seven hundred stripes. It is the duty of every man to bring up for six months the dogs born on his ground, until they are able to run round in a circuit of twice seven houses.[355] Sick dogs are treated with the same remedies as rich men; and to the question of Zarathrustra--"If the dog will not take the remedies?" Auramazda answers that in this case "the dog can be tied, and its mouth opened with a flat piece of wood."[356] Wounds inflicted on dogs are to be punished with stripes to the number of twice eight hundred;[357] and besides this, compensation is to be given for the damage which thieves or wolves do to the village so long as the dog is prevented by his injuries from keeping watch. The book of the law everywhere threatens all those men who beat dogs that their souls will go from this world full of terror, and sick.

To kill a water-dog is the greatest crime;[358] and is menaced with the worst penalties and expiations known to the Vendidad. As a general rule punishments do not go beyond 2000 stripes, or the necessity of killing 2000 noxious animals; but the slayer of the water-dog is to receive 10,000 stripes. Besides this, if he would save his soul, he must give 10,000 parcels of hard wood, well hewn and dried, for the fire of Auramazda, and also 10,000 parcels of soft, fragrant wood; he must kill 10,000 snakes, and an equal number of tortoises, lizards, and water-lizards, ants, flies, and rats. He must fill up 10,000 impure holes in the earth; give to the priests all the utensils required for the holy rites; to a warrior a complete set of armour; to a husbandman he must give all that is needed for agriculture: a house, provided with a beautiful mat, and arable land for tillage. In addition, he must give, as an expiation for his soul, fourteen head of small cattle to the "pure men," and bring up fourteen young dogs, and build fourteen bridges over running water. He must cleanse eighteen dogs from fleas, and make eighteen bones into edible food; and satisfy eighteen "pure men" with wine and flesh. If he does not perform these expiations he will go into the dwelling of the Druj, and "the heat which is injurious to the pasture will not depart from his dwelling until he has offered sacrifice for three days and nights for the pure soul of the water-dog, on the burning fire, with bound rods and uplifted Haoma."[359]

In order to extirpate the animals of Angromainyu, the priest is to be provided with a stick, the Khrafctra-killer. Herodotus has already told us, that the Magians held it a duty to kill serpents, ants, and other creeping and winged insects. For the expiation of sins the Avesta universally requires the killing of serpents, lizards, and ants; rats and mice, which do harm to the crops; flies, midges, fleas, lice, and other vermin. Plutarch tells us that the Persians count him a happy man who slays most water-mice; Agathias observes that in honour of the chief festival in Persia every one killed as many snakes, and beasts of prey, and animals living in the desert, as possible, and then brought them to the Magians as a proof of his piety. In this way they believed that they did what was pleasing to the good G.o.d, while they injured and distressed Arimanes.[360]

According to the Avesta, the soul of man is kept pure by truthfulness, industry, and diligence, by good thoughts, good words and acts, which advance the kingdom of life; the body is to be kept free from dirt and the house from filth and dead creatures; from all that belongs to the evil spirits and is in their power. The soul of man is created pure; but from the first the body has certain impure parts, and the defilement which Angromainyu brought into the bodies of men. This defilement consists in the spittle, the excrements, dead skin, sores, etc; in everything that has an unpleasant smell, or is removed from the living body, like the hair and nails. These when cut are dead, and therefore belong to the kingdom of darkness; hence in Iran as in India they are impure things. "Wherever cut hair and nails lie," says the book of the law, "there the Daevas gather to these unholy places; there the impure animals come, which men call lice. Therefore carry away--so saith Auramazda--cut hair and nails, ten paces from the pure men, twenty from the fire, thirty from the water, fifty from the sacred bundle of rods.

Dig a hole below the house in the earth, p.r.o.nounce the prayer Ahunavairya thrice, six times, nine times, and then say: To thee, O bird, Asho-zusta, I show these nails. These nails I dedicate to thee; may they be thy lances, thy swords, thy bow, thy swift-flying arrows, thy sling-stones against the Mazanian Daevas. If these nails are not announced to the bird Asho-zusta, they are weapons for, not against, the Daevas."[361] Spittle is among the worst impurities. The priests could only approach the fire with veiled mouth, and even now the Pa.r.s.ees invariably cover the mouth in praying. They eat in silence, and two never use the same spoon, because the food would then be polluted by spittle. The removal of the excrements requires as much care in the Avesta as it did in the Brahmanic law, and the Vendidad gives minute regulations in regard to these matters.[362] A man is rendered impure by excess and debauchery; a woman by her courses, "by marks and blood," and by the birth of a child. She must be carried to an elevated place in the dwelling, which is strewn with dry sand, fifteen paces from the fire, from water, and the sacred bundle of rods, "at a distance also from the trees," and so placed that she cannot see the fire on the hearth. No one may touch her. Only a definite amount of certain kinds of food can be given to her, and that in metal jars, because these contract the least amount of impurity, and are most easily cleansed; the person who brings the food must remain three paces distant from her bed. After childbirth a woman is unclean for three days; then she must wash her body with water and gomez. If she has had a miscarriage her body is also polluted by the dead child: she must be placed thirty paces away from the fire and the sacred objects of the house, and must pa.s.s a longer period on her dust-bed--at the present time forty-one days are required. The first thing she is allowed to taste is ashes mixed with gomez--three, six, and then nine drops. The nine apertures of her body--that number is common to the Indians and Iranians--must be washed with ashes and gomez. She may not drink any water out of her impure hand; if she does so, she must receive two hundred blows with the rod, and two hundred with the whip.[363] Fire and water, springs, streams and rivers, the best gifts of the good G.o.ds, must, like the human body, be carefully preserved from all filth and defilement. The accounts of Western writers prove that the Persians and Medes observed the rules of purification given in the Book of the Law; it was not the custom among the Persians to spit in the presence of another, still less to sneeze, etc. They avoided the defilement of a river, or of the shadow of a man; and it was forbidden to uncover in the sight of the sun or moon.[364]

"The sun, the moon, the stars s.h.i.+ne unwillingly," we are told in the Vendidad, "on the polluted man."[365] "The impure takes away prosperity and increase; he brings sickness and death; after death he will not go into heaven."[366] "But whatever pollution a man has contracted, and whatever sin he has committed, the good law quenches all impurity and sin, if the purifications, expiations, and penalties which it prescribes are performed and paid; for the good law of Auramazda surpa.s.ses all others in greatness, goodness, and salvation, as far as the heaven rises above the earth, and as the sea of Vourukasha includes all other waters."[367] "The good law of Auramazda takes from the man who praises it and commits no evil actions afterwards, his deception; it takes away the murder of the pure man, and the burial of the dead; it takes away inexpiable actions, and acc.u.mulated guilt; it takes away all evil words, thoughts, and actions, even as the strong swift wind purifies heaven from the right side."[368]

Slight pollution is removed by was.h.i.+ng with pure water accompanied by certain prayers and imprecations on the Daevas, such as: "I contend with thee, O evil Angromainyu; away from this dwelling, away from the fire, the water, from this place, from all the blessings which Auramazda has created. I contend against pollution, direct and indirect; against the unclean spirits; I contend against the Daeva Andra, caurva, Zairicha (p.

169); against the Pairika, who goes to the water, the earth, cattle, and trees," etc.[369] More serious impurities require ablutions with gomez, which in certain cases have to be repeated thirty times, with various prayers.[370] The most efficacious purification, which removes even the worst taint, is that of the nine nights. This can only be performed by a priest, who knows the law accurately, can repeat the sacred word by heart, and speaks the truth. A special place must be constructed for it; thirty paces (which are equal to ninety times the length of the foot) from the fire, the water, and the sacred bundle of rods. In the middle of this s.p.a.ce nine pits are dug in the earth, and round them twelve furrows are drawn with a metal instrument. The purifier sprinkles the person who requires cleansing (who is entirely naked) with gomez, from a leaden vessel, with many prayers. He is then rubbed fifteen times with earth; he must then wash himself at each of the nine pits once, twice, thrice with water, after which he is fumigated with fragrant wood. Then follow was.h.i.+ngs with water and gomez in the third, sixth, and ninth night. "After this," says the book, "the purified person shall bring water of purification to the fire, hard wood, and perfumes; he is to utter praises to Auramazda, to the Amesha cpentas, and to the rest of the pure ones--so will the man be purified." The purifier must be rewarded for this purification; according to the measure of the man's property the payment rises from small cattle and cows to camels; "in order that the purifier may go away contented and without hatred."

Instead of cattle, goods of another description can be given. "But if the purifier goes away discontented, the wicked spirit of impurity comes again into the purified persons, and they are impure for evermore."[371]

In the view of the Avesta impurity consists essentially in that which is opposed to life; hence there is no worse form of uncleanness than that caused by the corpse. The body, as soon as the soul has left it, belongs to Angromainyu. The fiend of death, the Druj Nacu, obtains possession of it, and from it she springs on all who touch it, or come near it. If a man dies, or a dog--and in this matter dogs are put quite on a level with men--and other men and women are in the same house--two, five, fifty, or a hundred--the Druj Nacu comes immediately from the north in the form of a fly, and settles on all the inhabitants of the house and makes them impure with infection, pollution, and uncleanness.[372] In the first instance she is to be met by incantations--the Gathas, Bisamruta, Thrisamruta, Chathrasamruta, must be repeated; then the fiend falls to pieces like gra.s.s that has been dead a year.[373] After this the hearth-fire must be removed from the house of the dead, and the sacred utensils--the mortar, the cup, the sacred bundle of rods, and the Haoma. In winter the fire can be kindled again upon the hearth after nine nights; in summer, when the need for warmth and cooked food is less pressing, after a month; any one who does not observe these periods is to be punished with twice two hundred stripes.[374] After purification the kinsmen are to utter prayers for the departed, and the number of these is fixed, in the Vendidad, in the same fanciful manner which is so often met with in the book of Manu. The number decreases according to the degree of relations.h.i.+p; for the nearest kinsmen thirty prayers are spoken; for the most remote, five; if the dead man has led an impure life the number of prayers is doubled in order to give efficacy to the pet.i.tion.[375]

The preservation and increase of life is the foundation of the teaching of the Avesta. The good life of nature is promoted by planting and agriculture, by tending the useful and destroying the pernicious animals; and by posterity provision is to be made for the life of men.

From this point of view the Vendidad lays especial weight on marriage.

"I declare," Auramazda says, "that the married is before the unmarried, and he that has a house before him that has none, and the father of children before the childless."[376] We can only ascertain very incompletely from the remaining fragments of the Avesta the rules which it prescribed for family life. We see that bringing about a marriage was regarded as a meritorious work, and marriage between close relations was considered happy. Yet maidens are not to be given in marriage before their fifteenth year.[377] To those who have long remained unmarried the G.o.d Haoma, the special protector of life, sends truthful, active husbands, gifted with good understanding (p. 125). We never hear of any difference of the orders in contracting marriage; nor is there the least hint that the priest can only marry a wife of priestly blood, or the husbandman a wife of his own cla.s.s. On the other hand, the strictest directions are given that the wors.h.i.+ppers of Auramazda are only to marry among themselves; marriage with those of an alien religion is severely reprobated. "A man who mingles the seed of the faithful and the unbelievers, the seed of the wors.h.i.+ppers of the Daevas with the wors.h.i.+ppers of Mazda, keeps back a third part of the flowing water, a third part of the increase of the blooming plants, and their golden fruits; he annihilates a third part of the clothing of cpenta Armaiti (the Earth); he robs the just men of a third part of their power, their merits, their purity. They who do this are more destructive than forked serpents, than howling wolves, than the she-wolf which rushes on the flocks, than the thousand-fold brood of the lizard, which pollutes the water."[378] The Vendidad gives the house-father a similar power over his wife and children to that given in Manu's law--so far as we can conclude from certain indications. He is to be spoken of with the same reverence as the house-father on the Ganges; the wife is to be honoured, but is to "be watched perpetually, like the fire of Auramazda."[379]

With regard to the education of children, we can only gather from the Vendidad they were to be tended for seven years; "protect dogs for six months, children for seven years;"[380] and boys are to be invested in their fifteenth year with the sacred girdle.[381] We remember the sacred girdle which the three upper castes wore and still wear beyond the Ganges; the invest.i.ture with this, and adoption into the family and caste--"the second birth" takes place, according to Manu's law, among the Brahman boys in the eighth year, among the Kshatryas, in the eleventh, and the Vaicyas in the twelfth. The habit of wearing the girdle, which prevails on both sides of the Indus, proves that this custom was in use before the two branches of the Arians separated.

Originally the girdle was intended to be a protection or amulet against the evil spirits.[382] In the girdle which the priests prepare with traditional ceremonies, and put on boys in their seventh or tenth year, the modern Pa.r.s.ees see the bond which encloses and unites the wors.h.i.+ppers of Auramazda.

If I attempt to supplement the scanty hints of the Avesta on family life from the accounts preserved to us on this subject by Western writers, it must be remembered that the more ancient of these statements hold good only of the West of Iran. But as we have hitherto found the wors.h.i.+p and manners of the Persians and Medes, as described by the Greeks, agreeing with the rules of the Avesta, we may suppose that in this province also East and West were in agreement. Herodotus states that the Persians married many wives, and had concubines in addition. They considered it honourable and right to have as many children as possible; next to bravery in war it was the greatest merit to have many children, and the king sent presents every year to the man who had most.[383] Of all days the Persians celebrated most the day on which they were born. A more abundant meal was served on this day: among the wealthy an ox, a horse, or a camel was roasted whole; and smaller animals among those who were poorer. Plato adds: "When the first son, the heir of the kingdom, was born to the king of Persia, all the subjects of the king celebrated the day, and on the birthday of the king there were festivals and sacrifices throughout all Asia."[384] Herodotus observes, that the respect of children for their parents was great. The Persians regarded the murder of parents by a son as impossible; if such a thing happened they believed that the child was supposit.i.tious.[385] Aristotle tells us that the power of the father over the sons among the Persians was tyrannical, _i.e._ unlimited; he treated them as slaves.[386] That the mother was also treated with respect follows from the statement that the son might not remain seated when the mother entered, and could only resume his seat at her permission. At the court of the Achaemenids the mother of the king had the first place, the king the second.[387] That the queen-mother often exercised great influence is shown by the history of this ruling family. Of the careful education of the heir to the throne, the other princes, and the sons of the wealthy Persians, both in the exercise and strengthening of their bodies and in moral training, the Western writers had much to tell.

What the Greeks narrate respecting the celebration of the birthday among the Persians, the distinction of the satraps whose provinces were best cultivated and populated, and the rewards given to those who had most children, agrees entirely with the delight in life which runs through the Avesta, and the exhortations to increase life everywhere present in that book. The Avesta always speaks of one wife only. The polygamy noticed by the Greeks was limited to the rich (the number of wives among the Persians, says Ammian, was regulated by property[388]); in consequence of the religious feeling just noticed, it prevailed, no doubt, far more extensively among the Arians of Iran than among the Indians. Yet the harems of the Indian princes were large. However numerous the harems of the Achaemenids, only one wife was the lawful wife; and she alone, as in India, bore the name of queen: only her sons could be considered heirs to the throne. The other wives greeted the queen on their knees: the queen must belong to the race of the Achaemenids, or at any rate to one of the six tribal princes.[389] The same was the case among the rest of the Persians who had several wives; one only was the house-wife. The Avesta told us above that the wife must be watched. According to Plutarch the Persians were more strict in this matter than the rest of the barbarians; they kept not only the wife but the concubines shut up, and they left the houses in covered cars only.[390] Manu's law also requires that women should be watched (IV.