promotes purity by his praise: he upon whom Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd) conferred the good gift of eloquence; he was the first in the world who made the tongue subservient to the understanding; he is the only one who understood the doctrines of the Supreme God and was in a condition to transmit them." He was a priest of the Fire Worshipers, who found the doctrine of the good and evil principle already in vogue, although it is found that the name Ahriman does not yet occur in the oldest records. In his doctrine. what is understood principally by evil is evil thought (akô manô) and this is, contrasted with good thought, which is identical with the good principle. It can hardly be said that a personification of the good principle is to be found in his writings. He rather favored the faith in good spirits, Ahuras, the Living, which are called the "Dispensers of Wisdom," (Mazdas); this he found already in existence; but he oppossd the faith in the gods or powers of nature as being the highest beings. At the head of all he placed the One Holy God, Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd), "the highest Spirit." He is the creator and sustainer of all existence, the Lord of all the powers of nature. By spiritual life Zoroaster understands a better state on this earth; over all earthly and spiritual life the Lord rules The great axiom of Zoroaster was that "the highest Trinity (drigu) is Thought, Word, Deed." These three in his view are pure in the pure, evil in the evil; from the thought proceeds the word, from the word the deed. His followers have been distinguished as worshipers of Agni or fire.

CONCERNING THE HINDU REMINISCENCES ABOUT THE PRIMEVAL COUNTRY AND THE FLOOD.

Neither among the Bactrians nor the Hindus have the reminiscences of the catastrophe in the primeval conntry nor the account of the flood, in some sort, been altogether lost.

Of the Hindus the North with the sacred mountain of Meru is the primeval land.

Upameru, that is Pamer, that is Meru is the primeval country itself. You can see the Pamer High Land marked on your map on the western slope of the mountain chain, running north from India and bounding China on the west. There is no doubt but that the primeval land, so-called, was understood as extending to the east of that mountain chain, both into Thibet and China, as well as towards the west and north. All allow that the Ottorokorrha of Ptolemy are the Uttara-Kuru or Northern Kuru of the Hindu traditions. In his geography the latter described them as inhabiting a district in the extreme north of central Asia of which he gives the latitude and longitude. This information he must have derived from the Hindus while Hecateus must have derived the information he gives concerning them from the Persians. The two, however, are found to agree in their account. The agreement, therefore, of the Indian and Iranian accounts concerning the location of the primeval land shows that the Indians did not get all the knowledge they possess concerning those northern countries after the time of Alexander the Great.

The Vendidad, the code of the present Parsees, has undergone various processes of composition, of which three main steps are distinguishable: Avesta, Zend and Pâzend. The Avesta is to be considered the original ground work of the code. It means direct higher knowledge, divine Revelation. Its origin is ascribed to the post-Zoroastrian age. Of the laws which it embodies there sprung up in the course of time several interpretations and comments, which as they emanated from recognized competent authority gradually acquired as much weight as the original and came to be incorporated with it. This is the Zend, which means the explana tion, commentary of the Avesta. In these comments, however, there were found many things unintelligible to the after genera

tions, which gave rise to other further comments on these known as Pâzend. All three of these steps exist and are recognizable in the present Zend-Avesta or more properly Avesta-Zend.

As said above the original of the Vendidad, after having stated by way of preliminary that Ahura Mazda had changed the world from its former desert condition into a place fit for civilized habitation, goes on and briefly enumerates sixteen best countries or paradises created by Ahura Mazda, each of which was distinguished from the others by some noteworthy property. In contrast to these certain counter creations of Angrâ Mainyus (the black spirit), are then recorded; but without any further description of them.

But, if now we look more closely into these scanty preliminary notices as to locality we shall find that the geography of the ZendAvesta was by no means limited to the countries mentioned in this chapter. The whole globe was on several occasions divided by those Airyans into seven Karshvares, or cultivable districts, the names of which frequently recur in the Jeshts, where they are called Areza, Sava, Fradadhafshu, Vidadhafshu, Vouru-baresti, Vouru-garesti aud Qaniaratha. This account is deemed very ancient, inasmuch as the seven-portioned earth is mentioned in the Gathas, a collection of songs ascribed to Zarathustra.

The passages which contain the direct evidence of the geographical knowledge of the compilers of the Zend-Avesta are where mention is made of the countries of the Airya (Iranians), the Tûirya (Turanians), the Sairima (Sarmatians), the Saini (the Sanni of the classics, to the west of the Caspian, or, as some think, the Sakini), the Dâhi (the Daher or Daer of the classics, in Hyrcania). In the legend of Shahnameh we find the three sons of Feredun, Selm, Tûr and Ireg, mentioned as the three patriarchs, among whom the whole earth is divided. Most of the particular nations mentioned in the Zend-Avesta belonged to Iran, or Airya in its widest acceptation.

In regard to the Hindu tradition about the flood, Weber, in his "Indian Studies," has argued that the variations in the account of it in the Brahmanas of the Yagur-Veda are very ancient in opposition to Burnouf and Lassen, who supposed it to have come into the Indian literature through the Semitic.

As this account appears in the Vedic contemplations (Brahmanas) which form the second part of the White Yagur-Veda, edited by Burnouf, it seems rather in a fabulous garb; but it nevertheless

may have a meaning to convey. Its general picture is about as follows:

Manu, the patriarch of the human race, found, one morning, a little fish in some water in which he was going to wash. He took it up in his hand and the fish said to him: "Take care of me and I will save you." "Save me from what?" said Manu. "A flood," replied the fish, "will sweep away every living thing; I will save you from it." "How shall I take care of you?" said Manu. "Keep me carefully in a jar till I grow big, then put me into a tank, which you will make for the purpose; and at length throw me into the sea." The fish having grown to a good size said one day to Manu: “In such a year (naming it) the Flood will come; build a ship and turn to me in spirit; when the waters rise get into the ship and I will save you." Exactly as he was bidden Manu did; and when he was in the ship the fish came swimming towards him, whereupon he fastened a rope to it and the fish set off across the northern mountain. "You had better lash your ship to a tree," said the fish, in order that you may not be carried away, although you are on the mountain and when the water subsides you can let yourself down gradually." This is the reason why the northern mountain is called "the slope of Manu." The Flood destroyed all flesh. Manu alone survived. He offered up sacrifice for an invocation of the All (Good) and a prayer for his blessing, whereupon a woman, bringing him the blessing out of the Sacrificial Oil, rose up and addressed him thus: "He who begat me, his am I; I am the blessing thou hast desired." She became by Manu the mother of his race, who still survive; and whatever blessing he desired with her that he obtained. Idâ or Ilâ is the name of woman, the original meaning of which is "thanksgiving,” thoug afterwards signified "earth" and is the ordinary name for Manu's daughter.

The Purana tells this same story with some variations, and expressly mentions the fish who saved Manu, in the Brahminic tradition as Vishnu. In one of the Epodes Manu escapes from the Flood on to the Himavat (Imaus, Himalaya) on the top of which he is saved, and where the family of human beings he had brought with him in the ship took root. The tradition is not mentioned in the Vedas, in which, however, Vishnu is used for the name of the Sun. It is not, therefore, wonderful to find that the first migrating movement of mankind came from the mountains of the north

In the Hindu version of Cosmogony is found much that is common Arian property. Here we find the Cosmic egg. According to Manu Brahma created out of himself the waters which contained a germ or seed. From this came an egg, from which he, "as the first ancestor of all the worlds," was himself born. There are perceived in the Vedas also allusions to this, but the doctrine of the Cosmic egg is more ancient than the Brahmins and the minstrels of the Indus country.