BABYLON AND PERSIA

THE GATHAS. 99harm on the settlements of the prophet's followers,let his evil deeds recoil on himself, let his prosperitybe blighted, let him perish and " no help come to himto keep him back from misery.And let this hap¬pen as I speak. Lord ! " On the other hand none,not even Turanian tribes, if they will be converted,are excluded from the community of the pious. Animportant and authentic precept for this triumph ofreligious brotherhood over race-feeling is establishedby the following explicit statement" When from among the tri1)es and kith of the Turanians thoseshall arise who further on tlie settlements of Piety witli energy andzeal, with these shall Alnira tlwell together through his Good-Mind {vohu-i/iano) [which will abide in them], and to them forjoyful grace deliver his commands." (Yasna XLVI. 12. L. H.Mills' tr.anslation.)5. There can be little doubt that the feelings ofhatred and contempt with which Zarathushtra in¬spired his followers against those of the old Aryanreligion were amply reciprocated by the latter, notonly by such asstill lived or roamed side by sidewith them in the cultivated regions or the wilds ofEran, but also by those who had already descendedinto India. This supplies us with the most naturalexplanation of some facts which would otherwise bedifficult to account for : the use by the ZarathushtrianEranians of the word daeva with the meaning of" demon, fiend," while Sanskrit deva continued in thesister nation of India to denote the gods of Light,the bright and beneficent Powers, as it had done inthe joint Indo-Eranian period, and probably in theprimeval Aryan times,together with the corres-