BABYLON AND PERSIA

VI.MIGRATIONS AND FOREIGN INFLUENCESTLlE VEN¬DIDAD HEATHEN REVIVAL THE KHORDEH-AVESTA.1. If with the "Yasna of Seven Cli^pters " wealready pass into an atmosphere distinct from thatof the Gathas (see p. io8), the Vendidad takes usinto another world.The most cursory perusal ofthe book shows us that the religion carried westwardby its Eranian bearers has wandered far from itscradle, and has assimilated many foreign elements inits wanderings.The Vendidad, the only book ofAvestan law preserved entire out of the mass ofAvestan literature, is devoted to only one subject,but that a most important one :the means of main¬taining the ideal Mazdayasnian purity and of fight¬ing and defeating the daevas.It is the extrememinuteness and iJuerility of most of the observancesprescribed, together with the importance given *tomere points of material detail, which produce sostartling a contrast between this later developmentof Mazdeism and the pure abstraction of Zarathush¬tra's own teaching.Still the spirit of that teachingis there in its essential features ;and the regulationscontain much that is excellent and wise under all113 I