BABYLON AND PERSIA

130 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.to propound nice and puzzling points, in the form ofhypothetical cases, for Ahura-Mazda to solve. Wegive the first part of this curious dialogue whole, asa ,specimen :" There dies a man in the depths of the vale : a bird takes flightfrom the top of the mountain down into the depths of the vale, andit eats up the corpse of the dead man there ; then up it flies from thedepths of the vale to the top of the mountain, it flies to some one ofthe trees there, of the hard-wooded or the soft-wooded, and uponthat tree it vomits, it deposits dung, it drops pieces of the corpse." Now, lo ! here is a man coming up from the depths of the vale tothe top of the mountain ; he comes to the tree whereon the bird issitting, from that tree he wants to have wood for the fire. He fellstree, he hews the tree, he splits it into logs, and then he lights iton the fire, the son of Ahura-Mazda, What is the penalty that. heshall pay ? "Ahur£i-Mazda answered:" There is no sin upon a man for .anydead matter that has been brought by dogs, birds, by wolves, bywinds, or by flies." For, were there sin upon a man for any dead matter that mighthave been brought by dogs, by birds, by wolves, by winds, or by flies,how soon this material world of mine would have in it only PeshStanus"(i. e., people guilty of death), "shut out from the way ofholiness, whose souls will cry and wail ! " (After death, beingdriven away from paradise.)In like manner the agriculturist is not to be heldresponsible for any dead matter that any animal mayhave brought into the stream that waters his field.Zarathushtra next takes Ahura-Mazda himself totask for apparent violation of his own laws :" O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One ! Is it true tliatthou, Ahura-Mazda, sendest the waters from the sea Vouru-Kashadown with the wind and with the clouds, and makest them flowdown to the corpses ? That thou, Ahura-Mazda, makest them flowdown to the Dakhmas, to the unclean remains, to the bones ? Andthat thou, Ahura-Mazda, makest them flow back unseen ? . . ."