BABYLON AND PERSIA

156 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. 'velopment which is worked out far more thoroughlyin the Bundehesh and other Pehlevi books of theSassanian period, and which would beinexplicablebut for the affinity which the student of Chaldeanantiquity cannot but instantly detect between thesespiritual doubles and those which the primitive faithof the Shumiro-Accads ascribed to every individ¬ual, whether human or divine, and to every materialobject or phenomenon.""*The influence is unmistak¬able, though there is far from Turanian goblin-worshipto the nobler form which the same conception as¬sumed when received and reproduced by the morerefined Aryan intellect. In their last developmentthe transformed P'ravashis came to be, as one mightsay, the pre-existing prototypes created in heavenof all that is ever to be born or have visible shape onearth,the abstract form, to be at some time incar¬nated in a body.The most intelligible and exhaust¬ive definition of this class of beings is that givenby Dr. E. W. West, perhaps the greatest living Peh¬levi scholar: "... A preparatory creation of em¬bryonic and immaterial existences, the prototypesfravashisspiritual counterparts or guardian angelsof the spiritual andmaterial Creatures afterwardsproduced." f29. We lastly come to the affinities, betweenAvestan andHebrew conceptions, which are manyand striking. The almost identity of the Angra-* See, in " Story of Chaldea," the explanation of the expression" the son of his god," pp. 176 ff., and Turanian spirit-worship- in thesame chapter, pp. 151 ff.f In a note to Chapter I. of the Bundehesh,