BABYLON AND PERSIA

THE VENDIDAD. THE LESSER AVESTA. 1 59would mean " so many khrafstras killed," the act ofpenance being turned to the profit of the " goodcreation " by so much damage done to the " badcreation." De Hariez, Spiegel, Justi, hold this latterview, while most other Avestan scholarsAnquetil,Haug, Darmesteter, and several moreadvocate theother. As long as we have to do with a reasonable -gradation of punishment, such as from five stripes toten, fifteen, thirty, fifty, seventy, ninety, up to twohundred, there do not seem to be any objections onthe plea of humanity or possibility ; but when itcomes to a thousand stripes, and in one case tenthousand (for the killing of a particularly sacred ani¬mal, called " water-dog," but not yet perfectly iden¬tified), feeling and reason equally revolt and promptus to look for some other interpretation. One isthat corporal punishment, though extensively usedeven now among the Parsis, as throughout the East,was very eariy commuted to the payment of fines,according to a corresponding, strictly graded scale."The Pehlevi Commentary," we are told,"-* " expresslydistinguishes three sorts of atonement : the atone¬ment by money, the atonement by the Sraosho-Charana, and the atonement by cleansing." Andfurther"In later Parsism, every sin (and everygood deed) has its value in money fixed, and maythus be weighed in the scales of Rashnu" (theAngel of Justice). It has been calculated that a stripeis equal to about fifty cents of our money.31. Altogether this is certainly one of the mostpuzzling and unedifying portions of the Avesta, es-* Darmesteter, " Introduction to the Zend-Avesta," p. xcix.