Page:Avesta, the Bible of Zoroaster.djvu/10

 upon the dragon's back. His final slaying of the creature forms the burden of the devout song of praise.

The same Keresaspa also kills a monstrous demon, who is just growing to man's estate. This fiend presumptuous utters vaunts worthy of some early romance, if not of Milton's rebel angels. This is his proud boast:


 * I am yet only a stripling,
 * But if ever I come to manhood
 * I shall make the heaven my chariot
 * And the earth to be its wheel.
 * I shall force the Holy Spirit
 * Down from out the shining Heaven;
 * I shall rout the Evil Spirit
 * Up from out the dark Abysm;
 * They, as steeds, shall draw my chariot,
 * God and Devil yoked together.

4. Under the designation, Minor Texts of the Avesta, may be understood a series of shorter prayers, praises, and blessings, the Nyaishes, Gahs, Sorozahs, and Afringans, answering somewhat to our little manuals of daily devotion, or to the prayers, thanksgivings, and orders for special occasions in the Book of Common Prayer.

5. The Vendīdād, 'law against the daevas, or demons,' is a book of much interest. It is written chiefly in prose; and in its present form many portions may be several centuries younger than Zoroaster; but much of the material is certainly old, perhaps in part even pre-Zoroastrian. The Vendidad is a priestly code, and its character will best be understood if the book be paralleled with the Mosaic code, and the Vendidad be called the Iranian Pentateuch. Its chapters number twenty-two. The first chapter ('Fargard 1') is a sort of Avestan Genesis, a dualistic account of the creation of good things and places by Ormazd, and of the Devil Ahriman's offsetting these by producing evils. Chapter 2 sketches the legend of Yima and the golden age, and describes the coming of a destructive winter, an Iranian flood, against which Yima is commanded to make a Vara 'enclosure, paradise,' and to bring therein the seeds of all good things, two of every