Page:Avesta, the Bible of Zoroaster.djvu/6

 connected with daily life. Judging from the table of contents of the Nasks, it would seem that not more than a quarter, perhaps less, of the ancient monument of the Avesta could be restored even at the time of the Sassanian council. The Vendidad, for example, according to tradition, is one of the surviving Nasks; but even a superficial examination of this book shows that in its present form it can not be complete; the framework is all there, but the material is in a more or less disjointed and fragmentary condition. The Mohammedan invasion also, it must be added, has done much toward destroying a great deal that would otherwise have survived in spite of 'the accursed Iskander's' conquest. Fragmentary as the remnants are, let us rejoice in them. The following sketch will give some idea of their character.

1. The Yasna, 'sacrifice worship,' is the chief liturgical work of the sacred canon. It consists chiefly of ascriptions of praise and of prayer. It answers, in fact, partly to what we might call a book of common prayer. It comprises seventy-two chapters; these fall into three nearly equal parts. The middle or oldest part is the section of Gāthās, 'the hymns' or psalms of Zoroaster himself; they are seventeen in number, and, they, like the Psalms of David, are divided into five groups. A treatment of these sacred and interesting remnants of the prophet's direct words and teachings must be reserved for elsewhere.

The opening chapters of the Yasna contain passages for recitation at the sacrifice — a sacrifice consisting chiefly of praise and thanksgiving, accompanied by ritual ceremonies. The priest invokes Ahura Mazda (Ormazd) and the heavenly hierarchy; he consecrates the holy water, zaothra, the myazda, or obligation, and the baresma, or bundle of sacred twigs, and then with due solemnity he and his assistant prepare the haoma (the soma of the Hindus), or juice of a sacred plant which was drunk as part of the religious service. The sacredness and solemnity attached to this rite in the Zoroastrian religion may possibly be better comprehended, if compared — with all reverence, be it understood — with our communion service; in the Zoroastrian rite, however, there is no idea of a sacrifice, the