Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/202

 The Ideas of the Persians as to a Future Life. 191 whom they assist in his eternal conflict with demons. In certain passages of the sacred book may, perhaps, be recognized lost usages of a remote past ; for example, in the following speech the Ferouhers address to their worshippers: "Who will praise us ? Who will offer a sacrifice to us ? Who will meditate upon us ? Who will bless us ? Who will welcome us with meat and garments in their hands A later generation taught that the food and clothes that should alwajrs accompany the reception of the Ferouhers were to be understood as alms for the needy ; but is not this rather a vague reminiscence of a rite akin to the sraddkOf or funereal banquet, so often mentioned in the Laws of Manou?' However that may be, when the books that contain the doctrines elaborated by the priest-caste of the Magi found general acceptance throughout Iran, the primary hypothesis which every man about to leave this life sets for himself had long been outstepped. Another belief had supervened — ^that which is borne of the desire to find compensation in a better world for all the injustices of which this earth is the scene, and which shock our susceptibilities and give supreme sanction to moral law. The next advance in this order of ideas which so largely occupied the thoughts of the founders of Mazdaism was to conceive the body as quite distinct from the soul; the latter was believed to set out on a dreary and perilous journey immediately after leaving its earthly tenement, and, according as the defunct had lived, it went to a place of happiness or one of suffering, to heaven or hell, as we should say.' What was to be done with bodies the soul had abandoned in order to receive the reward of its good deeds "around the golden throne of Ahurd-Mazda," or punishment "in endless darkness " for its ill-doing } The Avesia is very explicit on this > The ZauhmUt, Part II., ike SMMOks, Vasts, and IffAyis, translated by James Dannesteter, p. 19a (Ftrvardm Yas^, i. 95 ; iti. 82, 122, 127, 146, 187, 274. To be childless is even now considered as a dire misfortune by the Parsees, because, say the Destours, a man who has produced no chiUicn has fomtshed no helpers to Ahutft-Masda in his stnig^ «ganist evil, and thereby exposes himself to go to hell. But at the bottom of a feeling that was also current wiih the Greeks and the Romans, is there not something so remote as to baffle our penetration, a dim survival of that primitive notion that he who begets no sons wQl have no sacrifices nor food offered to his manes? ' Consult particdaily Yau xxiL, 2ismAm!f^ translated by Dannesteter, u*. . pp^ 3 '4-32 3 ; regard to the resurrectioOt see /«<!nMAw<!M« oar Kniiyiak/, Uxix., and Vast xix. 89, and following verses. L.iyu,^cd by Google
 * LotSBLBUR-DESLONGCllAMPS, Manava Dharma Sas/ra, Lois dc Afanou, 8vo, 1883,