Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/270

Rh During the lifetime of the individual, his Fravashi accompanies him to this earth. When a child is born its Fravashi that has existed from all eternity now comes down to this earth as the higher double of the child's soul. The soul is the ego proper, the real I-ness. Every individual soul is accompanied by its Fravashi.

This Fravashi acts as a guardian spirit, a true friend, and an unerring guide of the soul. Hers is the divine voice of an infallible monitor who now advises and now admonishes the soul, now applauds its action, and now raises a voice of warning at a threatening spiritual danger. This divine agent in man, we may infer, sits enthroned by the side of the soul as an ideal ever attracting the soul towards herself. This ideal goal is the one towards which the soul should strive. Though living in the tabernacle of clay on earth with the soul, and in the midst of the storms of passion and vice, the Fravashi remains unaffected and untouched, ever pure and ever sinless. From the time the soul embarks on its unknown voyage to this world, as we can judge from Zoroastrian teachings, its Fravashi leads it, day and night, to the path of safety, and warns it of the rocks and shoals, storms and cyclones. If it is off the track, the Fravashi hoists the danger signal. The bark moves smoothly so long as the soul follows the wise counsels of its guide. But as soon as it revolts from the heavenly pilot, it exposes the bark to danger at every turn. The vessel now drifts along on the unmapped ocean without any one at the helm to direct it to the right course, is tossed on the roaring waves, is left to the mercy of the changing wind, and is in danger of being wrecked.

The soul alone is responsible for the good or evil deeds done in this world, and it receives reward or retribution in the next world according to its desert. At the death of the individual when the soul thus advances to meet its fate, its guardian Fravashi returns to the celestial realm, but lives now an individualized life as the Fravashi of a certain person who has lived his short span of life on earth.

Qualities of the Fravashis. The Fravashis are usually designated as the good, valiant, and holy. They are the liberal, the most valiant, the most holy, the most powerful, the most mighty, and the most effective. They are the swiftly moving when