Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/53

Rh and rich sacrifices that people offered under their guidance. They were renowned as exorcists who cast out demons, who read dreams, prognosticated the future, warded off the effect of the evil eye and, with ingenious charlatanism, had prospered among the credulous and superstitious. Zarathushtra reproved their greed and avarice. He exhorted the people to give up these superstitious practices and warned them that they were causing great harm by following such false teachers. His denunciation of their practices made them furious and now they sought his ruin. They accused him of preaching doctrines that were subversive of the religion of their forefathers and the established form of worship, and of blaspheming their gods. They incited the people to oppose him and made frantic appeals to the rulers of the land to drive him out from their midst.

Zarathushtra's heart was burning with indignation against these hypocrisies. With his holy spirit aglow with righteous wrath, he called these Pharisees and Scribes of Iran, Kavis and Karapans or seeingly blind and hearingly deaf. These terms belong to the Indo-Iranian period and were evidently used in a good sense, before the Aryan groups separated. They share the fate of the cardinal word daeva and are assigned derogatory meaning in the Gathas. The Vedic hymns use the word kavi in the sense of a sage. It is freely applied to the seers and to Soma priests. It is further used as an epithet of gods. Agni, in particular, bears this honoured title. In the Gathas the word is curiously used with a double meaning. It is given a bad connotation whenever it is applied to the priests of the Daeva-worshippers. But the second Iranian dynasty is known as the Kavi or Kianian. Its renowned kings who lived before the coming of Zarathushtra were Kavi Kavata, Kavi Usa, and Kavi Haosrava. Even Vishtaspa, who later became the royal patron of the new religion, retains this title and Zarathushtra speaks of him as Kavi Vishtaspa. It is significant, however, that Vishtaspa is the last king who shares this epithet with his royal predecessors. The kings who succeed him and with whom the dynasty dies out do not share the title. To the class of the Kavi belong the Karapan, corresponding to Skt. kalpa, 'ritual,' and the Usij, Skt. ushijah.