Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/100

88 death, but banish it from bis thoughts and earnestly strive after the realization of a fuller and richer life. It is the height of folly to suppose that mortifications of the flesh can further spiritual growth. Whatever fosters the health of the body favors the health of the soul; but the emaciation of the body impoverishes the soul. The notion which underlies what is known as "muscular Christianity" pervades the entire Avesta and finds a na'ive and pithy expression in the following text of the Vendidãd, which the tiller of the soil is directed always to bear in mind and frequently to repeat:

 Who eateth not for naught hath strength, No strength for robust purity, No strength for robust husbandry, No strength for getting robust sons."

[Here, too, we have a bit of old poetry passed into a proverb. In the original the only trace of rhyme (and this we have preserved in the rendering) is the assonance of the second and third lines:

 Naêchis aquarentam tva, Nôit ughrâm ashyãm, Nôit ughrâm vas'trãam, Nôit ughrâm putrôistêm."

Vendidâd, iii, 112-115.

The editorial bracketing of the last line by Prof. Spiegel, as a possible interpolation, indicates an excess of critical suspicion, since this line not only fills out the verse, but also finishes up the thought, rounding and completing the expression of the sentiment with a climax.]

In another passage Ahuramazda declares: "Verily I say unto thee, O Spitama Zarathustra! the man who has a wife is far above him who begets no sons; he who has a household is far above him who has none; he who has children is far above the childless man; he who has riches is far above him who is destitute of them. And of two men, the one who fills himself with meat is filled with the good spirit (vôhu manô) much more than he who goes hungry; the latter is all but dead; the former is above him by the worth of a kid (as'perena), by the worth of a sheep, by the worth of an ox, by the worth of a man. [As'perena, usually rendered weight or coin, is derived from a$$+$$s'par, and means not walking or not grown, a young animal, a kid or a lamb. Cf. Sanskrit sphar or sphur, to expand or to swell.] Such a person can resist the onsets of As'tvîdhôtus (the demon of death); can resist the self-moving arrow; can resist the winter fiend, even though thinly clad; can resist and smite the wicked tyrant; can resist the assaults of the ungodly Ashemaogho (the destroyer of purity) who does not eat." (Vend, iv, 130-141.)