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THE VENDIDAD.
267
were in the pastoral state which succeeds a nomad life, and becoming more settled than mere keepers the
1 The people of sheep and goats, which can be readily trans- to whom ferred from place to place. We are expressly addressed. told in the gathas that the cow is the giver of permanent homes, and the especial care of the active labourer, and also leads to the development of agriculture. In the Vendidad, in contrast to this, agriculture has become of equal importance with cattle-breeding. In the gathas antagonism is represented as occurring between the nomads and the agriculturists, and the former oppose the teaching of Zoroaster. In fact, the nomads plundered the settled people then as now, and naturally disliked the moral teacher of their more civilised brethren. We find Zoroaster assigned as the special protector of the cow, and the announcer to man that the cow is created for the industrious and the active. In the later parts of the Avesta we find the religion of Zoroaster firmly established and an order of priests (Atharvans), but the people are still peasants and shepherds, and their daily life is intimately connected with their religion, the annual feasts being specially related to the agricultural and pastoral life. The people do not yet seem to have used salt. Glass, coined money, and iron were unknown; the bronze age still ruled. One passage, which has been alleged to refer to Gautama, and to show the date of the Avesta to be later than his time, is not at all conclusive, and the name is rather an old Iranian form; also the name Gautama occurs in the Rig Veda. It was, in fact, an early Aryan name.
The Vendidad is specially the Zoroastrian book of purification; but the first two sections belong to the older literature. The first section at once touches The a natural chord by representing Ahura-Mazda Vendidad. (Ormuzd) as telling Zoroaster that he has made every country dear to its own people; were it not so, they would all have come to the Aryan country, which was created best of good lands. The counter-creation of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) is then described, giving rise to the ten months of winter. Other neighbouring coun
| SR No. | 007305 |
| Book Title | Great Indian Religion |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | G T Bettany |
| Publisher | Ward Lock Bowden and Co |
| Publication Year | 1892 |
| Total Pages | 312 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 42 MB |