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YAST XXII.
319
Zarathustra! “To what land shall I turn, O Ahura Mazda ? To whom shall I go with praying ?”
'On that night his soul tastes as much of suffering as the whole of the living world can taste.'
23. _'On the third night, where does his soul abide ?'
24. Ahura Mazda answered: 'It rushes and sits near the skull, singing the Kima Gâtha, O holy Zarathustra! “To what land shall I turn, O Ahura Mazda ? To whom shall I go with praying ?”
'On that night his soul tastes as much of suffering as the whole of the living world can taste.'
25. At the end of the third night, O holy Zarathustra! when the dawn appears, it seems to the soul of the faithful one as if it were brought amidst snow and stench, and as if a wind were blowing from the region of the north, from the regions of the north, a foul-scented wind, the foulest-scented of all the winds in the world.
26-32. And it seems to the soul of the wicked man as if he were inhaling that wind with the nostrils, and he thinks: “Whence does that wind blow, the foulestscented wind that I ever inhaled with my nostrils??'
1 A development similar to that in $$ 9-14 is to be supplied here: in the Arda Vîrâf and the Minokhired the soul of the wicked is met by a horrid old woman, who is his own conscience : 'And in that wind he saw his own religion and deeds, as a profligate woman, naked, decayed, gaping, bandy-legged, lean-hipped, and unlimitedly spotted, so that spot was joined to spot, like the most hideous noxious creatures (khrafstar), most filthy and most stinking' (cf. $ 9).
Then that wicked soul spoke thus: “Who art thou? than whom I never saw any one of the creatures of Allharmazd and Akharman uglier, or filthier or more stinking' (cf. $ 10).
To him she spoke thus : 'I am thy bad actions, O youth of evil thoughts, of evil words, of evil deeds, of evil religion! It
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