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THE ZOROASTRIAN BOOKS. and weak.” A long account of the origin and history of Haoma is put into the mouth of Zoroaster, and prayer is offered to him as a person, in extravagant terms. Paradise, health, long life, prosperity, conquest, safety, posterity, etc., are among the gifts besought of Haoma. He is also asked to frustrate the efforts of those who would injure the worshipper, and to bring every calamity upon him.
From these various indications we may picture to ourselves the Zoroastrian religion as practised centuries The early before the Christian era, and long after the
rites of time of Zoroaster. It is to be noted that the Mazdaism. Avesta contains no mention of temples; and the sacred fire was kept up on altars in the open air on elevated places, at most surrounded by a simple wall. No image or representation of the gods or genii was made ; fire alone was sufficient to symbolise them, kept up perpetually in great stone or copper basins, fed with the choicest wood. The priests (atharvans) taught the holy law, recited the sacred texts and invocations, prepared the Haoma, washed and kept the sacred vessels, and presided at ceremonies of penance and purification. They were expected to know the Avesta by heart, and had charge of the instruction and initiation of novices and students. It appears that they were accustomed to go from place to place in the exercise of their sacred functions; and some of them were medically skilled, but performed many cures by sacred formulas. The holy days which the religion prescribed were sufficiently numerous, including the 1st, 8th, 18th, and 23rd of each month, sacred to Ormuzd, the 3rd and 5th to the Amesha-Spentas, and every day had its special spirit or deity. The new year's festival to Ormuzd, and that of the autumnal equinox to Mithra, were among the principal festivals; and the dead in general were celebrated on the last ten days of the year. The contaminations that made men impure, as we have already detailed them, gave much work to the priests in purification.
By the time of Darius, Chaldæan and Semitic imageworship had influenced the worshippers of Ormuzd to a
