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'I ask thee, tell me the truth, O Ahura! Who was from the beginning the father of the pure world? Who has made a path for the sun and for the stars? Who (but thou) makes the moon to increase and to decrease? That, O Mazda, and other things, I wish to know.
LECTURE IV.
'I ask thee, tell me the truth, O Ahura! Who holds the earth and the clouds that they do not fall? Who holds the sea and the trees? Who has given swiftness to the wind and the clouds? Who is the creator of the good spirit?
'I ask thee, tell me the truth, O Ahura! Who has made the kindly light and the darkness, who has made the kindly sleep and the awaking? Who has made the mornings, the noons, and the nights, they who remind the wise of his duty?'
Whatever the difficulties may be, and they are no doubt most formidable, that prevent us from deciphering aright the words of the Zendavesta, so much is clear, that in the Bible of Zoroaster every man is called upon to take his part in the great battle between Good and Evil which is always going on, and is assured that in the end good will prevail.
What shall I quote from Buddha? for we have so much left of his sayings and his parables that it is indeed difficult to choose. In a collection of his sayings, written in Pâli-of which I have lately published a translation 1-we read:
1. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up
1 The Dhammapada, a Collection of Verses, being one of the canonical books of the Buddhists, translated from Pâli by F. Max Müller, in 'Sacred Books of the East,' vol. x. 1881.
