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APPENDIX.
the country call him handsome whose garments, which seem to them hideous, have fallen off. And we are they in whose ideas a nose level with the face is ugly, but they who account a prominent nose ugly, and say it is a walling that reaches between the two eyes, remain selecting a handsome one'. And concerning handsomeness and ugliness in themselves, which are only through having taken up an opinion and belief, there is a change even through time and place; for any one of the ancients whose head was shaved was as it were ugly, and it was so settled by law that it was a sin worthy of death for them”; then its habits (sano) did not direct the customs of the country to shave the head of a man, but now there is a sage who has considered it as handsome and even a good work. Whoever is not clear that it is hideous is to think, about something threatening (girat), that it is even so not in itself, but through what is taken into themselves they consider that it is hideous.
Then for us the good work of that things, of which it is cognizable that it is so ordained by the creator, has its recompense; it is the protector of the race, and the family is more perfect; its nature
1 That is, those who admire flat noses select their beauties accordingly. Beauty being merely a matter of taste, which varies with the whim of the individual and the fashion of the period.
. This law was evidently becoming obsolete at the time the apologist was writing, and is now wholly forgotten. Al Parsi laymen have their heads shaved at the present time, although the priests merely have their hair closely cut. This change of custom, in a matter settled by religious law, should warn the Parsis not to deny the possibility of other complete alterations having taken place in their religious customs.
• Khvêtūk-das.
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