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INTRODUCTION.
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his father hears him accused of folly, and takes him to a Karap to be cured. In Chapter XIX the chief Karap comes to the house of Zaratust's father, and is invited to consecrate the food set before him ; but Zaratast objects and a quarrel ensues, which so much disturbs the Karap that he leaves the house, and drops dead from his horse on the road home. In Chapter XX instances are given of Zaratûst's righteous desires, his compassionate assistance of people fording a river, his liberal disposition, his abandoning worldly desires, his pity for dogs, his wish for a goodlooking wife, and his acceptance of progress even from the wicked, during his youth.
18. Chapter XXI relates that, at thirty years of age, on his way to the festival of spring, he saw in a vision all mankind following Médyômâh, his first cousin, into his presence. He then went on to the bank of the Dâîtîh, and crossed its four channels, when he met Vohûmand who led him to the assembly of the archangels, where he received instruction from Adharmazd and saw the omniscient wisdom; the archangels also subjected him to various ordeals.
19. Chapter XXII refers to his conferences with the seven archangels, each at a different place, and extending over ten years. In Chapter XXIII, Mêdyômâh is converted at the end of these ten years. The next two years are spent on the conversion of Vistâsp, in which Zaratûst is assisted by some of the sacred beings, and the narrative ends by giving the dates of several other conversions, births, and deaths. But after its 300th year the religion is disturbed and the monarchy contested; referring, no doubt, to the effects of Alexander's conquest of Persia.
20. These three narratives appear to be the only connected statements of the Zoroastrian legend that remain extant in Pahlavi, and all three seem to be chiefly derived from the Sâsânian Pahlavi version of the Spend Nask, with some probable additions from the similar version of the Kitradåd Nask, as may be gathered from the summary accounts of the contents of these Nasks given in Dk. VIII, xiii, 20-xiv, 15, and translated in S. B. E., vol. xxxvii, pp. 31–34. There are, however, allusions to other legends
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