History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

152 AISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. III.

about, and that the governor of the province resolved, at the instigation of wicked counsellors, to destroy the infant. The hands of the would-be destroyers are said to have been in every attempt arrested by divine agency. |

As a youth, Zoroaster passed his time, we find from the Avesta, in the deep study of philosophical questions and in divine meditation on the top of a mountain, named ‘“ Ushidarena.” On the divine inspiration he received during this solitary study he based his teaching, and, according to the eighth chapter of the Yasna, undertook the mission “to guide the leaders of houses, streets, villages, and towns” in the path of virtue.

In the Pehlevi books still existing the Persian Prophet is said, at the age of thirty, to have left his native town of Rae and to have proceeded to Balkh, the capital of Gushtasp, at that time King of Ivan. In the thirtieth year of the reign of Gushtasp Zoroaster is reported to have appeared at the court of the king bearing with him into his presence the sacred fire, called “Adar Burzin Mehr,’ and a cypress tree. Firdusi, the Persian Homer, thus describes the first interview between Zoroaster and Gushtasp :—‘‘ Learn,” said Zoroaster to Gushtasp, “ the rites and doctrines of the religion of excellence. For without religion there cannot be any worth ina king. When the mighty (or excellent) monarch heard him speak of the excel-