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

CHAPTER IV.

THE PARSI CREED.

A book of prayers—The Vendidad—The Yasna—The Visparad—The KhordehAvesta—The five Gahs—The Nyaishes—The Yashts—Their importanceThe Afringans—The Patets—Prayers of repentance—An exhaustive list of sins—The Afrins—The Prophet’s own prayer—The oldest copies of the Parsi books—Professor Westergaard’s texts—The Pehlevi languageConjectural meanings—Connected with Parthia—List of Pehlevi worksSome of the more important—The Pazand language—What is the Parsi religion ?—Zoroaster’s mission—Monotheism—Ahura Mazda—The One God—Zoroaster’s theology—The account of Herodotus—Of Dr. HaugZoroaster’s philosophy—The resurrection of the body—Zoroaster’s moral teaching—Ardeshir Babekan calls an assembly—The vision of Arda Viraf—Two foreign critics on the Parsis—Expression of regret at the decay of the old Parsi religion.

Busines the religious works named in the last chapter, a book of prayers, called the Khordeh-Avesta, is still in existence. We may therefore proceed to take a brief survey of the books of the Vendidad Sade and the Khordeh-Avesta, which form the bulk of the Parsi Scriptures remaining to the present day. It is not certain whether these three, not mentioned in our list of the twenty-one volumes, viz. the Yasna, Visparad, and Khordeh-Avesta, existed as different books. The probability is, perhaps, that they formed a part of some of those twenty-one volumes.