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

CHAP. IV.] A LIST OF SINS. 203

their property, maladministration and defrauding, apostasy and heresy, and rebellion. The following are condemnable from a religious point of view: (1) abandoning the husband; (2) not acknowledging one’s children, on the part of a father; (3) cruelty tewards subjects, on the part of a ruler; (4) avarice ; (5) laziness; (6) illiberality and egotism; (7) envy.

The following actions are regarded as sins punishable in hell from a merely Zoroastrian point of view: (1) not heeding the laws regarding menstruation, on the part of women, by touching water or fire ; (2) pollution of water and fire by washing in standing or running water, or throwing impure matter into it as well as into fire; (8) intentional extinction of fire in general, and that of the most sacred fire in particular; (4) use of public warm baths, frequented and contaminated by many; (5) unlawful and unnecessary slaughter of cattle and sheep; (6) ill-treatment of the animals of the good creation, such as cattle, sheep, dogs, water otter, by starving, beating, or killing them; (7) carrying a dead body alone (lest in so carrying it alone the person is overtaken by a danger, to withstand which he is helpless); (8) destruction of a bridge over a rapid river; (9) intercourse with a menstruous woman; (10) eating when talking and not saying grace; (11) eating the grain which is destined to be sown; (12) devouring dead refuse ; (13) disregard of the poor and good, princi-