The History of Antiquity Volume V Part 15

[413] "Vend." 8, 38-64.

[414] "Vend." 8, 271-310; 9, 164-166.

[415] "Vend." 5, 15-21, according to Geldner's rendering.

[416] "Vend." 5, 1-22; 7, 189-191.

[417] Herod. 1, 140; 3, 16.

[418] Strabo, p. 517.

[419] Strabo, p. 735. Cf. p. 520.

[420] "Quaest. Tuscul." 1, 45.

[421] Euseb. "Praep. Evang." p. 277.

[422] Agath. 2, 23.

[423] Diod. 17, 71; Arrian, "Anab." 3, 22; 6, 29.

[424] Ctes. "Pers. Ecl." 44, 46; Strabo, p. 730.

[425] Arrian, l. c.; Justin, 11, 15; Aelian, "Var. Hist." 6, 8; Plut.

"Alex." c. 30.

[426] Diod. 17, 71; cf. Ctes. "Pers. Ecl." 15.

[427] K. Niebuhr, "Reise," 2, 150 ff.

[428] "Vend." 1, 46, 48, 60, 64; cf. above, p. 137, 138.

[429] "Yacna," 26.

[430] Above, p. 52. The Mainyo-i-Khard contains some rules on the duties of the king. The prince is to defend the city and land against enemies and risings, to respect water and fire, to keep at a distance bad laws and customs, and promote the wors.h.i.+p of Auramazda, and good works, and to bring back to the right way those who have left it. A king of this kind is like the Yazatas and Amesha cpentas: c. 15, 20, 33, 68, ed.

West.

[431] "Vend." 14, 32-40.

[432] Arrian, "Anab." 4, 1, 5.

[433] "Vend." 13, 143-145.

[434] "Vend." 4, 4-53 according to Harlez.

[435] "Vend." 4, 54-113. Even after all that has been advanced by De Harlez, "Avesta," p. 101, I cannot convince myself that the stripes appointed here and elsewhere in the Vendidad are to fall, not on the guilty, but on animals of Angromainyu. If animals are to be killed, we are told so expressly in the Vendidad, and this duty is often mentioned along with the stripes (p. 209). To kill twice 90 or 200 flies or lizards is no equivalent for murdering a man. I allow that no one could endure blows by thousands, if they were given in earnest, yet in running a "muck" five and six hundred very severe blows have been endured. In my opinion the punishments of the Avesta are not intended for legal penalties; they mark what was needed, in the opinion of the priests, to expel the evil disposition, which could recur again and again.

[436] "Vend." 4, 120; "Astad Yasht," 1; Justi, "Handbuch," _sub. voc._

CHAPTER X.

THE LATER DEVELOPMENT OF EASTERN IRAN.

Of the tribes of the Arians occupying the table-land called by their name, those which had their habitations on the northern slope of the Hindu Kush, in the valleys of the Murghab and Zarefshan, outstripped the rest in combining their forces, and uniting into a larger community. In these regions they held advanced posts over against the steppes and the migratory nations of the low plains stretching before them without limit towards the north. We had good reason to suppose that it was the repulsion of the attacks of the nomads from the steppes of the Oxus and Jaxartes, which brought these tribes, whose possessions consisted of flocks and pastures, into the habit of living in arms, and of undertaking the protection of the country. From their midst arose the monarchy intended to lead and combine the defence, the formation of which we placed about the year 1100 B.C., and having its centre at Bactria and Zariaspa. The tribes of the West, on the other hand, for four centuries after this time lived in isolation under their chieftains. The continuance of the struggles which Bactria had to undergo, even after the formation of the monarchy, is proved, not only by the proximity of the nomads of the steppes, but also by the traits of warlike feeling preserved in the Avesta; by the order of warriors which existed beside the orders of priests and husbandmen; by the chieftains and their citadels, which we found here in the fourth century B.C.; and lastly, by the circ.u.mstance, that the old shapes of the myth of the Arians, the spirits of the sky which smite the demons, are changed in the Avesta not merely into ideal patterns, but even into ancestors of the Bactrian kings, and connected with the genealogical tree of the nation. Yima, Thraetaona, Ma.n.u.schithra, Airyu, Uca, and Hucrava, are changed into ancestors of the kings and the people.

Like the Aryas in the Panjab, the tribes of the Airyas in Iran prayed to Mithra, to the spirits of light, the clear air, the wind, and fire, which protected them against the demons of the night and gloom, and gave increase to their pastures and flocks, and recovered the water of the sky which the demons sought to carry away. As in India, the juice of the Soma plant was the princ.i.p.al offering presented to the G.o.ds; as Soma was not only the king of plants, the lord of nourishment and life--so the liquor which gave strength to the G.o.ds was here also a G.o.d, Haoma. The belief in the opposition of the spirits of light and the spirits of destruction, in the power of the correct sacrifice, in the influence of the good sayings, the sacred words, was on both sides of the Indus, the starting-point of religious ideas, and in Iran it became the hinge on which they turned.

Iran was divided into fertile land and deserts; next to the most luxuriant growth lay wide tracts, in which heat or cold, mora.s.s or drought, storms of sand or of snow, made life and agriculture impossible. These contrasts were most striking on the upper Oxus, in Sogdiana and Margiana. Hence it came to pa.s.s that in Bactria the ancient belief in the struggle of the good and evil spirits made an essential advance. The old G.o.ds and spirits, the ancient wors.h.i.+p of fire, were not indeed overthrown by the doctrine of Zarathrustra; on the contrary, the struggle between the good and evil powers was spread over the whole of nature, and the means of repelling the evil ones were increased. The good and evil spirits were respectively ranged under chiefs, on the counter-operation of whom and their spirit-armies rests the life of nature; and on this life depends the life of man. Henceforth man must not merely keep the evil ones from himself, he must take part in the struggle of the good against the evil powers, increase so far as he can the good creation which now belongs to Auramazda and has proceeded from him; and thus restrict the sphere in which the evil spirit exercises his power. After death he will receive the reward of his conflict; and if in and through this struggle he has been made a partic.i.p.ator in the nature of the pure and bright deities, he will continue to live in their heaven of light.

This development of the old Arian views and reform of the religion received the impulse which eventually called it into life at the time when Vistacpa was king of Bactria. It must have taken place about the year 1000 B.C., _i.e._ about the time when the Brahmans on the Ganges came to reform their ancient faith, and exalted Brahman above Indra and the ancient deities. From the idea of this new G.o.d, in which the power of the Holy and the world-soul were equal factors, the Brahmans arrived at a sharp distinction between spirit and matter. Their ethics, beginning with the rejection of nature, could not but require the annihilation of the body as their final goal, and this led to the vain pursuit of impossibilities, to the ascetic suicide of body and soul.

The doctrine of Zarathrustra does not recognise the contradiction of spirit and matter. The good G.o.d has not created the world in order to entangle men in evil and wickedness, but in order to give to it and to mankind life and increase. It is only one side of nature, not the whole of it, and that side harmful to men, which has proceeded from evil, and this evil does not come from the good, but from the wicked spirit. Evil is here limited to gloom, desolation, drought and death. As it is this part, and this only in nature, which has to be removed, man is not called upon to lay aside his whole nature, but on the contrary to rejoice in the beneficial side of it. This he must tend and strengthen in himself, while he keeps the harmful side at a distance, struggles against and annihilates it so far as possible both in himself and all around him. He must strengthen the light side of his soul against the dark, and make it the master of the dark; he must banish from his soul lying and deceit, idleness and filthiness; purity of soul consists in truthfulness. Thus must a man watch and work with the good G.o.ds and under their eyes. It is not contemplation, meditation, or asceticism, as in the doctrine of the Brahmans; it is practical activity and inward effort that the teaching of Zarathrustra requires from men; the object it placed before men was not self-annihilation, but the purification of soul and body, and true a.s.sertion of self. If a man kept his body and soul pure; if he was truthful in word and work, and increased the good creation in meadow, field, and forest; if he slew the animals of the evil spirits, then all would be well with him; he would have abundance of cattle and descendants, long life in this world, and eternal life in the heaven of the spirits of light.

This reform had been accomplished in its fundamental principles in Bactria, and Auramazda had been elevated above Mithra as the creator of heaven, of the G.o.ds, and the earth, when about the middle of the ninth century B.C. the armies of Shalmanesar II. of a.s.shur invaded the East of Iran. About this time, or soon after, the order of Athravas was formed.

It rose, on the one hand, out of the ancient families of the fire-priests, who understood the custom of sacrifice, and had preserved the efficacious prayers to Mithra, Verethraghna, Haoma, and Tistrya, to Ardvicura and Drvacpa down to the period of the reform, so far as they came over to the new doctrine; and on the other hand, out of the race of Zarathrustra, and the families of the zealous adherents of the new doctrine, who devoted themselves to the service of religion. This order of priests, which handed down in its families the sayings of Zarathrustra and those of old days, the ancient invocations as well as those of the new teaching, took precedence of the families of the n.o.bles, warriors, and husbandmen, though they were not separated from them by any rights of connubium or other privileges. From the whole tendency of the reform there could not be any thought of acquiring such a position as that which the Brahmans--the first created of Brahman--attained among the orders of India. When the army of Tiglath-Pilesar II. entered Arachosia about the middle of the eighth century B.C. the new doctrine had already advanced to the West. It was represented among the Medes by eminent teachers. In this region, at the time when the Medes were under the supremacy of a.s.syria, a priestly order grew up out of the old families of the priests or Magians, _i.e._ the powerful, and adherents of the new doctrine; the families of this order abandoned their tribal connection among the Medes, and thus formed an hereditary caste, which preserved the name already in use in the West for the priests, and became so numerous that it could be ranked as a tribe among the other tribes of the Medes. The formation of this order was already complete when, after the middle of the seventh century B.C., the Medes rebelled against the kings of a.s.shur.

Meanwhile the Athravas of the East were busily occupied in developing and fixing the contents and meaning of the new idea of G.o.d, and of the ethics resulting from it. They ranged the old G.o.ds under the new doctrine, and determined their relation to the new supreme deity; they peopled heaven with shapes corresponding to the reformed teaching, and brought mythology into harmony with it; from the commands of purity they developed in the spirit of the reformed religion the rules of purification and the removal of impurities as required in every occurrence of life. Thus, beside the old invocations of the G.o.ds, arose theories of a speculative cast which sought to regard the G.o.ds as ethical forces, and prayers of a formal character; from the dialectic of the priestly schools was developed a very complicated system of purity of life, of rubrics for expiation and purification, in which formalism and casuistry were not wanting. Enquiries arose how law and justice should be shaped so as to conform to the rules of religion; while, on the other hand, the old sacrificial songs were collected, the liturgy was fixed, as well as the order of the festivals and sacrifices for the new moon and full moon, and the course of the year; the prescriptions of medicine were written down, and those cycles formed which comprised the battle between Auramazda and Angromainyu down to the last and eternal victory of light and life. After various attempts at compilation, the priests of the East finally succeeded in uniting the sum of these labours into one great whole, which was the canon of the sacred scriptures. We may a.s.sume that the labours of the priesthood of Bactria, which came to an end with this result, may have occupied the same s.p.a.ce of time as the growth and writing down of the Brahmanas on the Ganges.

There are good reasons for supposing that the canon was finally established about the year 600 B.C., and therefore, on the calculation given, the labours of the priests upon it must have commenced about the year 800 B.C.

Like the kindred tribes in India, the Arians in Iran were not dest.i.tute of imagination and a tendency to abstraction. But from the first these qualities were restrained within narrower limits owing to the nature of the land,--while the scenery and phenomena of the Ganges tended to develop them,--and the teaching of Zarathrustra provided a counterpoise in the practical requirements which it set up. Labour took the place of idle dreaming, conflict and energetic activity the place of asceticism, and the imagination received impulses to simple and great conceptions.

The ethics of this religion guaranteed the conditions of a healthy human existence; man's effort was essentially directed to this present world, and the duties imposed upon him were such as he could fulfil. Thus they led to results different from the introspection, quietism, and asceticism of the Indians, and the relapse into sensuality which was the inseparable concomitant of the latter. The doctrine of Zarathrustra contributed essentially to educate the tribes which followed it in truthfulness and manliness, and to qualify them for energy and action.

In their sensible, intelligent view of the world, in putting theory below practice, and aiming at an active life, the Iranians are as far before the Indians as the Romans are before the Greeks.

If Eastern Iran, in the first instance, discharged a religious mission, the duty of politics was undertaken by the West. The empire of the Medes and of the Persians rose and fell, but the religion of Auramazda survived the fall of the Achaemenids. It rose to renewed life with the empire of the Arsacids and Sa.s.sanids. The national reaction against the dominion of the Seleucids began with the Parthians; the empire of the Sa.s.sanids, which subsequently took the place of that of the Arsacids, was supported in the first place by the tribes of the Persians, and was connected with the remembrance of the Achaemenids. Yet from the first the Sa.s.sanids were prepared to deal equal measure to the East and West of Iran; in opposition to any attempt at religious innovation they held firmly to the tradition of the East. When after a rule of more than four centuries the Sa.s.sanids succ.u.mbed to the invasion of the Arabs, Yezdegerd III. attempted to maintain himself in Merv, as Darius III. had attempted to maintain himself in Bactria. The attempt failed. Iran succ.u.mbed to Islam. Yet it was the East from which, not quite two centuries after the fall of the Sa.s.sanids, a reaction commenced against the Arabs, and this gradually increased till it rescued the nationality and the language of Iran. It was the viceroys in the districts of the East who rebelled against the Chalifate, and they found support in the population of their provinces. A process similar to that which had previously broken down the dominion of the Seleucids over Iran shattered the empire of the Abbasids. The impulse to this movement rose in Taberistan, where the Taherids appeared, as independent princes soon after the death of Harun-al-Ras.h.i.+d; some decads later the Soffarids rebelled in Sejestan, and towards the end of the ninth century the power of the Samanids sprang up in Sogdiana, Balkh, and Merv, and founded seats in Samarcand and Bokhara. Not long after the Ziads obtained an independent position in Dilem and Jorjan (the ancient Hyrcania). Towards the end of the tenth century the Ghasnavids, who had hitherto been the servants and captains of the Samanids, threw off their allegiance; and united under their dominion all the lands which had been subject to the Soffarids, the Samanids, and Ziads. Soon after the year 1000 B.C. they ruled from their abode in Ghasna over Cabul, Balkh, Merv, and Chovaresm to the north, and over Sejestan and Afghanistan to the south, and to the west over the lands of Elburz, while their armies crossed the Indus to the east, and advanced beyond the Panjab to the valley of the Ganges.

The ancient religion of Iran was not wholly lost even in the time of Harun-al-Ras.h.i.+d; Magians were tolerated at the court of the Chalifs for the sake of their skill in medicine. The Barmecides, who came from Balkh, displayed, even under the Chalifate, a partiality for the legends and the religion of Iran. The Samanids boasted to be sprung from the Sa.s.sanids, the Ziads were reproached with being idolaters in heart and Moslem in tongue. They called themselves once more by the names celebrated in the legends of Eastern Iran: Minocher after Ma.n.u.schithra, Kai Kobad after Kava Kavata, Kai Kaus after Kava Uca, Isfendyar after cpentodata; and in the list of the Ghasnavids, the Afghan princes in India, we meet at a later time with the name of Kava Hucrava (Chosru).

The regeneration of Old Iran, in opposition to the Arabs, found its firmest stronghold in Ghasna. The deeds of the Achaemenids were completely forgotten in the East which had no part in them; but the legends of Yima, Thraetaona, Kava Hucrava, and Kava Vistacpa, had lived on under the dominion of the Achaemenids, the Seleucids, the Greek princes of Balkh and Cabul, and under the Arsacids. Then came the revival of the Avesta under Shapur II. about the middle of the fourth century A.D. (p. 61). The first Chosru (531-578 A.D.) caused the legends and traditions of the nation and the priests to be collected and copied; a comprehensive exposition of the whole was made under the last Yezdegerd. Thus as early as the last days of the Sa.s.sanids the tradition of Iran was collected and fixed, and this, transcribed in Pehlevi, outlived the fall of the kingdom, and descended as a legacy of ancient glory to the Soffarids, Samanids, and Ghasnavids.[437] On the basis of this "book of kings," which he possessed in an Arabic translation, Firdusi of Tus on the Tejend, a city of which at the present day some scanty ruins remain not far from Meshhed, undertook to restore to life the remembrance of the past of Eastern Iran and the fame of her ancient heroes in a great Epic poem. He gathered together the entire existing tradition, and under the dominion of Islam cast a new glory on the ancient belief in Auramazda, who was now known as Yazdan. This poem, the book of kings (Shahnameh) exhibits at the same time the New Persian language in its pure form, developed out of the Eastern dialects, and not yet contaminated with Aramaean and Arabic elements.

The first king in Firdusi is Gayumart. He a.s.sembles men and animals, and teaches the first to hide their nakedness with the skins of leopards.

His son Siyamek is torn in pieces by a demon. We are acquainted with the primeval man Gayo maretan; whom the priests placed at the beginning of things (p. 183). Then king Hoshang taught men to harness the bull, to tame the horse, to forge iron, to till the field, and introduced the wors.h.i.+p of fire. After Hoshang king Tahmurath reigned, who overcame the Divs (Daevas), and compelled them to teach him the art of writing. He taught his people the art of weaving, and rode round the world on Angromainyu (now Ahriman) till the latter threw him off on Elburz, and so killed him. In the Avesta Haoshyangha sacrifices in order to obtain power over the evil spirits, and Takhmo urupa also sacrifices in order to curb Angromainyu for the s.p.a.ce of thirty years (p. 183). After Tahmurath, Jems.h.i.+d (Yima) is king. He teaches the art of forging weapons and weaving precious stuffs, divides men into priests, warriors, husbandmen, and artisans; discovers the art of healing, and compels the demons to build houses, and erect for him a splendid palace and a gorgeous throne adorned with gold and precious stones. Three hundred years pa.s.sed away while he was king, in which the Divs were bound, and death could not approach mankind. Then Jems.h.i.+d boasted that he had saved the world by his remedies from sickness and death, and demanded divine honours. This sin alienated from him the princes of his kingdom. Jems.h.i.+d was compelled to fly before Zohak, the king of Babylon. Zohak pursued him. In the remote East, on the sea of China, Jems.h.i.+d was overtaken and slain.

The old Arian legend of the happy age of Yima shows itself even yet through Firdusi's version. Death could not approach men under his dominion; there was no sickness, and therefore Jems.h.i.+d is said to have discovered the art of healing. The Avesta had already found a motive for the fall of Yima in the fact that he had refused to announce the law, and at length had begun to love lies (p. 41). The Zohak of Firdusi is no other than the ancient cloud dragon, Azhi dahaka, which attempts to carry away the waters of the sky, and swallows up men and horses. He is now a foreign, hostile, bloodthirsty king, who puts an end to the blessings of Yima's reign in order to bring the reverse of blessing upon Iran. Azhi dahaka had three heads and three throats; Zohak has two serpents growing from his shoulders, to which by degrees thousands fall as sacrifices, for they are fed with the brains of men, and for this purpose two youths are slaughtered every day. That Zohak is called king of Babylon is due to a reminiscence of the fact that the a.s.syrians ruled over Western Iran, and the Seleucids and Chalifs over the whole country.

Zohak persecutes severely the descendants of Jems.h.i.+d. Abtin, the last of these, finally falls into his power; he causes him to be slain for his serpents; but Abtin's wife carries off his young son Feridun in safety to Elburz. When the latter is sixteen years of age his mother discloses to him the fate of his father; the discontented gather round him, and the angel Serosh teaches him how to overcome the magician Zohak. In the citadel at Babylon Feridun strikes Zohak to the ground with a blow of the club which Kave, the smith, has forged for him. But Serosh bids him not to kill Zohak, who is now chained in a deep cave in Elburz, under Demavend, the highest summit on the chain. Abtin, the descendant of Jems.h.i.+d, is the Athwya of the Avesta; Feridun is Thraetaona, the son of Athwya, the slayer of Dahaka; the angel Serosh is the well-known G.o.d craosha. Feridun is not permitted to slay Zohak, because Azhi dahaka is also a demon.

Feridun has three sons--Salm (cairima), Tur (Tuirya), and Yrej (Airyu); to the last, who was the youngest, Feridun gives Iran, the best part of his dominions, while Salm receives the West and Tur the North. Filled with envy at the favour shown to their youngest brother, Salm and Tur slay the pious Yrej. Feridun is deeply moved; but he gives the daughter whom Yrej has left in marriage to Pesheng. The son of Pesheng is Minocher, who grows up to avenge his grandfather's death. In order to prevent this, Salm and Tur invade Iran. The battle continues for three days, till Minocher has slain Tur with his own hand. He also overtakes Salm in flight, and slays him. Feridun can now die in peace, as he has seen the kingdom handed over to Minocher. After the death of the latter the kingdom descended to his son Naudar.[438] Then Afrasiab of Turan, the great-grandson of Tur, whom Minocher had slain, invaded Iran to avenge the death of his ancestor on the descendant of Minocher. Naudar's army was defeated; he was taken captive with many princes of Iran, and beheaded by the order of Afrasiab.

Besides the race of Abtin, Jems.h.i.+d had left other descendants. In union with the daughter of the king of Cabul, whose kingdom extends from Bost on the Hilmend to Ghasna (and consequently includes the region of Sejestan, the ancient Haetumat),[439] he had begotten Gershasp, a mighty hero who stood by the side of Minocher in the struggle against Salm and Tur; the sons of Gershasp are Neriman and Sam, and his grandson is Zal.

The Gershasp of Firdusi is the Kerecacpa of the Avesta, the son of Thrita, of the race of cama (p. 35), who slays the serpent cruvara and the giant Gandarewa. The Avesta gives him the epithet Nairimanao, _i.e._ the man-hearted, heroic, and represents him as seizing the brilliance of majesty, when it departed for the third time from Yima (p. 36). This hint was enough to give the royal power to Kerecacpa; his epithet and his tribal name are personified, and become his descendants Neriman and Sam. In accordance with their origin these princes from Zabul are in Firdusi the most faithful adherents of the race of Feridun, which has rewarded them with the dominion over the South. In this way the legend of Sejestan is woven into the closest connection with the legend of the Avesta. The power of the descendants of Feridun is extinguished with Naudar, from whose sons "the splendour of the royal majesty s.h.i.+nes no longer;" thus does Firdusi repeat the metaphor current in the Avesta.

The princes of Zabul now take their place as the protectors and guardians of Iran. The son of king Sam of Zabul is Zal. After Naudar's melancholy fall he makes peace between Iran and Turan; the Oxus is fixed as the boundary, Afrasiab returns to his own country, and in the place of the sons of Naudar Zal allows Zav to be chosen king of Iran. Zav is already aged and soon dies; Afrasiab invades Iran again. Then Zal deliberates with the Mobedhs (_i.e._ with the chiefs of the Magians, p.

60), who is to be king of Iran. It is resolved to raise Kai Kobad to the throne, who like Feridun before him dwells on Elburz. Zal sends his son Rustem (Moses of Kh.o.r.ene is the first who mentions the Persian legend of Rustem), a youth of great strength, who as a boy had slain an infuriated elephant, to fetch Kai Kobad from Elburz. Rustem finds him prepared, for he has seen in a dream two white falcons who place a golden crown upon his head. Afrasiab's army, which opposes him, is defeated; Kai Kobad ascends the throne of Iran, the Turanians are defeated in a great battle, Rustem seizes Afrasiab by his girdle and drags him from his horse; but the girdle breaks, Afrasiab falls to the ground, and is saved by his own people. In the peace the Oxus is once more fixed as the boundary between Iran and Turan. Kai Kobad is followed by his son Kai Kaus. Against the advice of his va.s.sals and of Zal he leads his army against Mazanderan, a land inhabited by demons, which take the king captive with his whole army. A single warrior escapes to bring the terrible news to Zal. As Zal is now 200 years old, Rustem undertakes to liberate the king. He has to overcome seven terrible monsters before he can arrive at the demons. At last he makes his way to them, and on his horse Reksh, he destroys the army of the demons. Then he slays their chief, the white demon, in the dark cave, and liberates Kai Kaus and the army of Iran. Kai Kaus now causes the conquered demons to build him splendid palaces on Elburz, and resolves to fly up to heaven, in order to see the course of the sun. Four eagles bound to his throne carry him upwards, but then allow him to fall to earth. Ashamed at his pride he humbles himself, and his penance appeases the wrath of heaven. When Afrasiab breaks the peace and again invades Iran, Kai Kaus sends his son Siavaksh, under the guidance of Rustem, against the Turanians. For three days the battle rages at the gates of Balkh, and at length Siavaksh is victorious. Afrasiab sues for peace, Siavaksh concludes a treaty; but Kai Kaus will not confirm it. That he may not break his word, Siavaksh gives himself up to the Turanians. Afrasiab receives him with honour, and gives him his daughter Feringis to wife. Subsequently he harbours suspicion against him, causes him to be executed, and the son, whom Feringis bears after the execution of her husband, to be brought up among the shepherds without any knowledge of his birth. To this son an abode is then allotted in a remote region of Turan.

To avenge the execution of Siavaksh Rustem invades Turan. Victorious in the battle he causes Surkha, the son of Afrasiab, whom he captures in the battle, to be put to death in the same way as Siavaksh, pursues Afrasiab to the extreme border of his kingdom, and does not return till the whole of Turan has been laid waste: the booty is immense. Many years afterwards it was revealed in a dream to Guderz (Gotarzes), a descendant of that Kave, who had once forged for Feridun the club used against Zohak, that a son of Siavaksh survived. Gev, the son of Guderz, arose to seek in Turan the right heir to the throne of Iran. For seven years he seeks in vain. At length he discovers Kai Chosru, to whom his mother Feringis has already revealed the secret of his birth. In spite of the most severe persecution on the part of Afrasiab, Gev succeeds in carrying away mother and son to Iran; they swim through the swollen Oxus on horseback. But when Kai Kaus wishes to make the grandson so happily discovered his successor, Tur, the son of king Naudar, opposes the elevation of a king who has Turanian blood in his veins. Kai Chosru proves his higher claim by capturing a citadel of the demons, and erecting a fire-altar in its place. Then he sets himself to avenge the death of his father on Afrasiab. But the first army of the Iranians under Tur is defeated; and when Feriborz receives the command the warriors of Iran are again severely beaten in the valley of Peshen; a third army is shut up on Mount Hamaven. To liberate this Rustem sets forth, and conquers in the most terrible battle which he has ever fought. At length Afrasiab and Kai Chosru take the lead of their armies.

After a b.l.o.o.d.y struggle the Turanians are compelled to retire, first beyond the Oxus, and then beyond the Jaxartes. Afrasiab flies for refuge to his fortified city Kang Bihist; the city is taken, but he escapes into a cave. Kai Kaus and Kai Chosru entreat the fire Adar gucasp, that Afrasiab may not escape them. A pious penitent, Hom, who hears the lament of Afrasiab in his cave, recognises him, overpowers and binds him, and leads him forth. Afrasiab entreats the penitent to loose his bonds, and then escapes once more, into a lake. The pious Hom obtains possession of him again, and hands him over to Kai Chosru, who has his head cut off in revenge for his father Siavaksh. Kai Kaus has now seen the fulfilment of vengeance on Afrasiab for the death of Siavaksh; his days draw to a close. For sixty years after him, Kai Chosru rules over Iran in peace, and then resolves to enter on a pilgrimage to heaven.

When the angel Serosh has bidden him nominate Lohrasp as his successor, he fulfils this injunction, establishes Rustem as general-in-chief of the kingdom and successor of his father Zal in the kingdom of the South, and after long meditation, accompanied by the sons of Naudar, Tus and Gustehem, and the heroes Gev and Feriborz, he begins the pilgrimage to the East. When high up in the mountains he advises his companions to return; soon they will see him no more. He disappears after bathing in a spring; his heroes, in spite of the command to return, seek for him, and are buried in a storm of snow.

We saw above that in the Avesta, Ma.n.u.schithra and Airyu are connected with Thraetaona, and that the group of the Paradhatas comes to an end with these names. Hence Firdusi also represents the crown as being brought to the first ruler of the new group, Kai Kobad, _i.e._ the Kava Kavata of the Avesta, from the sky by two falcons; he also represents him as being fetched from Elburz, _i.e._ from the holy mountain of the old legend, in order to overcome Zohak, just as Thraetaona descended from the same mountain. Kai Kaus, the Kava Uca of the Avesta, who succeeded Kai Kobad, betrays his divine nature in Firdusi by his march against the demons, by the castles which these demons build for him on Elburz, and by his attempt to fly into heaven. In the Avesta Kava Uca offers sacrifice, in order to obtain the dominion over men and Daevas, and this favour is granted to him. That the march against the demons is made in the direction of Mazanderan is due no doubt to the frequent mention of the Mazanian Devs in the Avesta. Siavaksh, the son of Kai Kaus, who honourably gives himself up to the Turanians, is the cyavarshana of the Avesta--from which we merely learn that he was spotless, and that after Kava Uca the royal majesty united with the beautiful body of cyavarshana, and that he died by a violent death (p.