the remaining portion of the Yaçna, on a much later stage of the growing creed. So many new divinities, or at any rate, objects of reverential addresses, now enter upon the scene, that we almost lose sight of Ahura-Mazda in the throng of his attendants. We seem to be some ages away from the days when Zarathustra bade his hearers choose between the one true God and the multitude of false gods worshiped by his enemies. Ahura-Mazda is safely enthroned, and Zarathustra shines out gloriously as his prophet; but Zarathustra's creed is overloaded with elements of which he himself knew nothing. The first chapter of the Yaçna, a liturgical prayer, brings these elements conspicuously before us. It is an invocation and celebration of a great variety of powers belonging to what is termed the good creation, or the world of virtuous beings and good things, as opposed to the malicious beings and bad things who form the realm of evil.[1] Thus it opens:—
"I invoke and I celebrate the creator Ahura-Mazda, luminous,
resplendent, very great and very good, very perfect and very energetic,
very intelligent and very beautiful, eminent in purity, who possesses the
excellent knowledge, the source of pleasure; him who has created us,
who has formed us, who has nourished us, the most accomplished of
intelligent beings."[2]
Every verse, until we approach the end, commences with the
same formula:—"I invoke and I celebrate;" or, as Spiegel
translates it, "I invite and announce it;" the sole difference is
in the beings invoked. Many of these are powers of more or
less eminence in the Parsee spiritual hierarchy, but it would be
going beyond our object here to enumerate their names and specify
their attributes, To a large proportion of them the epithets
"pure, lord of purity," are added, while some are dignified with
- ↑ I follow Burnouf's translation, because the strict accuracy of his method is acknowledged by both Haug and Spiegel. There are considerable differences in the text followed by Burnouf and Spiegel, which I need not weary the reader by particularizing in detail.
- ↑ Y., p. 146.—Cf. Spiegel: 1. "Ich lade ein und thue es kund: dem Schopfer Ahura-Mazda, dem glanzenden, majestatischen, grossten, besten schonsten, 2. dem starksten, verstandigsten, mit bestem Korper versehenen, durch Heiligkeit hochsten. 3. Der sehr weise ist, der weithin erfreut, 4. welcher ans schuf, welcher uns bildete, welcher uns erhielt, der Heiligste unter den Himmelischen."—Av., ii. 35.
