- trary, the utmost care is to be taken, by fastening him so as to
prevent escape, that he should do himself no injury, for if he should happen in his madness to fall into water and die, the community will have incurred sin by the accident.[1] The following verses convey an interesting notion of the esteem in which the dog was held among the early Parsees. The speaker is Ahura-Mazda:—
"I have created the dog, O Zarathustra, with his own clothes and
his own shoes; with a sharp nose and sharp teeth; attached to mankind,
for the protection of the herds. Then I created the dog, even I Ahura-Mazda,
with a body capable of biting enemies. When he is in good
health, when he is with the herds, when he is in good voice, O holy Zarathustra,
there comes not to his village either thief or wolf to carry off
property unperceived from the villages" (Av., vol. i. p. 197.—Vendidad,
xiii. 106-113).
In the fourteenth Fargard, water-dogs are further protected
against wounds; while in the fifteenth, the preservation of the
canine species at large is ensured by elaborate enactments. To
give a dog bones which he cannot gnaw, or food so hot as to
burn its tongue, is a sin; to frighten a bitch in pup, as by clapping
the hands, is likewise to incur guilt; and they are gravely
criminal who suffer puppies to die from inattention. If born in
camel-stalls, stables, or any such places, it is incumbent on the
proprietor to take charge of them; or, if the litter should be
at large, at least the nearest inhabitant is bound to become
their protector. Strangely intermingled with these precautions
are rules prohibiting cohabitation with women in certain physical
conditions, and enactments for the prevention of abortion,
and for ensuring the support of a pregnant girl by her seducer,
at least until her child is born. The crime of abortion is
described in a manner which curiously reveals the practices
occasionally resorted to by Parsee maidens. Should a single
woman be with child, and say, "The child was begotten by
such and such a man"—
- ↑ There is, indeed, a passage which permits the mutilation of a mad dog by cutting off an ear, or a foot, or the tail; Spiegel, however, regards it as interpolated, and it is palpably at variance with the remainder of the chapter.
