them in the earth.[1] We gather from Arrian that Alexander sent the body of Darius to be interred in the royal mausoleum by the side of the remains of the departed ones of the royal family of Persia.[2] The Persians continued this practice for a considerable time, until finally with the complete fusion of the two races they seem to have exchanged burial for the exposure of the corpses.
The earliest Greek writer to acquaint the Western world with the history of the nations of Ancient Iran is Herodotus, who wrote about a century and a quarter before the fall of the Achaemenian empire. Writing at a period when the Persians were in the zenith of their power in Western Iran, and when the Magi were the recognized class, he, with the other writers that followed him, acquainted the West with the Magi. The athravans, the real custodians of the Avesta and the guardians of the Zoroastrian symbol of fire, are unknown to these writers This may be due to the fact that Eastern Iran, which was the home of the athravans, had politically declined, and the writers are mainly concerned with the Persians of the west, and their immediate predecessors, the Medes.
The Avestan texts do not recognize the Magi. The forms derived from the term maga, 'great' occurring in the Gathas and the Later Avesta do not represent this priestly class. We find a solitary passage, presumably a late interpolation, which pronounces a curse upon those who ill-treat the Magi.[3] We may add a passage in which Ahura Mazda tells Zarathushtra that he prefers a man who has a wife to one who lives as a magus, that is, lives in continence.[4] The class designation of the priests in the Avestan text is persistently athravan. The disposal of the dead by the exposure to the light of the sun, the reverence for the elements, fire, water, and earth, the stringent laws for bodily cleanliness, the active crusade against noxious creatures, are some of the salient features of the religious practices and beliefs of the Magi that we glean from the writings of the Greek authors. These form the cardinal tenets of the Vendidad and are all associated with the athravans, who make up the official priesthood of the Avestan people. It is not a Magus who cleanses the defiled by ablution ceremonials, heals the sick by
