Ahura Mazda answered:—­

“Eight hundred stripes with the Aspahe-astra, eight hundred stripes with the Sraosho-karana.”

O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One!  If a man voluntarily commits the unnatural sin, what is the penalty for it?  What is the atonement for it?  What is the cleansing from it?

Ahura Mazda answered:—­

“For that deed there is nothing that can pay, nothing that can atone, nothing that can cleanse from it; it is a trespass for which there is no atonement, forever and ever.”

O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One!  Who is the man that is a Deva?  Who is he that is a worshipper of the Devas? that is a male paramour of the Devas? that is a female paramour of the Devas? that is a wife to the Deva? that is as bad as a Deva? that is in his whole being a Deva?  Who is he that is a Deva before he dies, and becomes one of the unseen Devas after death?

Ahura Mazda answered:—­

“The man that lies with mankind as man lies with womankind, or as woman lies with mankind, is the man that is a Deva; this one is the man that is a worshipper of the Devas, that is a male paramour of the Devas, that is a female paramour of the Devas, that is a wife to the Deva; this is the man that is as bad as a Deva, that is in his whole being a Deva; this is the man that is a Deva before he dies, and becomes one of the unseen Devas after death:  so is he, whether he has lain with mankind as mankind, or as womankind.”

O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One!  Shall the man be clean who has touched a corpse that has been dried up and dead more than a year?

Ahura Mazda answered:—­

“He shall.  The dry mingles not with the dry.  Should the dry mingle with the dry, how soon all this material world of mine would be only one Peshotanu, bent on the destruction of righteousness, and whose soul will cry and wail! so numberless are the beings that die upon the face of the earth.”

[Footnote 13:  A dog with two spots above the eyes.]

CLEANSING THE UNCLEAN

Zarathustra asked Ahura Mazda:—­

O most beneficent Spirit, Maker of the material world, thou Holy One!  To whom shall they apply here below, who want to cleanse their body defiled by the dead?

Ahura Mazda answered:—­

“To a pious man, O Spitama Zarathustra! who knows how to speak, who speaks truth, who has learned the Holy Word, who is pious, and knows best the rites of cleansing according to the law of Mazda.  That man shall fell the trees off the surface of the ground on a space of nine Vibazus square; in that part of the ground where there is least water and where there are fewest trees, the part which is the cleanest and driest, and the least passed through by sheep and oxen, and by the fire of Ahura Mazda, by the consecrated bundles of Baresma, and by the faithful.”