“With all good deeds am I in agreement, with all sins am I not in agreement, for the good am I thankful, with iniquity am I contented.  With the punishment at the bridge, with the bonds and tormentings and chastisements of the mighty of the law, with the punishment of the three nights (after) the fifty-seven years am I contented and satisfied.”

The Avesta, then, is not a system of dogmatics, but a book of worship.  It is to be read in private by the laity, or to be recited by the priests in public.  Nevertheless, just such a book may be the best help to the knowledge of the religious opinions of an age.  The deepest convictions come to light in such a collection, not indeed in a systematic statement, but in sincerest utterance.  It will contain the faith of the heart rather than the speculations of the intellect.  Such a work can hardly be other than authentic; for men do not forge liturgies, and, if they did, could hardly introduce them into the worship of a religious community.

The Avesta consists of the Vendidad, of which twenty-two Fargards, or chapters, have been preserved; the Vispered, in twenty-seven; the Yacna, in seventy; and the Khordah Avesta, or Little-Avesta, which contains the Yashts, Patets, and other prayers for the use of the laity.  Of these, Spiegel considers the Gathas of the Yacna to be the oldest, next the Vendidad, lastly, the first part of the Yacna, and the Khordah Avesta.

Sec. 7.  Later Development of the System in the Bundehesch.

The Bundehesch is a book later than these, and yet, in its contents, running back to a very early period.  Windischmann,[140] who has recently given us a new translation of this book, says:  “In regard to the Bundehesch, I am confident that closer study of this remarkable book, and a more exact comparison of it with the original texts, will change the unfavorable opinion hitherto held concerning it into one of great confidence.  I am justified in believing that its author has given us mainly only the ancient doctrine, taken by him from original texts, most of which are now lost.  The more thoroughly it is examined the more trustworthy it will be found to be.”

The following summary of the Parsi system is mostly derived from the Bundehesch, and the later writings of the Parsis.  We have abridged it from Rhode.  In the time of Zoroaster himself, it was probably far from being so fully elaborated.  Only the germs of it are to be found in the elder books of the Avesta.  It has been doubted if the doctrine of Zerana-Akerana, or the Monad behind the Duad, is to be found in the Avesta; though important texts in the Vendidad[141] seem indeed to imply a Supreme and Infinite Being, the creator both of Ormazd and Ahriman.

In the beginning, the Eternal or Absolute Being (Zerana-Akerana) produced two other great divine, beings.  The first, who remained true to him, was Ahura-Mazda, King of Light.  The other was Ahriman (Angra-Mainyus), King of Darkness.  Ormazd found himself in a world of light and Ahriman in boundless darkness, and the two became antagonists.