a, there seems to be a ray of light. According to
the late Professor Moulton, "The later Parsi books tell us that the
Fravashi is a part of a good man's identity, living in heaven and
reuniting with the soul at death. It is not exactly a guardian angel,
for it shares in the development or deterioration of the rest of the
man."[88]

In fact the Fravashi is not unlike the Egyptian _ka_ on the one side and
the Chinese _shen_ on the other. "They are the _Manes_, 'the good folk'"
(p. 144): they are connected with the stars in their capacity as spirits
of the dead (p. 143), and they "showed their paths to the sun, the moon,
the sun, and the endless lights," just as the _kas_ guide the dead in
the hereafter.

The Fravashis play a part in the annual All Soul's feast (p. 144), for
which Breasted has provided an almost exact parallel in Egypt during the
Middle Kingdom.[89] All the circumstances of the two ceremonies are
essentially identical.

Now Professor Moulton suggests that the word Fravashi may be derived
from the Avestan root _var_, "to impregnate," and _fravasi_ mean
"birth-promotion" (p. 142). As he associates this with childbirth the
possibility suggests itself whether the "birth-promoter" may not be
simply the placenta.

Loret (quoted by Moret, p. 202), however, derives the word _ka_ from a
root signifying "to beget," so that the Fravashi may be nothing more
than the Iranian homologue of the Egyptian _ka_.

The connecting link between the Iranian and Egyptian conceptions may be
the Sumerian instances given to Blackman[90] by Dr. Langdon.

The whole idea seems to have originated out of the belief that the sum
of the individual attributes or vital expressions of a man's personality
could exist apart from the physical body. The contemplation of the
phenomena of sleep and death provided the evidence in corroboration
of this.

At birth the newcomer came into the world physically connected with the
placenta, which was accredited with the attributes of the life-giving
and birth-promoting Great Mother and intimately related to the moon and
the earliest totem. It was obviously, also, closely concerned in the
nutrition of the embryo, for was it not the stalk upon which the latter
was growing like some fruit on its stem? It was a not unnatural
inference to suppose that, as the elements of the personality were not
indissolubly connected with the body, they were brought into existence
at the time of birth and that the plac