nt.

Man, therefore, incessantly distracted between the two principles, laid
wait for by the Baevas, defended by the Yazatas, must endeavour to act
according to law and justice in the condition in which fate has placed
him. He has been raised up here on earth to contribute as far as in him
lies to the increase of life and of good, and in proportion as he works
for this end or against it, is he the _ashavan_, the pure, the faithful
one on earth and the blessed one in heaven, or the _anashavan_, the
lawless miscreant who counteracts purity. The highest grade in the
hierarchy of men belongs of right to the Mage or the _athravan_, to the
priest whose voice inspires the demons with fear, or the soldier whose
club despatches the impious, but a place of honour at their side is
assigned to the peasant, who reclaims from the power of Angro-mainyus the
dry and sterile fields. Among the places where the earth thrives most
joyously is reckoned that "where a worshipper of Ahura-mazda builds a
house, with a chaplain, with cattle, with a wife, with sons, with a fair
flock; where man grows the most corn, herbage, and fruit trees; where he
spreads water on a soil without water, and drains off water where
there is too much of it." He who sows corn, sows good, and promotes the
Mazdean faith; "he nourishes the Mazdean religion as fifty men would do
rocking a child in the cradle, five hundred women giving it suck from
their breasts.* When the corn was created the Daevas leaped, when it
sprouted the Daevas lost courage, when the stem set the Daevas wept,
when the ear swelled the Daevas fled. In the house where corn is
mouldering the Daevas lodge, but when the corn sprouts, one might say
that a hot iron is being turned round in their mouths." And the reason
of their horror is easily divined: "Whoso eats not, has no power either
to accomplish a valiant work of religion, or to labour with valour,
or yet to beget children valiantly; it is by eating that the universe
lives, and it dies from not eating." The faithful follower of Zoroaster
owes no obligation towards the impious man or towards a stranger,** but
is ever bound to render help to his coreligionist.

* The original text says in a more enigmatical fashion, "he
nourishes the religion of Mazda as a hundred feet of men and
a thousand breasts of women might do."

** Charity is called in Parsee language, _asho-dad_ the
_gift to a pious man_, or the _gift of piety_, a