coating obviated the pollution which direct contact would have brought
upon the soil. The Magi, and probably also strict devotees, following
their example, exposed the corpse in the open air, abandoning it to the
birds or beasts of prey. It was considered a great misfortune if these
respected the body, for it was an almost certain indication of the wrath
of Ahura-mazdâ, and it was thought that the defunct had led an evil
life. When the bones had been sufficiently stripped of flesh, they were
collected together, and deposited either in an earthenware urn or in a
stone ossuary with a cover, or in a monumental tomb either hollowed out
in the heart of the mountain or in the living rock, or raised up
above the level of the ground. Meanwhile the soul remained in the
neighbourhood for three days, hovering near the head of the corpse, and
by the recitation of prayers it experienced, according to its condition
of purity or impurity, as much of joy or sadness as the whole world
experiences. When the third night was past, the just soul set forth
across luminous plains, refreshed by a perfumed breeze, and its good
thoughts and words and deeds took shape before it "under the guise of a
young maiden, radiant and strong, with well-developed bust, noble mien,
and glorious face, about fifteen years of age, and as beautiful as the
most beautiful;" the unrighteous soul, on the contrary, directed its
course towards the north, through a tainted land, amid the squalls of a
pestilential hurricane, and there encountered its past ill deeds, under
the form of an ugly and wicked young woman, the ugliest and most wicked
it had ever seen. The genius Rashnu Razishta, the essentially truthful,
weighed its virtues or vices in an unerring balance, and acquitted or
Condemned it on the impartial testimony of its past life. On issuing
from the judgment-hall, the soul arrived at the approach to the bridge
Cinvaut, which, thrown across the abyss of hell, led to paradise. The
soul, if impious, was unable to cross this bridge, but was hurled down
into the abyss, where it became the slave of Angrô-mainyus. If pure, it