crossed the bridge without difficulty by the help of the angel Sraôsha,
and was welcomed by Vohu-manô, who conducted it before the throne of
Ahura-mazdâ, in the same way as he had led Zoroaster, and assigned to it
the post which it should occupy until the day of the resurrection of the
body.*

* All this picture of the fate of the soul is taken from the
_Vendidad_, where the fate of the just is described, and in
the _Yasht_, where the condition of faithful and impious
souls respectively is set forth on parallel lines. The
classical authors teach us nothing on this subject, and the
little they actually say only proves that the Persians
believed in the immortality of the soul. The main outlines
of the picture here set forth go back to the times of the
Achæmenids and the Medes, except the abstract conception of
the goddess who leads the soul of the dead as an incarnation
of his good or evil deeds.

The religious observances enjoined on the members of the priestly caste
were innumerable and minute. Ahura-mazdâ and his colleagues had not,
as was the fashion among the Assyrians and Egyptians, either temples or
tabernacles, and though they were represented sometimes under human or
animal forms, and even in some cases on bas-reliefs, yet no one ever
ventured to set up in their sanctuaries those so-called animated or
prophetic statues to which the majority of the nations had rendered or
were rendering their solicitous homage. Altars, however, were erected
on the tops of hills, in palaces, or in the centre of cities, on which
fires were kindled in honour of the inferior deities or of the supreme
god himself.