or henceforth to exist, not excluding the gods themselves, possesses a
Frôhar, or guardian spirit, who is assigned to him at his entrance into
the world, and who is thenceforth devoted entirely to watching over
his material and moral well-being,* About the time appointed for the
appearance of the prophet, his Frôhar was, by divine grace, imprisoned
in the heart of a Haoma,** and was absorbed, along with the juice of
the plant, by the priest Purushâspa,*** during a sacrifice, a ray of
heavenly glory descending at the same time into the bosom of a maiden of
noble race, named Dughdôva, whom Purushâspa shortly afterwards espoused.

* The Fravashi (for _fravarti_, from _fra-var_, "to support,
nourish"), or the _frôhar (feruer)_, is, properly speaking,
the nurse, the genius who nurtures. Many of the practices
relating to the conception and cult of the Fravashis seem to
me to go back to the primitive period of the Iranian
religions.

** The haoma is an _Asclepias Sarcostema Viminalis_.

*** The name signifies "He who has many horses."

Zoroaster was engendered from the mingling of the Frôhar with the
celestial ray. The evil spirit, whose supremacy he threatened,
endeavoured to destroy him as soon as he saw the light, and despatched
one of his agents, named Bôuiti, from the country of the far north to
oppose him; but the infant prophet immediately pronounced the formula
with which the psalm for the offering of the waters opens: "The will of
the Lord is the rule of good!" and proceeded to pour libations in honour
of the river Darêja, on the banks of which he had been born a moment
before, reciting at the same time the "profession of faith which puts