Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
BY LAWRENCE H. MILLS.
or
little.
sentiment.
And
back."
We
in
all
should
all
marble, or in poems
to reason,
We
we should be
have
shaspends,
all
there they
better pleased.
at least those of us
comments, for
in
who
Ame-
with some
in the
city that
the
very Zoroas-
name Zara-
thiishtra
application to a family
the plural
The
and even
leading-
much
st^
in the
civic
its
so that
officers,
it
losing
was used
strict
its
artificially,
in
superlative degree.
Mayor
617
"Most Zarathush-
and so
correspond,
in Tohit. to
Immortals."
shall
history
all
for the
much
earlier?
Above
They named
the very
still
later
in the later
periods, even in the late Avesta, perhaps in the earlier times as well,
The
from the
mental.
a proper name.
many
Its
Asha ruled
so.
sight of the
own name
Yc&d
Bahnian. or
Vohumanah
represented
man
it
words.
out the
withfountain
"Khshathra-
which was taken from the Gathas but it means "the kingdom to
be desired" (sic), and had no other sense; nor could he think of
"holy Earth" without Aramaiti, here also with her added epithet
;
6l8
no
a
Then of the two last Archangels the one who represented the
Water made it so sacred, that one could not cast saliva into it. nor
could Ambassadors come over Sea to Rome, nor armies use sea-
while
transport
much
the
pleteness,
the
last
but
same
effect
that
was Haurvatat.-
into
this
caldron,
even
but
in the late
still
And
this, as I
Even
in the
among
the Seven.
Asha
is
Vohuman means
for the most part exactly what it is in the transthough the comments Pahlavi, Sanskrit and Persian, sometimes bring in his guardianship of men and animals, chiefly in
Yasna I.
Khshathra seldom recalls the metals, while Aramaiti is broadly
and distinctly the "perfect mind," a most noteworthy particular,
with no regular allusions whatever to the "earth": this in the
Commentaries, late or early; we seldom think of water, or trees
1die Waters, like the Fire,
there with Haurvatat or Ameretatat.
lations,
THE ARCHANGELS OF THE ANESTA.
6l()
some of the
giowinj^' ^'ashls
Books are to their glory and so of the last and
this even in the late commentaries from the fifth to the ninth centnrv and on. for the Pahlavi was forever being- written over at the
end of sentences, page by page.
And in this last sense the Ang-elology becomes indeed impreswere indeed most sacred, and have
sive
sonified
Bahman
Vohnmanah
or
is
the
is
manence
ical
and
this last as
we may
note in passing,
this too
Surely no thinker
is
might be
in a professor's
Anwrto,
i.
is
e..
actually ident-
immorta-. the
related.
the
first
the plan
signifies
Spiritual Beings
is
an
incisive
thing
and
grouping of believed-in
it.
And
as such
harbhagan.
Adhar
]\Ii-cha-el
named from
Ad-
being Fire.
nor did
while
Gabriel
We
four except in
art.
tales of Christmas.
A\'hat sphere
620
What
settle-
populations by
Where
ments?
tlie
is
and the
and
rest,
this
in
the
first
fresh
Do we
think
all
this a trifling
matter because
it
so simple?
is
if it were
would be all contemjjtible. What is so simple as the
Gospel ? Truth is never mixed. Or do we underrate it because its
documents are scant? What is so scant as the fragments of Heraclitus?
Or because it is not modern? Why, our whole Religion
is "Antiquity."
We live and breathe in Genesis and the world's
commerce rolls on with the Prophets and New Testament.
very passport,
not simple,
its
patent of nobility
it
)rient
is
fully
aroused to them
But
Plato himself
a veritable curiosity of our
Some of my readthough
may respond to
Perhaps we do not
is
dull to dullards.
ofifer,
subtle.
it,
something deeper
pure
They
are
first
lines, clear of
621
anything lehatsoever
rhetorical
Death
where
is
thy sting"
and beautiful as this figure is. It is actually the fact that the socalled Archangels of the Gathas are at times the strictest principles
of righteousness, for they are used in the common forms of gram-
mar
mere nouns in the adverbial instrumental case, in the simforms of speech. God speaks "asha," in no sense at all here meaning with his Archangel or helped on by him, but "with His Truth,"
"veraciously"
He wishes "Vohumananha," not with the Great
as
plest
He rules
His direct Benevolence"
"Khshathra," not with the Arm of His splendid Creature, but "with
His Divine Authority"
He moves constructively "Aramaiti", i. e.,
"with His Inspiration," and not as encouraged by His daughter.
Ameshaspend, but "with
He
possesses
i.
e..
meant never as
living beings.
Here the very mental things themselves are uttered, and have
their course with no help or hindrance whatsoever from any one
Tlie August Immortals arc the common
of the impersonations.
terms of language, with the other uses however at the next breath
or sentence.
are few.
in the
It
is
hard to believe
it,
they
in the
is
as
we
it,
side
often quite
not
so much so that
when Zarathushtra meant asha "truly"
next to impossible to
the common meaning of the noun Asha rhetorically as the figure
it
difficult, if
is
tell
in
Nowhere
in
any
literature
do
remember such a
interwoven
never
not
is
in the
thing.
in
many
lost, either in
Gathas.
The
ideas
place,
the figure
my
contention
622
(perhaps
my
blunder
in Zaratliushtra's diction,
tences
in fact
tlie
is
it
recognized, while
it
Of
too.
it,
course
it
shows a gross
confusion
this g'reat
])oint,
and
in the sen-
long- since so
The
ideas
who had
culled
them
out of the earlier lore, (see, too, the \"eda,) that he could not keep
is
reproductions of
it
many
of the later
it
Nor
does Zarathushtra ever name a single one of the other Five Beings
without bearing
times
mind
in
we cannot
the
things the\'
whether he
tell
s\'mbolize,
means
really
the
so
that
at
ciple.
I
will
my
my
have alsudden sight of them have made clear his own intertwining thoughts, not even to himself. Had he laid his strophes by,
forgotten them for the moment in his rush of cares, let them get
"cold." as we might say of it, and then come suddenly upon them
after
all
wavs
at a
he,
Zarathushtra himself,
always told
uppermost
new glance
at his first
at
in
its
that
is
to say,
pure
who
this al-
ways.
T
call this
and
valuable,
Here
is
the
first
wonderful from
my
call
it
wonderful, for
one.
What
as to attract
influence.
with
all
h}nins must
eft'ects
these
throughout centuries
How
for
things shuffled?
Even
the
land
they
in
THE AKCIIANGKLS OF
for
623
A\1':SIA.
sav. for
will
Till':
mii>istration.
Even
manly
The Persians
never
their chances
felt
Xo more
their shafts.
and
led the
instincts.
till
and the
He
goes straight at
on the Lie.
made an
le^^'ions
all
his objects,
Roman
all
Periods
l)ut
even
of our race.
it
were.
of them,
this
the
lifts
all
schemes.
\Miere elsewhere,
in literature
save in
let
its
me
daughter systems?
we
the like
Spirit-
Mazda, the
"the Wise One" and with His
withcwt
though divided
in six
it?*
JVJiaf would He be
and this at a time when Jupiter was beating Llis annewing
We do not
spouse, and Indra hiccoughing from too much Soma
worship God because Lie is a person; but because He is Supreme
in Truth, with Love and Power, Eternal, Active and Complete.
character!
attributes