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hell.[1] Man's knowledge of them enables him to enter into relationship with his creator;[2] for he is unable to progress morally without their assistance.[3] If man remembers them, he receives their favour and prospers in both worlds.[4] Through their wisdom, moreover, he becomes illustrious,[5] and attains to spiritual wealth through them.[6] They hasten to help the man who practises righteousness and abstains from wickedness;[7] such a man wins their favour by invoking them.[8] It was for this very reason that the prophet Zaratusht prayed to them to grant him the power of spiritual leadership.[9] They keep off Druj from the body of man, and guard him against the miseries of both the worlds.[10] As a physician removes bodily illness, or as a farmer cleans corn of all impurity, so do the angels remove harm from man.[11] They keep up this relation with man as long as he practises goodness, but they give up his company when he falls into sinful habits.[12] They lodge in the body of a righteous person, causing him joy,[13] and instruct the faithful in spiritual matters;[14] moreover, sin flees from him in whom they dwell.[15] They help and protect a pious man, even as a loving master would lead a calf to the pasture land and prevent it from going to a place of harm.[16] Like loving parents who prohibit their children from partaking of some unwholesome food, the angels prevent man, even against his will, from doing that which they foresee, through their superior knowledge to be of eventual harm to him.[17] Persons who befriend the righteous in this world find angels as their friends in the next;[18] the good leave name and fame here, and are blessed with the company of the angels there.[19]

Sacrificial offerings made to the angels. We have already seen that meat formed a conspicuous article among the sacrificial gifts made to the heavenly beings in the Avestan period.

  1. ↑ Dk., vol. 2, p. 85.
  2. ↑ Dk., vol. 2, p. 81.
  3. ↑ Dk., vol. 4, p. 249.
  4. ↑ Dk., vol. 7, p. 454.
  5. ↑ Dk., vol. 7, p. 488.
  6. ↑ Dk., vol. 7, p. 490.
  7. ↑ Dk., vol. 2, p. 65.
  8. ↑ Dk., vol. 7, p. 454.
  9. ↑ Ib.
  10. ↑ Dk., vol. 8, p. 475, 476.
  11. ↑ Dk., vol. 1, p. 38, 39.
  12. ↑ Dk., vol. 1, p. 26.
  13. ↑ Dk., vol. 11, bk. 6. 97, p. 12, 13; 236, p. 90, 91.
  14. ↑ Dk., vol. 11, bk. 6 214, p. 79.
  15. ↑ Dk., vol. 3, p. 153.
  16. ↑ Dk., vol. 13, bk. 6. E. 1, p. 1.
  17. ↑ Dk., vol. 11, bk. 6. 222, p. 83.
  18. ↑ Dk., vol. 11, bk. 6. 133, p. 38, 39.
  19. ↑ Dk., vol. 11, bk. 6. 140, p. 41, 42.
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