Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/410

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FAROHARS
377

from entering the city of Nisibis for ten days while this festival was celebrated there.[1] On the fourth day after death the Farohar of the departed one in a family is to be invoked along with the Farohars of all righteous persons that have lived in this world from the time of the first man on earth, and also of those that will live up to the advent of the renovator of the world.[2] When thus invoked in prayer the Farohars come down to attend the ceremonies;[3] but if they are not properly propitiated, they wander disconsolate about their former abodes for a time and finally depart leaving their curse. Such a curse is irrevocable, if once given, unless nullified by the Farohars who uttered it.

Besides, it is not for their own good that the Farohars seek invocation, because they do not need any ceremony for their own sake; their coming, rather, is to remind the householder of the life after death, to warn him that he also will one day have to leave this world, and that when trouble comes upon him they could not help him, if he neglected them.[4] Yet, if well propitiated by the survivors of the deceased, they escort the souls of these persons, when their turn of death comes. They intercede on their behalf, give a good report to Ormazd, and entreat him to give them due reward.[5] But if the living have neglected them, and have failed to sacrifice unto them, they depart cursing, and bide their time, until the day when death brings the survivors to the Bridge of Judgment. To such souls, stepping on the threshold of the next world, they utter reproaches and refuse help.[6]

The line of distinction between the souls and the Farohars of the dead is gradually obliterated in the Pahlavi texts. By the end of the Pahlavi period both of these spiritual faculties, namely, the soul and the Farohar, are invoked to come down upon earth. The Pahlavi texts, accordingly, speak of the souls or of the Farohars, as the case may be, as coming to this world on the days originally dedicated to the latter. The Avestan texts, on the other hand, always spoke of the advent of the Farohars (not of the souls) to this world on the festival days consecrated

  1. ↑ Menander Protector, ed Niebuhr, p. 374, Bonn, 1829.
  2. ↑ SLS. 17 5; Dd 28. 7; 81. 15.
  3. ↑ SLS. 9. 11, 12.
  4. ↑ SLS. 9 13; Sd 13 6–9.
  5. ↑ Sd. 37. 6–8.
  6. ↑ Sd. 37. 10–12.
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