Identifier: mediababylonpers00ragouoft (find matches)
Title: Media, Babylon and Persia : including a study of the Zend-Avesta or religion of Zoroaster, from the fall of Nineveh to the Persian war
Year: 1889 (1880s)
Authors: Ragozin, Zénaïde A. (Zénaïde Alexeïevna), 1835-1924
Subjects: Zoroastrianism Iran -- History Babylon (Extinct city) -- History
Publisher: London : T. Fisher Unwin New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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tely associated with that country even in itsname—Atropatcne = Aderbeidjan—to our own day.(See p. 144.) Some few so-called Gebers or Fire-worshippers still linger among the mountains of vVd-crbeidjan and Upper Kurdistan, attracted by the flamewhich still glimmers on the top of some of the ancientFire-towers, the gigantic Atesh-gahs or Fire-altars con-structed in the times of their fathers glory;—uniqueand most impressive constructions, now mostly inruins. The sacred flame, kindled in the pure moun-tain air, high above all defiling contact, drew itsnourishment by a pipe that passed straight upthrough the centre of the building, directly from theinvisible store below. Truly, few forms of worshipappeal more to our imagination and our sense ofreverent awe than the homage paid to this purest ofsymbols on the stainless mountain tops, by white-robed Athravans, raising their voice in song amidthe silence of a wild and undesecrated nature. 28. More traces of Turanian influence might eas-
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^^^^^^ 153 17. KKSTORATION OF THE PRECEDING. 154 MEDIA, PAP.y/.OX, AX I) PERSIA. _ ily be adduced, but they arc too indistinct and sub-tle to allow of discussion in a nurtly popular work.There is one, however, too (leculiar and strikini; tobe passed over; it is the strantje transtormatioii un-dergone by the Fravashis, or glorified spirits of thedeparted, who, as we can establish clearly, and with-out straining a point, originally answer to the Pitrisof the Veda (see pp. 83, ff.). That of the host of thegood, strong, beneficent Fravashis of the faithful, those of the first and sainted champions of the truefaith sh(nild be honored with a special reverence, isright and natural, and there is nothing startling inthe long iitan) (over twenty pages) which recallsthem all by name, repeating the same form of invo-cation, beginning with the Fravashi of the holy Zara-thushtra, \\\\o first thought what is good, who firstspoke what is good, who first did what is good,who first knew and first taugh

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