since they propound the very same ideas, the meaning of which has well-nigh been lost even to our most learned Mobeds, they ought to be credited at least with some possession of a knowledge, the key to which has been revealed to them, and lost to us, and which opens the door to the meaning of those hitherto inexplicable sentences and doctrines in our old writings, about which we are still, and will go on, groping in the dark, unless we listen to what they have to tell us about them.

To show that the above is not a solitary instance, but that the Avesta contains this idea in many other places, I will give another paragraph which contains the same doctrine, though in a more condensed form than the one just given.  Let the Parsi reader turn to Yasna, chapter 26, and read the sixth paragraph, which runs as follows:—­

We praise the life (ahum), knowledge (daenam), consciousness (baodhas), soul (urwanem), and spirit (frawashem) of the first in religion, the first teachers and hearers (learners), the holy men and holy women who were the protectors of purity here (in this world).

Here the whole man is spoken of as composed of five parts, as under:—­

1.  The Physical Body.
1.  Ahum-Existence, Life.              2.  The Vital Principle. 
It includes:                           3.  The Astral Body.

2.  Daenam-Knowledge. 4.  The Astral shape or
                                         body of desire.

3.  Baodhas-Consciousness. 5.  The Animal or physical
                                         intelligence or
                                         consciousness or Ego.

4.  Urwanem-Soul. 6.  The Higher or Spiritual
                                         intelligence or
                                         consciousness, or
                                         Spiritual Ego.

5.  Frawashem-Spirit. 7.  The Spirit.

In this description the first triple group—­viz., the bones (or the gross matter), the vital force which keeps them together, and the ethereal body, are included in one and called Existence, Life.  The second part stands for the fourth principle of the septenary man, as denoting the configuration of his knowledge or desires.* Then the three, consciousness (or animal soul), (spiritual) soul, and the pure Spirit are the same as in the first quoted passage.  Why are these four mentioned as distinct from each other and not consolidated like the first part?  The sacred writings explain this by saying that on death the first of these five parts disappears and perishes sooner or later in the earth’s atmosphere.  The gross elementary matter (the shell) has to run within the earth’s attraction; so the ahum separates from the higher portions and is lost.