[184] Laws of Manu, iv. 32.
[185] Anugîtâ, 31.
[186] Laws of Manu, iv. 226. Cf. ibid. iv. 227.
[187] Institutes of Vishnu, lix. 15, 30; ch. xc. sqq. Gautama, xix. 11, 16. Vasishtha, xx. 47; xxii. 8. Laws of Manu, iii. 95; iv. 229 sqq.; xi. 228.
[188] Laws of Manu, iv. 234.
[189] Institutes of Vishnu, lxvii. 43. Laws of Manu, iii. 118. Cf. Rig-Veda, x. 117. 6.
[190] Wilkins, Modern Hinduism, p. 416 sq.
Of the ancient Persians Thucydides said that they preferred giving to receiving.[191] To be charitable towards the poor of their own faith was among them a religious duty of the first order.[192] Zoroaster thus addressed Vîshtâspa:—“Let no thought of Angra Mainyu ever infect thee, so that thou shouldst indulge in evil lusts, make derision and idolatry, and shut to the poor the door of thy house.”[193] The holy Sraosha is the protector of the poor.[194] In the Shâyast it is said that the clothing of the soul in the next world is formed out of almsgiving.[195]
[191] Thucydides, ii. 97. 4.
[192] See Geiger, Civilization of the Eastern Irānians, i. 164 sqq.; Mills, in Sacred Books of the East, xxxi. p. xxii.