Their rising, and, a harder science yet,
Their setting.”[74]
According to all traditions, astronomy was one of the first sciences cultivated by men.[75] The stars not only occasioned the institution, but also served to announce the regular return, of religious feasts; thus they became, as called by Plato, “the instruments of time,” men were at once induced and taught by religion to count months and years. Astronomy, in her feast-calendars, consecrated upon an altar the first fruits of her labors.
Upon the star-paved path of heaven man was conducted to the sanctuary of the supreme Being. In general, the first feeling of “the Divine (το θεῖον),” seizing the human mind with its own supernatural power, elevated it at once above the material concerns of the nether world; thus, sublime ideas of the Deity, the universe, and the immortality of the soul preceded the invention of many arts and sciences relative to the comforts of social life. This is confirmed by the account, contained in the Dabistán, of the most ancient religion of the Persians, which is founded upon transcendental ideas of the Divinity: “Except God himself, who can comprehend his origin? Entity, unity, identity are inseparable properties of this original essence, and are not adventitious to Him.” So the Desátir, with which the Dabistán generally so fully agrees, that we can scarce doubt that the author of the latter had the former before his eyes.
No sooner has man acquired the consciousness of mental freedom, than he endeavors to expand beyond himself the first vague feeling of the Divine; not satisfied to admire all exterior marvel, he desires to understand and to name its interior moving cause: this is something immaterial; it is a soul, such as acts in himself. Among the ancient Iranians, the “first creation of the existence-bestowing bounty” was the intellectual principle, called Azad Bahman, “the first intelligence;” he is also the first angel; from him other spirits or angels proceed. Every star, every heavenly sphere has its particular intelligence and spirit or angel. In the lower region, each of the four elements owns its particular guardian; vegetables, minerals, animals have their protecting angels; the conservative angel of mankind is Farun Faro Vakshur. It is not without reason, that this religion was called “the religion of light.” As the supreme Being
“Sow’d with stars the heav’n thick as the field.”[76]
So also he peopled the vast extent with the “sons of light, the empyreal host of angels,” who not only moved and governed the celestial orbs, but also descended into the elemental regions to direct, promote, and protect his creation. Not a drop of dew fell without an angel. The Hindus and Greeks animated universal nature; the Persians imparadized the whole creation by making it the abode of angels. Hence demonology in all its extent. But, “among the most resplendent, powerful, and glorious of the servants who are free from inferior bodies and matter, there is none God’s enemy or rival, or disobedient, or cast down, or annihilated.” This important passage of the Desátir[77] I shall have occasion to refer to hereafter.
Human souls are eternal and infinite; they come from above, and are spirits of the upper spheres. If distinguished for knowledge and sanctity, while on earth, they return above, are united with the sun, and become empyreal sovereigns; but if the proportion of their good works bore a closer affinity to any other star, they become lords of the place assigned to that star; their stations are in conformity with the degrees of their virtue; perfect men attain the beatific vision of the light of lights, and the cherubine hosts of the supreme Lord. Vice and depravity, on the contrary, separate souls from the primitive source of light, and chain them to the abode of the elements: they become evil spirits. The imperfectly good migrate from one body to another, until, by the efficacy of good words and actions, they are finally emancipated from matter, and gain a higher rank. The thoroughly-depraved descend from the human form to animal bodies, to vegetable, and even to mineral substances.
So far we see the well-known dogma of transmigration ingeniously combined with the Sidereal religion. Here is exhibited a singular system of heavenly dominion, maintained by every star, whether fixed or planetary, during periods of many thousand years. A fixed star begins the revolution, and reigns alone, the king of the cycle, during a millenium, after which, each of the fixed and planetary stars becomes its partner or prime-minister for a thousand years; the last of all is the moon, for a millenium. Then the sovereignty of the first king devolves to the star which was its first associate. This second king goes through the same course as the first, until this becomes for a thousand years his partner, and then his period is also past. The same is the course of all other stars. When the moon shall have been king, and all stars associated with it and its reign too past, then one great period shall be accomplished. The state of the revolving world recommences, the human beings, animals, vegetables, and minerals, which existed during the first cycle, are restored to their former language, acts, dispositions, species, and appearances; the world is renovated, that is to say, forms, similar to those which passed away, reappear. This system, copied from the Desátir,[78] expresses nothing else but the general vague idea of long heavenly revolutions, and periodical renovations of the same order of things in the nether world.
The Dabistán[79] adds a mode of computing as peculiar to the followers of the ancient faith: they call one revolution of the regent Saturn a day; thirty such days one month; twelve such months one year; a million of such years one fard; a million fard one vard; a million vard one mard; a million vard one jad; three thousand jads one vad; and two thousand vád one zád. To these I must subjoin salam, shamar, aspar, radah, aradah, raz, araz, biaraz, that is, eight members of a geometric progression, the first of which is 100,000, and the coefficient 100. But these years are revolutions, called farsals, of thirty common years each. There are besides farsals of Mars, Venus, Mercury, and the moon, a day of each being the time of their respective revolution.