|
|
P
ut not your trust in life, for at the last death must overtake you;
and dog and bird will rend your corpse and your bones will be tumbled on the earth.
For three days and nights the soul sits beside the pillow of the body.
And on the fourth day at dawn (the soul) accompanied by the blessed Srosh, the good Vay, and the mighty Vahram, and opposed by Astvihat (the demon of death), the evil Vay, the demon Frehzisht and the demon Vizisht, and pursued by the active ill-will of Wrath, the evil-doer who bears a bloody spear, (will reach) the lofty and awful Bridge of the Requiter to which every man whose soul is saved and every man whose soul is damned must come. Here does many an enemy lie in wait.
Here (the soul will suffer) from the ill-will of Wrath who wields a bloody spear and from Astvihat who swallows all creation yet knows no sating,
and it will (benefit by) the mediation of Hihr, Srosh, and Rashn, and will (needs submit) to the weighing (of his deeds) by the righteous Rashn who lets the scales of the spiritual gods incline to neither side, neither for the saved nor yet for the damned, nor yet for kings and princes:
not so much as a hair's breadth does he allow (the scales) to tip, and he is no respecter (of persons),
for he deals out impartial justice both to kings and princes and to the humblest of men. […]
And when the soul departs from thence, then is a fragrant breeze wafted towards him, (a breeze) more fragrant than any perfume.
Then does the soul of the saved ask Srosh saying, 'What breeze is this, the like of which in fragrance I never smelt on earth?'
Then does the blessed Srosh make answer to the soul of the saved, saying, 'This is a wind (wafted) from Heaven; hence is it so fragrant.'
|
|
