rom his body, who has cleansed from the Nasu
the man defiled by the dead?

Ahura Mazda answered:--

"The welfare of Paradise thou canst promise to that man, for his reward
in the other world."

Zarathustra asked Ahura Mazda:--

O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! How shall I fight against
that Drug who from the dead rushes upon the living? How shall I fight
against that Nasu who from the dead defiles the living?

Ahura Mazda answered:--

"Say aloud those words in the Gathas that are to be said twice. Say
aloud those words in the Gathas that are to be said thrice. Say aloud
those words in the Gathas that are to be said four times. And the Drug
shall fly away like the well-darted arrow, like the felt of last year,
like the annual garment of the earth."

O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! If a man who does not know
the rites of cleansing according to the law of Mazda, offers to cleanse
the unclean, how shall I then fight against that Drug who from the dead
rushes upon the living? How shall I fight against that Drug who from the
dead defiles the living?

Ahura Mazda answered:--

"Then, O Spitama Zarathustra! the Drug Nasu appears to wax stronger than
she was before. Stronger then are sickness and death and the working of
the fiend than they were before."

O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! What is the penalty that
he shall pay?

Ahura Mazda answered:--

"The worshippers of Mazda shall bind him; they shall bind his hands
first; then they shall strip him of his clothes, they shall cut the head
off his neck, and they shall give over his corpse unto the greediest of
the corpse-eating creatures made by the beneficent Spirit, unto the
vultures, with these words: 'The man here has repented of all his evil
thoughts, words, and deeds. If he has committed any other evil deed, it
is remitted by his repentance; if he has committed no other evil deed,
he is absolved by his repentance forever and ever.'"

Who is he, O Ahura Mazda! who threatens to take away fulness and
increase from the world, and to bring in sickness and death?

Ahura Mazda answered:--

"It is the ungodly Ashemaogha, O Spitama Zarathustra! who in this
material world cleanses the unclean without knowing the rites of
cleansing according to the law of Mazda. For until then, O Spitama
Zarathustra! sweetness and fatness would flow out from that land and
from those fields, with health and healing, with fulness and increase