Persia the god holds another ring in his hand
(fig. 71, 1). It seems impossible to emphasize more strongly or express
more clearly the idea that Ahuramazda was the lord of the circle and of
the Above, the wings being emblematic of air or heaven and of motion.

The signification of the symbolical representation of the supreme power
and the adoption of fire by the founders of the ancient Parsee religion as
the most appropriate image of their highest god, become clear when
interpreted as the outcome of pole-star worship. Resisting the temptation
to prolong the study of ancient Persia, let us now hasten to the reputed
cradle of the civilization of Western Asia.

BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA.

"The Babylonians were from the first a nation of star gazers.... The
cuneiform character which denotes a god is the picture of a star" (Sayce
_op. cit._). "The Babylonian and Assyrian-name for Ursa Minor was Kakkabu;
the Hebrew, Kokhabh; and the Euphratean, Kochab, which means, '_the_ star
_present_,' a title which reminds us of its former supreme importance as
the pole-star.... In various Babylonian tablets we meet a star-god called
Imina-bi=the seven-fold one."(91) Although Mr. Brown has reached no
definite conclusion as to the identity of this star-god, I venture to
maintain that the original "seven-fold one" could have been no other than
Ursa Major and that this and "the ever-present star" are identical with
what the Chinese termed "the Imperial Ruler of Heaven" and the "Seven
Regulators." The following passages furnish ample evidence of the
suggestive influence that "the seven-fold one" exerted upon the minds of
the ancient Babylonian star-gazers.

"The institution of the sabbath went back to the Sumerian days of
Chaldea--the name itself is Babylonian" (Sayce, _op. cit._). "The seventh
month (=Sept.-Oct.) in Akkadian is named Tul-ku=the holy altar.... The
seventh month of Tasritutisri was also connected with the building of the
tower of Babel, said to have been the special work of the 'King of the
Holy Mound,' Sar-tuli-elli, and its erection placed in the seventh month
at the autumnal equinox. It was a zikkuratu with seven steps, a
circumstance connected with planetary [? stellar] symbolism. This style of
building is reduplicated in the oldest Egyptian pyramids, _e. g._ the
pyramid of Sakkarah, which had seven steps like the Babylonian towers.
This circumstance, one amongst many such, supplies a most interesting
illustration of the f