Zoroaster

also is said to have lived in Balkh in the latter part of his life. The ruins are some 20 miles in total circuit; and ancient bricks stamped with kune i form characters are reported to have been found. Balls. Games with balls—kicking, hurling, chasing, and handling—appear to have been early connected with solar rites in honor of the celestial ball; at Easter, and Shrove tide, our clergy all over England used to play with balls round their sanctuaries, fighting to carry off the ball, as also for the Easter eggs, and images of cocks made of sugar. Live cocks were also sacrificed at these feasts. So savages used to play with, and fight for, human skulls on such occasions. (See Mr Glave in Century Magazine, April 1890, pp. 824-835; and Notes and Queries, 26th June 1897.) [Herrick refers to ball-playing in Chester Cathedral, at Easter, 500 years ago. The dean threw the ball to the choristers while the Antiphon was chanted (see Academy, 16th July 1904, p. 56)—Eb.] Baman (or Bahman) Yasht. A Pahlavi book of the Sas- — sanian period (see Avasta), believed to be founded on the lost Zend scripture (Vohuman Yasno) part of the original Avesta, Zoroaster is @ here represented as praying in vain for immortality, but acquiring wisdom and omniscience for seven days and nights. He thus saw aud understood all things in the universe, and what was to happen to all, Invasions, and revolutions, and terrible woes, were to precede his own reincarnation born of a Virgin, in the mythical lake of the East. 276