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Certain additions may since have been made to it; but we are assured that "their number is small," and that we "have no reason to doubt" that the text of the Avesta, in the days of Arda-Viraf, was on the whole exactly the same as at present. The religious system of the new Persian monarchy is thus completely known to us, and will be described minutely in a later chapter.
Of these seven there was one, a young but holy priest, whom the universal consent of his brethren recognized as pre-eminent. His name was Arda-Viraf. "Having passed through the strictest ablutions, and drunk a powerful opiate, he was covered with a white linen and laid to sleep.
This work, the Zendavesta, while it may contain fragments of a very ancient literature, took its present shape in the time of Artaxerxes, and was probably then first collected from the mouths of the Zoroastrian priests and published by Arda-Viraf.
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