12. A pompous account is given of his funeral rites, of which it will be sufficient to mention here that his body was laid upon a pyre, and burnt after the manner of burning in use for Chakravartins, or Universal Monarchs. The princes of Kusinagara wished to keep his relics to themselves; but seven kings, each of whom demanded a share, made threatening demonstrations against them, and after some quarrelling it was agreed to distribute the relics among the whole number. They were therefore divided into eight portions, the royal family of each country taking one. A dagoba, or monument, was erected over them in each of the capitals governed by these royal Buddhists. Of the numerous stories that are told with regard to the effects of the Buddha's preaching, of the amazing miracles he is said to have performed, and of the wonders reported to have happened at his death and his cremation, there will be an opportunity of speaking in another place. For the present, it is enough to relate the legend of his life in its main features, according to the version piously believed by the millions of human beings who—in China, Tartary, Mongolia, Siam, Burmah, Thibet, and Ceylon—look to him as their law-giver and their savior. SECTION IV.—ZARATHUSTRA.[16] Slaves, condemned to make bricks without straw, would hardly have a more hopeless task than he who attempts to construct, from the materials now before him, a life of Zarathustra. Eminent as we know this great prophet to have been, the details of his biography have been lost forever. His name and his doctrines, with a few scattered hints in the Gâthâs, are all that remain on record concerning the personality of a man who was the teacher of one great branch of the Aryan race, and whose religion, proclaimed many centuries, possibly even a thousand years, before Christ taught in Galilee, was a great and powerful faith in the days when Marathon was fought, and is not even now extinct. We will gather from these fragmentary sources what knowledge we can of the Iranian prophet, but we will refuse to fill up the void created by the absence of historical documents with ingenious hypotheses or subtle speculations. Something approaching to a bit of biography is to be found in the opening verses of the fifth Gâthâ, which are to this effect:— "It is reported that Zarathustra Spitama possessed the best good; for Ahura Mazda granted him all that may be obtained by means of a sincere worship, forever, all that promotes the good life, and he gives the same to all those who keep the words and perform the actions enjoined by the good religion. "Thus may Kava Vistaspa, Zarathustra's companion, and the most holy Frashaostra, who prepare the right paths for the faith which He who Liveth gave unto the priests of fire, faithfully honor and adore Mazda according to his (Zarathustra's) mind, with his words and his works!