This remarkable reformer, according to the Yasnahs, was born in the sacerdotal city of Ragha, near Teheran, the capital of Persia. His father was an aged priest named Poorooshaspa, a man noted for his purity of life. Like all such histories, his birth was miraculously ordained.[19] One evening as Poorooshaspa and Dhogdha his wife, a childless old couple, were praying in a lonely place, the atmosphere around them became suddenly luminous. They looked up, and saw a form of exquisite beauty standing in the midst of a bright cloud, and as they gazed upon this beautiful vision there was handed to them a cup fashioned out of an amethyst filled with the wine of heaven. "Drink this," said the angel, "and renew your youth, for Ahura-Mazda has chosen you to bring a savior into the world." Having drank the wine, they became the parents of one son, S'pitama. It is related that the ruler of the city of Ragha sought to destroy the child; at his command he was snatched from his mother's arms and thrown into a narrow lane where cattle passed, in the hope that they might tread him to death; but, lo! in the evening a sensible and motherly cow brought him on her horns to his weeping, disconsolate mother. Then again, by the order of the same cruel governor, he was cast into a blazing fire; but he lay there unscathed, smiling so serenely upon his persecutors that they were at once converted into friends. In fact, every attempt made by enemies to destroy the infant is said to have been arrested by divine agency. At last the child was permitted to grow up unmolested with his friends and relatives, who were among his earliest followers. Zoroaster did not so much reveal a new religion as reform the old Fire-worship of his country. He abolished stone images, necromancy, magic, witchcraft, all of which were identified with the worship of fire. He investigated astrology, and confirmed its practices as true and elevating. He inspired the old materialistic teaching of the Fire-priests with a new and more spiritual meaning. He made war on the idolatrous practices of his fellow-men, and banished from Iran all who still bowed down before wood and stone. At the age of thirty he completed a new code of laws, and also the Zend-Avesta, with the Izeshnee, a still more sacred book. He distinctly recognized, above and beyond all manifestations of sun, light, or fire, a purer, higher, unconditioned Being.[20] When moved by deepest awe he bowed his head and reverently called this Being "the Truth of the Truth, the Wisdom of the Wise, the Purity of the Pure." So also in his famous prayer of one-and-twenty words, "The world is produced, and all that is good in thought, word, and deed, because of the Truth."