Zarathuśtra is not the only lawgiver and prophet which the Avesta recognizes. Gayo Maratan, Yima and even the bird Karśipta,[171] appear under different names, forms and functions, as god-like champions in the struggle for light, and they knew the law as well as Zarathuśtra. Many of the features of Zarathuśtra point to a god, but the mythology has probably grown up around a man, and the existing mythic elements have been woven into a halo to surround a human face. There has been much of individual genius in the formation of Mazdeism, but the system as a whole was probably produced by the elaboration of successive generations of the priesthood. THE EARLY PĀRSĪS. It is evident to the historian that the Zend-Avesta should be carefully studied by all who value the records of the human race, but its influence for good or evil cannot be determined without understanding something of the character and habits of the people to whom it peculiarly belonged. There have been periods in the world’s history when the religion of the Pārsīs threatened to dominate over all others. If Persia had won the battles of Marathon and Salamis, and thus succeeded in the final conquest of Greece, the worship of Ormazd might have become the religion of the whole civilized world. Persia already ruled over the Assyrian and Babylonian empires; the Jews were under her power, and the sacred monuments of Egypt had been mutilated by the Persian soldiery. Again, during the Sassanian dynasty, the national faith had revived to such an extent that Shapur II gathered the sacred books and issued their code of law to the people, while the sufferings of the persecuted Christians in the east were as terrible as they had ever been in the west—Rome herself being rivaled in the work of cruelty. But the power of Persia was broken by the Mohammedan conquest, and the war-cry of the Moslem was the herald of defeated tyranny; hence it is that Mazdeism, although once the fear of the world, has for a thousand years had but little interest except for the historian. It was once the state religion of a powerful empire, but it was virtually driven away from its native soil by the sons of the desert, and the star and crescent waved in triumph above its broken altars. Deprived of political influence, and without even the prestige of an enlightened priesthood, many of its votaries became exiles in a foreign land, while the few that remained on Persian soil almost disappeared under the iron hand of Mohammedan rule. In less than a century after their defeat, nearly all the conquered people who remained upon their native soil were brought over to the faith of their new rulers, either by persecution or policy, or by the attractive power of a simpler creed, while those who clung to the faith of their fathers sought a new home in the land of the Hindūs, and found a refuge on the western coast of India and the peninsula of Gujarāt.