An off-shoot of the Chaldean culture was that of Persia, whose priestly class were far removed above the warriors and farmers that constituted the other two classes. Priests married only among their own race, possessed all the knowledge, made their king _ex officio_ one of themselves, and practised itinerant teaching, but solely among their own caste. In the holy city, Ragha, the priests alone held rule and no secular power prevailed; Zoroaster was their founder; they were the physicians, astrologers, interpreters of dreams, scribes and officers of justice, while they impressed upon the minds of the people their exclusive duties;--to reverence the holy fire, which was their greatest mystery, to listen to the teaching of passages from the sacred book, and to perform numerous ceremonies of purification. Only the initiated were taught the meaning of the strife between the good Ormuzd and the evil Ahriman, which was probably the alternation of day and night, and of summer and winter. In India the intense feeling with regard to caste but little altered the condition of things from that obtaining as above described, though the Brahmins were further away from the other castes than in other countries where the priests came from the common people; by the latter the Brahmins used to be regarded as Gods and did all they could to perpetuate this feeling. By this fact alone they became a self-constituted mystic organization, being themselves pantheists while the people were idolators. Though they taught pantheism in their sacred books, the second and third castes, namely the warriors and farmers, did not understand the teaching, and the fourth caste dared not read them at all.