Pools and streams are polluted by corpses till the corpses have been removed and rain has thrice fallen upon the water; after this cattle and men can again drink of the water. So long as the corpse lies in a river, the fiend of death extends over nine paces above and three paces below it, and six paces on either side; in a pool the domain of the fiend is six paces in every direction; in snow and ice-water it is three paces. When Zarathrustra asks, whether the water which falls from heaven on the corpse is impure, the god answers, "I, Auramazda, allow the water to go forth from Lake Vourukasha, with storms and clouds, and to fall on a corpse; I, Auramazda, and to flow upon a burial-place, and upon a dung-heap, and carry away a bone, and wash all into Lake Puitika (the pool of purification in heaven). When purified the waters flow from Lake Puitika into Lake Vourukasha. I, Auramazda, rain down herbs of all kinds, to be food for the pious men, food for the useful cattle. With such speeches Auramazda appeased the just Zarathrustra."[415] Zarathrustra further inquires, whether corpses which have been carried by dogs, wolves, and panthers to a field make the field and men impure? Auramazda, as frequently happens in such cases, argues from the point of view of the possible and attainable. "If such corpses," says the god, "rendered men impure, all mankind would quickly be rendered impure owing to the multitude of the corpses which are upon the earth." But Zarathrustra is not satisfied; he says: "A man dies in the hollow of a valley; from the heights of the mountains a bird flies down to the valley, and then back to the summit of a mountain, and alights on a tree of hard or soft wood. There he is sick and voids excrements. Then a man goes up from the valley to the summit of the mountain, and comes to the tree, on which the bird has sat, and seeks fuel for his fire. He cuts the tree down, splits it up, and kindles a fire with it. What is his penalty?" Auramazda again replies that nothing carried away by wolves, dogs, birds, flies, or winds pollutes men. But now it occurs to Zarathrustra, or rather to the priests who have written these things down, whether the animals which have eaten the corpses are not impure. This difficulty Auramazda solves by declaring the animals pure; but no flesh of such animals is to be eaten within a year, or offered for sacrifice.[416]