sacrificial rice, and sacrifice a bright, light-hued, Haoma-coloured animal in order that he might withstand the Pairika Dushyairya (_i.e._ blight). "If I had not created Tistrya," Auramazda says, "this Pairika would have carried on war day and night, but Tistrya binds her with two and three fetters." "We praise Tistrya, the brilliant majestic star, which drives away the Pairika; he blows her away from Lake Vourukasha; then the clouds draw up, spreading themselves afar, which contain the fertilising water."[188] Another spirit which fights against the demons in the Avesta is called Çraosha. On the divine mountain stands "his triumphant dwelling with a thousand pillars, on the topmost height of the great mountain, illumined within with a light of its own, decked with stars without;" his chariot is drawn by four spotless horses, which are swifter than clouds, swifter than winds, swifter than storms, swifter than birds with strong wings. A strong, well-armed, victorious youth, the strongest and swiftest among young men, who fears not the Daevas, and before whom they fly in terror to the darkness, Çraosha is the companion of Mithra; with him he overthrows the ranks of the hosts with whom Mithra is angry (p. 111). Thrice in each day he comes to smite the Daevas, with the axe of a woodman in his hand. Thus he fights against the evil Angromainyu, against Aeshma, and the Daevas Kunda, Banga, and Vibanga; thus he forces the conquered Daevi Druj to answer him. In the dark he is wakeful against the evil ones; he protects the world from them when the sun has set; in each night he comes thrice upon the earth with his weapons in his hand. About the third watch of the night he arouses the bird Parodarsh, _i.e._ the cock, that by his cry he may scare away the goblins of the night, and may banish the Daevi Bushyançta, which holds men imprisoned in sleep.[189] Çraosha, moreover, protects the sacrifices which are offered to the good gods, and which the evil one would carry away or defile. One of the priests who took part in the sacred ceremonies held a club, the Çraosha-club, in his hand, in order to scare the demons and keep them back. Of the two instruments which in the book of the law are used for flagellation, and by which the evil spirits are driven from the bodies of men, one is called the Çraosha-whip (_Çraosha charana_).