powerful and they strive to frighten Zarathushtra who is weak.[1] He looks to Ahura Mazda for protection against them and prays that instead of causing him harm, their hostile actions may recoil upon themselves.[2] The enmity and hatred towards the prophet, however, increase day by day and he is now aware that the opponents are bent upon doing him the utmost harm that they can, that is, they conspire to kill him.[3]
The Kavis and Karapans carried on vehement counter propaganda against Zarathushtra. They persuaded, denounced, cajoled, flattered, and threatened in one breath those that showed signs of being influenced by the new doctrines. They terrorized them with excommunication from society, and with persecution in this life and tortures awaiting them in the next life. People dreaded their power and were not yet swayed so completely by the new teachings as to face persecution. The history of religions teaches us that a new religion does not spread through well-balanced and reasoned arguments and convictions. It is borne on the wings of the unbounded enthusiasm and overflowing emotion that a prophet can create. If a prophet succeeds in preaching the new ideas that fill his being, with passionate and frantic zeal, if he succeeds in kindling the flame of emotional, nervous enthusiasm among his hearers by his fervent preaching, if he succeeds by means of his whirlwind campaign to light the spark that can set the whole country on fire, his religion becomes a living faith. Zarathushtra's teachings had not so effectively stirred them. Consequently, those that followed him hanging with enthusiasm on the unheard of words that he uttered, gave up going after him when they saw the vehement opposition of the custodians of the old faith. Those that had seriously heard him but were yet undecided and hesitating in the choice between the charms of the new and the dictates of the old religion, deserted him. The ignorant and unthinking people, who had, with childlike curiosity, turned wherever his footsteps trod, imitated the elders of society and left him. Those who were proud to claim him as their friend forsook him when the hour came for them to stand by him. Those that were his kith and kin disowned him, because he had disavowed their ancestral faith. Thus did the wavering, timid, half-hearted followers fail him in his hour of need and leave him. Ahura Mazda alone did not leave him and,
