They are in Asia what the Jews are in Europe.

The name of their pope or high priest is Mobed.
** That is to say, their priests.

See, respecting the rites of this religion, Henry Lord Hyde, and the Zendavesta.
Their costume is a robe with a belt of four knots, and a veil over their mouth for fear of polluting the fire with their breath.
*** The Zoroastrians are divided between two opinions; one party believing that both soul and body will rise, the other that it will be the soul only.

The Christians and Mahometans have embraced the most solid of the two.
Next to these, remark those banners of an azure ground, painted with monstrous figures of human bodies, double, triple, and quadruple, with heads of lions, boars, and elephants, and tails of fishes and tortoises; these are the ensigns of the sects of India, who find their gods in various animals, and the souls of their fathers in reptiles and insects.
These men support hospitals for hawks, serpents, and rats, and they abhor their fellow creatures! They purify themselves with the dung and urine of cows, and think themselves defiled by the touch of a man! They wear a net over the mouth, lest, in a fly, they should swallow a soul in a state of penance,* and they can see a Pariah** perish with hunger! They acknowledge the same gods, but they separate into hostile bands.
* According to the system of the Metempsychosis, a soul, to undergo purification, passes into the body of some insect or animal.

It is of importance not to disturb this penance, as the work must in that case begin afresh.
** This is the name of a cast or tribe reputed unclean, because they eat of what has enjoyed life.
The first standard, retired from the rest, bearing a figure with four heads, is that of Brama, who, though the creator of the universe, is without temples or followers; but, reduced to serve as a pedestal to the Lingam,* he contents himself with a little water which the Bramin throws every morning on his shoulder, reciting meanwhile an idle canticle in his praise.
* See Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes, vol.1.
The second, bearing a kite with a scarlet body and a white head, is that of Vichenou, who, though preserver of the world, has passed part of his life in wicked actions.