THE THIRTEENTH SECTION describes the system of the Akhshíyán sect.—The Mobed Akhshí was by origin a Persian, possessed of great knowledge, and full of kindness towards the creatures of God; he was contemporary with Shídáb, and promulgated his sentiments openly, inviting all men to embrace his faith: he maintained God to be the essence of the elements; so that when people say, “God is not visible,” this implies the elemental essence, which presents no form to the sight; when they assert the ubiquity of God, they style that the essence, as he is every where under his fourfold form; their propo­sition of all things excepting God being perishable, means that the elements admit of change, but that their essence remains for ever in the same state. They hold the sun to be the source of fire and of the other stars, such as the falling and shooting stars, comets with tails, etc. One of those sectaries was a person named Shídáb, whom the author met in the costume of a merchant, in Kashmir in the year of the Hejirah 1040 (A. D. 1631), and from whom he heard what has now been written, and which was partly recited out of the book of Akshí. The same Shídáb, called also Shams-ud-dîn, or “the sun of faith,” composed a treatise entitled Rázábád in proof of his system, which he demonstrated by texts of the Koran and the traditions. According to these sectaries, which became known after the Radiyán, there is no resurrection nor return to life but after this manner: the seminal principle being derived from food, when the body of a living creature is dis­solved, it becomes grass and constitutes the food of some other animal: as to future rewards and punish­ments, they enter not into the faith or practice of this sect: their paradise consists in having fine rai­ment, in carousing, riding, sensual enjoyments, and such like pleasures, which alone they esteem the chief good; torment, according to them, consists in being separated from such objects: however, the founders and followers of this faith carefully avoid all kind of cruelty towards living creatures.

According to them, intercourse with daughters, sisters, mothers, maternal aunts, and their children is allowable;* as there can exist no antipathy between the source and what is derived from it: no degree of relationship in their opinion should be a bar to the intercourse of the sexes: nay, on the contrary, it is highly to be commended, as the nearer the degree of consanguinity, the greater will be the friend­ship between the parties.* They however regard adultery as highly criminal, unless the husband should willingly sacrifice his wife's honor. They in fact maintain that marriage between any two parties, however nearly related, is perfectly allowable if the parties agree among themselves. They also regard the ceremonial ablutions enjoined by the law as absurd and unnecessary.* They also say, that men assume a particular nature by means of laws and institutions, and on that account regard good as evil, and evil as good. When they desire to make a sacrificial offering, they kill some harmless animal and count it not a foul crime. Nay, some religion­ists who partake of swine's flesh, scrupulously avoid that of cows, and vice versâ. Whoever shall appeal to the intelligence, which is the gift of God, will be convinced that our discourse is true; that is, all we have narrated from the fifth chapter to the present. The professors of this belief are mixed up with the Muhammedans, and travel about under that mask, assuming the name of true believers, but having a distinct appellation for their peculiar creed; they are scattered over Iran and Turan, remote from and averse to the fire-worshippers.