Thus, under the sway of Yima, three hundred winters passed away, And the earth was replenished with flocks and herds, With men, and dogs and birds, and with red blazing fires, ‘Till there was no more room for flocks and herds and men. Then Yima stepped forward toward the luminous space To meet the sun, and he pressed the earth with the golden ring And bored it with the poniard, saying, thus: “O Spenta Ārmaiti,[189] kindly open asunder, and stretch thyself afar To bear flocks and herds and men.”
And Yima made the earth grow larger by one-third than it was before, and there came flocks and herds and men, at his will, as many as he wished.
Ahūra Mazda then called a council of the gods, and here he spake to Yima saying, “Upon the material earth the fatal winters are going to fall that shall make the snow-flakes thick and deep on the peaks of the highest mountains, and all the beasts shall perish that live in the wilderness, and those that live on the mountains, and those that live in the bosom of the vale. Therefore make thee a Vara, long as a riding- ground on every side of the square, to be an abode for men and a fold for flocks. There thou shalt make the waters flow, there thou shalt settle birds by the evergreen banks that bear the never-failing food. There shalt thou establish dwelling places and bring the greatest, the best and the finest of the earth, both men and women; thou shalt bring the animals, and the seeds of the trees, two of every kind to be kept there, so long as men shall stay in the Vara.”
And Yima made a Vara, and brought into it all the varieties of cattle and of plants, and the men in the Vara which Yima made, live the happiest life,[190] and he who brought the law of Ahūra into the Vara was the bird Karśipta. And Yima sealed up the Vara with the golden ring, and he made a door and a window which was self-shining within. And Ahūra Mazda said “There the stars, the moon and the sun, only once a year seem to rise and set, and the year seems only a day.”
The larger portion of the Vendīdad is devoted to a description, with numberless repetitions, of the Mazdean laws of purification and the long ceremonies pertaining to them. Impurity or uncleanness may be described as the condition of a person or thing that is possessed of a demon, and the process of purification is for the purpose of expelling the evil presence. Death is the triumph of the demon, and therefore it is the principal cause of uncleanness; when a man dies, as soon as the soul has left the body, the Drūj Nasu, or Corpse-Drūj, comes from the regions of hell, and falls upon the body, and whoever thereafter touches the corpse is not only unclean himself, but every one whom he touches is also unclean.