بخش 3

After some years, a luxuriant tree appeared at Goshtasp’s portico by the royal hall—its leaves were counsel and its fruit wisdom, for a kingly man is one who nourishes reason. From blessed steps came a man named Zoroaster, the one who bound the ill-doing Ahriman. He said to the king of the Kayanids: I am a prophet who will lead you by wisdom; the World-Maker declares: accept the faith and look upon sky and earth, which I raised without soil and water—if you know I wrought this, call me the Creator of the world. Receive from the speaker his religion; learn his path and ordinance; choose wisdom and count this paltry world as paltry. The king listened and accepted the good religion, and his brother, the champion Farrokh-Zarir who could bring down a rough elephant, accepted as well. In Balkh, an aged lord fell grievously ill; princes, sages, and physicians sought remedies to no avail, until Zoroaster said: if he accepts the faith from this day, he will be freed from pain and made whole. Thereafter the shah, Zarir, and the nobles all came to the faith, binding the sacred kusti at their waists; the divine glory appeared, evil scheming left the hearts, the crypts filled with heavenly light, and the seed was cleansed of defilement. Seated upon the throne, Goshtasp sent armies through the realm, scattered mobeds across the world, and set domes over the holy fires—first he founded the Fire of Mehr-Barzin at Kashmar, and planted a free cypress from paradise before its gate. Upon the cypress’s trunk they wrote that Goshtasp had accepted the good religion, and they made the tree their witness. As years passed, the free cypress grew so tall that a lariat would not encircle it; they built a splendid golden palace around it—forty cubits high and forty in breadth—with pure-gold porticoes, a floor of silver, and soil of amber. On the walls were painted Jamshid, worshiper of sun and moon, and Fereydun with the cow-led Ox. When the famed golden palace was complete, the king girded it with an iron rampart and sat within, sending word throughout the land: whoever heeds Zoroaster’s counsel, let him go on foot to the Cypress of Kashmar, turn his back on the idol of China, bind the kusti, and set his face toward the Fire’s dome. The command spread everywhere, and the nobles turned toward the cypress; it became a sanctuary where Zoroaster bound the demon—if you will not call it paradise, then why name it the Cypress of Kashmar? It is a sapling of heaven that the king of kings set at Kashmar.