Avesta as "Fragments Tahmuras"; and the "Hadokht Nask" "volume of the scriptures" with two fragments of eschatological significance. Only texts preserved in the Avestan language count as scripture and are part of the Avesta. Several other secondary works are nonetheless crucial to Zoroastrian theology and scholarship. The most notable among the Middle Persian texts are the "Dēnkard" ("Acts of Religion"), dating from the ninth century; the "Bundahishn" ("Primordial Creation"), finished in the eleventh or twelfth century, but containing older material; the "Mainog-i-Khirad" ("Spirit of Wisdom"), a religious conference on questions of faith; and the "Book of Arda Viraf", which is especially
Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India is a 2009 travel book by William Dalrymple. Dalrymple's seventh book is about the lives of nine Indians, a Buddhist monk, a Jain nun, a lady from a middle-class family in Calcutta, a prison warden from Kerala, an illiterate goat herd from Rajasthan, and a devadasi among others, as seen during his Indian travels. The book explores the lives of nine such people, each of whom represent a different religious path in nine chapters. For the launch of the book