The Vendidad contains a striking sequence in which Ahura Mazda is asked where the earth is most joyful, and the answers are agricultural and domestic: where a righteous man builds a house with fire, cattle, a wife, children and good flocks; where he grows most grain, grass and fruit; where he waters ground that is dry and drains ground that is too wet. The text then says explicitly that whoever sows grain sows righteousness. Work is a religious act because it extends and strengthens the good creation against the enemy's encroachment; idleness assists the enemy. There is a corresponding attitude to the body: because a weakened person is a less effective combatant, self-mortification is not merit but sabotage, and there is no tradition of food-fasting — Zoroastrian fasting, where it exists, means abstaining from meat rather than from eating. This is one of the clearest doctrinal contrasts with the Indian ascetic traditions and with Christian monasticism, and Zoroastrian polemicists made the point explicitly when arguing with Manichaeans.