AHŪRA-MAZDA.
This deity is represented as the supreme god of the Persians, the creator of the other gods, and the ruler of them all.
The word Ahūra appears to have much kinship with Asūra, of the Hindū mythology. In the early portions of the Ṛig-veda this word has a good meaning, but in the latter part of the same work the Asūra[Asūra] is represented as a black demon, who committed fearful devastation until he was defeated by Indra. Among the Persians, Asūra, or Ahūra is pictured as the sky-god, who is represented among the Hindūs as Varuṇa, who looks down from heaven with his countless starry eyes and “wields the universe as the gamesters handle dice.”[[135]]
The heaven of Ahūra-Mazda surrounds the highest peaks of the “Lofty Mountain” in the upper air, and it is called the “Abode of Song.” It is said “the maker Ahūra-Mazda has built a dwelling on the Hara-Berezaita, the bright mountain around which the daily stars revolve.... With his arms lifted up towards immortality, Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, drives forward a beautiful chariot, wrought by Ahūra-Mazda and inlaid with stars.”[[136]]
The attributes of Ahriman, the serpent, or evil principle, became personified, and the various forms of falsehood, darkness and death became abstract demons. So, also, Ahūra-Mazda was afterward worshipped as a multitude of deities, and thus it happened that victory, benevolence, sovereignty, and even health were each worshipped as a separate divinity, and gathered together in the heavenly councils as a band of Yazatas or angels. These are numbered by thousands, but the one demanding the greatest reverence is