4. The Zend Avesta and the Vedas.
A cuneiform inscription discovered in the centre of Asia Minor at Ptorium proves that about 1400 B.C. certain tribes who had relations with the Hittite empire had for their deities Mitra, Indra, Varūna and the Nasātyas. The first two names are common to the Persian and Indian Aryans, while the last two are found only in India. It appears then that at this time the ancestors of the Hindus and Iranians were not yet separated.[6] Certain important contrasts between the ancient Zoroastrian and Vedic religions have led to the theory that the separation was the result of a religious and political schism. The words Deva and Asura have an exactly opposite significance in the two religions. Deva[7] is the term invariably used for the gods of the Hindus in the whole Vedic and Brahmānical literature. In the Zend-Avesta, on the other hand, Deva (Pers. div) is the general name of an evil spirit, a fiend, demon or devil, who is inimical to all that is good and comes from God. The part of the Avesta called the Vendidād, consisting of a collection of spells and incantations, means vī-daevo-dāta or given against the Devas or demons. The Devas, Dr. Haug states, are the originators of all that is bad, of every impurity, of death; and are constantly thinking of causing the destruction of the fields and trees, and of the houses of religious men. “Asura, occurring as Ahura in the first part of Ahura-Mazda (Hormazd), is the name of God among the Pārsis; and the Zoroastrian religion is distinctly called the Ahura religion, in strict opposition to the Deva religion. But among the Hindus Asura has assumed a bad meaning, and is applied to the bitterest enemies of their Devas (gods), with whom the Asuras are constantly waging war. This is the case throughout the whole Purānic literature and as far back as the later parts of the Vedas; but in the older parts of the Rig-Veda Sanhita we find the word Asura used in as good and elevated a sense as in the Zend-Avesta. The chief gods, such as Indra, Varūna, Agni, Savitri, Rudra or Siva, are honoured with the epithet ‘Asura,’ which means ‘living, spiritual,’ and signifies the divine in its opposition to human nature.
“In a bad sense we find Asura only twice in the older parts of the Rig-Veda, in which passages the defeat of the ‘sons or men of the Asura’ is ordered or spoken of; but we find the word more frequently in this sense in the last book of the Rig-Veda (which is only an appendix to the whole made in later times), and in the Atharva-Veda, where the Rishis are said to have frustrated the tricks of the Asuras and to have the power of putting them down. In the Brāhmanas or sacrificial books belonging to each of the Vedas we find the Devas always fighting with the Asuras. The latter are the constant enemies of the Hindu gods, and always make attacks upon the sacrifices offered by devotees. To defeat them, all the craft and cunning of the Devas were required; and the means of checking them was generally found in a new sacrificial rite.”[8]
Professor Haug adduces other arguments in this connection from resemblance of metres. Again the principal Vedic God, Indra, is included in the list of Devas or demons in the Zoroastrian scripture, the Vendidād. Siva and the Nasātyas or Ashvins, the divine horsemen of the Vedas, are also said to be found in the list of Devas or demons. Others of the Vedic gods as Mitra the sun, Aryaman, either another name for the sun or his constant associate and representative, Vayu the wind, and one or two more are found as Yazatas or angels in the Zend-Avesta.[9]