The intelligent study of Persian literature compels an examination of the early myths and legends where her poetry and romance found their sources—compels the study not only of the inscriptions of Persian kings, but of the tablets which have brought down to us the idols of a primitive people. Therefore, it is the province of this chapter to give a brief yet comprehensive outline of the principal deities and legends which seem to form the basis not only of Persian mythology, but of the luxuriant growth of myth and fable which has permeated India, Greece, and Rome, as well as Northern Europe.
A Chaldean legend of the creation is found upon a clay tablet which contains a description of the struggle between the evil powers of darkness and chaos, and the bright powers of light and order. This is doubtless the origin of the struggle between good and evil—the unceasing contest between Ormazd and Ahriman which forms the key-note of Persian thought so fully illustrated in the Avesta.
There are two contradictory tablets of the creation. The one coming from the library at Cutha and the other from the royal library at Nineveh. This latter consists of seven tablets, as the creation is described as consisting of seven successive acts. It presents a curious similarity to the account of the creation long before recorded in Genesis, the word Tīamat which is used to represent chaos seems to be the same as the biblical word tehom, the deep. A radical difference, however, is found in the fact that in the Assyrian story, Tīamat has become a mythological personage—the dragon mother of a chaotic brood. The legend in its present form is assigned by Prof. Sayce to about the time of Assur-bani-pal.[[64]] The oldest tablets are those which are written in the primitive Accadian tongue, and many of these have been found in the library of Assur-bani-pal,[[65]] having evidently been copied from the earlier text and supplied with interlinear translations in the Assyrian tongue.
The Assyrians counted no less than three hundred spirits of heaven and six hundred spirits of earth, all of which (as well as the rest of their mythology) appears to have been borrowed from the primitive population of that country. Indeed it would appear that ancient Babylonia was the birthplace of that common mythology[[66]] which in various forms afterward became the heritage of so many nations.
Elaborate and costly temples were built for these deities of an idolatrous people, and when the image of a god was brought into his newly built temple there were festivals and processions, and wild rejoicing among the worshippers.
The principal gods mentioned in these early tablets may be briefly sketched as follows:
ANŪ.
The sky god and ruler of the highest heaven, whose messengers are evil spirits. The Canaanite town of Beth-anath, mentioned in Joshua,[[67]] was named for Anat, the wife of Anū.
SEVEN EVIL SPIRITS.
These messengers of Anū are elsewhere described as the seven storm-clouds, or the winds, and their leader seems to have been the dragon Tīamat[[68]] (the deep), who was defeated by Bel-Merodach in the war of the gods. The tablets have preserved an Accadian poem on this subject, the author of which is represented as living in the Babylonian city of Eridu,[[69]] where his horizon was bounded by the mountains of Susiani, and the battle of the elements raging around their summit suggested to his poet-mind the warring of evil spirits.