Merodach and Nebo, Moloch and Chemosh reappeared in later times in other lands, and under different names, but still with the same characteristics which they had in the land of their birth.

We have seen the gradual growth of her Zend-Avesta with the inauguration of her system of worship, and noted the fact there was originally a close connection between the Veda and the Zend-Avesta, although the Persian work was of later origin.

Some of the Hindū gods bear the same names in the Avesta that were applied to them in the Sanskṛit poems, although in the later books they may appear as evil spirits, and the same god is sometimes represented as an angel, and again as a fiend.

Indra, the storm-king of the Veda, was the god of war, for whom the Ṛishis made and drank the intoxicating Soma, while in the Vendīdad[[288]] he is expressly mentioned in the list of evil spirits, and is second only to Ahriman, the arch-fiend of the Avesta. But another name for Indra in the Vedic songs is Vṛitrahā, and this name is recognized as that of the angel Verethragna; hence it follows that under one name the god is cursed and feared as a fiend, while under another he is worshipped as an angel.

The name of Deva in the Vedas, and in all Brāhmanical literature, is applied to divine beings who are still worshipped by the Hindūs, while in the Avesta, from the earliest to the latest texts, and even in modern Persian literature, Deva is a name applied to a fiend. The word Asura, although used in a good sense in the early songs of the Rig-veda, becomes, in the later portions of that literature, as well as in the Brāhmaṇas and Purāṇas, a term which is applied only to evil spirits; they are represented as the constant enemies of the Hindū gods, always making attacks upon the sacrifices offered by devotees. In the Avesta, Asura, in the form of Ahura, becomes a component part of Ahura Mazda, which is the name of God among the Pārsīs, whose faith is called “the Ahura religion”[[289]] in order to distinctively indicate its opposition to the Deva religion.

The Vedic god, Vāyu (the wind), is readily recognized in the spirit Vāyu in the Avesta, who is supposed to be roaming everywhere.

Another instance of a deity who is scarcely changed in any way is Mithra, the Sanskṛit form of which is Mitra. In the Ṛig-veda “Mitra calls men to their work; Mitra is preserving earth and heaven; Mitra looks upon the nations always without shutting his eyes.” In the Avesta he is also the lord of the morning, the god of day, and the object of profound adoration.

These are but a few out of many similarities, and the careful student of the Veda and the Avesta will also notice the identity of many terms referring to priestly functions. The very name of “priest” in the Zend-Avesta is atharva, and it is merely another form of atharvan, which is the term applied to the priest of fire and Soma, in the Vedas.[[290]]

These and many other similarities do not necessarily prove that the Zend-Avesta was partially copied from the Veda, but they do prove that “the Veda and the Zend-Avesta are two rivers flowing from one fountain head; the stream of the Veda is the fuller and purer, and has remained truer to its original character; that of the Zend-Avesta has been in various ways polluted, has altered its course, and cannot, with certainty, be traced back to its source.”[[291]] Nevertheless, their common origin must be assigned to the early Indo-Īraniān traditions.

Besides the official copy of the sacred books, which was burned by Alexander with the palace of the Persian king at Persepolis, there were other copies, or at least portions of them, and these the first Sassanian kings collected, and compiled from them, as far as possible, their sacred literature. For more than five centuries after Alexander, the empire of Persia suffered from foreign despotism and internal dissensions, but during this long period of political unrest, the Sassanian kings were able to collect a large proportion of the old writings, even though the literature which was thus restored consisted chiefly of fragments; it appears, however, that some portion of nearly every book was recovered by the zeal of these monarchs, and therefore the total disappearance of some of them must be assigned to more recent times.