Plutarch states that the demon Areimanius had created an equal number of evil spirits to match the six good gods of Oromazdes, i. e. the Amesha Çpentas. The Vendidad mentions five of them: Andra, Çaurva, Naonghaithya, Tauru, and Zairicha,[262] to which we have only to add Akomano, which has been mentioned already in the Gathas, in order to make up the number. They are all of them creations of the priests, partly invented to match the Amesha Çpentas, partly borrowed from older forms, which had lost their brightness among the Arians of Iran. Akomano, i. e. Bad disposition, is naturally the counterpart of Vohumano, or Good disposition: opposite Asha vahista, i. e. the most excellent truthfulness, the priests placed the demon Andra (Indra), i. e. an old Arian name which the Arians beyond the Indus had elevated to be the best warrior against the demons, the god of the storm. No special qualities of Andra are known or mentioned in the Avesta; the books of the Parsees can only say that he brings care and sorrow of heart to men, and makes narrow the bridge of Chinvat. The demon Çaurva is the opponent of Kshathra vairya, of order and law, of good dominion; hence, according to the Sad-der-Bundehesh, he leads kings astray into despotism, and nations into lawlessness and robbery. Naonghaithya is the opponent of Armaiti, the spirit of humility and piety; this spirit therefore, as the Bundehesh maintains, makes men impatient and proud; the science of languages claims to find in this name a Vedic name for the two Açvins,—Nasatya (IV. 42). Only the last two opposing spirits of the Amesha Çpentas, the opponents of Haurvatat and Ameretat, display, like these beings, real characteristics. If they are the spirits of water and plants, of prosperity and long life or immortality, then Tauru is the spirit of thirst and sickness, and Zairicha of hunger and death.[263]
If the ancient gods have preserved more lively traits than the Amesha Çpentas, the old demons have also more definite outlines than the opposing spirits. Such are the Daeva Apaosha, who parches up the land and keeps back the water from the earth; Çpenjaghra, the comrade of him who was struck by lightning; Zemaka, the spirit of the cold winter; and finally Azhi, who seeks to steal away the fire from men in the night. Among these evil spirits may further be reckoned a female demon Bushyançta, with long hands and of a yellow hue, who leads men astray into much sleep and idleness, who does not allow them to see the rise of the sun, and shortens the joy of existence;[264] the three Daevas of drunkenness, Kunda, Banga, and Vibanga; the Daeva Buiti, the spirit of lies and falsehood, who deceives men;[265] the spirit of flattery, Ashemaogha;[266] and the very wicked Ashma "of evil glance," who attempts to slay the sleeping, and withstands Çraosha by night with terrible weapons.[267] Very evil also is Açtovidhotu, i. e. the destroyer of bodies, and a female goblin, the spirit of the Daevas, the Druj Naçu. This spirit enters the body immediately after death, and exercises power over all who come in contact with it.
Under Auramazda are united the gods, the Amesha Çpentas, the rest of the Yazatas (those worthy of adoration), in opposition to the troops of hell, the Daevas, Druj, Pairikas and Jainis, which are led by Angromainyu. The first are found in the light of sunrise, in the clear gleam of the pure sky; the latter in the gloom of sunset, or in the distant clouds of the north; in burial-places, and where the dead are placed; in all corners into which the light of heaven does not pierce; in the dark abyss under earth; in "the worst place."[268] On the summit of the mountain Arezura (Demavend, apparently), they take counsel how they are to turn the evil eye on men; how they can injure and slay them.[269] To them belong gloom, cold, drought, the barren land and the wilderness, thorns and poisonous herbs, hunger and thirst, sickness, death, dirt, laziness, lying, sin. Theirs are the harmful beasts, the Khrafçtras; beasts of prey, wolves, serpents; all animals which live in holes and corners, lizards, scorpions, toads, frogs, rats, mice, gnats, and lastly mosquitoes, lice, and fleas.[270] To the good spirits belong light, water, springs, rivers, the fruitful earth, good plants,[271] trees, fields, pastures, good food, purity, truth, life in this world and the next; and theirs are the good animals, the animals of the flocks, the birds which nestle on the heights, and live in the clear air. The dog and the cock are worshipped in the Avesta as fighting with men against the Daevas. The first protects the flocks against the beasts of prey of Angromainyu. Of the cock the Avesta says: "The bird Parodarsh, which evil-speaking men call Kahzkataç (i. e. Kikeriki or the like), lifts up his voice in the last third of the night, roused by the holy Çraosha at every divine dawn. He cries: 'Rise up, ye men; praise the most excellent truth; drive away the Daevas.' Who gives a pair of these birds to a pure man, in purity and kindness, gives as much as if he had given a palace with a thousand pillars and a thousand beams, ten thousand windows, and a hundred thousand turrets." "And whoever gives to a pure man as much meat as makes the size of a Parodarsh"—the book of Auramazda tells us in another place—"I who am Auramazda will ask him no other question on his way to Paradise."[272] According to the Avesta the dog and cock unite their powers against the Druj.[273] The bird Asho-zusta fights against the Daevas, and the bird Karshipta (the sacred hawk) announces the good law in the garden of Yima. Two other mythical birds, the two eagles (çaena) of the sky, Amru and Chamru, are invoked as helpful powers.[274] They nestle on the tree of life in the heaven. Besides the tree Gaokerena, which grows in Ardviçura and bears the heavenly Haoma, the Avesta has also the tree Viçpataokhma, which grows in the Lake Vourukasha, and bears all seeds. When Amru sits on this tree, the seeds fall down, and Chamru carries them away where Tistrya collects the water, who then rains down the seed with the water to the earth. In the book of kings of Firdusi, Simurgh (Çinmurv), the king of the birds, carries Rustem on his pinions over the broad earth as far as the sea of Chin (China) to the tree of life.[275] A prophet of the Hebrews represents Jehovah as saying of Cyrus: "I summoned from the East the eagle, the man of my counsel."[276] Xenophon tells us that Cyrus, and the Achæmenids who succeeded him, carried as a standard a golden eagle on a tall lance;[277] and Curtius says, that a golden eagle with outspread wings was attached to the chariots of the Persian king.[278]
The fragments of the Avesta which have been preserved do not give us very full information on the sacrifices. The essential matters are hymns of praise and prayers. The chief sacrifice is offered to one of the old deities, Haoma, the supporter and protector of life. When Plutarch represents the Magi as pounding a certain herb of the name of Omomi in a mortar, with invocations to avert Hades, he gives a correct account of the supposed tendency of this sacrifice. According to the Avesta the utensils for this sacrifice—the mortar, cup and bundle of twigs—were found in every house. The sacrifice consisted in the offering, i. e. the elevation of the cup filled with the juice of the Haoma, during the recitation of the proper prayers. Beside this offering, which even now is offered twice each day by the priests of the Parsees, the fire is to be kept up perpetually, and fed with good dry wood and perfumes. The flesh of the sacrifice (myazda) is not often mentioned; yet the book of the law provides that a thousand head of small cattle must be offered in expiation of certain offences,[279] and we are told in the invocations that the heroes of old time, from Thraetaona down to King Vistaçpa, had offered great sacrifices of animals to Ardviçura and Drvaçpa, in order to gain the victory, viz. 100 horses, 1000 cattle, and 10,000 head of small cattle. Herodotus tells us that the Magians, when Xerxes marched into Hellas, sacrificed 1000 oxen on the summit of Pergamus to Athene of Ilium, and at a later time white horses in Thrace; Xenophon maintains that the Persians sacrificed beautiful bulls to Zeus, i. e. to Auramazda, and horses to the sun, and burnt them whole; Athenæus tells that with the king of the Persians a thousand animals were daily slaughtered as sacrifices; camels, horses, oxen, apes, deer, and especially sheep. According to Arrian, the Magians who kept guard over the burial-place of Cyrus received a horse every month, and a sheep every day, for sacrifice.[280] Herodotus has already told us, that the animals were led to a pure place, and when the sacrificer had invoked the god were killed, cut up, cooked, and then laid out on delicate grass. The Magian then sang the theogony, and after some time, the person who offered the sacrifice "carried away the flesh, and used it at his pleasure" (p. 85). Herodotus is better informed than Xenophon; according to the Avesta only the head of the animal belongs to the gods.[281] Obviously, as the nature of the gods became more spiritualised—and the reform prepared the way for this—the sacrifice of animals was restricted in this manner, so that it consisted essentially in the offering of the animals, i. e. in the consecration of the flesh. We may conclude from the statement in Athenæus, that only consecrated flesh could be eaten at the court of the kings. Xerxes certainly would not have sacrificed to Athene, "a lying deity" of the Greeks, on the summit of Ilium; but he might very well have selected the last eminence in Asia Minor, "the many-fountained Ida," in order to offer there a sacrifice of 1000 oxen to Ardviçura for his victory beyond the sea—a sacrifice which corresponds exactly to the first offering made by Kava Huçrava and Kava Vistaçpa to the same goddess for victory over the Turanians.[282]
Temples and images are unknown to the Avesta. The reform preserved for the nations of Iran the traditional form of worship without images, on which it was founded. The accounts of western writers, from Herodotus and Xenophon downwards, establish the fact that there were only sacrificial places on the heights and consecrated fire-altars in Iran.[283] But this must not be taken to mean that the forms of worship and the images of the nations with which the Persians became acquainted after the foundation of their supremacy, especially of their nearest neighbours, the Semites on the Tigris and Euphrates, remained without influence on them. On the monuments of Darius we see the picture of Auramazda, cut exactly after the pattern which the Assyrian monuments exhibit in the portraiture of their god Asshur. We are also told of images of Anahita. Berosus maintains that Artaxerxes Mnemon erected statues to Aphrodite Anaitis at Babylon, Ecbatana, and Susa, and taught this form of worship to the Damascenes and Lydians.[284] From this statement, taken in connection with the account of Herodotus that the Persians had learnt to sacrifice to Mylitta,[285] the conclusion has been drawn that Artaxerxes II. introduced the worship of Bilit among the Persians. But it was not necessary to teach this worship to the Damascenes and Lydians (I. 358, 563), and even in the Avesta, Anahita as the goddess of the heavenly water is the goddess of fertility. Hence the statues made by Artaxerxes were, no doubt, images of Anahita the goddess, whom he invokes along with Auramazda and Mithra in his inscription at Susa. Strabo describes the worship of the Magians at the fire-altars of Cappadocia in a manner which completely agrees with the accounts given in the Avesta, and then adds that these functions were also performed in the enclosures (σηϰοί) which were consecrated there to Anaitis, Amardatus, and Omanus, and the image of Omanus was carried round in processions. He concludes with the words: "this (i. e. the form of worship described) I have myself seen."[286] According to this account, then, Amardate,[287] i. e. the Amesha Çpenta Ameretat, who averts death, was worshipped there beside Anahita, and Omanus, i. e. the Amesha Çpenta Vohumano, the protector of the flocks, had an image. As this is all that we can discover about the image-worship of the Persians, it is clear that the influence of the picture-worship of Hither Asia and Egypt had no great influence even on the western nations of Iran. It is limited to the facts that Darius added the symbolical picture of Auramazda to his inscriptions without, however, building him a temple; that a century after him Artaxerxes II. erected statues and a temple to Anahita at Ecbatana; and that at a later time a portable image of Vohumano was in existence in Cappadocia.
The nucleus of the old religious conceptions of the Arians—the desire to obtain increase and life from the gods—has been sufficiently disclosed; and that which could not be obtained in this world, the continuance of the individual life, heaven was to bestow upon them. This line was followed up by the reform; the spirits of health and long life were added by the priests to the circle of the Amesha Çpentas. When Zarathrustra had increased the means for the protection and support of life; when it became a fixed maxim that purity preserved life in this world and ensured it after death; the sharp insistence on the command of the pure and active and truthful life which men ought to lead in this world, became developed into the conception of a judgment on the souls after death. He who had lived purely, and given the Daevas no room to exercise their power on his body, became himself pure and bright, and could therefore enter after death as a pure spirit among the spirits of light. Thus the Avesta announces that "when body and soul have separated," the soul on the third night after death, as soon as the brilliant sun arises, and the victorious Mithra seats himself with "pure brilliance" on the mountains, comes over the Hara berezaiti to the bridge of Chinvat, i. e. the bridge of assembly or of assembling, which leads to Garonmana, i. e. to the dwelling of hymns, the abode of the good gods. Here the Daevas and the gods contend for the soul;[288] the judgment of the souls takes place;[289] here Auramazda asks the souls about their conduct.[290] The pure soul, whose odour the Daevas dread,[291] which approaches with virtue and sanctity, is joined by the other pure souls and by the souls of the dogs which keep watch over the bridge of Chinvat,[292] and the host of the heavenly Yazatas brings the soul of the good over the bridge into heaven. In contentment the pure soul goes to the golden throne of Auramazda, to the thrones of the Amesha Çpentas, to the dwelling of the pure. And Vohumano rises from his golden throne and inquires of the pure one: "How hast thou, O pure one, come hither out of the perishable to the imperishable world?"[293] But the souls which come to the bridge full of terror and sick, find no friend there; the evil spirits, Vizaresha by name, lead them bound down into the place of the bad, into the darkness, the dwelling of the Druj.[294]
In the Veda the spirits of the fathers are invited to the sacrificial meal; they are to enjoy the gifts which are laid for them on the grass, to support the prayers of their descendants, to keep away the evil spirits, and to increase wealth. Each day water was poured there for the forefathers, and corns of rice were scattered for them; on the new moon the clans held the funeral feast for the dead; and we are acquainted with the consequences which attended expulsion from this banquet.[295] The belief in the spirits of the ancestors, and their continued relation to their descendants, existed also among the Arians of Iran, and the Avesta alters it only so far as to limit consistently the assistance given by the spirits of the fathers to the souls of those who have lived in truth and purity, and have thus found entrance into heaven. According to the Avesta the Fravashis of the pure—this is the name given to the Pitaras, or fathers of the Indians—protect their descendants against the Daevas, help them in distress and danger, and fight for their families on the day of battle, if they are honoured and satisfied by their descendants. It is only an old conception, repeated in the Avesta, when we are told: "We invoke the good, strong, holy Fravashis. Where strong men fight in severe conflict, there come the Fravashis with strong shield, iron helmet, and iron weapons; with Mithra and the victorious wind they go forward; strong warriors against the enemies, they are mighty saviours; strong conquerors, they destroy the victory of the enemy—the Turas (Turanians)."[296] It is due to the additions and modifications introduced by the priests that we hear that the hosts of the Fravashis watch the body of Kereçaçpa till the resurrection, and the seed of Zarathrustra, and protect the sleepers from the rising of the stars till midnight.[297] As among the Arians of India the ancient belief in the fathers was retained in spite of all changes of the religious system, so also in Iran. At the close of the year, on the intercalary days which were added to it, the Fravashis come to their families, abide among them for ten nights, and ask: "Who will receive us, and sacrifice to us, and praise us?" and "if any one offers to them prayers and flesh and clothes, him they bless, and in his dwelling there will be abundance of oxen and men, swift horses and a strong car."[298] The Greeks had therefore reason to say that according to the doctrine of the Magians the air was full of spirits.[299]
In another direction the system of the priests deviated far more widely from the ancient conception of the spirits of the ancestors. They held that only the pure and bright part of the soul could live on after death. Hence, even in the living they distinguished this part from the polluted part, and in the pure immortal half they saw the side created by the good gods, its true being, the Fravashi or protecting spirit allotted to each man. In the Avesta therefore rules can be given for the invocation of this pure part and nature of the individual soul, of the separate Fravashis. The priests then transferred this notion to the heavenly spirits, and even to Auramazda himself. His purest nature, his best self, must be praised and invoked for aid. Auramazda says to Zarathrustra in the book of the law: "O Zarathrustra, praise thou my Fravashi, the Fravashi of Auramazda, the greatest, best, most intelligent, best-formed, highest in holiness, whose soul is the holy word."[300] And in the prayers we are told: "We praise the Fravashis of the Amesha Çpentas, of the holy Çraosha, of Mithra, together with all the Fravashis of the heavenly Yazatas. I invoke the Fravashi of the holy Zarathrustra, the Fravashis of the men of the ancient law, and the Fravashis of the men of the new law, the good mighty Fravashis of the pure, of the nearest relations, and of my own soul."[301] The Persians at the king's gate, according to the Greeks, set apart a separate table at each meal with bread and food for the "demon" of the king, and at a Persian banquet the host, according to Plutarch, calls on his guests, "to honour the demon of king Artaxerxes." Hence it clearly follows that the priestly doctrine of the Fravashis of the living was current even in Western Iran under the Achæmenids.[302]
Zarathrustra had increased the means for keeping off the evil ones, and had made the struggle against the wicked spirits easier for men. But the time will come when the struggle will be no longer necessary, and the bright spirits alone will rule. This doctrine is indicated even in the Gathas.[303] In the book of the law Zarathrustra says to Angromainyu: he will smite the Daevas till Çaoshyant is born from the water of Kançava in the eastern region.[304] Çaoshyant, i. e. the useful, the saviour, is called in the Avesta, "the sublime, the victorious;" he will smite the Druj, and Aeshma will bow before him. He will make the world to live for ever, without age and death; the dead will rise again, and the living will be immortal. Vohumano will smite Akomano, Asha will kill the lies. Haurvatat and Ameretat will destroy thirst and hunger: "The evil-doer Angromainyu, robbed of his dominion, bows himself."[305] This doctrine of the Avesta also was well known to the western world. In Herodotus Prexaspes tells Cambyses that when the dead rise again he will see Smerdis and Astyages.[306] Theopompus of Chios tells us: Zoroaster had proclaimed that there would be a time in which the dead will arise, and men will be immortal, and everything will be done by their invocations. Last of all, Hades will pass away; men will then be happy; they will need no nourishment, and throw no shadows, and the god who will accomplish this rests for a time, but not a long time for a god.[307] It is true that men required no nourishment when Çaoshyant had appeared, in the meaning of the Avesta, for Haurvatat and Ameretat had overcome hunger and thirst as well as sickness and death; and as the dark side of man was taken away, and only the bright side remained, they could not cast any shadows.
As already remarked, it was part of the duty of the priests to bring the ancient legends of the old time into harmony with the new doctrine. We saw that the legends of Iran began with the happy age of Yima, and his reign of a thousand years full of increase and blessing. This conception of a perfect age for the creatures of earth at the very beginning of things did not suit with the struggle, which, according to the new doctrine, Angromainyu commenced immediately after the creation. The priests, therefore, conceived the beginning of things in a different manner. In their system Auramazda first created the heaven, then the water, then the earth and the trees, and after these the four-footed bull, and the two-legged pure man Gayo maretan.[308] In the Avesta the primeval bull and man are at the head, and time extends from Gayo maretan to Çaoshyant.[309] The books of the Parsees then tell us that Angromainyu killed the primeval man and bull, but from the seed of the bull proceeded a pair of oxen, and then all kinds of good animals; and out of the seed of Gayo maretan grew up the first man and the first woman. As we have already remarked, our fragments of the Avesta identify the soul of the first created bull with the Drvaçpa, the ancient guardian spirit of the flocks; next to Gayo maretan they place Haoshyangha, the Paradhata (p. 36), and represent him as sacrificing to Ardviçura, Vayu, and Ashi vanguhi, in order to obtain the dominion over the evil spirits.[310] After him Takhmo urupa rules the earth of seven parts; he sacrifices to Vayu in order to obtain grace to restrain Angromainyu for thirty years.[311] Then, according to the system of the priests, follows the dominion of Yima the son of Vivanghana, during which there was no cold and no heat, no age and no death, as was represented in the old views. Yima kindles the red-glowing fire. Flocks and men, i. e. life, increase; and the earth must be made larger. The end of this happy period, and the death of Yima, is brought about, according to the priests, by the fact that Yima refused to be the preacher of the doctrine of Auramazda, that he was unable to maintain purity and truth, and began to "love lying speech" (p. 41). As Yima was born to Vivanghana as a reward for his Haoma sacrifice, there follows a series of those who have offered the sacrifice: Athwya, Thrita, Pourushaçpa, and their sons. To the first Thraetaona was born, who smites the serpent Dahaka; to Thrita Kereçaçpa, who smites the serpent Çruvara; and to Pourushaçpa was born Zarathrustra, who receives the law of Auramazda and proclaims it; by this law the Daevas will be warded off till Çaoshyant appears, when everything which has once had life will come to life again.