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]
5. Reasons for the schism between the Persian and Indian Aryans.
Professor Haug’s suggestion as to the cause of the schism between the Iranian and Indian branches of the Aryans is very interesting. He thinks that the Aryan tribes after they had left their original home, which was in all likelihood a cold country, led mainly a pastoral life, and cultivated only occasionally some patches of land for their own support. But when they arrived in the tract between the Oxus and Jaxartes rivers, and the highlands of Bactria, which were suitable for permanent settlement, certain of them, who were the ancestors of the Iranian branch, forsook the pastoral life of their ancestors and became agriculturists. Others, the ancestors of the Indian Aryans, retained their nomadic habits, and took to the practice of making predatory incursions into the territories of the settled communities. Hence arose a bitter hostility between them; and as the success of the raiders was attributed to their religious spells and incantations, and especially to the consumption of the Soma liquor under the auspices of the God Indra, this part of their joint religion became hateful to the Iranians and led to the founding of the reformed Zoroastrian religion, in which special stress is laid on the virtue obtained from bringing land under cultivation, making enclosures and permanent settlements and protecting agricultural cattle. This is forcibly expressed in the saying, ‘He who cultivates barley cultivates righteousness,’ and others.[10] Finally the nomadic tribes left the common residence in the Central Asian highlands and migrated into India. It is not certain that scholars generally accept the above hypothesis.
6. The dual principles and the conflict between good and evil.
The most prominent feature of the religion of Zarathustra is the dual principle of good and evil and the conflict between them. Ahura Mazda is the supreme deity, the creator of the world, and Ahriman or Angro Mainyush is the evil one, his constant opponent. A perpetual struggle proceeds between them, extending over the whole of creation, and will continue for a period of 12,000 years. The virtuous lives and prayers and sacrifices of men help the cause of Ahura Mazda, while every bad action and all kinds of ceremonial impurity constitute an assistance rendered by them to Ahrimān. Not only virtue, courage, charity humility and kindness to animals, when displayed by men, are held to reinforce Ahura Mazda, but also such useful acts as cleaning a field for cultivation, digging a canal or building a bridge. The animals are also divided into good and bad, the latter being considered the creation of Ahrimān and designated the seed of the serpent. The bad animals include tigers, snakes, cats, wolves, frogs, mice, ants and others, and to kill them is to perform a virtuous act in the cause of Ahura Mazda. Among good animals dogs and agricultural cattle appear to be the chief. The division is very imperfect, and it would seem that the classification does not extend to birds and fish. Most trees are good, but their bark is evil. Hail, snow and all kinds of diseases are believed to be the work of Ahrimān and his evil spirits.[11] As all ceremonial impurity renders assistance to the evil one, the Pārsis are very careful in such matters, as will be noticed subsequently. Ahura Mazda is assisted in his struggle for the good by six Amesha-Spentas or good spirits, who are something like archangels. They consist of the spirits of cattle, fire, metals, the earth, health and immortality. With the first four of these some moral quality or attribute as truth, wisdom and the curing of diseases is now associated. Another great spirit Sraosha is the judge of the dead. Similarly Ahrimān is assisted by six arch-fiends and a whole host of evil spirits (Deva and Druj) of all kinds, against whom men have to be perpetually on their guard. One of the principal bad spirits is Aeshma Deva, the roaring demon, who appears to be the Asmodeus mentioned in the Apocrypha. At the end of the period of struggle Ahura Mazda will engage in a final contest with Ahrimān and will conquer with the help of the Archangel Sraosha, who will overcome the demon Aeshma. A virgin will then conceive and bring forth the second Zoroaster as a Messiah, who will cause the resurrection of the dead. The good will be separated from the bad, but the punishment of the latter will not be eternal; and after the purification of the world by a general conflagration all humanity will unite in the adoration of Ahura Mazda.[12] Meanwhile after death the souls of all men are weighed and have to pass over a narrow bridge called Chinvad. The good souls, lightened by the absence of sin, find it a broad and easy path to heaven, while to the bad ones, weighed down with their sins, it becomes narrow as a razor’s edge, and they fall over into hell. M. Salomon Reinach points out that their beliefs have several points of resemblance with those of Judaism, but it is not easy to say which religion has borrowed from the other.[13] The word paradise, according to Dr. Haug, comes from pairidaesa in the Zend-Avesta and means a park or beautiful garden protected by a fence.
7. The dual principle derived from the antagonism of light and darkness.
It is noticeable that Ahura Mazda is considered as luminous and good, and Ahrimān as gloomy and bad. Ahura Mazda, according to Darmesteter, can be traced back to Asura, the supreme god of Indo-Iranian times, and is the representative of Varūna, Zeus or Jupiter, that is the sky or heavens. Similarly Ahura Mazda is described in the Zend-Avesta as righteous, brilliant, glorious, the originator of the spirit of nature, of the luminaries and of the self-shining brightness which is in the luminaries. Again he is the author of all that is bright and shining, good and useful in nature, while Ahrimān called into existence all that is dark and apparently noxious. Both are complementary as day and night, and though opposed to each other, are indispensable for the preservation of creation. The beneficent spirit appears in the blazing flame, the presence of the hurtful one is marked by the wood converted into charcoal. Ahura Mazda created the light of day and Ahrimān the darkness of night; the former awakens men to their duties and the latter lulls them to sleep. These features of the good and evil spirits seem to point to the conclusion that the original antithesis which is portrayed in the conflict between the principles of good and evil is that of night and day or darkness and light. The light of day and all that belongs to it is good, and the darkness of night and that which belongs to it evil. As already seen, Ahura Mazda is considered to be equivalent to Varūna or Zeus, that is the god of the sky or heavens. Originally it seems likely that this deity also comprised the sun, but afterwards the sun was specialised, so to speak, into a separate god, perhaps in consequence of a clearer recognition of his distinctive attributes and functions in nature. Thus in the Zoroastrian religion Mithra became the special sun-god, and may be compared with Vishnu and Surya in India and Apollo in Greece. In the Avesta the sun is addressed as the king.[14] Ahura Mazda speaks of the sun-deity Mithra as follows to Zoroaster: “I created Mithra, who rules over large fields, to be of the same rank and dignity as I myself am (for purposes of worship).” The only visible emblem of Ahura Mazda worshipped by the Pārsis is fire, and it would seem that the earthly fire, which is called Ahura Mazda’s son, is venerated as the offspring and representative of the heavenly fire or the sun. Thus Ahura Mazda may have been originally an old god of the heavens, and may have become the abstract spirit of light from whom the sun in turn was derived. If, as is now supposed, the original home of the Aryan race was somewhere in northern Europe, whence the Iranian and Indian branches migrated to the east, the religious tenets of the Pārsis may perhaps have arisen from the memory of this journey. Their veneration of fire would be more easily understood if it was based on the fact that they owed their lives to this element during their wanderings across the steppes of eastern Europe. The association of cold, darkness and snow with Ahrimān or the evil one supports this hypothesis. Similarly among the Indian Aryans the god of fire was one of the greatest Vedic gods, and fire was essential to the preservation of life in the cold hilly regions beyond the north-west of India. But in India itself fire is of far less importance and Agiri has fallen into the background in modern Hinduism, except for the domestic reverence of the hearth-fire. But Zoroastrianism has preserved the old form of its religion without change. The narrow bridge which spans the gulf leading to heaven and from which the wicked fall into hell, may have originally been suggested by the steep and narrow passes by which their ancestors must have crossed the mountain ranges lying on their long journey, and where, no doubt, large numbers had miserably perished; while their paradise, as already seen, was the comparatively warm and fertile country to which they had so hardly attained, where they had learnt to grow corn and where they wanted to stay thenceforth and for ever.
8. The Zoroastrians in Persia.
In Persia itself the Zoroastrian faith is now almost extinct, but small colonies still survive in the towns of Yezd and Kermān. They are in a miserable and oppressed condition and are subjected to various irritating restrictions, as being forbidden to make wind towers to their houses for coolness, to wear spectacles or to ride horses. In 1904 their number was estimated at 9000 persons.[15]