History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

184 HISTORY OF THE PARSIS. [CHAP. IV.

nian, Dia in Trish, Duw or Dew in Kymric, Doue in Armoric, Dew in Cornic, Teote in Mexican, and so on. All these words in different lanouages for “God” have been derived from the common old Aryan root div, “to shine,” which is the most important attribute of God that presents itself to the mind of man. Now, how isit that the word for “God” in the Avesta, a most important branch of the Aryan stock of languages, is not taken from that common old root? The answer is simple. When Zoroaster saw that the belief of the people of his time was tending to polytheism, and that therefore they were using the word Daeva for many of His created objects instead of restricting it to the name of God alone, he abstained from employing it in the Avesta as the name for God, but gave it instead a bad meaning, viz. all that is evil. Bishop Meurin in his pamphlet, previously referred to, thus expresses himself on this point: “That in no other but the Zoroastrian religion this name Daeva bears the meaning of an evil spirit is a proof that Zoroaster, on seeing it bestowed on many Beings who were not God, rejected it altogether as the name of the only One God, and stamped it in his reformatory zeal as a designation of the diabolical opponents of the One Supreme Being.”

The late learned Dr. Haug says in his Essays: ‘‘(a) The leading idea of his (Zoroaster’s) theology was Monotheism, ze. there are not many gods but only