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

CHAP. IV.] THE TWO SPIRITS. 189

tioned as a constant opponent of Ahura Mazda in the Gathas. The evil against which Ahura Mazda and all good men are fighting is called ‘ drukhsh,’a personification of destruction or lie. The same expression for the evil spread in the world we find in the Persian Cuneiform inscriptions, where, moreover, no opponent of Ahura Mazda like Angro Mainyush is ever mentioned. God (Ahura Mazda) in the rock-records of King Darius is only one, as Jehovah is in the Old Testament, having no adversary whatever.

“Spento Mainyush was regarded as the author of all that is bright and shining, of all that is good and useful in nature; while Angro Mainyush called into existence all that is dark and apparently noxious. Both are as inseparable 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. Spento Mainyush has created the light of day and Angro Mainyush the darkness of night; the former awakens men to their duties, the latter lulls them to sleep. Life is produced by Spento Mainyush, but extinguished by Angro Mainyush, whose hands by releasing the soul from the fetters of the body

enable him to rise into immortality and everlasting life.”