History of Zoroastrianism/Chapter 10

by Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla

 

CHAPTER X

 

EVIL

 

The problem of evil. The origin of evil has been the deepest problem of life.^[1] It confronts every human being in one form or other. If there is one question which has eluded all investigations of the keenest intellects of all lands and all times; if there is one problem which has called forth volumes of writings from the profoundest of thinkers; if there is one riddle that has baffled all attempts of the sages at solving it; if there is one problem on which the last word yet remains to be said, despite the world's voluminous literature of some ten and twenty centuries—it is the problem of the existence of evil. It makes a world of difference whether one looks on life with a healthy mind and a cheerful spirit, or with a morbid mind and a sick spirit, or with an arrogant mind and a defiant spirit. The philosophies of life vary greatly from optimism or pessimism to cynicism or scepticism, according to the various casts of the temperaments of their founders. Life has been a blessing to some, but a curse to others. Some have sought satisfaction by giving up the world of activity with its joys and sorrows, others have tried to escape the temptations and vices of the world by leading a life of self-renunciation. To others still, freedom from existence has seemed the only salvation.

The existence of evil is a stubborn fact of life. The creation has not only a bright but also a dark side, and the latter is to be accounted for. All is not well with the universe. There is something that savours of bad. The optimist who says that all is right with the world is as much at fault as the pessimist who says that all is wrong. It is not good to dilate upon wrongs, real and imaginary, and pine away under melancholy and gloom; it is wrong to groan and worry over the darkness of the night, oblivious of the light of the day; but it is equally wrong to dismiss this great question in a rough-and-ready way by denying outright the existence of evil. We cannot dismiss this eternal problem with a shrug of the shoulder. Evil is far too potent a factor in human life to permit us to turn a blind eye to it. It is too real to be ignored and sophistically explained away.

Man finds that he lives in a hostile world. The elements and animals and his fellowmen combine to make war upon him. Great is the wrath of the elements. Nature is beautiful and kindly, benevolent and bountiful, wise and frugal, cheering and comforting, ennobling and inspiring. But Providence governs the universe by the law of contraries. In her malevolent mood, nature is a callous and capricious and frightful monster, raging and thundering, wasting and withering, scorching and burning, drowning and burying, devastating and destroying, devouring and killing. Her catastrophes and cataclysms work havoc upon earth. Her magic wand spells destruction and death all around. With appalling suddenness, in one terrific moment, she razes to the ground marvels of man, raised by his toil and industry of years. Her burning mountains, in their frightful freaks, rain brimstone and fire upon fertile fields, convert prosperous towns in one raging sea of flame, emit molten metals, and let loose hell on earth. Her terrific quakes bring havoc upon villages and towns, overwhelm sleeping humanity reposing in its implicit confidence in the gentle mother earth, rudely wake men, women, and children, and mercilessly drive them headlong, demented and delirious, in futile search of shelter and safety and bury their unwary victims deep under the debris. Her furious hurricanes blow about the weeping weaklings of the human and animal world like autumn leaves and bury them alive in the sandy solitudes of the desert. The unbridled gushing waters of her inundations carry all life and property before them. Her famines and droughts kill vegetation and decimate animals and human beings. Her giant trees strangle and deal out death to small trees growing about them in the forests. Wild creepers entwine themselves like serpents round trees and choke their lives out. Countless millions of insects and ants gnaw trees down to dust and death, ravage the crops, and kill live stock. A reign of struggle to the death is witnessed in the animal world. The strong live and thrive by devouring the weak in the forests. Millions of animals and birds and fishes are born to be so many morsels to the stronger of their species. She breeds plagues and pestilences and looses death to hold its carnival. Leprosy distorts the countenances of hundreds of thousands of men and women, renders loathsome their touch, and encrusts their bodies with plague spots of disease more horrible than death.

The greater enemy of men than elements and animals, however, is man himself. The human scourges of God, like Attila or Jenghis Khan or Nadirshah or Tamerlane, sweep over populated areas like blighting winds and leave an appalling wake of desolation and death. Peoples give distressing exhibition of human bestiality when they go to war with one another. Man's baseness augments a thousandfold the beastliness of nature. His inhumanity to man, nurtured upon his falsehood and inequity, arrogance and avarice, wrath and jealousy, envy and hatred, cunning and intrigue, vindictiveness and cruelty, malice and back-biting, selfishness and meanness, and vice and wickedness create human misery worse than the worst done by the lifeless and living creation whose lord he claims to be. When the brute in him rears his head and acts through him, he becomes worse than the wildest beast of the jungle.

Zarathushtra stigmatizes evil as evil. The existence of so much evil in the world lies heavy on the heart of man. Evil is a challenge, and Zarathushtra accepts it. He does not palliate evil. It is not, he teaches, the passive negation of good. It is the active enemy of good. It is not complementary to good, nor is it good in the making. It is not evil only in name. Evil is just evil, nothing more nor less. It is the fundamental fact of life, and haunts us like our shadows which we cannot evade. Illusion does not cause evil; it exists in the realm of reality. It is the most disagreeable fact in Ahura Mazda's universe, and the prophet of Iran looks it in the face. It is futile to speak of things as better than they actually are. Bad things of life do not lose their badness by giving them good names. It is wrong to makebelieve that evil does not exist, though it does exist as truly as man exists. The world is not all good; it is not all bad either. Neither is all right with the world, nor is all bad with it.

Life is co-operation with good and conflict with evil. Good and evil are co-existing polarities. Man can think of things only in terms of their opposites. Light is light because of darkness. Health is a coveted boon, as its loss heralds sickness. Life is valued as Ahura Mazda's most incomparable gift, as lurking death threatens its extinction. Happiness is pleasant, for misery is unbearable. Riches rise in worth owing to the dread of poverty. Joy is gratifying, for sorrow aims at killing it. Virtue is the health of the spirit, for vice is its disease. Righteousness is the life of the spirit, for wickedness spells its death.

There can be no compromise between good and evil. Incessant warfare is raging between good and evil. Man's duty is to commend good and co-operate with it; to condemn evil and enter into conflict with it.

"Resist Evil" is the clarion call of Zarathushtra to humanity. Evil is equally the enemy of Ahura Mazda and man, and man is created a comrade in arms to resist it in all its manifestations. It is his birthright to fight evil. He shares Ahura Mazda's work of mending evil. The world is a battlefield and man is a soldier in the eternal struggle. The soldier's duty is to stand firm at his post and fight even to the death. If he holds overtures with the enemy, or succumbs to his wiles, he is a rebel; if he evades fight, or ignores it, or turns his back upon the enemy, he is a coward, dishonouring his manhood.

Belief in the existence of evil gives force to man's feelings of repugnance to evil. He can squarely meet the enemy of Ahura Mazda and man on the field, and give him battle, if his reality is fully understood. Evil is fought the harder, not by loving good the more, but by hating evil. Love of good and working for good breed only passive dislike for evil. Hatred of evil alone sets the soul on fire to fight it with zest and zeal. Evil cannot be hated with an all-consuming hatred, if it is masked in the garments of good. To be hated from the depth of the heart, and with the fullest force of one's being, evil should be exposed in its innate ugliness, its diabolic nature. Evil is aggressive. Man must resist and conquer it, or submit and court defeat.

Zoroastrianism is essentially militant. It stirs human hearts to repugnance towards evil; it spurs man to fight it with all his being, body, mind, and spirit. Not to resist evil with offensive and defensive warfare against it is either to be callous or cowardly, or both in one's person; it is to fail in one's duty to mankind and be false to the redemptive task assigned by Ahura Mazda to man. Evil is the common enemy of Ahura Mazda and man, and man is engaged in fighting as an ally of the godhead. In his fight against evil, he is a co-worker and a fellow-combatant with Ahura Mazda. Men of all times and all places have to fight individually and collectively for the mighty cause. Man has to fight the forces of evil to his last breath. His life is one of a continued crusade against the powers of wickedness. He has to adjust social wrongs, regenerate society, and redeem the world of humanity.

Man's duty to resist evil in his own nature. Man was animal but yesterday. Today he is man, though not devoid of animal traits. His destiny is to be angel, and tomorrow he shall be that also. Everyone has in his or her power to be a saint. But the way to attain sainthood and divinity is distant and beset with countless difficulties. Every step in advance is a struggle. The animal in man is obdurate and persistent, cunning and resourceful. To escape from his grip, to destroy his power, to eliminate him, man has to fight a hundred battles. Man's inner life is a perpetual warfare between animal and human within his breast. A violent struggle is going on in every human heart between the higher impulses to renounce animal appetites, and the lower instincts to satisfy them. Man is a divided self, divided mind, divided will, and feels within him the conflict of two opposing natures. The one half of man's being is always at war with his other half. When the Good Spirit first met the Evil Spirit, he said that he was opposed to him in his thoughts and words and deeds and faith and conscience and soul and everything.^[2] The same complete polarity obtains between the higher self and the lower self in man. The one stands for truth, virtue, and righteousness, the other represents falsehood, vice, and wickedness. Though inhabitants of the same tenement, they are poles apart in their thoughts, words, deeds, feelings, and aspirations. What is light to one is darkness to the other, and what is nourishment to the one is poison to the other. When the animal in man gets the better of the human, it makes for his imperfection, it is his curse, his enemy, his evil. Evil thoughts and dark passions are its emissaries. They are to be combated and conquered, if man desires to fulfil his destiny. The storm of evil that arises within man is no less violent than any which he encounters in the outer world. Resistance to evil in the one is as instinctive as it is in the other. This resistance is conducive to higher life. It breeds in man the qualities of strenuous effort, toil, courage, strength, and sacrifice. Courageous fight to vanquish evil builds character. Facing aggressive evil with fortitude, fighting temptations, and overcoming evil is progressive ascent towards individual perfection.

Man's duty to resist evil in society. As it is with the individual so it is with society. Social life opens with animal instincts and evolves toward human traits. Every man is an ally of every other man against the common enemy, evil. When they play human they co-operate with their comrades in the task ordained for them by Ahura Mazda. In their forgetful moments, when they throw down their human vesture and lapse into their animal state, they miss their mark. Instead of fighting the enemy of man, they fight men, and tear them with mad fury. Every man's hand, then, is against every man individually, as every nation's hand is against every nation collectively. Rather than follow the demands of the moral world, to wage war with evil, they continue the practice of the physical world, the war of the strong against the weak. At all times they fight beyond their homeland, sometimes they fight in their homes. Dogs living in the same yard are friends all day, but turn into foes at meal hour. So are men, friendly and fondling in their human nature, but snarling at each other, like dogs, when the animal in them emerges on the surface. Society has always had its parasites, who live on theft and plunder, rapine and bloodshed. So will it be until that time, in distant ages to come, when society, by human effort for betterment, eventually reaches perfection. The animal in man will grow weak with time, and will be subdued. As society progresses in evolution, this baser element in man will be disabled by degrees. In perfect society it will be eliminated.

But society is yet imperfect in all phases of its life. It has its stray dogs and pouncing wolves and cunning serpents. They are menaces to its well-being, and vigorous resistance to their vicious propensities and evil doings is indispensable for the very life of society. In primitive society the work of redressing wrongs remains in the hands of aggrieved individuals, and as individuals are actuated by vengeance, hatred is met by hatred, blood is avenged by blood, and evil is repaid by evil. In organized society the right of redressing wrongs is taken from the individual. Society interferes, and in its authoritative position as State, undertakes to dispense justice to warring factions. Justice ceases to be vengeance, but cannot dispense with the punishing rod. Society cannot exist without laws, and all legislation implies enforcement of laws by punishing their infringement. To punish, however, is to use force for the resistance of evil. An imperfect society in an imperfect world cannot exist without its courts and constabularies, its prisons and scaffolds. The State as police cannot do its duty without resort to physical force. If the guardians of society were to don ash-coloured robes, and retreat before the forces of evil, or make themselves known as non-resistants to evil, unprotected society would soon welter in crime and bloodshed. Militant evil, with no deterrent combatants in the field, would throttle passive good to death.

Persuasion and force are two chief factors indispensable in human affairs. Individuals, as well as society, can endure wrong patiently and try to reclaim the wrong-doer by good counsel and admonition. But when persuasion fails in its purpose, and wicked people become more desperate in inflicting injury, endurance on the part of the recipient of injury ceases to be virtue. It encourages evil, exposes society to danger, and does harm even to the perpetrator of crime by allowing him without restraint to sink deeper in guilt. The human in man is amenable to persuasion, but his animal nature must be subdued by force. Society requires the coercion of the State, because it is imperfect. To those members of the State who are walking on the path of perfection or who are striving to come nearer to perfection, coercive laws of the State do not apply. As society evolves towards perfection, persuasive power will prove an increasingly effective urge to good behaviour, and force will gradually recede into the background. In the perfect society to come, force will have no place.

To be good and eschew evil are passive virtues; to further good and to fight evil are active virtues. Personal salvation is the basic principle, the motive power that inspires all religious life. Zarathushtra insists that every man's duty is to seek salvation of all mankind. To secure individual salvation and leave others to their fate, without working and struggling for their salvation, is to fail in one's duty towards his fellow-men. To be good, but not to make others good; not to be evil, yet not to resist evil caused by others, are merely negative virtues. Just as the individual's duty ends not in practising passive virtues which tend to make him good, but in making others good, so also he must not rest when he has eradicated his evil thoughts, bridled his passions, and overcome the evil that lurks in his inward nature, but he has further to reclaim others who have embraced evil. It is not only passive resistance that he has to offer to evil, but, adopting an aggressive attitude towards evil of all kinds, he has to combat and rout it. It is not enough that he should himself eschew evil; he must combat evil in others. He cannot remain a passive spectator while his neighbour is suffering. He is not to be a passive onlooker of, or to connive at some wrong on the ground that he is not the originator of it. The fact that something evil and imperfect exists around him, no matter by whom caused, is a sufficient reason why he should rush into the fray and do his share to mitigate and remove it. Nay, he has even to hunt out the hydra of wrong and strike at its many heads, so that the world of goodness may not suffer.

The prophet of Iran warns man that happiness is not the criterion of the value of human life, pleasure is not the standard; but duty in its two-fold aspect, that is, of working for righteousness and fighting against wickedness, is the guiding principle of life. Incessant work for the Kingdom of Righteousness deepens man's life; uncompromising war against the Kindgom of Wickedness strengthens it. This two-fold activity makes life complete. To further righteousness is only half the duty; to combat wickedness is the other half. Both are indispensable to realize the Zoroastrian ideal of righteousness.

Every one can contribute his or her mite, in the manifold walks of life, to the grand end of bringing about the final victory of good and the utter defeat of evil. The poorest man, who cheerfully fulfils his obligations of father and husband, brother and son, who struggles with poverty, yet loves independence and honour, who extends not his hands for alms, but lives on the slender earnings of his honest toil, who rears his children into good men and women, does his duty by goodness, and does it well. The man who has energy and time, and employs both of these in social service of any kind, who organizes philanthropic work, preparing ameliorative schemes, and who spends his bodily vigour and leisure hours for the betterment of humanity, succours goodness. The rich man, who gives away his wealth in the name of Ahura Mazda to alleviate the sufferings of the needy, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, heals the sick, builds homes for the homeless; promotes goodness. The man of learning and wisdom, who enlightens and inspires, ennobles and uplifts mankind, furthers goodness. The man of adventurous spirit who reclaims arid wastes, fertilizes barren lands, clears the forests of wild beasts; or the man of talents, who discovers an antidote to some disease, a preventive to epidemics and plagues, extirpates germs and bacteria, combats heroically physical evil. One who struggles hard for the elimination of the darkness of the mind, who crusades against superstition and bigotry, is combating mental evil. The man who struggles with the forces of corruption and injustice, who fights for the redress of wrongs, who blunts the edge of the tyrant's sword, is routing the forces of social evil. A righteous person who wages a relentless war against immorality, who pares the wings of vice and cripples crime, is a hero of the war against moral evil.

 

Angra Mainyu

The Evil Spirit and his characteristics. Just as man, in his religious evolution, comes to the belief in the existence of kindly invisible beings who protect and nourish and help him, so he discovers that there are hostile powers who wish him evil. Such demons are presided over by powerful chiefs who rule over the world of darkness and evil. They have weak personalities as incarnating evil, but each one is Satan in the making. Set was in conflict with Horus in Egypt, as Tiamat was with Marduk in Babylonia, and Vritra with Indra among the Indo-Iranians.

The Evil Spirit who disputes the sovereignty over human hearts in Iran with the Holy Spirit, is not given a proper name in the Gathas. Of the two primeval Spirits, the one who chose evil as his sphere of activity is given the epithet angra, meaning enemy or evil. Angra Mainyu thus means the Enemy or the Evil Spirit. This attribute is applied once directly to the Evil Spirit.^[3] In another place it is said why is a bad (angra) man not like unto Angra, 'The Evil One,' referring evidently to Angra Mainyu, or the Evil Spirit.^[4] The term angra is thus used more than once in the ordinary meaning 'evil' as a designation of wicked men.^[5] He is given the epithet aka, 'bad.'^[6] In one place he is given the name Aka Mainyu, 'the Bad Spirit.'^[7] Yet in another instance he is termed dregvant, or the Wicked One.^[8]

In his thoughts, words, deeds, faith, conscience, soul, and everything else, he stands at the opposite pole to the Good Spirit.^[9] He is himself evil in thought, word and deed,^[10] and chose to do worst things.^[11] When he first manifested himself he created non-life in opposition to the action of the Good Spirit who created life.^[12] He denounces the providence of Ahura Mazda.^[13]

The Evil Spirit lures men by his mischievous machinations to the path of wickedness, and lulls their spiritual senses to repose. He is the inveterate foe of humanity. Man, we may infer from the tone of the Gathas, should avoid him as he would a pestilence. Fortunate is he who successfully bridles the tumult of the Evil Spirit and breaks the heavy chains that fetter his spirit. But woe to him who revolts from the Good Spirit, pays homage to the author of evil, and lives in bondage to him. Such a man is a moral pervert, a rebel, and suffers death in the spirit. The normal state of man is to be always on the side of the good, and by any act of going over to the realm of evil he creates for himself an unnatural situation. His sacred duty is to espouse the cause of the Good Spirit.

 

Daevas

The infernal crew. The diabolic spirits who have entered into a compact with Angra Mainyu to mar the good creation of Ahura Mazda are the Daevas, or demons. They are the offspring of the Evil Mind and spread their mischief over all seven zones.^[14] The Evil Spirit has taught them to mislead men through evil thought, evil word, and evil deed.^[15] The Daevas instigate the enemies of settled life to give the cattle to violence.^[16] Mazda best remembers the misdeeds of these recreants and he judges accordingly.^[17] When the two primal spirits of good and evil came together at the beginning of creation the demons chose evil and rushed with one accord to bring destruction to mankind.^[18] The wicked are the beloved of the demons, for they are the ones that renounce the Good Mind and revolt from the wisdom of Ahura Mazda and Righteousness.^[19] The demons should therefore be abjured,^[20] and the Saviour Saoshyant will be the friend, brother, and father of those who hate them.^[21] The Daevas will receive their due at the final Dispensation when Righteousness will smite Wickedness.^[22]

As Ahura Mazda holds his council of celestial beings, so Angra Mainyu maintains in his infernal court a retinue of male and female demons. In opposition to every archangel and angel, the younger literature sets up a corresponding fiend. These form exact counterparts of the powers of goodness, and always act in direct opposition to them. We do not find the symmetry of diametric opposites between these rival forces carried out to completion in the extant Gathic literature. The names of not all the corresponding demons, who are the opponents of Mazda's ministering angels, are found. The rivals of Vohu Manah, Asha, and Sraosha are mentioned by names, as Aka Manah, Druj, and Aeshma, but with the exception of Druj, the adversary of Asha, the rest are seen working only sporadically and not in systematic antagonism to their corresponding rival good spirits. Taromaiti, or heresy, the opponent of Armaiti, is named but once,^[23] though the term does not occur in this particular passage as a personified demon. Aka Manah, Druj, and Aeshma are the only Daevas expressly mentioned in the Gathas. We shall deal with these separately.

 

Aka Manah

The Evil Mind. Aka Manah is mentioned only three times in the Gathas.^[24] Even in his name he is the antithesis of his heavenly rival Vohu Manah, or Good Mind. Like his celestial adversary, who is sometimes called Vahishta Manah, 'Best Mind,' this fiend is also styled Achishta Manah or 'Worst Mind.' The Daevas, it is said, chose to embrace the Worst Mind.^[25] They are the progeny of Aka Manah.^[26] Zarathushtra undertakes by his prayer to drive out the demon of Evil Mind from before him, that is, from the world of Righteousness.^[27] When man's mind is not filled with the good thoughts of Vohu Manah, it becomes an easy prey to the onslaughts of the evil thoughts of Aka Manah. Whosoever is a victim to Aka Manah finds his thoughts enslaved by him. As heaven is associated with Vohu Manah, hell is mentioned as the region of Aka Manah. The tyrant Grehma and his wicked followers who destroy life, we are told, will go to the Abode of the Worst Mind.^[28]

 

Druj

Her Kingdom of Wickedness. The Rig Veda speaks of a minor demon Druh who with others of her class stands for malice or hatred. The corresponding Gathic term is Druj, 'falsehood or wickedness.' The Daevas are generally malevolent male beings. Druj, on the other hand, is a female fiend The Gathas give her greater prominence than to any other evil being. As the rival of Asha, or Righteousness, Druj personifies wickedness in every form and aspect. All evil in the world is focused in her. Ever since the Evil Spirit introduced evil in the world, the world of humanity has been and will be, until the final Renovation of the universe, divided into two distinct parties. Those on the side of Ahura Mazda follow the law of Righteousness, but those who have chosen to live in error have embraced the law of Druj, or Wickedness. The righteous form together the world of righteousness, whereas the wicked ones are classed as the members of the world of wickedness. The sacred mission of Zarathushtra lies in the work of converting these misguided men to righteousness and in winning them over to the side of Ahura Mazda.

The adherents of Druj. The man who yields to the temptations of Druj is a dregvant, 'wicked one,' as opposed to the ashavan, 'righteous one,' who follows Asha.^[29] Angra Mainyu himself is called dregvant.^[30] The wicked who are themselves of evil faith seek to mislead others.^[31] They defy the good admonitions of the Deity and are not willing to hear the good counsel, the divine word of the Good Mind. Zarathushtra seeks means, therefore, to drive out their wickedness.^[32] He exhorts his audience to listen attentively to his inspired teachings, so that the teacher of evil may not thereafter injure them.^[33] The prophet comes as the lord between the parties of the righteous and the wicked and those whose good and evil deeds balance.^[34] He preaches to those who, being led astray by the evil advice of Druj, smite the world of righteousness.^[35] The wicked are far from the good-will of Ahura Mazda; their sinful deeds make them companions of Evil Mind.^[36] They strive to estrange the righteous from the Best Mind,^[37] and from the best deeds.^[38] They strive to reduce all others to their own class. They bring distress and death to the house, village, town, and country, through their wicked spells.^[39] He who harasses the prophet is the child of Druj.^[40]

Druj's followers are to be requited with evil in this world. In his crusade against the Kingdom of Wickedness, Zoroaster is unsparing and even unforgiving. We do not see, in the words handed down from his lips, the gentler side of virtue of returning good for evil. Here we have the ethics of retaliation. Once the antithesis between the Kingdom of Righteousness and Wickedness is sharply defined, the latter is to be relentlessly opposed. The two parties are on the war-path, and strict discipline demands that the righteous man will on no account wink at or palliate wickedness, and let the evildoer go free without retribution. Wrong is to be handled as wrong, and the man who does wrong is to be met with his own weapons. Evil is to be requited by evil and not by goodness. Indifference and leniency threaten only to further the domain of Wickedness. Consequently evil is to be relentlessly put down.

Zarathushtra is the friend of the righteous, but a veritable foe to the wicked.^[41] The wicked lords of the land vehemently oppose his work;^[42] it is they who hinder the righteous in the pursuit of goodness. He who hurls these miscreants down from power clears the way for the good teachings.^[43] Succouring the wicked is tantamount to practising wickedness. It is expressly said that the one who is good to the wicked is himself wicked.^[44] Those who with their thoughts, words, and deeds bring punishment to the wicked fulfil the desire of Mazda.^[45] No one, therefore, should be the cause of rejoicing to the wicked.^[46] Every one, on the contrary, should always practise goodness towards the righteous, but deal out ill to the wicked.^[47] The man of truthful words should not give chieftainship to the wicked.^[48]

Druj's disciples fare no better in the next world. Ahura Mazda reckons the followers of Druj as wicked, and therefore retribution and misery await their souls.^[49] Ahura Mazda gives happiness and joy hereafter to the righteous, but on the wicked he inflicts punishment and pain.^[50] The wicked, according to the teachings of the Gathas, are led by their conscience through their own deeds to the Abode of Darkness.^[51] One of the names of the inferno, as we shall see, is drujo demāna, 'Abode of Druj.' There rush the wilfully blind and deaf,^[52] thither go to perdition the crew of the wicked.^[53]

Final defeat of Druj. The logical sequence to the war between the powers of righteousness and wickedness in these sharply defined poles of existence is the demanded ultimate victory of righteousness over wickedness. This is the goal towards which the world of humanity moves. When punishment will come to the wicked and the divine kingdom descend upon earth, Druj will fall forever into the hands of Asha.^[54] Hence Zarathushtra abjures Druj,^[55] and prays for power that he and his followers may be able to smite Druj.^[56] He asks Ahura Mazda how it will be possible to deliver over Druj into the hands of Asha,^[57] and it will eventually come to pass that the righteous will rout the wicked.^[58] The tone of his divine inquiry implies the answer that when humanity unanimously adheres to Righteousness, Wickedness will ultimately perish.^[59]

 

Aeshma

The demon of wrath. The foe of Sraosha, who is above all the genius of obedience and revelation, is Aeshma, or 'Wrath.' When Geush Urvan, or the Spirit of animal life, complains of the disturbance and disorder, chaos and anarchy prevailing on the earth, it speaks of Aeshma as the prime originator of these calamities.^[60] The Fashioner of the Cattle, thereupon, consults Asha to find out a chieftain who would ultimately banish Aeshma from the creation.^[61] Furthermore in this connection, when the twain spirits of good and evil first met together at the beginning of the creation, the demons embraced evil and rushed to the standard of Aeshma in order to bring destruction to the life of man.^[62] Those who with firmness control and repress this archfiend are the saviours.^[63] Zarathushtra says that the faithful follower of the good, who is striving to hold and make his own the Good Mind through righteousness, should in the first place put down Aeshma, the fiend of fury.^[64]

 

1. Some material in this chapter is inserted here from my Our Perfecting World, New York, 1930.
2. Ys. 45. 2.
3. Ys. 45. 2.
4. Ys. 44. 12.
5. Ys. 43. 15; 44. 12; 48. 10.
6. Ys. 30. 3.
7. Ys. 32. 5.
8. Ys. 30. 5.
9. Ys. 45. 2.
10. Ys. 30. 3.
11. Ys. 30. 5.
12. Ys. 30. 4.
13. Ys. 44. 12.
14. Ys. 32. 3.
15. Ys. 32. 5.
16. Ys. 44. 20.
17. Ys. 29. 4.
18. Ys. 30. 6.
19. Ys. 32. 4.
20. Ys. 34. 5.
21. Ys. 45. 11.
22. Ys. 48. 1.
23. Ys. 33. 4.
24. Ys. 32. 3; 33. 4; 47. 5.
25. Ys. 30. 6.
26. Ys. 32. 3.
27. Ys. 33. 4; 47. 5.
28. Ys. 32. 13.
29. Ys. 29. 2, 5; 30. 11; 46. 1, 4.
30. Ys. 30. 5.
31. Ys. 45. 1.
32. Ys. 44. 13.
33. Ys. 45. 1.
34. Ys. 31. 2; 33. 1.
35. Ys. 31. 1.
36. Ys. 47. 5.
37. Ys. 32. 11.
38. Ys. 32. 12.
39. Ys. 31. 18.
40. Ys. 51. 10.
41. Ys. 43. 8.
42. Ys. 46. 1.
43. Ys. 46. 4.
44. Ys. 46. 6.
45. Ys. 33. 2.
46. Ys. 43. 15.
47. Ys. 47. 4.
48. Ys. 49. 9.
49. Ys. 43. 4; 45. 7.
50. Ys. 31. 14, 15; 51. 8, 9.
51. Ys. 31. 20.
52. Ys. 46. 11; 51. 14.
53. Ys. 49. 11.
54. Ys. 30. 8.
55. Ys. 49. 3.
56. Ys. 31. 4.
57. Ys. 44. 14.
58. Ys. 48. 2.
59. Ys. 30. 10.
60. Ys. 29. 1.
61. Ys. 29. 2.
62. Ys. 30. 6.
63. Ys. 48. 12.
64. Ys. 48. 7.