The Dews or Daevas of the Avesta are demons, in the Vedas they are gods.  On the other hand, the Ahuras, or gods, of the Avesta are Asuras, or demons, in the Vedic belief.  The original land of the race is called Aryavesta in the Laws of Manu (II. 22), and Aryana-Vaejo in the Avesta.  The God of the Sun is named Mithra, or Mitra, in both religions.  The Yima of the Parsi system is a happy king; the Yama of the Hindoos is a stern judge in the realms of death.  The dog is hateful in the Indian system, an object of reverence in that of Zoroaster.  Both the religions dread defilement through the touch of dead bodies.  In both systems fire is regarded as divine.  But the most striking analogy perhaps is to be found in the worship paid by both to the intoxicating fermented juice of the plant Asclepias acida, called Soma in the Sanskrit and Haoma in the Zend.  The identity of the Haoma with the Indian Soma has long been proved.[146] The whole of the Sama-Veda is devoted to this moon-plant worship; an important part of the Avesta is occupied with hymns to Haoma.  This great reverence paid to the same plant, on account of its intoxicating qualities, carries us back to a region where the vine was unknown, and to a race to whom intoxication was so new an experience as to seem a gift of the gods.  Wisdom appeared to come from it, health, increased power of body and soul, long life, victory in battle, brilliant children.  What Bacchus was to the Greeks, this divine Haoma, or Soma, was to the primitive Aryans.[147]

It would seem, therefore, that the two religions setting out from the same point, and having a common stock of primitive traditions, at last said each to the other, “Your gods are my demons.”  The opposition was mutual.  The dualism of the Persian was odious to the Hindoo, while the absence of a deep moral element in the Vedic system shocked the solemn puritanism of Zoroaster.  The religion of the Hindoo was to dream, that of the Persian to fight.  There could be no more fellowship between them than there is between a Quaker and a Calvinist.

Sec. 9.  Is Monotheism or pure Dualism the Doctrine of the Zend Avesta?

We find in the Avesta, and in the oldest portion of it, the tendencies which resulted afterward in the elaborate theories of the Bundehesch.  We find the Zearna-Akerana, in the Vendidad (XIX. 33,44,55),—­“The Infinite Time,” or “All-embracing Time,”—­as the creator of Ahriman, according to some translations.  Spiegel, indeed, considers this supreme being, above both Ormazd and Ahriman, as not belonging to the original Persian religion, but as borrowed from Semitic sources.  But if so, then Ormazd is the supreme and uncreated being, and creator of all things.  Why, then, has Ormazd a Fravashi, or archetype?  And in that case, he must either himself have created Ahriman, or else Ahriman is as eternal as he; which latter supposition presents us with an absolute, irreconcilable dualism.  The better opinion seems, therefore, to be, that behind the two opposing powers of good and evil, the thesis and antithesis of moral life, remains the obscure background of original being, the identity of both, from which both have proceeded, and into whose abyss both shall return.