* The legend of the descent of the Fravashis to dwell among
     men is narrated in the Bundehesh.

[Illustration:  018.jpg MYLITTA-ANAHITA]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Loftus

[Illustration:  018a.jpg NANA-ANAHITA]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin of King Huvishka,
     published by Percy Gardner.

Once incarnate, a Fravasliis devotes himself to the well-being of the mortal with whom he is associated; and when once more released from the flesh, he continues the struggle against evil with an energy whose efficacy is proportionate to the virtue and purity displayed in life by the mortal to whom he has been temporarily joined.  The last six days of the year are dedicated to the Fravashis.  They leave their heavenly abodes at this time to visit the spots which were their earthly dwelling-places, and they wander through the villages inquiring, “Who wishes to hire us?  Who will offer us a sacrifice?  Who will make us their own, welcome us, and receive us with plenteous offerings of food and raiment, with a prayer which bestows sanctity on him who offers it?” And if they find a man to hearken to their request, they bless him:  “May his house be blessed with herds of oxen and troops of men, a swift horse and a strongly built chariot, a man who knoweth how to pray to God, a chieftain in the council who may ever offer us sacrifices with a hand filled with food and raiment, with a prayer which bestows sanctity on him who offers it!” Ahura-mazda created the universe, not by the work of his hands, but by the magic of his word, and he desired to create it entirely free from defects.  His creation, however, can only exist by the free play and equilibrium of opposing forces, to which he gives activity:  the incompatibility of tendency displayed by these forces, and their alternations of growth and decay, inspired the Iranians with the idea that they were the result of two contradictory principles, the one beneficent and good, the other adverse to everything emanating from the former.*

* Spiegel, who at first considered that the Iranian dualism was derived from polytheism, and was a preliminary stage in the development of monotheism, held afterwards that a rigid monotheism had preceded this dualism.  The classical writers, who knew Zoroastrianism at the height of its glory, never suggested that the two principles might be derived from a superior principle, nor that they were subject to such a principle.  The Iranian books themselves nowhere definitely affirm that there existed a single principle distinct from the two opposing principles.

In opposition to the god of light, they necessarily formed the idea of a god of darkness, the god of the underworld, who presides over death, Angro-mainyus.  The two opposing principles reigned at first, each in his own domain, as rivals, but not as irreconcilable adversaries:  they were considered as in fixed