* The last five of these spirits are enumerated in the
     Vendidad, and the first, Akem-mano, is there replaced by
     Nasu, the chief spirit of evil.

To the Yazatas he opposed the Daevas, who never cease to torment mankind, and so through all the ranks of nature he set over against each good and useful creation a counter-creation of rival tendency. “’Like a fly he crept into’ and infected ‘the whole universe.’  He rendered the world as dark at full noonday as in the darkest night.  He covered the soil with vermin, with his creatures of venomous bite and poisonous sting, with serpents, scorpions, and frogs, so that there was not a space as small as a needle’s point but swarmed with his vermin.  He smote vegetation, and of a sudden the plants withered....  He attacked the flames, and mingled them with smoke and dimness.  The planets, with their thousands of demons, dashed against the vault of heaven and waged war on the stars, and the universe became darkened like a space which the fire blackens with its smoke.”  And the conflict grew ever keener over the world and over man, of whom the evil one was jealous, and whom he sought to humiliate.

[Illustration:  022.jpg ONE OF THE BAD GENII, SUBJECT TO ANGRO-MAINYUS]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken from the
     original bas-relief in glazed tiles in the Louvre.

[Illustration:  023.jpg THE KING STRUGGLING AGAINST AN EVIL GENIUS]

     Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph in Marcel Dieulafoy.

The children of Angro-mainyus disguised themselves under those monstrous forms in which the imagination of the Chaldaeans had clothed the allies of Mummu-Tiamat, such as lions with bulls’ heads, and the wings and claws of eagles, which the Achaemenian king combats on behalf of his subjects, boldly thrusting them through with his short sword.  Aeshma of the blood-stained lance, terrible in wrath, is the most trusted leader of these dread bands,* the chief of twenty other Daevas of repulsive aspect—­Asto-vidhotu, the demon of death, who would devote to destruction the estimable Fravashis;** Apaosha, the enemy of Tishtrya the wicked black horse, the bringer of drought, who interferes with the distribution of the fertilising waters; and Buiti, who essayed to kill Zoroaster at his birth.***

     * The name Aeshma means anger.  He is the Asmodeus, Aeshmo-
     daevo, of Rabbinic legends.

     ** The name of this demon signifies He who separates the
     bones.

*** The Greater Bundehesh connects the demon Buiti with the Indian Buddha, and J. Darmestefer seems inclined to accept this interpretation.  In this case we must either admit that the demon Buiti is of relatively late origin, or that he has, in the legend of Zoroaster, taken the place of a demon whose name resembled his own closely enough to admit of the assimilation.