AHURA MAZDĀ AND ANGRA MAINYU. Ahura Mazdā (called Lord Wisdom in the Avestan [Av.] and Ōrmazd in the Pahlavi [Pahl.] texts) and Angra Mainyu (Av. Evil Spirit, Pahl. Ahreman) are the names of the two opposed primordial powers that represent good and evil in the dualism of Iran's pre-Islamic religion, Zoroastrianism. In the structural system of the oldest literature, the Gāthās, Angra Mainyu is the destructive force opposed not to Ahura Mazdā directly but to Spenta Mainyu, the "beneficent spirit" representing Ahura Mazdā's creative force. These creative and destructive powers form a primordial pair of mutually exclusive opposites like light and darkness. The creative force (Spenta Mainyu) is negated by the destructive one (Angra Mainyu) in the same way that Ahura Mazdā's other spiritual creations, or Bounteous Immortals (amesha spentas) are negated by an...