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derived them both alike from an imaginary personification 
designated Zarvan-akarana, “ Boundless-time,” a being un- 
known to the Avesta.”* 
IV. The dogma of the eternal existence of evil in the past 
is unknown to any other archaic religious belief ; and there- 
fore the most stringent proof of the existence of such a creed 
must be furnished ere the fact can be accepted. But no such 
proof can be supplied. 
V. On the other hand, the cause and origin of the later 
Iranian dualism is transparent. The dark spirit of Ahura- 
rnazda, the mysterious side of Providence, which shows itself 
objectively in the existence of darkness, evil, pain, injuring 
storms, and noxious creatures, soon naturally enough, and 
indeed, almost inevitably, received in belief a separate 
existence ; and, as its operations were in apparent contradic- 
tion to those of the beneficent God, an imaginary strife arose 
between them, a contest whose physical counterpart had long 
before been known to mythology. 
10. The Protest against the Devas and their Worship. 
Zarathustra, like many other great men who have been 
regarded as founders of religions, was essentially a reformer ; 
and whilst undoubtedly claiming to be able to “teach the 
way of God more perfectly/'’ was far from aspiring to the 
invention of a new and superior kind of faith. To compare 
small things with great, any particular religionist who makes 
a mighty effect upon his age resembles, however faintly, the 
Founder of our Faith; who at once accepted, illuminated, and 
fulfilled all past true religion ; protested against the degene- 
racy of the then present religion, and threw a blaze of 
expanding and intensifying splendour upon the religion of 
the future. Even men like Muhammed and Sakya-muni were 
the outcome of terrible corruptions, against which they waged 
war and protested with immense effect, however great may 
have been the subsequent failure of their systems ; and the 
creed of Zai*athustra, having as its basis-principle the grand 
truth of monotheism, has survived the vicissitudes of many a 
stormy age, and still proclaims with unshaken fidelity the 
doctrine of the archaic sage.f I will next consider the protest 
of Zarathustra and the Deva-cult. In the Gdthas we read : — 
* The passage in which Zarvan-akarana is supposed to bo mentioned, 
really reads: — “The beneficent spirit mado (them) in boundless time” 
( Vcndidad, xix. 9), i.e. at some time in past period. 
t “ The Parsis are now strict Monotheists ; their one supreme deity is 
Ahuramazda.” (Haug, Essays, 53.) 
