The Wise Lord, Creator of Light and Truth
Ahura Mazda, the "Wise Lord" in Avestan, is the supreme god of Zoroastrianism. In the Gathas, the hymns attributed to the prophet Zarathustra himself, he alone is worthy of worship: he created the world through thought and established asha, the order of truth, by which the sun runs its course, the seasons turn, and honest speech holds. Yasna 30 tells of two primal twin spirits who parted ways at the moment of choice, one choosing truth and the other the lie; the latter is Angra Mainyu, the destructive spirit, and from that choice the war of good and evil runs to the end of time.
The Middle Persian Bundahishn lays out the campaign: Ahura Mazda first created the invisible spiritual world, then sky, water, earth, plants, the primordial bull, and Gayomard the first man, all luminous and whole, before Angra Mainyu burst in from the darkness to corrupt them, turning history into a bounded war that ends with the renovation of the world, when good triumphs completely. The Achaemenid kings claimed him as the source of their rule; in the Behistun inscription Darius I ascribes his throne and every victory to the favor of Ahura Mazda, and his tomb inscription at Naqsh-e Rustam opens by naming the great god who created this earth, yonder sky, and man, and who made Darius king. The winged Faravahar emblem carved at Persepolis and elsewhere has long been associated with him or with the guardian spirit of man.
