<pre style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">DISCORDANT DEITIES.
ledge of good and evil has not yet been tasted. In some
of the earlier hymns of the Rig- Veda, the Maruts, the
storm-deities, are praised along with Indra, the sun ;
Yama, king of Death, is equally adored with the goddess
of Dawn. * No real foe of yours is known in heaven, nor
in earth.' * The storms are thy allies.' Such is the high
optimism of sentences found even in sacred books which
elsewhere mask the dawn of the Dualism which ulti-
mately superseded the harmony of the elemental Powers.
* I create light and I create darkness, I create good and
I create evil.' 'Look unto Yezdan, who causeth the
shadow to fall.' But it is easy to see what must be the
result when this happy family of sun-god and storm-god
and fire-god, and their innumerable co-ordinate divinities,
shall be divided by discord. When each shall have be-
come associated with some earthly object or fact, he or she
will appear as friend or foe, and their connection with the
sources of human pleasure and pain will be reflected in
collisions and wars in the heavens. The rebel clouds will
be transformed to Titans and Dragons. The adored
Maruts will be no longer storm-heroes with unsheathed
swords of lightning, marching as the retinue of Indra,
but fire-breathing monsters — Vritras and, Ahis, — and the
morning and evening shadows from faithful watch-dogs
become the treacherous hell-hounds, like Orthros and Cer-
berus. The vehement antagonisms between animals and
men, and of tribe against tribe, will be expressed in the
conception of struggles among gods, who will thus be
classified as good or evil deities.
This was precisely what did occur. The primitive pan-
theism was broken up : in its place the later ages beheld
the universe as the arena of a tremendous conflict between
good and evil Powers, who severally, In the process of
time, marshalled each and everything, from a world to a
worm, under their flaming banners. </pre>
