truth."[2] Here the one duty in the realm of morals is truth-telling.
In the famous inscription of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, on the Rock
of Behistun,[3] there are repeated references to lying as the chief of
sins, and to the evil time when lying was introduced into Persia, and
"the lie grew in the provinces, in Persia as well as in Media and in
the other provinces." Darius claims to have had the help of "Ormuzd
and the other gods that may exist," because he "was not wicked, nor a
liar;" and he enjoins it on his successor to "punish severely him who
is a liar or a rebel."

[Footnote 1: Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, Bk. I., § 139.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., Bk. I., § 136.]

[Footnote 3: Sayce's _Introduction to Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther_, pp.
120-137.]

The Zoroastrian designation of heaven was the "Home of Song;"
while hell was known as the "Home of the Lie."[1] There was in the
Zoroastrian thought only two rival principles in the universe,
represented by Ormuzd and Ahriman, as the God of truth, and the father
of lies; and the lie was ever and always an offspring of Ahriman, the
evil principle: it could not emanate from or be consistent with the
God of truth. The same idea was manifest in the designation of the
subordinate divinities of the Zoroastrian religion. Mithra was the god
of light, and as there is no concealment in the light, Mithra was also
god of truth. A liar was the enemy of righteousness.[2]

[Footnote 1: Müller's _Sacred Books of the East_, XXXI., 184.]