gone on ever since with alternations of success and defeat; each in turn
has the victory for a regular period of three thousand years; but when
these periods are ended, at the expiration of twelve thousand years,
evil will be finally and for ever defeated. While awaiting this blessed
fulness of time, as Spentô-mainyus shows himself in all that is good
and beautiful, in light, virtue, and justice, so Angrô-mainyus is to be
perceived in all that is hateful and ugly, in darkness, sin, and crime.
Against the six Amesha-spentas he sets in array six spirits of
equal power--Akem-manô, evil thought; Andra, the devouring fire, who
introduces discontent and sin wherever he penetrates; Sauru, the flaming
arrow of death, who inspires bloodthirsty tyrants, who incites men to
theft and murder; Nâongaithya, arrogance and pride; Tauru, thirst; and
Zairi, hunger.*

* The last five of these spirits are enumerated in the
_Vendidad_, and the first, Akem-manô, is there replaced by
Nasu, the chief spirit of evil.

To the Yazatas he opposed the Daêvas, who never cease to torment
mankind, and so through all the ranks of nature he set over against each
good and useful creation a counter-creation of rival tendency. "'Like
a fly he crept into' and infected 'the whole universe.' He rendered the
world as dark at full noonday as in the darkest night. He covered the
soil with vermin, with his creatures of venomous bite and poisonous
sting, with serpents, scorpions, and frogs, so that there was not a
space as small as a needle's point but swarmed with his vermin. He smote
vegetation, and of a sudden the plants withered.... He attacked the
flames, and mingled them with smoke and dimness. The planets, with their
thousands of demons, dashed against the vault of heaven and waged war on
the stars, and the universe became darkened like a space which the fire