Selections from Zoroastrianism’s Bundahishn: Chapters 1-2, Part 2 of 2

“Ahura Mazda also knew this, through omniscience, that within these nine thousand years, for three thousand years everything proceeds by the will of Ahura Mazda, three thousand years there is an intermingling of the wills of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, and the last three thousand years the evil spirit is disabled, and they keep the adversary away from the creatures.

Ahura Mazda created his creatures in the confusion of Ahriman; first he produced Vohûman (good thought), by whom the progress of the creatures of Ahura Mazda was advanced. The evil spirit first created Mîtôkht (falsehood), and then Akôman (evil thought).

Of Ahura Mazda’s creatures of the world, the first was the sky; the second, water; the third, earth; the fourth, plants; the fifth, animals; the sixth, humankind.”

Chapter 2 On the formation of the luminaries.

“Ahura Mazda produced illumination between the sky and the Earth, the constellation stars and those also not of the constellations, then the moon, and afterwards the sun, as I shall relate. First he produced, the celestial sphere, and the constellation stars are assigned to it by him. […] And all his original creations, residing in the world, are committed to them; so that when the destroyer arrives, they overcome the adversary and their own persecution, and the creatures are saved from those adversities.

As a specimen of an […] army, which is destined for battle, they have ordained every single constellation of those 6480 thousand small stars as assistance; and among those constellations four chieftains, appointed on the four sides, are leaders. On the recommendation of those chieftains, the many unnumbered stars are specially assigned to the various quarters and various places, as the united strength and appointed power of those constellations. As it is said that Tîstar is the chieftain of the east, Satavês the chieftain of the west, Vanand the chieftain of the south, and Haptôk-rîng the chieftain of the north. […]

Thereupon, the guardian spirits of men became of the same opinion with the omniscient wisdom about going to the world, on account of the evil that comes upon them, in the world, from the fiend Ahriman, and their becoming, at last, again unpersecuted by the adversary, perfect, and immortal, in the future existence, forever and everlasting.”