ntagonism.

+975+. In India the cosmogonic myths are to be interpreted in the same
way as those mentioned above. Soma and Indra, as slayers of the demon
Vritya, represent order as against disorder, but Vritya never had cultic
significance; he appears only as a bodily demonstration of the power of
the great gods. The asuras are not essentially different from the
harmful spirits of savages, though it is true that they come into
conflict with the friendly gods. Rahu, who causes eclipses by swallowing
the sun, is only a nature deity of great might. In the Mahabharata there
are powerful demons, and the Civaite cult includes the worship of dread
beings, but such worship only reflects the fear of the unfriendly
elements of physical nature.[1787] Nor do we find in the persons of
Durga, Kali, and the Yakshas, unpleasantly savage as these are, a
conception of evil as an organized force directed against the good gods;
they are rather the embodiment of evil human dispositions. The
underground demons are punishers of sin, but not themselves morally
evil. There is, it is true, in the Hindu religious scheme the general
antithesis of light and darkness, which are connected with right and
wrong--an antithesis that appears abundantly in other religious
systems;[1788] but the powers of darkness are not organized against the
powers of light, and there is no complete dualism, though we have here,
perhaps, the starting-point for such a conception.

+976+. While thus a vague sense of duality has existed all over the
world, and in certain cases, as it seems, there were vague attempts at
organization, it is only in Zoroastrianism that the decisive step has
been taken. We have to recognize in this system a distinct movement
towards a unitary conception of the world; but the sense of difference
in human experiences was so great in the mind of the creators of the
system that they were led to a unification in two divisions.[1789] The
origin of the movement lies far back at a time when there were no
records of thought and social movements, and it is impossible now to say
definitely what were the original elements of the cult. We may surmise
that there was an Indo-Iranian conception of a general contrast between
light and darkness, and that this was the starting-point or the basis of
the developed Iranian theological system. The old Indic and the old
Iranian religions seem to have been independent developments from a
common original mass of material