= he who knows_. At first the two terms were
interchangeable, and even in the Gathas the form Mazda Ahura
is employed much more often than the form Ahura Mazda. In
the Achsemenian inscriptions, Auramazda is only found as a
single word, except in an inscription of Xerxes, where the
two terms are in one passage separated and declined _Aurahya
mazdaha_. The form Ormuzd, Ormazd, usually employed by
Europeans, is that assumed by the name in modern Persian.

** These two names are given to him more especially in
connection with his antagonism to Angromainyus.

Himself uncreated, he is the creator of all things, but he is assisted
in the administration of the universe by legions of beings, who are all
subject to him.*

* Darius styles Ahura-mazda, _mathishta baganam_, the
greatest of the gods, and Xerxes invokes the protection of
Ahura-mazda along with that of the gods. The classical
writers also mention gods alongside of Ahura-mazda as
recognised not only among the Achaemenian Persians, but also
among the Parthians. Darmesteter considers that the earliest
Achaemenids worshipped Ahura-mazda alone, "placing the other
gods together in a subordinate and anonymous group: May
Ahura-mazda and the other gods protect me."

[Illustration: 014.jpg AHURA-MAZDA BESTOWING THE TOKENS OF ROYALTY ON AN
IRANIAN KING]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Dieulafoy.

The most powerful among his ministers were originally nature-gods, such
as the sun, the moon, the earth, the winds, and the waters. The sunny
plains of Persia and Media afforded abundant witnesses of their power,
as did the snow-clad peaks, the deep gorges through which rushed roaring
torrents, and the mountain ranges of Ararat or Taurus, where the
force of the subterranean fires was manifested by so many startling
exhibitions of spontaneous conflagration.* The same spiritualising
tendency which had already considerably modified the essential concept
of Ahura-mazda, affected also that of the inferior deities, and tended
to tone down in them the grosser traits of their character. It had
already placed at their head six genii of a superior order, six
ever-active energies, who, after assisting their master at the creation
of the universe, now presided under his guidance over the kingdoms and
forces of nature.**

* All these inferior deities, heroes, and genii who presided