Early Iranians believed evil had to have a source outside of God, which led to the concept of an entity as powerful and utterly evil as God is potent and good. These two forces, good and evil, which have always vied for superiority, needed helpers in this struggle. According to the Zoroastrians, every entity had to take sides, from the cosmic level to the microcosmic self. One of the results of this battle was that certain humans were thought to side with evil. Who were these allies of that great Evil Spirit? Women were inordinately singled out. Male healers were forbidden to deal with female health disorders because of the fear of the polluting power of feminine blood. Female healers, midwives, and shamans were among those who were accused of collaborating with the Evil Spirit, because they healed women. Men who worked to prepare the dead were also suspected of secret evil. Evil even showed up as animals such as frogs, snakes, and bugs of all sorts, which scuttled to the command of their wicked masters. This first comprehensive study of the concept of evil in early Iran uncovers details of the Iranian struggle against witchcraft, sorcery, and other "evils," beginning with their earliest texts.

The Religious Quest of India.

Deep within an inner cave (guhahitam) of our existence remains our potential Divinity. It is the place where our reflected sentient being (the First Bird) is trying to probe into to recover the hidden sun. The allegory is evident in the parable of the Cave once preached by the Upanishads and later by the Greek philosopher Plato. The probe is to push forward the First Bird to surge higher in the resplendent celestial blue under the full radiance of the Solar world, which is the Second, resulting in an explosion of an infinite all-pervading Divinity. Till the union and the rapture is attained, there are the two Birds – one, the psychic being, which is within us and the other one, which is the direct portion of the Divine. The direct portion is constantly trying to guide and work within us, so that evolution goes on and on. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, it is the Çhaitya Purusha, the direct portion of the Divine in the human, which is working incessantly till the rapture is activated. Ancient roots are evident in the ancient Swetaswatara Upanishad hailed by the primordial Sage Kapila and coded originally in a later text called the Bhagabat Purana, The Çhaitya Purusha is also the being that is behind the Chitta, Sri Aurobindo says. Millenniums later, the inspired Architects in the most ancient of all Buddhist ages had carved out the sacred idea in form of rock-cut expressions called the Chaitya hall. As the Mahayana Sutra of the foremost Shurangama at the Crown of the Great Buddha says: …the way of practicing the Samadhi is not singular and its actual method of cultivation depends upon the functioning of mind and mental concomitants (Citta-Chaitya pravritti) of each being and their interconnectedness (Mahat)… It is in the recovery or a re-tracing of the two as a DIVINITY that is originally ONE, an individual's journey called evolution and a collective journey called civilization itself are sustained. It is also from the deeper embedded patterns of this journey the gems of the system's foundation can be quarried.