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These six together formed the Council of the Evil One, as the six Amshashpands formed the council of Ormazd. His special sphere was the mind of man, where he suggested evil thoughts, and prompted to bad words and wicked deeds. Indra, identical with the Vedic deity, but made a demon by the Zoroastrians, presided over storm and tempest, and governed the issues of war and battle.
Ormazd can exercise no control over him; the utmost that he can do is to keep a perpetual watch on his rival, and seek to baffle and defeat him. This he is not always able to do. Despite his best endeavors, Ahriman is not unfrequently victorious. In the purer times of the Zoroastrian religion it would seem that neither Ormazd nor Ahriman was represented by sculptured forms.
He therefore addressed Arsaces a letter which, according to the only writer who professes to give its terms, was expressed as follows: "Sapor, the offspring of Ormazd, comrade of the sun, king of kings, sends greeting to his dear brother, Arsaces, king of Armenia, whom he holds in affectionate remembrance.
Ormazd still carries his huge baton, and is attired in royal fashion; but otherwise his appearance is altogether new and singular.
The bull appears in the bas-reliefs of Persepolis among the evil, or at any rate hostile, powers, which the king combats and slays; and though in these representations the animal is not winged or human-headed, yet on some cylinders apparently Persian, the monarch contends with bulls of exactly the same type as that which is assigned in other cylinders to the upholders of Ormazd.
As a good Zoroastrian, he was naturally anxious to exhibit the superiority of Ormazd to all the "gods of the nations;" and, as the temple of Ammon in the oasis had the greatest repute of all the African shrines, this design would be best accomplished by its pillage and destruction.
The ultimate religion of these monarchs seems in fact to have been a syncretism wherein Sabaism, Confucianism, Greco-Macedonian notions, and an inveterate primitive idolatry were mixed together. It is not impossible that the very names of Ormazd and Ahriman had ceased to be known at the Parthian Court, or were regarded as those of exploded deities, whose dominion over men's minds had passed away.
Vohu-manu, or Bah-man, and Amerdat, or Amendat, two of the councillors of Ormazd, became the objects of a worship, which was clearly of an idolatrous character. Shrines were built in their honor, and were frequented by companies of Magi, who chanted their incantations, and performed their rites of divination in these new edifices as willingly as in the old Fire-temples.
Mithra, or the Sun, is represented in Persian sculptures by a disk or orb, which is not four-rayed like the Assyrian, but perfectly plain and simple. In sculptures where the emblems of Ormazd and Mithra occur together, the position of the former is central, that of the latter towards the right hand of the tablet.
Perhaps the conjecture is allowable that here we have Ormazd exhibited to us in a solar character, with the attributes of Mithra, from whom, in the olden time, he was carefully distinguished. Ormazd seems to have been regarded by the kings as their special guardian and protector.
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