Sacred Text · The Avesta

The two primal spirits

Ahunavaiti Gatha · Yasna 30.3 · L. H. Mills

“Thus are the primeval spirits who as a pair (combining their opposite strivings), and (yet each) independent in his action, have been famed (of old). (They are) a better thing, they two, and a worse, as to thought, as to word, and as to deed. And between these two let the wisely acting choose aright. (Choose ye) not (as) the evil-doers!”

Yasna 30.3 (Ahunavaiti Gatha) · L. H. Mills, SBE XXXI

Translation: Lawrence H. Mills (1887), The Zend-Avesta, Part III (The Yasna, Visparad, Afrinagan, Gahs and Miscellaneous Fragments), Sacred Books of the East vol. XXXI, public domain, via the Internet Archive (item zendavesta03darm). Reproduced in context; Mills’ round and square brackets are his own clarifying insertions, and embedded footnote marks in the scanned text were removed. Chapter and verse follow the standard Yasna numbering.

Christian comparison

How this connects to Jesus

Here is Zarathushtra’s earliest statement of the two primal spirits, a better and a worse, who differ in thought, in word, and in deed, and he calls each person to choose the good. Christians take the reality of evil just as seriously, yet trace it not to a second eternal power but to a good creation turned aside, and they proclaim that the one Lord has already met and broken evil at the cross, where Jesus disarmed the powers and rose in triumph (Colossians 2:15). Compare the choice between two spirits with the victory of the one God over the evil one.

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