The Role of Natural Contradictions in Creation of Good and Evil Beliefs

Natural elements play significant role in Iranian legends. Water, mountain, earth, sky, sun, moon, stars, wind, plants, animals, rain, and fire are among natural effective and mythopoeic forces. Generally, structure of Iranian myths is a kind of believe to dichotomy in nature, in human and in contradictory forces available in the world. One of the most important aspects of this contradiction is continuous battle between good and evil. Since Iran with diverse natural geography is the land of great conflicts, main issue in this research is determining the role of natural conflicts in creating good and evil beliefs in Iranian myths. In this study, data are gathered using documentary sources and research method is comparative, descriptive, and qualitative analyses. There is natural contradiction in every land in nature and natural geography. Results indicate that among different causes that lead to formation of myths, nature and its available conflicts have great role in creation of such beliefs.


Introduction
In brief investigation on Iranian mythological stories in which we face a dominant aspect that is traditional opposition of good and evil.Mythological stories that were narrated about end of the world for primitive man contain continuous battle between the forces of good and bad.Iranians have traditionally created double ontology.However, this phenomenon is not just specified to Iranians and it can be said that there is a kind of belief in duality of nature, human, and opposite forces in myths of every nation.But such belief in Iran is different and has a special form that continues to influence the social insight of Iranians, an insight on which negative forces have active role along with positive forces.An important issue that can be observed in Persian myths is dualism.Iranians' belief in good and evil in the past and present can form a part of myths, culture, and art of this people.This issue raises a question: how this belief was introduced and developed?Bahar, a great Iranian professor and mythologist knows existence of Conflict between different elements in gods' world or humans' world as basis of humans and gods' myths.He believes that conflict is main point of all mythological stories, both gods and champions stories and expresses that "I think as long as there is contradiction in the human society, heroes, and champions will be created".Thus, stories of heroes and champions will disappear just when contradictions of human, nature, and social conflicts are eliminated (Bahar, 1998, p. 381).Basically, Iran is the land of big contradictions, deserts, jungles, snowy mountains, and green valleys with climate diversity.In Iran's nature, there are dry salty deserts in the middle part, high mountains such as Damavand and mountain ranges such as Alborz and Zagros, green plains such as Mazandaran plain and very green banks of Caspian Sea that depicts a contradictory image.To understand duality and good and evil in Iranian myths it is better to start with original sources and myths literature in order to see the way of emergence of such idea and its change in its original context.Hence, our goal is to investigate the role of natural conflicts in creating the good and bad beliefs in Iranian myths.

Effective Elements of Nature in Myth-Making
Water elements are among most important natural forces that affect Iranian myths.This element in a land such as Iran that is a dry area with little rain (except the southern areas of Caspian Sea) due to natural geography is of great importance considering its crucial role in nature and human life.Iran is located in the center of global dry belt and has wide deserts.Water as a natural phenomenon has affected human life due to its crucial role in provision of drinking water, production of food and products, prosperity, and development of green nature.From Zoroastrians' perspective, Ahura Mazda is superior to the summum bonum (the highest good) and he has no relation with the evil.He is the source of all goodness, lightness, life, beauty, happiness, and good health.Ahura Mazda is on the top of his 7 deathless manifestations which are then called Amesha Spentas."Amesha Spentas are gods, without being god.They are created, without being creature and they have supervision and directorship on the main qualities of the nature, without being the same with them.These subjects which are called Yazata (honorable people), are six individuals: Vohu Manah, Xsathra-vairya, Haurvatät, Armaiti, and Amərətät (Grimal, 1989).After creating the Amesha Spenta, Ahura Mazda created the gods whom opposite negative powers are the demons.The devil and the demons are against Ahura Mazda and superior gods.The creation of the demons and demonic creatures is not described in Avesta and Pahlavi books as obvious as the heaven creation of Ahura Mazda and Ahuraic creatures.Angra Mainyu is the leader of demons' group.His aim is to annihilate and destroy the world.As the Ohrmazd creates the life, Angra Mainyu creates the death.He creates the illness against the good health, and the ugliness against the beauty.All illnesses of people are completely resulted from Angra Mainyu.Angra Mainyu created the demons including "Aka manah" which means bad thought and the demonic creation is from him."Aešma" means hastily which wicked people turn to it and the followers of piety fight with.This is the enemy of the herds.Later, six greater demons are also added to the Aka Manah in the new Avesta and the term "Kamaleh Divan" is used in opposition to "Amesha Spenta" for this collection of seven demons (Bahar, 2010, p. 42).

Good and Evil Belief in the Myth of the Creation
The main feature of the Iranian myths is duality.This subject is well manifested in 12000-years of mythological history in Iran.The creation in regular 12000-years history is a tradition belongs to Sassanid era and writings related to this era.In the beginning, there were Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu (the Avestan-language name of Zoroastrianism's hypostasis of the "destructive spirit; the Middle Persian equivalent is Angra Mainyu); one in the boundless light, and another in the endless darkness.Invasion of Angra Mainyu was resumed 3000 years passed from Ahura Mazda's heaven creation.Angra Mainyu became aware of Ahura Mazda's brilliant and clean dominion so he became curious and jealous and attempted to invade the dominion of good.Ahura Mazda who was aware of everything suggests peace to Angra Mainyu, provided that Angra Mainyu commends his creation, but Angra Mainyu did not accept this suggestion because of his post-knowledge.In this way, a contract is concluded between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu provided that the last battle between the good and evil forces occurs 9000 years after this attack.In that 3000 years in which Angra Mainyu fell into unconsciousness, Ahura Mazda gave his heaven creation material and universal form.The pearl of the first Ahura Mazda creation is infinite clear which created fire, wind, water , and earth respectively one after another out of that and he created a material existence out of the earth (Bahar, 2010, p. 43).At the end of the second 3000 years, Angra Mainyu's friends and collaborators who suffered from the unconsciousness of their commander, proceed to encourage him to make him get out of this ignorance.Their effort aimed when Jahi, a female demon went forward and encouraged the Angra Mainyu to fight.With Angra Mainyu's coming out of anesthesia, his actual attack to the current world began.Angra Mainyu with all his demons attacked Ahura Mazda's beautiful and excellent creation (ibid, 85).

Good and Evil Belief in Manichaeism
Manichaeism is among other rituals formed in Iran in which duality is clearly observable.The fundamental facts which were proposed by Mani in the 3rd century AD were: introspection based on the distinction between two principles, one is the principle of good and heaven, and another is the principle of evil and material, and division of time into three periods: previous period in which the world has emerged yet; middle period in which the light is invaded, a war occurs and the world (who is created for defense) becomes full of light, although it is bad; and finally the last period which is the period of separation from the mixture and the light releases completely and finds its real place (Jean de Menasce, 2008: 272).Duality in Manichaeism is in this way that he declared "two worlds of spirit and material are against each other.One of them is good (= soul) and the other is evil (= material).These two worlds are opposite in their pearl and nature and they are against each other.These two worlds and forces are mixed with each other because of the action of evil principle (material or darkness), rescue of the lightness and good from the constraint of the full-evil material and darkness is only in the renewed separation and releasing from the constraint of the material (Bahar, 2010: 84).According to the subjects which were explained, in investigation on the evolution and change of Iranian mythological systems, the interface or important divergence which exists is the same belief into both bases of good and evil.Of course the quarrel between these two and this principle dominates on all myths of Iran.

Battle of Good and Evil in Tishtrya Myth
The Aposha and Tishtrya battle myths are among ancient Iranian myths which well express the battle of good and evil forces.This myth which is completely inspired by the nature is indeed the battle between the angel of rain and the demon of drought.Indeed, paying attention to the attractive and allegorical myth of Tishtrya in Avesta, clarifies the problem of contrast and quarrel between good and evil, lightness and darkness, and good and evil in the most appropriate manner.Here, the scene of fighting is in the sky.Here, we quote the summary of the description of this battle from the Tishtarisht, Avesta book: Tishtrya flies thirty days and nights in the light.For example, in the first ten nights, Tishtrya shouts that who prays for me and commends me with ritual and custom until I give him/her blessing or in the third ten nights, he asks who commends me until I give him wellfigured horses and affluence of peace.Then he comes down into the Vourukasha and on the other hand, Apausha demon, appears in darkness and they grapple with quarrel.For three days and nights in this war, Apausha wins with glory and he defeats him (Razi, 1985, pp. 267-270).

Good and Evil in Championship and Epic Stories
In Iran, there are a lot of divine heroes and the stories which are quoted about them are sometimes closer to legend than myth.But if we remove these characters, we would have a void space in the image of ancient Iranian mythology.For this reason, we present a short introduction of them.Yama (Indian), Yima (Iranian): In Iran, Yima is so venerated because of the narration of his 1000-thousands years of governance and the feature of this domination is abundance of blessing and peace and there is no sign of devils and their indecent behaviors.Yima is praised because of constructing Vara or an underground fortress.The creator warns him that the people would be involved in a frightening winter, and because of that, all people and animals on the earth would be annihilated and it induces the Yima to build a fortress.So that, the demonic calamity may not surmount the generation of these phenomena and when the frightening winter became dominant on the world with the attack of Malkus demon in the final centuries of the world and it brought annihilation with itself, the origin and race of all phenomena were kept and particularly, the human's generation was continued.
Houshang: His name is as the one who provides good houses.In Avesta, he is referred to as Paradata, i.e. the first person who is determined (for government) and becomes as Pishdad in Pahlavi and Persian (the first person who brings law).The beginning of Pishdadian dynasty starts from here (Haririan et al., 2011: 141).About the relation with Houshang and the demons, it is stated that "Houshang commands the ancient days of the ruler of the seven climates and the people and the demons and all magicians escape from him into the darkness.Mazana or Mazandaran in the north of the mountain of Damavand is the home of many magicians and demons who twothird of them are killed by Houshang, the hero (Hinnells, 2003).
Tahmuras: His name correlates with power.His period of domination is stated to be 30 years.Like Houshang and other good people, Tahmuras fights with the demons and defeats them.
Fredon (Tharitouneh): He is a champion in the Avesta who has a semi-divine personality and his appellation is dragon killer.Fereydun is the one who overcomes Zahhak, but does not kill him because Ohrmazd warns him that if he kills Zahhak, the earth would become full of snakes, frogs and ants.Fredon's victory against Zahhak brings him to the position of the most victorious people (Hinnells, 2003).Keresaspa (Garshasp): This ancient champion belongs to the Indo-Iranian era.Garshasp's prowess begins with killing the horned dragons.In a narration, Garshasp kills Gandarevah, the golden heel dragon and he states that fighting with this frightening monster continues 9 days and nights in the cosmic sea.Many monsters, brigands and criminals peter by Garshasp's hands, and one of these monsters is Kamak or the avian monster who covers all the earth during flying and the rain cannot fall (ibid, 114).

Battle of Good and Evil in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh
Dual contrast or battle of good and evil is the main theme of Shahnameh.The frequency of the stories directly encompassing the practical struggle between good and evil in Shahnameh is at least two times greater than the stories which are related to another theme.The theme of Shahnameh has three parts: the mythical part in which devilish forces still recourse to battle without mediator and they interfere in the humans' fate; the athletic part in which the role of the creatures of badness and uncleanness is assigned to the enemies of Iran, and a historical part in which the poet at the time of its creation has remained loyal to the history and he selects the thoughts and narrations with many note-takings.In this way, all over the Shahnameh, we observe a type of contrast and battle between good and evil which is manifested with clashes of heroes and kings with devils that arew always ended with the victory of good over evil (Safa, 1955, pp. 205-208).Po.According to the mentioned subjects and investigation on the myths of the world, it can be explained that there are significant contrasts in the myths of the races in which there are kinds of belief in the duality and good and evil, positive and negative forces, darkness and lightness and dispute between the demons and the giants against the gods, in the nature and natural geography of every land.

Conclusion
Since the human life in the bosom of the nature, being under its influence is something natural.This paper knows the duality of all rituals available in Iran from Zoroaster's message until the Islamic era resulted from the nature and its opposed geography.This belief can be inspired by the nature in this way that in the ancient days people always faced with these contrasts in their environment.There is dark night after light day, drought against rain, fatal storm wind against the pluvial and useful wind, fatal flood against life-giving water, illness against health and death against birth.The existence of such contrasts in nature and human's real world has caused the belief that the principle of contrast in Iranian thought has a natural basis.The love of nature was the reason for peace, wideness, and affluence, and the wrath of nature was a root for suffering, hunger, and famine.Forces of the nature are also imagined including both forces of verdure and drought.Hence, it is thought that the duality in the beliefs of the Iranian people may be affected by the nature and the geography of this area.According to the results of the current study, it can be stated that there is a significant contrast in the nature and natural geography of every land in the myths of Mesopotamia including Egypt, Ireland, China, and Tibet which have belief in good and evil forces, the existence of giants and demons, battle between the forces of darkness and light, and positive and negative forces.In the nature and natural geography of each one of these lands, there is a significant contrast.Generally, it can be concluded that among various reasons resulting in the formation of the myths, the nature and its available contradictions play significant role in shaping such beliefs and opinions.