AHURA-MAZDA

AHURA-MAZDA: The bright and beautiful Zoroastrian Supreme God. He is so bright that a certain brand of electric light bulb is named in his honor.

As The Wise Lord and God above all other Gods, AHURA-MAZDA was — and still is — worshipped by Zoroastrians as the Creator of the Universe and Source of All Good Things. With the light bulb reference seeming so appropriate, we fondly imagine he created the Universe by flipping a cosmic light switch. 'Let there be light', in fact.

With the holy AMESHA-SPENTAS and also his sons ATAR and MITHRA providing backup, AHURA-MAZDA wages permanent war with AHRIMAN, a deity of unspeakable repulsiveness. AHRIMAN aims to devastate the universe by filling it with pure evil.

Much like GOD and SATAN, they've been battling it out for millennia, but AHURA-MAZDA has a trump card tucked up his sleeve; SAOSHYANT will show up at the last minute and put everything to rights.

Zoroastrianism was founded by Zoroaster (also known as Zarathushtra) squillions of years ago, and flourished despite being such an awkward religion to spell. Its sacred scripture, the Vesta, unfortunately perished in the Great Fire at the Library of Alexandra, and only a remnant of this fascinating text remains. This is called the Zenda Vesta, which means 'Scrap of Vesta Which Is Somewhat Charred But Still Jolly Good'.

With its monotheistic concept of GOD and ideas of good and evil spirituality, Zoroastrianism had a huge impact on subsequent religions such as Judaism and Christianity, who appear to have stolen many of its spiritual notions...