Concepts & Institutions (3)

• ConceptAhura Mazdā

  The supreme god of the Achaemenid kings, the "Wise Lord", named at the head of the royal inscriptions as creator of earth, heaven, and man, and as the god who bestows kingship and upholds order against the Lie.

• ConceptArta (Truth, right order)

  The Iranian principle of truth, righteousness, and cosmic and social order, opposed to the Lie (drauga); the moral axis of Achaemenid royal ideology and, later, a central concept of Zoroastrianism.

• ConceptThe Drauga (the Lie)

  The Iranian principle of falsehood and disorder, the cosmic and political adversary of arta (Truth); in Darius's Behistun inscription, the force embodied by every rebel and pretender against the rightful king.