If Ahura-mazda forms a "delicious spot" in a world previously desert and uninhabitable to become the first home of his favorites, the Arians, Angro-mainyus ruins it by sending into it a poisonous serpent, and at the same time rendering the climate one of the bitterest severity.

If Ahura-mazda provides, instead of this blasted region, another charming habitation, "the second best of regions and countries," Angro-mainyus sends there the curse of murrain, fatal to all cattle.

To every land which Ahura-mazda creates for his worshippers, Angro-mainyus immediately assigns some plague or other.

War, ravages, sickness, fever, poverty, hail, earthquakes, buzzing insects, poisonous plants, unbelief, witchcraft, and other inexpiable sins, are introduced by him into the various happy regions created without any such drawbacks by the good spirit; and a world, which should have been "very good," is by these means converted into a scene of trial and suffering.
The Dualistic principle being thus fully adopted, and the world looked on as the battle-ground between two independent and equal powers engaged in perpetual strife, it was natural that the imagination should complete the picture by ascribing to those superhuman rivals the circumstantials that accompany a great struggle between human adversaries.

The two kings required, in the first place, to have their councils, which were accordingly assigned them, and were respectively composed of six councillors.