Lives of Alcyone

Zarathushtra was at this time but short, and he was left with four
young children upon his hands. He turned them over to the care of
his mother Dughda (Vajra), which of course was exceedingly, fond
of children, and spent a good deal of time over these, especially
over the baby Puruchista.
Zarathushtra seems to have felt his wife’ s death somewhat
acutely, but he was becoming ever more and more engrossed in his
religious ideas and theories, and was full of projects for the reforms
of the old Iranian religion. Feeling himself to some extent set free by
his wife’ s death, or perhaps accepting it as a divine intimation to
him, he betook himself to a hermit-life in a cave in a desert place,
and set himself to most marvellous life for some ten years, a life
which seems to have been an almost continuous succession of
wonderful visions and ecstasies.
During this period he was under the constant, the almost daily
instruction of the original Zoroaster, and was guided by Him as to
the truths which he was to place before the people. He still
maintained quite definitely his support of the Asuras as against the
Daevas; in fact, as time went on, he tended to exalt the idea of the
Asuras, or Ahuras, more and more, and indeed the title which he
used for the supreme deity is made from their name, with the
addition of the word Mazda, which appears to signify wisdom. Thus
he obtained the name Ahura-Mazda, which mean the Supremely-
Wise Spirit, or the Spirit of Supreme Wisdom.
It does not appear that at this period he had the conception of
the personification of evil called Ahriman, which now holds so
prominent a place in the Zoroastrian religion. He did to some extent
personify evil, or at least the idea of opposition, such as showed