Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

xi] Rta, Asha and Tao 527
Parmenides 1 makes Dike reveal
the unshaken heart of fair-rounded Truth.
Greeks and Indians alike seem to have discerned that the divine
Way was also the Truth and the Life.
This notion of the Way, which is also the Right, seems to have
existed before the separation of Indian from Iranian. The Vedic
rta is the same word as the Avestan asha (areta) and the Cunei-
form Persian arta. Varuna of the Veda, and Ahura Mazda of the
A vesta, are divinities closely akin, and
One of the most interesting parallels between Veda and Avesta is that
both gods are described as ' the spring of the rta, or righteousness.' Varuna
is hhartasya (Rig-Veda, 2. 28. 5); Ahura Mazda is ashahe klido (Yasna,
10. 4). The words are sound for sound the same 2 .
The emphasis of Iranian religion was always strongly on the
moral conflict between right and wrong, as figured by the struggle
between light and darkness. Dike, who was the way of the world,
became in Orphic hands Vengeance on the wrong doer, on him
who overstepped the way. I would again suggest that it is pos-
sible that this moral emphasis was due to Persian influence 3 .
Closely analogous to Dike and to rta is the Chinese tao, only
it seems less moralized and more magical. Tao is like Dike the
way, the way of nature ;
and man's whole religion, his whole moral
effort, is to bring himself into accordance with tao. By so doing
he becomes a microcosm, and by sympathetic magic can control
the world. The calendar not only indicates natural facts, but it
prescribes moral doings. Tao, like rta, is potent in all three spheres,
in outside nature, in the relation of man to his gods, in the relation