I will die to falsehood that I may live to truth

Darius the Great concentrates all evil in Drauga, "Falsehood". He advises his successors to beware of falsehood and to fight it and destroy it wherever it is found, if they wished their kingdom to prosper and live. The Ancient Persians, my illustrious forbears held Falsehood as most disgraceful and as the embodiment of all wickedness.

Falsehood is cowardly and mean, foul and filthy. It saps the foundation of human dignity. It is the parent of vices and sins. It ruins man's reputation, blasts his honour and throws him to the lowest depth of degradation. When the tide of falsehood comes rolling in and sweeps all barriers, it debases morals and breaks the edifice of communal character to pieces. Falsehood paves the way to perdition.

The man that lies is not frank. He has not the openness of heart. He speaks something which his heart disowns and his breast disavows. He dissembles and strives to seem what he is not. He lies, yet affects the air of a truthful man. He thinks one way and speaks another. He does not, what he professes. He is forced to invent ten falsehoods to cover and explain away his one. When his falsehood is found out, he forfeits confidence ever after. The habitual liar, who speaks one thing, when he means another, is neither believed nor trusted. He loses himself on the by-ways when he is bound for the onward path of life.

I will not let my tongue tell a lie. I will not let the false words pass my lips. I will speak nothing more nor less than what my heart thinks and my mind believes. With inveterate hostility to falsehood and deep detestation of it, I will fight it with every fiber of my being and trample on it.

Thou, Ahura Mazda, offered choice between truth and falsehood to thy two Primeval Spirits, Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu. The Good Spirit chose truth and the Evil Spirit wooed falsehood as his sphere of action. Since then does falsehood stalk about in defiance upon earth. But truth will ultimately smite falsehood and triumph. The light of truth will drive the darkness of falsehood out of the world. When falsehood will fall and truth will reign supreme, the earth will be paradise as thou hast willed of yore, Ahura Mazda.

This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 01, 2000.