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This fantastic legend has left no traces whatever in the extant Pahlavi works. They do not even mention any sect which had its designation after Time itself, and we fail to glean any connected account of the doctrines of the Zarvanites from the extant Pahlavi works. Be this as it may, it is certain that a sect of the Zarvanites, who evidently aimed at resolving the Zoroastrian dualism into monotheism by the apotheosis of Time, did flourish for a long time in Iran. Shahristani, who wrote in the early part of the twelfth century, attests, as we shall see later, that he met the followers of this sect in his day.

Superstitious belief in Fate that weaves the web of events in man's life. God has willed man to be the architect of his destiny and endowed him with the freedom of will, says Zarathushtra.^[1] Man's ignorance and superstition have led him to the belief that he is not a free agent who can control and shape the actions of his life. Human happenings, it is believed, are regulated by the position and movements of the stars and planets and constellations. Ingenious brains have laboured to divine the future from the careful observation of the movements of the heavenly bodies They have practised augury by watching the flight of birds and have drawn omens from the stars and other sources. They have endeavoured to read the course of the stars and to study with utmost scrupulous care and anxiety, worthy of more rational and useful pursuits, the phenomena, in the vain hope that they would thereby be able to foretell coming events and forestall coming misfortunes. Fate, they have taught, dogs man's footsteps and overtakes him unawares. It hunts him like wild animals to and fro. Nothing could be done against it. In vain would a man struggle to save himself from being drowned in the floods of fate. The mightiest among men has to yield submission to the decrees of unrelenting fate. This credulous belief in the inevitability of the decrees of Fate has led men and women to accept with fatalistic resignation what befell their lot. It has led them to submit and succumb to the buffetings of life where they should have braved them and fought