At the period of Agrippa, the western thoughts about evil beings unveil ties with the ancient Persian mythology. In the Middle East around the 11th or 10th century BCE according to Gathas, texts attributed toZoroaster, certain kinds of devas were originally known as daivas and ahuras in Old Iranian, a classification of gods and spirits which drawn from asuras of the Hinduism. The daivas were worshiped in earlier times but after while became identified as celestial beings having no discernment between virtue and badness. Meanwhile, especially under the Zoroastrian doctrine, they ended understood as full malefic entities and been completely rejected, what explains why the word “devil” derives from “deva”.^[33][168]

However in some analyses grounded in the school Mimāṃsā of Hindu philosophy, there is also a resemblance with the term “rebel angels” coming from these roots. Asura is used in the earliest Vedic literature as a title of the cosmic hierarch or supreme spirit. Asura in Sanskrit is often disposed to a class of highly spiritual and intelligent beings. The other most important Vedic deities such as Varuna (god of water), Agni (god of fire) and Indra (king of devas), are all inferior cosmogonically and hierarchically to the Vedic Asura, which is Brahman, the primordial being originating the phenomenal universe. The asuras, under this perspective, made their rebellion against the insincere and deceptive ritualistic worship represented by Vedic deities Brishaspati, which are the defenders of prayers and sacrifices to the gods. Hence, in Zoroastrianism thebrishaspatis have correspondence to the divine yazatas who originally also revealed right association with sacrifices, rituals, worship and antagonism to the daivas.^[32][169]