Asha — truth, rightness and the order of things, in one word.
It covers the truth of a statement, the rightness of an act and the regularity of the seasons at once, because the tradition takes these to be the same thing. Its opposite, druj, is the lie — which is likewise a moral failure and a disorder in the world, not merely a false sentence.
Asha is the tradition's central term and it has no single English equivalent because it does not distinguish between categories that other languages separate. It covers truth as correspondence, rightness as moral quality, and order as cosmic regularity, all at once — the same word describes an accurate statement, a just act, and the fact that the sun rises. Its Vedic cognate is rta, which is the same idea in the Indian branch. Its opposite, druj, is the lie in the same triple sense: a falsehood is not merely an inaccuracy but a rip in the fabric of things, which is why lying is treated in the Persian sources as the paradigmatic sin. Herodotus reports that the Persians taught their boys three things — to ride, to shoot straight and to tell the truth — and that they held lying to be the most disgraceful thing possible, and whatever else Herodotus got wrong, this squares with what the Persian sources say about themselves.
They train their sons from five to twenty years old in three things only: to ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth. They hold lying to be the most disgraceful thing of all.
Herodotus, Histories 1.136–138 (rendered)An outsider's account, and one that squares with what the Persian sources say about themselves.
The same ground, other faiths
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