When I created the Jaiya setting, I thought it best, for various reasons, to use my own religion as the inspiration for the cosmogony and beliefs of the settings, rather than messing around with other people’s religions. So, here is Afaro Viamafar, “The Wounding of the Tree of Choices”, sometimes also titled “The Wounding of the Quantum Tree.” Parts of it are quoted as chapter headings in the novel Seeking the Quantum Tree. Apparently there are other scriptural writings in the setting (you can see passing references in the text below to at least two others), but this is the only one I ever wrote out in full, and one of the first things I wrote in the setting.

1). It is told elsewhere how Ia’vah made formless matter, and that form of time which measures the movements of matter, compressed them tightly, gave both matter and time instructions on how to become stars and planets, and then released it all in a burst of light and heat, to race madly in all directions as it obeyed His will, and became stars and planets and all the celestial bodies.
2). It is also told elsewhere, how Ia’vah singled out the world where we stand, above all other celestial bodies, and gave it water and life, and gave the life instructions on how to develop into all kinds of plants, trees and flowers, fishes, reptiles, birds, and things in between; and how in time the life of this world obeyed His will and brought forth fur-bearing creatures and finally the Old Ones, to be stewards of the world.
3). The Old Ones were like us in form, but twice as tall, with skin in shades of blue and green, and eyes and hair in every color of the rainbow.
4). They could cocoon themselves and rebuild their bodies into new forms, in the shape of almost any creature that ever existed, although there were limits to how much mass they could gain or lose in their cocooned state, and for this reason they rarely took the shape of small animals.
5). They were very beautiful in all their forms, and wise in many ways that our First Parents were not, but also foolish in some ways that the First Parents were not, at least not at first.
6). The Old Ones were the stewards of this world before our First Parents came, and what we know of their stewardship is told elsewhere.
7). At the heart of their stewardship was the Quantum Tree, which is the heart of all creation.
8). It was not then, and is not now, the kind of tree that drinks in sunlight and puts out green leaves.
9). It was then, and is now, both a place and a living thing, but its life came from the moment when Ia’vah made matter, not from the life that brought forth things that flowered, swam, walked and flew, in accordance with the will of Ia’veh.
10). It was then, and is now, both a place and a living thing; both a vision of all possibilities, and a calculation of those possibilities.
11). It is called a tree because, to the eyes of the Old Ones and the First Parents, the possibilities it contains appeared to spread and branch quicker than thought, as if a tree could grow a dozen yards tall and wide in the time it takes lightning to flash across the sky, without toppling over, and continue growing at that speed until light and heat and time end together and Ia’veh makes all things anew.
12). But instead of leaves or flowers, fruits or seeds, the endless branches bring forth events that might or might not come to pass, in every parts of the material world.
13). The Quantum Tree is both a living place and a living thing; both a living vision of all possibilities and a living calculation of those possibilities.
14). To behold this vision is see all the celestial bodies and all the living creatures that ever were or ever will be, and all the celestial bodies and all the creatures that never were and never will be, and exist only in the Mind of Ia’veh as possibilities He did not deem worthy of coming to pass.
15). But this vision also holds the True Past, which the First Parents destroyed when they wounded the Quantum Tree, and which now only exists in the Mind of Ia’vah.
16). Tiny shards of the True Past can be seen in the scriptures, when they speak of a world with a cycle of life and death, but without pain or fear.
17). In the True Past, the tiger only hunted creatures that were aged and weary of life, and killed them cleanly in his first leap, without making them suffer, and cattle brought forth their calves quickly and smoothly, and suffered no discomfort.
18). In the True Past, the Old Ones hunted and gave birth in like fashion.
19). In the True Past, tiny creatures too small to see lived and died in their hosts without causing sickness.
20). In the True Past, no plant needed to defend itself with thorn or spine, foul scent or poison, because they grew with such abundance that sheep did not crop them down to the ground, and the plants did not begrudge them the leaves and grass that they did take.
21). In the True Past, only a few creatures used poison for hunting, and their poisons numbed rather than pained, and worked quickly, so that they killed only a little slower than the tiger’s leap.
22). In the True Past, bears did not steal honey, and bees had no need to sting.
23). In the True Past, the Old Ones and the First Parents took only a little honey for a rare treat when they visited the hives, and the bees permitted it.
24). In the True Past, insects came to the spider webs to die of old age, and spiders went to the wasps when they were ready for death, and the wasps killed them cleanly with a single sting, and only then did they plant their eggs in the remains.
25). These are only shards of the True Past, set down so that you might understand what once was, and will be again one day.
26). They are not set down so that you may pine and long for what is no longer and cannot yet be.
They are set down so that you might try to live the ways of the True Past, and so heal the smallest of the wounds our First Parents inflicted on the Quantum Tree, and on all time and matter.
27). They are not set down so that you might hate the First Parents, for taking the True Past away and giving us a false past.
28). They are set down so that you will understand a little better what kind of sin our First Parents committed when they damaged the Quantum Tree, and gave us a false past.
29). It is not known in which manner Ia’vah made our First Parents.
30). The first Old Ones were born of lower beasts, but with spirits of a different kind, born directly in the Mind of Ia’vah at the instant of their bodies’ conception, and it may be that our First Parents were formed thusly.
31). But some hold that Ia’vah gave form to formless matter, for the first time since time began, and in the same moment brought forth spirits to inhabit those forms.
32). However it happened, our First Parents were creatures whose nature married body and spirit, one male and one female, and the union of male and female was as close and as loyal as between body and spirit.
33). What we call love, between spouses or family or friends, is a beautiful and powerful thing, but it is only a clumsy fumbling towards the simple union of spirit that our First Parents possessed between them in the True Past.
34). In the True Past, our First Parents more strongly resembled Ia’vah than all other things that were made by His Will.
35). It is said this was due both to the love that the Parents shared between them, and to the nature of their spirits, which were different from those of the Old Ones.
36). To the Old Ones, Ia’vah gave the power to perceive and understand the Quantum Tree, to discern between what would happen and what might happen, and what would not happen.
37). The Old Ones used this understanding in their stewardship of the world, but they could not influence the Quantum Tree, not even to change what might happen into a thing that would happen.
38). To our First Parents, Ia’vah gave a greater power, for they could both perceive and influence the Quantum Tree.
39). In this way, they could make a thing that might happen, into something that would happen, but at first they only wrought small and simple changes in the possibilities that the Tree showed them.
40). At first they worked closely with the Old Ones in their stewardship of our world, for its was Ia’vah’s Will that the Old Ones should in time be given stewardship of a new world, and should leave this world behind in the care of our First Parents and their children.
41). But when the time grew near for the Old Ones to depart, one of them conceived of a terrible plan.
42). Here, as in all the scriptures, it is meaningless to ask “Why?” because the why of any deed is in the spirit of the doer, and any answer to “Why?” that does not come directly from the Mind of Ia’vah is only a guess.
43). The Old Ones had the power to speak mind to mind with any manner of creature, without using tongue or spoken language, and so did our First Parents, but this particular Old One was reckoned the most skilled and persuasive in those arts.
44). It had rejected both gender and procreation, which was a privilege that the Old Ones had and still have, and it took a form not quite like anything else on earth.
45). In some ways it resembled the great reptiles that crawled on the ground without legs, and hunted their prey with a tight embrace that snapped the prey’s neck, or with a jab of numbing poison.
46). But in this form it ate all the things that humans or Old Ones would, and it moved on several hundred legs, as some cousins of the insects do.
47). In this form it spoke to the First Mother, and convinced her to take control of the Quantum Tree, and (so she thought) of time itself.
48). The why of her deeds are only a guess, but it is said that she desired strong children for herself and her spouse, and the persuader worked on that desire.
49). She could only control the Quantum Tree in union with the entirety of the human race, which is to say her spouse.
50). So close was their union in thought and desire, that she had only to consent for the First Father to do likewise.
51). It is said that only chance put her in that Old One’s path instead of her husband, but that if he had been there instead, the creature would have persuaded him all the same.
52). With no guidance save their persuader and its cruel ideas, they tried to take control of the Quantum Tree.
53). But the Tree could only be controlled by the entirety of the human race acting together, and it showed them what their children, and their children’s children would think of this deed, and in most of the possible futures the children rejected what their First Parents had dared to do, and so the Parents could not force their will on the future.
54). Under the guidance of their cruel persuader, the Parents sought for a future where most of the children agreed with what had been done, what would been done, but they could only reach such a future by destroying the True Past.
55). They built a past where nature was cruel and selfish, where nearly half of the Old Ones were cruel and selfish, rather than only the persuader and its handful of followers, and where the First Parents themselves, though not as cruel as some things that dwelled in this past, were nonetheless selfish and heedless of the pain of other creatures.
56). Only when they had built this false past, could they find children who approved of what our Parents planned to do, and only then, with nearly entirety of the human race in agreement, could the Parents bring about the future they had chosen.
57). When priests speak of collective guilt or collective sin, or the tendency of the human race towards evil, they speak of this participation in the Parents’ assault on the Quantum Tree.
58). For the Parents could not have changed the future unless we were as we are, but we would not be as we are unless the Parents had first changed the past.
59). A priest who means something else when he speaks of the evil in all humanity, speaks wrongly, and all right-thinking people should be deaf to him.
60). But when the Parents shifted the whole nature of things, they caught the dimmest glimpse of the face of Ia’vah, and although He looked on them in love and reproach, they fled from Him and from the Tree in shame.
61). And in their minds, they heard the Voice of Ia’vah, which said: “I do not take back My gifts, not even the gift of power over the Quantum Tree, and therefore you cannot take back the gifts you have given yourself and all creatures: the sickness and pain that enters into birth and death and everything in between.”
62). And the Parents trembled with fear, and blamed each other, breaking the union of their hearts with which they had done such terrible deeds. And then they repented, but their repentance was a feeble, half-hearted thing compared to the clarity of purpose that they had before.
63). And Ia’vah spoke to them again: “Of your children, most rejected your plan in one possible future, and accepted it in another.”
64). “But there is one child who exists in all the futures, and rejected your plan in every one, and her thoughts are pleasing to Me above all your other children.”
65). “She and her Seed will be the enemy of your persuader, and of all wickedness and cruelty.”
66). “The repair of the past and the future begins now, with every small deed you take to lessen the suffering of each other and of the world.”
67). “But when that child of yours becomes a mother, the repair of the past and the future will begin on a greater scale.”
68). And then our First Parents were left alone with their thoughts and deeds, for the persuader had been struck down, stripped of its legs and left with hollow sockets where they had been, and then had fled in fear.
69). The other Old Ones would have nothing to do with our First Parents, who had brought suffering into the world.
70). The Parents wandered far and wide, and had many children, the parents of every nation, and they suffered greatly in childbirth, and in watching the feuds and deaths of their children.
71). But they used their knowledge to lessen suffering and evil whenever they could, and it is said by those who have been given visions of what is and what was and what might be, that when our First Parents died, they were less cruel and less selfish people than in the future they had chosen when they controlled the Quantum Tree.
72). And so they began to heal the smallest of the wounds they had inflicted on all creation.
73). That portion of the Old Ones, who had not become wholly wicked tried to do the same, but they were now bewildered by the visions the Tree showed them, and as with the Parents, they found it difficult to act rightly and avoid evil.
74). But like the Parents, they persisted.
75). Little is said of what comes after death to those who try to heal the wounds of the world.
76). It is said that their spirits come to a place of gentle sorrow and muted joy, and there they try still to help the living.
77). It is in the hopes that one’s ancestors and national heroes have come to that place that we revere such people.
78). But it is said that those who persist in wickedness during their lives only make for themselves after death a place of greater suffering, which they try to inflict on others.
79). Such evil spirits are to be shunned or exorcised, not tolerated.
80). A portion of the Old Ones, who had rejected the cruel nature that the Parents had tried to give them, were allowed to remain at the Quantum Tree, and protect it against those who would try to injure it further.
81). To attempt to do what the First Parents did, even with a desire to heal and not harm, is utterly unlawful, and will only end in destruction.