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Liber XXXVI · Zoroastrianism

Liber XXXVI · Zoroastrianism · Chapter I: Ahura Mazda & Cosmic Dualism

The Amesha Spentas: The Seven Holy Immortals of Zoroastrianism

The Amesha Spentas explained: Good Mind, Truth, Dominion, Devotion, Wholeness and Immortality, their creations, months, rituals and Gathic origins.

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The Amesha Spentas, usually translated "Holy" or "Bounteous Immortals", are the six great divine beings who, together with Ahura Mazda or his Holy Spirit, form the sacred heptad of Zoroastrianism. They are at once qualities of the Wise Lord — Good Mind, Best Truth, Desirable Dominion, Holy Devotion, Wholeness and Immortality — and guardians of the seven creations: sky, water, earth, plants, cattle, humankind and fire.

The Six Holy Immortals and Their Names§

The term amesha spenta combines amesha, "immortal", with spenta, a key word of Zoroastrian theology usually rendered "holy", "bounteous" or "beneficent", carrying the sense of something that increases and furthers life. Middle Persian texts call them the Amahraspands. The six, with their Avestan names, common English renderings and the Middle and New Persian forms still used by Zoroastrians, are:

  • Vohu Manah, Good Mind or Good Thought (Bahman)
  • Asha Vahishta, Best Truth or Best Righteousness (Ardwahisht, Ardibehesht)
  • Khshathra Vairya, Desirable Dominion or Power (Shahrewar, Shahrivar)
  • Spenta Armaiti, Holy Devotion or Right-mindedness (Spandarmad, Esfand)
  • Haurvatat, Wholeness or Health (Hordad, Khordad)
  • Ameretat, Immortality or Deathlessness (Amurdad, Amardad)

Above or at the head of them stands Ahura Mazda himself, or, in some formulations, his Holy Spirit, Spenta Mainyu, through whom he acts in creation. Counting this seventh member produces the heptad that orders much Zoroastrian thought about the world. The grammatical genders are also significant: Vohu Manah, Asha and Khshathra are neuter or masculine in the Avesta, while Armaiti, Haurvatat and Ameretat are feminine, and later tradition imagined the first three as male and the last three as female beings.

The Amesha Spentas in the Gathas§

Zarathustra's own hymns, discussed in Zarathustra and the Gathas, never use the collective name. Instead the six words occur constantly, sometimes as abstract qualities, sometimes as near-personal powers who stand beside the Wise Lord. The prophet asks to approach Ahura Mazda "with Good Mind", prays that Truth may be embodied, longs for the good Dominion, and speaks of Armaiti as the attitude of reverent devotion that the faithful must possess. Haurvatat and Ameretat appear as a pair, the twin gifts of wholeness in this life and immortality in the next.

The Gathas also describe these qualities as begotten by Ahura Mazda. He is called the father of Asha (Yasna 44.3) and of Good Mind (Yasna 31.8), and Armaiti is spoken of as his daughter (Yasna 45.4). This language allowed later theologians to say that the Amesha Spentas were created or emanated by the Wise Lord, sharing his nature without being separate gods. Modern interpreters emphasise that, in the Gathas, the same qualities are open to human beings: a person who thinks with good mind, acts in accordance with truth and lives in devotion takes part in the very attributes of the divine. That ethical reading lies behind the triad discussed in Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.

The collective title first appears in the Young Avesta, beginning with the Yasna Haptanghaiti, the "Worship in Seven Chapters" composed in Old Avestan but slightly later than the Gathas. From then on the Holy Immortals are a defined group of seven, "all of one mind, one voice and one deed", as later Avestan formulas put it, and they are invoked by name in the liturgy and the hymns.

Guardians of the Seven Creations§

The most distinctive feature of the doctrine, fully developed in the Pahlavi books such as the Bundahishn, is that each Holy Immortal protects one of the seven creations of the good world:

Amesha Spenta Creation protected
Khshathra Vairya the sky, imagined as stone or metal
Haurvatat water
Spenta Armaiti the earth
Ameretat plants
Vohu Manah cattle and beneficent animals
Ahura Mazda (or Spenta Mainyu) the righteous human being
Asha Vahishta fire

The order of creation in the Pahlavi tradition runs from sky to water, earth, plant, animal and human, with fire pervading all. The scheme binds ethics to the physical world. To care for clean water honours Haurvatat; to keep the earth free of pollution honours Spandarmad; to treat working animals kindly honours Bahman. Zoroastrian purity laws, including the long-standing objection to burying corpses in the earth or burning them in fire, rest partly on this sense that each element is the visible form of a holy being.

Mary Boyce argued that the heptad is also present in the high liturgy. In the Yasna ceremony the officiating priest stands for humankind, the fire for Asha, the metal implements for Khshathra, the consecrated ground for Armaiti, the water for Haurvatat, the haoma twigs and pomegranate for Ameretat, and the milk offering for Vohu Manah. On this reading every performance of the rite gathers all seven creations into one place, purified and offered back to their maker. Not every scholar accepts the full correspondence, but it fits the way Zoroastrian priests themselves explain the symbolism of their rituals.

Opposing Demons and the Cosmic Battle§

Zoroastrian dualism, described in Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, arranges the spiritual world in opposed ranks. Already in the Gathas the Lie (druj) stands against Truth and Evil Mind against Good Mind. The Videvdad names a series of demons — Indra, Saurva, Naonhaithya, Taurvi and Zairi — and the Pahlavi books complete the pattern by pairing each Holy Immortal with an archdemon of Ahriman:

  • Akoman (Evil Mind) against Vohu Manah
  • Indar (the old Vedic god Indra, demonised) against Asha Vahishta
  • Sawul (Vedic Sharva, an epithet of Rudra) against Khshathra Vairya
  • Nanghaith (Vedic Nasatya, the twin gods) against Spenta Armaiti
  • Tarich (Taurvi, fever or exhaustion) against Haurvatat
  • Zarich (Zairi, thirst or poison) against Ameretat

The pairings show both the ethical and the historical side of the doctrine. Ethically, each virtue has a vice that attacks it. Historically, several of the demons bear the names of gods still worshipped in India, a sign of the long divergence between Iranian and Indian religion that has fascinated scholars since the nineteenth century. In eschatological texts the Holy Immortals fight their opposite numbers in the final battle, and the renovation of the world (frashokereti) restores every creation to the condition its guardian intended, a theme traced in Zoroastrian eschatology.

Days, Months and Festivals of the Immortals§

The Zoroastrian calendar sanctifies time by dedicating each day of the thirty-day month to a divine being. The first day belongs to Ohrmazd, and days two to seven are named after the six Holy Immortals in order: Bahman, Ardibehesht, Shahrevar, Spendarmad, Khordad and Amardad. All six Immortals also give their names to months — Ardibehesht, Khordad, Amardad, Shahrivar, Bahman and Esfand (Spandarmad) — names that survive in the official solar calendar of modern Iran.

When a day and month bear the same name, a feast is held. The best known is Spendarmad day of Spendarmad month, an old festival of the earth that Iranian Zoroastrians associated with women and that has been revived in modern Iran as a day honouring mothers and wives. Khordad Sal, the day of Khordad in the month of Farvardin, is celebrated by many Zoroastrians as the birthday of Zarathustra. Details of these observances, and of the Nowruz cycle in which they sit, appear in the Zoroastrian calendar and festivals.

Devotion to individual Immortals also shaped daily life. Ardibehesht, as lord of fire and truth, is honoured in a hymn long associated with healing; Bahman's month was traditionally a time when some Zoroastrians abstained from meat out of respect for animals; and the Khorda Avesta contains short hymns (yashts) addressed to several of the Immortals, discussed in The Yashts.

Origins, Parallels and Scholarly Debate§

Where did the Holy Immortals come from? One view, associated with older scholarship, regarded them as Zarathustra's philosophical abstractions, personified only by later priests. Georges Dumézil proposed in the 1940s that they were a reformed version of the Indo-Iranian pantheon, each Immortal replacing a god of the old functional hierarchy: Vohu Manah and Asha taking the place of Mitra and Varuna, and so on. Others, including Mary Boyce, stressed continuity with pre-Zoroastrian veneration of the natural elements, so that the prophet gave moral meaning to beings already associated with fire, water and earth. Most specialists now accept that the Gathic concepts carry both ethical and cosmic weight from the beginning, and that the sharp modern distinction between "abstraction" and "deity" may not fit ancient Iranian thought.

Classical writers knew of the doctrine. Plutarch, in his essay On Isis and Osiris (chapter 47), reports that Oromazes created six gods: of good will, of truth, of good order, of wisdom, of wealth, and of pleasure in noble things — a recognisable, if Hellenised, list of the Amesha Spentas. Some historians of religion have compared the heptad with the seven archangels of later Jewish and Christian tradition, or with the seven spirits before the throne in the Book of Revelation; others think such parallels too general to prove borrowing. The question belongs to the wider debate summarised in Zoroastrian influence on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A long-standing scholarly proposal also connects the paired names Haurvatat and Ameretat, through their Middle Persian forms, with Harut and Marut, the two angels named in the Qur'an at Surah al-Baqara 2:102.

Frequently asked questions§

What are the Amesha Spentas?§

They are the six "Holy" or "Bounteous Immortals" of Zoroastrianism: Good Mind, Best Truth, Desirable Dominion, Holy Devotion, Wholeness and Immortality. With Ahura Mazda or his Holy Spirit they make a sacred group of seven, and each protects one of the seven creations of the world.

Are the Amesha Spentas gods or archangels?§

Zoroastrians understand them as emanations or creations of Ahura Mazda who share his nature and act as his helpers, not as rival gods. Western writers often call them "archangels" for convenience, but the term is a comparison, not a translation, and they also function as moral qualities that humans can cultivate.

Which Amesha Spenta is associated with fire?§

Asha Vahishta, Best Truth or Righteousness (Ardibehesht), is the guardian of fire. This link between fire and cosmic order helps explain why the sacred fire stands at the centre of Zoroastrian worship.

Do the Amesha Spentas appear in the Gathas?§

The six names appear throughout the Gathas, but as qualities or powers of Ahura Mazda rather than as a fixed group. The collective title "Amesha Spenta" belongs to the slightly later Avestan liturgy and the Young Avesta.

Sources and further reading§