Garodmana, the Zoroastrian Paradise

The House of Song, Garodmana in Avestan, is the highest paradise of Zoroastrian cosmology, the destination of a righteous soul, ashavan, after it successfully crosses the Chinvat Bridge, the judgment span each soul must cross after death. Zoroastrian eschatology describes the crossing itself as a moral test made physical: for the righteous the bridge widens into an easy road accompanied by the soul's own good conscience, den, appearing as a beautiful maiden, while for the wicked it narrows to a blade's edge over an abyss.

The House of Song takes its name from the joyful singing said to fill Ahura Mazda's presence there, and Zoroastrian texts describe it as a realm of light, warmth and the company of the Amesha Spentas, the divine attributes surrounding Ahura Mazda, standing as the direct positive counterpart to the House of Lies reserved for the wicked. As one of the oldest recorded structured afterlife judgments in world religion, predating and likely influencing comparable Abrahamic and other Near Eastern judgment schemes, the House of Song occupies a foundational place in the comparative history of paradise concepts.