Zoroastrian Spirit Beings

Zoroastrian Spirit Beings gathers the two paired classes of supernatural entities central to Zoroastrian cosmology as recorded in the Avesta. The daevas are entities rejected by the faith, named in the Gathas as gods to be refused and reimagined in later tradition as spirits who promote chaos and disorder. The yazatas stand as their opposite number, a term meaning worthy of worship, applied to the beneficent powers who serve under Ahura Mazda and extend even to certain healing plants and sacred prayers regarded as holy in their own right. Together the two classes frame the central ethical divide running through Zoroastrian cosmology between forces that further order and those that oppose it.