Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Subcategories

Zoroastrianism Mantras

3 of 81 entries in Mantras. Click any to see everything it connects to.

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Formulas recited from the Avesta such as the Ahuna Vairya, among the most sacred and frequently repeated lines in Zoroastrian liturgy. As with the Gathas among Zoroastrian hymns nearby, the line between scripture and recited formula is thin in this tradition.

Facts
Directory
Category
Mantras 1
Learn More
Three Formulas the Tradition Itself Calls Manthra, From Creation to a Closing Dedication

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Zoroastrianism Mantras gathers three formulas the tradition itself calls manthra, a term genuinely cognate with the Sanskrit word the atlas borrows for the comparative table these formulas sit in, so the category here is shared rather than imported.

Yatha Ahu Vairyo, the Ahuna Vairya, is the most important of the three, twenty one words the tradition holds Ahura Mazda spoke before creation to rout evil, treated as the seed of the whole Avesta with its twenty one nasks matched to its words; its archaic grammar means every scholarly translation differs substantially, so what is transmitted with certainty is the sound and its ritual placement rather than a settled sense. Ashem Vohu, recited constantly before and after prayers, on waking, on washing and at the tying of the sacred cord, turns on asha, a word the atlas renders as righteousness while noting it carries order, truth and rightness together with no single English equivalent. Yenghe Hatam closes acts of worship rather than opening them, a dedication naming no deity except Ahura Mazda and leaving its object deliberately open, reworked in the third person from a Gathic verse rather than quoted directly from one.

The three together move from the most authoritative formula, spoken before nearly every other prayer, through constant daily recitation, to the closing dedication that ends worship.

Sources
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.