________________
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY,
A JOURNAL OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH.
VOLUME XXXVIII. 1909.
THE RELIGION OF THE IRANIAN PEOPLES.
BY THE LATE O. P. TIELE.
(Translated by G. K. Nariman.)
(Continued from Vol. XXXVII, p. 360.) 8. Mazda's Satellites.
LONG side of Mazda in the a few who with him.
They are six in number, are closely allied to him, and latterly are placed, together with him, as the seven Amesha Spentas at the head of creation divine.
This term, Amesha Spentas, does not occur in the Gathas proper, but in other Gathic writings. It has been conjectured that in the remotest period they were called Ahuras; but this has not been proved. Another question is whether, as known to the poets of the Gathas, they formed a heptade at all. This has been asserted, regard being had to the seven Adityas of the Indians, and it has been opined that the worship of seven supreme existences, which we encounter in both the kindred races, at least in posterior times, demonstrates the existence of the belief in the epoch, when they had a common habitat. The numeral seven as a sacred figure is assuredly old. We have already admitted as much, but did the Zarathushtrian reformers employ it from the first with reference to their divine spirits? This is doubtful, even of the Adityas; and their number is in no way fixed and certain. And I would certainly call it in as regards the spirits, which were latterly, definitely named Amesha Spentas, for even in the younger Avesta occasionally more than seven are enumerated. One of the poets on one occasion has combined in a single strophe all those which subsequently were reckoned among them, and he has, at the same time, specially mentioned Spento Mainyush as one of them: "Through Spento Mainyush and Vahishtem Mano, through words and deeds springing from Asha may Mazda-Khshathra-Armaiti Ahura give me Haurvatat and Ameretat (health and immortality ),"60 and there is no doubt that he meant it to be so. But properly speaking it is eight spirits that are here invoked, for Spento Mainyush is clearly distinguished from Mazda Ahura. Then again at least two of the spirits, health and immortality, here appear not as personal beings, but as celestial boons.
Further, Mazda Ahura is in the text united with Khshathra and Armaiti in a trinity, and finally, as we shall see, Ahura Mazda stood so high above all the rest in the oldest announcements, that the idea had not yet suggested itself of placing him on a level with them even as primus inter pares. If, therefore, the figure seven was a sacred one to the Eastern Aryans, the fact that the
60 Yasna 47, 1.
