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one health by the law, one health by the knife, one health by plants, one health by (holy) texts; of healing things the most healing is he who healeth by the holy text" (Yasht, iii, 6; cf. Vendīdād, vii, 44).

Healing texts.

Many Gathic verses were used in effecting cures, gaining force and efficiency by frequent repetition (cf. Vendīdād, ix, 27; x, 4-17; xx, 12; Yasht, iii, 5; xviii, 8); occasionally the formulas were themselves personified and invoked, as, "Mayest thou heal me, O Holy Text right glorious!" (Vendidad, xxii, 2); and incantations also occur, e.g., "I conjure thee, disease, I conjure thee, death; -I conjure thee, fever, I conjure thee, evil eye" (ib., xx, 7). Charms and amulets were also used to ward off disease or to avert the evil eye; and fire is mentioned (Dinkart, III, clvii, 8)' as a therapeutic agency. Furthermore, “all remedies of waters and animals and plants" were in the keeping of the divine Ashi (Yasna, lii, 2); and the rain banished disease and death, besides revivifying vegetation (Vendīdād, xxi, 3). The waters and the plants were healing (Yasht, viii, 47; Vendīdād, xx, 4), beginning with the Gaokerena tree, already mentioned; and such plants were used, together with manthras, in effecting cures (Dinkart, III, clvii, 45). The Amesha Spentas and Ahura Mazda (Yasht, i, 2-5, 8, 12), the moon (Yasht, vii, 5; Nyāish, iii, 7), the star Vanant (? Vega; Yasht, xxi, 1), and the constellation Haptōiringa (Ursa Major; Sīrōzāh, i, 13; ii, 13) also received the epithet 'healing,' the two

6

J. J. Modi, “Charms or Amulets for some Diseases of the Eye,” in his AP, 1911, pp. 43-50; Kavasji Edalji Kanga, "King Farīdūn and a few of his Amulets and Charms," in CMV, 1900, pp. 144-145.

7 L. C. Casartelli, "Traité de médecine mazdéene," in Le Muséon, 1886, v, 534-535.

8 Ib., pp. 546-547.

latter as opposed to Angra Mainyu and his creatures (Yasht, xxi, 1; viii, 12); while the Fravashis (guardian spirits) likewise had this term applied to them (Yasna, lv, 3; Yasht, xiii, 30, 32, 64).

Disease of animals.

The diseases of animals were governed by the same principles as those of men, and similar measures were employed for their cure (Vendīdād, vii, 43; xiii, 35; Dīnkart, VIII, xix, 39; xxxvii, 29; xxxviii, 54).o

PART II: THE HEALING DEITIES

THE Avesta associates the origin of the healing art with Thrita (Vendīdād, xx, 2) and other divine beings or heroes, possessed of marvellous skill, who were benefactors of the human race as physicians, but they brought cures to man only in a theoretic manner, and, with the exception of Haoma and Mithra, they developed no cults.

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AHURANI ('Daughter of Ahura'), an Iranian water-goddess (cf. Yasna, xxxiii, 3) to whom the sixty-eighth chapter of the Yasna is devoted, is invoked (Yasna, lxviii, 2) "for health and healing, for prosperity and growth," as well as for other blessings of every kind. According to 9 SBE xxxvii, 48, 118, 129.

the Great Bundahishn,10 she presided especially over rain, standing waters, and the like.

AIRYAMAN

AIRYAMAN, a deity dating from the Indo-Iranian period, is celebrated in the Avesta as a benevolent being and as a healer. After the Holy Text had failed, Ahura Mazda called upon him for coöperation in expelling disease and death, saying: "I bless thee with the fair, holy blessing, the friendly, holy blessing that maketh the empty full and the full to overflow, that maketh the unsick sick, and maketh the sick man sound," whereupon he performed the rites of purification, so effectively that he caused 99,999 diseases to cease (Vendīdād, xxii, 7-19). His special prayer (Yasna, liv, 1) is "the most healing of divine manthras" (Yasht, iii, 5); and in a passage of the Great Bundahishn translated by Darmesteter11 it is he "who gives the world healing of all pains, as it is said; '[with] all the drugs that creatures take to destroy pain, if I, Auhrmazd, had not sent Irman with his power of cure, pain would indeed remain !' "' (?).

Airyaman, whose middle Persian (Turfan) equivalent means 'friend' (the modern irman, 'guest'), finds an Indian counterpart in the obscure Aditya Aryaman (apparently also signifying 'friend, comrade')." His original function is uncertain, but he acted as groomsman in the marriage ceremony (Rigveda, X, lxxxv, 36-43; Yasna, liv, 1); and he has accordingly been interpreted as representing marriage," while others regard him as an incar10 Darmesteter, Le Zend-Avesta, i, 267; cf. Dhalla, Theology, pp.

141-142.

11 Darmesteter, op. cit., ii, 319.

12 Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, iii, 77-90. 13 Dhalla, Civilization, p. 81.

nation of submissive piety1 or as "a god of rain and fertility who is essentially helpful to man," whence his function of healer naturally developed among the Zoroastrians.15

AREDVI SŪRA ANAHITA

AREDVI SŪRA ANAHITA ('Lofty, Mighty, Spotless [Lady]'), a divinity of the waters, especially of the mystic river Aredvi (Visparad, i, 5; Yasht, i, 21; Vendīdād, vii, 16),1a is the only deity, except Mithra, who is mentioned beside Ahura Mazda in the Achæmenian inscriptions (Artaxerxes Mnemon, Susa a, 5; Hamadan, 6). The fifth Yasht is devoted entirely to her laudation, and from it we learn that she dwells among the stars, guarding all holy creation. To her countless sacrifices are offered, among her suppliants being not only earthly heroes, including Yima, Thraētaona, and Zoroaster, but even divine beings like Haoma, and Ahura Mazda himself. The prayers of the righteous she grants, but those of the ungodly, such as Azhi Dahāka, she rejects. She rides in a chariot drawn by four white steeds created by Ahura Mazda, and they are, respectively, wind, rain, cloud, and sleet; while so detailed is the description of her that some scholars" hold that she was represented in glyptic form, particularly as Berossos tells us (apud Clemens Alexandrinus, Protreptica, V, lxv, 3) that Artaxerxes Mnemon introduced statues of her among the Persians.

14 Darmesteter, op. cit., i, 350.

15 A. J. Carnoy, "The Iranian Gods of Healing," in JAOS, 1918, xxxviii, 295.

16 Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur im Altertum, pp. 45-50, etc., identifies this river with the Oxus; but it is, in all probability, wholly mythical.

17 Darmesteter, op. cit., ii, 364-365; A. V. W. Jackson, "Images and Idols (Persian)," in ERE vii, 153, hesitates to accept this interpreta

The Avesta states (Yasna, lxv, 2; Yasht, v, 2, 5, 87; Vendidād, vii, 16) that she purifies the semen virile and the womb, gives easy delivery, and creates milk in the breasts, besides being, in general, healing (Yasna, lxv, 1) and entreated for health of the body (Yasht, v, 53).

The cult of Anahita, who may be Semitic or Elamite in origin,18 spread widely in the ancient world, notably in Armenia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Lydia, and she was identified with the Great Mother of the Asianic peoples; while in Greece she was commonly equated with Artemis, and occasionally with Aphrodite."

20

ASHI

ASHI ('Reward, Destiny'), the genius of sanctity, representing "the life of piety and its concomitant reward," and standing physically for plenty, morally for righteousness, and eschatologically for the heavenly reward of earthly sanctity," is celebrated in the seventeenth Yasht. The daughter of Ahura Mazda and Spenta Armaiti, and the sister of Daena ('Religion') and of the Amesha Spentas, as well as of Sraosha, Rashnu, and Mithra, she was invoked by Haoma, Yima, Thraētaona, Zoroaster, Vishtaspa, and others. She brings riches, abundance, and prosperity; she increases offspring and abominates celibacy and impurity; and as a healing deity she possesses all remedies of waters and kine and plants (Yasna, lii, 2; cf. lx, 4; Visparad, ix, i-2; Yasht, xiii, 32;

18 Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 66, 238-239; id., The Treasure of the Magi, p. 88.

19 H. Gelzer, "Zur armenischen Götterlehre," in BKSGW, 1896, xlvi, 111-117.

20 F. Cumont, "Anahita," in ERE i, 414-415; also Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, p. 1594.

21 Gruppe, op. cit., pp. 1094, 1265, 1552.

22 Dhalla, Theology, pp. 43, 122.

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