Zamyad (Zam) Yasht 19.4/5 Translation & Notes. Hushang Subjugates Divs, Yatus & Pairikas

Yat upangha-chat haoshyanghem paradhatem
That revere Haoshyangha, the Paradhata (first law-giver)
[Sanskrit upangha=to see with reverence and devotion]

darekhem-chit aipi zrvanem
for a long time

yat khshayata paiti bumim haptaithyam
when he-ruled over earth's seven-lands,

daevanam mashyanam-cha
(over) daevas and men,

yathwam pairikanam-cha
(over) yatus¹ and pairikas²,

sathram kaoyam karafnam-cha
(over) oppressors, blind, and deaf;

yo janat dva-thrishva
who smote two-thirds

mazainyanam daevanam
(of) Mazana³ daevas

varenyanam-cha drvatam.
and Varenya⁴ fiends

Notes:
[We do not necessarily agree with these definitions but include them in the interests of scholarship.]
¹yatus. (cf. Darmesteter, Avesta Vol. 4, p. lxvi) The Vedic Yatus are found unaltered in the Avesta. The Yatu of the Vedas are demons who take any form they please, the wizard-fiend, Similarly, in the Avesta the name is extended to Yatu-man, the sorcerer.

(cf. Michael W. Ford, Glossary Of Luciferian Terms) Yatus [Avestan/Pahlavi] – A group of ‘demons’ or sorcerers who practice Yatukih sorcery and Daeva-Yasna. The Yatus were led by Akht-Jadu, Akhtya. They were also considered nomads in nature, wandering through all parts of Persia practicing their religion.

(cf. Michael W. Ford, ibid) Akht [Avestan/Pahlavi] – The Sorcerer who was the embodiment of the Yatus, the demonic forces of Ahriman (see below). Akht-Jadu or Kabed-us-spae as he was called was mentioned in Matigan-i Yosht-i Fryan. Akhtya was the founder and member of the Yatus, a coven of ‘demons’ and sorcerers who wandered Persia, practicing and developing sorcery. The name Akht itself means ‘evil’ (cf. Aka), ‘filth’ and ‘pestilence’, thus relates to the initiatory nature of Akhti as a sorcerer of the Adversary, by the darkness shall he come into light. Akhtya or Azyta is thus considered a symbol of the Zanda, which is an Apostle or Priest of Ahriman.

(cf. Michael W. Ford, ibid) Ahriman [Avestan/Pahlavi] – The Prince of Darkness in Zoroastrian Religion. Ahriman is also known as Angra Mainyu, the evil or averse spirit. Ahriman is a sorcerer who achieved long, but not eternal, existence and power in darkness and shadow. One who creates his desire in flesh. In relation to the sorcerer or practitioner of Yatuk-Dinoih, the individual seeks by developing their own system of sorcery, to become like Ahriman, just as did Akht-Jadu in the Zoroastrian tales. Ahriman is called the Great Serpent or Dragon, whose spirit is a shape shifter and tester of flesh and mind. It was considered in some Zoroastrian tales that Ahriman and the Daevas, his demonic angels, existed between the earth and the fixed stars. In creation myths, Ahriman first saw light and sprang into the air in the form of a great snake, that the heavens were shattered as he brought darkness into light.

(cf. Michael W. Ford, ibid) Arezura [Avestan/Pahlavi] – Arezurahe griva (Arezura) in the Bundahishin is called “a mount at the gate of hell, whence the demons rush forth”. Arezura is the gate to hell in the Alburz mountain range in present day Iran. The North is traditionally the seat of Ahriman, wherein the cold winds may blow forth. Arezura from an initiatory perspective is the subconscious, the place where sorcerers may gather and grow in their arts, by encircling and manifesting their desire. M.N. Dhalla wrote in “The History of Zoroastrianism” concerning a connection with demons holding mastery over the earth, their ability to sink below the earth and that such demons around the time of Zoroaster walked the earth in human form. In the Denkard, it is described that one who becomes a vessel for the “evil religion” becomes physically an abode for “Unholy Demons” or Daevas. One grows aligned to Arezura spiritually by practicing with discipline the path of Daeva-yasna or Yatukih sorcery. Arezur or Arzur is the name of an early Son of Ahriman who killed the first human.

(cf. Michael W. Ford, ibid) Daeva Yasna [Avestan/Pahlavi] – Demon (Daeva) Worship (Yasna), meaning the Yatukih path of Satanism; the separation from the natural order, by the workings of rituals and discipline – oriented mental/physical workings, becoming a body of darkness and light, a Daeva who is continually expanding consciousness and becoming something new. The term does not reflect the theistic worship or knee bending towards an exterior force, rather a willed direction of self-advancement by transformation. Daeva represents a “mask” of power, specifically to perceived energies.

(cf. Michael W. Ford, ibid) Dregvant [Avestan/Pahlavi] – In historical Zoroastrian lore, a person embodied with Druj, the Lie, Deceit, the spirit of darkness. Druj is refered as both feminine and masculine, thus is an initiatory term relating to the foremost union of Ahriman and Az, the blackened matter and fiery darkness of his bride. A Dregvant is a Yatu or initiate of the Daeva-Yasna.

(cf. Michael W. Ford, ibid) Druj [Avestan/Pahlavi] – “Lie” referring to demons, feminine and masculine. The later derived term is interestingly enough the old Persian “Draug”, meaning also “Lie” and is held connected to “Serpent”, “Snake” or “Dragon” (i.e. Worm). Druj is a title representing antinomian power in a personage, a daeva in flesh.

²parikas (cf. Darmesteter ibid, see above) With the Yatus are often associated the Pairikas [the Paris. Farg. VIII, 80]. The Pairika corresponds in her origin (and perhaps as to her name) to the Indian Apsaras [Orm.Ahr. § 142]. The light for which the storm god struggled was often compared, as is well known, to a fair maid or bride carried off by the fiend. There was a class of myths, in which, instead of being carried off, she was supposed to have given herself up, of her own free will, to the demon, and to have betrayed the god, her lover. In another form of myth, still more distant from the naturalistic origin, the Pairikas were 'nymphs of a fair, but erring line,' who seduced the heroes to lead them to their ruin.

Afterwards the Pari became at length the seduction of idolatry [Ibid, p 176, n. 6. Then pairikam, the accusative of pairika, was interpreted as a Pahlavi compound, pari-kam,' love of the Paris' (Comm. ad Farg. XIX 5)]. In their oldest Avesta form they are still demoniac nymphs, who rob the gods and men of the heavenly waters: they hover between heaven and earth, in the midst of the sea Vouru-kasha, to keep off the rain-floods, and they work together with Azi and Apaosha [Yasht VIII, 8, 39, 49-56; Yasna XVI, 8 (XVII, 46)]. Then we see the Pairika, under the name of Knathaiti, cleave to Keresaspa [Farg. I, 10]. Keresaspa, like Thraetaona, is a great smiter of demons, who killed the snake Srvara, a twinbrother of Azi Dahaka [Yasna IX, II (34); Yast XIX, 40]. It was related in later tales that he was born immortal, but that having despised the holy religion he was killed, during his sleep, by a Turk, Niyaz [Bundahishn 69,13. On Niyaz, see Orm. Ahr. p. 116, n, 9], which, being translated into old myth, would mean that he gave himself up to the Pairika Khnathaiti, who delivered him asleep to the fiend.

Yet he must rise from his sleep, at the end of time, to kill Azi, and Khnathaiti will be killed at the same time by Saoshyant [Orm. Ahr. 145. Cf. Farg. XXI, 1], the son of Zarathushtra, which shows her to be a genuine sister of Azi.

³Mazana. Mazandaran (present day Northern Iran on the Caspian coast). Mazandaran was known in popular tradition as a land of fiends and sorcerers.

⁴Varenya. Varena (Gilan), like the neighhouring Mazana (Mazandaran), was said to have been peopled by savage, non-Aryan natives considered to be men-demons.

(cf. Darmesteter ibid.) A class of demons particularly interesting are the Varenya daevas [Vide infra, § 41; Farg. X, 9; Bundahis 5,19]. The phrase, an old one belonging to the Indo-European mythology, meant originally 'the gods in heaven,' when the daevas were converted into demons (see § 41), they became 'the fiends in the heavens,' the fiends who assail the sky; and later on, as the meaning of the word Varena was lost, 'the fiends of the Varena land;' and finally, nowadays, as their relation to Varena is lost to sight, they are turned by popular etymology, now into demons of lust, and now into demons of doubt [Orm. Ahr. § 21a.].