History of Zoroastrianism/Chapter 23

by Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla

 

CHAPTER XXIII

 

FRAVASHIS

 

The divine double in man. The belief in a double of the living and dead, animate or inanimate things, which influences the objects or persons has prevailed among different peoples from primitive times.

The Egyptians believed in man's higher double whom they named Ka. The Ka, in the early period of history, was supposed to belong only to the kings, but later all human beings were believed to possess it. At the individual's death he went to his Ka who interceded for him with God, provided him with food and looked after his welfare and protection.

In the Vedas the disembodied spirits are called the pitrs or the Fathers. Two hymns are dedicated to them. They live in the third heaven. Their abode, which is situated in the south, is called pitrloka. They have extended to heaven and earth with Soma,^[1] and inhabit earth, air, and heaven. They feast with the gods,^[2] and ride on the celestial car with Indra and other gods.^[3] They adorn the sky with stars and give light and darkness.^[4] They are divided into lower, higher, and middle grades and are classed as earlier or later. They are invoked collectively,^[5] or individually.^[6] They are invited to come with Yama, Vivasvat, and Agni to partake of the offerings. They come in thousands to the sacrificial repast.^[7] They are fond of Soma.^[8] They are asked to give riches, offering, and long life to their sons.^[9] They are implored to help, intercede, and protect their worshippers and not to harm their descendants.^[10]

Plato taught that the sensual objects that constitute the world were but the imperfect copies or reproductions of the quasi-personified Ideas that constituted true reality. These transcendental Ideas are the contents of the creative mind of God. This supreme Deity creates the World-Soul, whom we have equated with Spenta Mainyu in previous pages. The Avestan text says the Fravashis stood ready for help, when Spenta Mainyu created the world with Angra Mainyu.^[11] It is expressly said in a passage that the souls of the dead that have become the Fravashis of the righteous owe their origin to Spenta Mainyu and to Best Mind.^[12] Plato likewise says that the World-Soul who bears the images of the Ideas, fashioned the World-Body or the creatures after the pattern of the Ideas.

Aristotle postulated a second independent principle in addition to the soul which moved the body and carried on rational activity. This is the spirit which constitutes the real essence of the individual. Man is thus divided into body, soul, and spirit.

Philo distinguishes between the soul and the pneuma. This pneuma, which the Platonists, Aristotelians, and Stoics of his time call Noûs, is the image of the deity and constitutes the true nature of man. The transcendent God reveals himself through the divine Ideas which are his thoughts and will, in the form of creative forces. As the Fravashis are not classed among the Yazatas, so these divine Ideas, says Philo, are not angels, but are personified abstract ideas. They manifest the energy of God. The Fravashis, as we shall see anon, help Ahura Mazda in the maintenance of the world, so these Ideas administer the work of God. They impart reality to the creation. Order in the creation is preserved through them. The Fravashis are not all of equal grade,^[13] so these Ideas also are not of equal rank. The Fravashi represents Ahura Mazda in man, so does the rational part of the soul stand for the type of the Logos. Plutarch speaks of two principles in man, the spirit and the soul. The spirit, he says, is immortal, whereas the soul is not. In the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom, an emanation of God, selects from the divine Ideas those that are fit for actualization and creates them.

The dead, according to the early Roman belief, were gathered to a group of spirits called Di Manes. The idea of the Genius or the divine double accompanying every individual during his lifetime arose in the period of the Republic. The Genius lived with the individual as long as he lived. At death he lost his individuality and was gathered to the Di Manes. Under Greek influence the idea of individuality developed. The idea arose that the Genius lived after death. Di Manes became individualized protecting spirits instead of an individualized group. During the lifetime of man his Genius was divine, after his death the Genius continued to live as one of the Manes. During lifetime the Genius received divine honours, after death his Manes received offerings as a God. The Manes came down to earth and influenced the living members of the families among whom they had lived. They required propitiation.

Numenius of Apamea, writing in the second century, speaks of two souls in man. The one is rational and the other is irrational. The great Alexandrian theologian Origen (a.d. 185–254) speaks of the twofold psychic division of man. He says with others that man is endowed with a soul and a spirit. He then explains the relation between the soul and the spirit, which exactly resembles that between a man's soul and his Fravashi in the Avestan texts. The Fravashi of a man serves as an ideal, which the soul has to endeavour to realize. The soul has to strive after, imitate and emulate its Fravashi and ultimately become one with it after death. The texts speak of the souls of the dead that are the Fravashis of the righteous.^[14] Origen's teachings help us to understand the final identity of the soul and the Fravashi. The spirit, he says, is like unto a master or director of the soul during lifetime. It applauds or accuses the soul for its good or bad deed, and reminds it of its duty. If the soul behaves according to the dictates of the spirit, it ultimately becomes the spirit, but if it revolts from the spirit, it remains divided from the spirit, when the bodily life of the individual ends. The soul, he says, is the spirit in the process of redemption. It has therefore to put off its nature as soul and become spiritual.

What are the Fravashis. A class of higher intelligences playing a most prominent part in the Mazdayasnian pantheon, and receiving sacrifices and adoration from the world of humanity, is that of the Fravashis, or guardian spirits and prototypes of mankind in its purest creation. The Gathas do not mention these beings, but the word fravashi, or fravarti, has a corresponding form in the Persian name of the Median King Phraortes (647 b.c.), and also of the Median rebel mentioned in the Behistan inscription of Darius.^[15] The Yasna Haptanghaiti mentions them for the first time.^[16] One of the longest of the Yashts is dedicated to the Fravashis. The last ten days of the year, including the five intercalary days, are specially set apart for their cult. Besides, the nineteenth day of every month is consecrated to their memory,^[17] and the first month of the Iranian calendar receives its name after them.

The Fravashis, we have seen, resemble the Vedic Pitrs, the Roman Manes, or the Platonic Ideas. True though it is that they share some common traits with these and have striking resemblances to them, yet, after all, they are not wholly the same as these. The manifold nature of their cult offers a complicated and stubborn problem to students of Iranian theology.

Primarily, the Fravashis constitute a world of homonyms of the earthly creations, and they have lived as conscious beings in the empyrean with Ahura Mazda from all eternity. The multifarious objects of this world are so many terrestrial duplicates of these celestial originals. The Fravashis constitute the internal essence of things, as opposed to the contingent and accidental. Earthly creations are so many imperfect copies of these types. They are the manifestations of the energy of Ahura Mazda. When nothing existed and Ahura Mazda lived in his sublime singleness, he had the ideas, concepts of the material and spiritual creation which he contemplated creating in time. We have recognized the projection and manifestation of his will and thought and the emanation of his creative mind as Spenta Mainyu. Origen, the Alexandrian philosopher, is right when he says that the Logos represents the sum total of the worldthoughts of God. Spenta Mainyu is the embodiment of Ahura Mazda's prototypal ideas which are called Fravashis in the Avestan texts. Creation is the materialization of these idealized contents of his mind and through him of Ahura Mazda's mind. These idealized contents of the divine mind are the Fravashis and the creatures are their feeble replicas. The Fravashis are not mere abstractions of thought, but have objective existence and work as spiritual entities in heaven, like the angels and the archangels, until they come down to this earth voluntarily, as we may infer through later statements in the Pahlavi texts. They migrate to this world, and are immanent in the particular bodies that come into being after their divine images.

Everything that bears the hall-mark of belonging to the good creation has its Fravashi. Every object which has a name, common or proper, is endowed with a Fravashi. Ahura Mazda, the father of all existence, has his Fravashi, and so have the Amesha Spentas and the Yazatas.^[18] Ahura Mazda's Fravashi is the greatest, the best, the most beautiful, the most courageous, the most wise, the most efficacious, the most righteous.^[19] Even the sky, waters, earth, plants, animals, and all objects of the kingdom of goodness, are not without their special Fravashis.^[20] Thus beginning from the supreme godhead down to the tiniest shrub growing in the wilderness, every object has this divine element implanted in it. It is only Angra Mainyu and the demons, who are evil by nature, that are without it.

As Spenta Mainyu is not a personal being, he has no Fravashi. On the other hand he seems to us to be the Fravashi of Ahura Mazda.^[21] The ideal of Fravashi implies imperfection in the person to whom it belongs. Man becomes perfect when his soul realizes and reaches its Fravashi. It is the same with the heavenly beings. Vohu Manah realizes his Fravashi, when he smites Aka Manah that stands for his imperfection. Asha; Vahishta will reach perfection when he will ultimately rout Druj. Ahura Mazda has contemplated, devised a perfect world of which the symbol is Spenta Mainyu. The world is yet evolving towards the perfect state which Ahura Mazda has thought out. Ahura Mazda, therefore, will realize his Fravashi or Spenta Mainyu, when Angra Mainyu, the father of imperfection, will perish and the world will be a new world, a better world, a perfect world, an ideal world.

During the lifetime of the individual, his Fravashi accompanies him to this earth. When a child is born its Fravashi that has existed from all eternity now comes down to this earth as the higher double of the child's soul. The soul is the ego proper, the real I-ness. Every individual soul is accompanied by its Fravashi.^[22]

This Fravashi acts as a guardian spirit, a true friend, and an unerring guide of the soul. Hers is the divine voice of an infallible monitor who now advises and now admonishes the soul, now applauds its action, and now raises a voice of warning at a threatening spiritual danger. This divine agent in man, we may infer, sits enthroned by the side of the soul as an ideal ever attracting the soul towards herself. This ideal goal is the one towards which the soul should strive. Though living in the tabernacle of clay on earth with the soul, and in the midst of the storms of passion and vice, the Fravashi remains unaffected and untouched, ever pure and ever sinless. From the time the soul embarks on its unknown voyage to this world, as we can judge from Zoroastrian teachings, its Fravashi leads it, day and night, to the path of safety, and warns it of the rocks and shoals, storms and cyclones. If it is off the track, the Fravashi hoists the danger signal. The bark moves smoothly so long as the soul follows the wise counsels of its guide. But as soon as it revolts from the heavenly pilot, it exposes the bark to danger at every turn. The vessel now drifts along on the unmapped ocean without any one at the helm to direct it to the right course, is tossed on the roaring waves, is left to the mercy of the changing wind, and is in danger of being wrecked.

The soul alone is responsible for the good or evil deeds done in this world, and it receives reward or retribution in the next world according to its desert. At the death of the individual when the soul thus advances to meet its fate, its guardian Fravashi returns to the celestial realm, but lives now an individualized life as the Fravashi of a certain person who has lived his short span of life on earth.

Qualities of the Fravashis. The Fravashis are usually designated as the good, valiant, and holy. They are the liberal, the most valiant, the most holy, the most powerful, the most mighty, and the most effective.^[23] They are the swiftly moving when invoked, the bestowers of victory, health, and glory.^[24] Their friendship is good and lasting, and they are beautiful, health-giving, of high renown, and vanquishing in battle.^[25] They are efficacious, the most beneficent, and the smiters of the arms of the tyrant foes.^[26] They are girt with the blessings of piety as wide as the earth, as long as a river, and as high as the sun.^[27] They are the strongest in moving onwards, the least failing wielders of weapons, the invulnerable, the shield-bearing, clad with iron helmets and weapons.^[28] Their power and efficiency are simply inconceivable and beyond description.^[29]

Their work. Like the higher celestial beings, the Fravashis are allotted their respective tasks in the creation of Ahura Mazda. They are the ones who stood ready for help to the godhead when the two spirits first met to create the universe.^[30] It is through them that Ahura Mazda maintains the sky and the earth.^[31] Ahura Mazda expressly is stated as saying that, had they not rendered him help, animals and men could not have continued to exist, because the wicked Druj would have smitten them to death, except for the guardianship of the Fravashis.^[32] The waters flow, and the plants spring forth, and the winds blow through their glory.^[33] Through their radiance and glory females conceive offspring, and have easy childbirth.^[34] Through them it is that Ahura Mazda forms and develops the organs of the child in the womb of its mother, and protects it from death;^[35] moreover, patriotic sons destined to win distinction are born unto women on their account.^[36] They first gave movement to the waters that stood for a long time without flowing.^[37] The trees that stood without growing began to grow, and the stars and the moon and the sun that had stood motionless, owing to the opposition of demons, received their movement through them^[38] and have ever since gone along their paths of progress owing to the influence of the Fravashis.^[39] They protect the river Ardvi Sura Anahita^[40] and watch over the sea Vourukasha and the stars Haptoiringa.^[41] They uphold the sky and the waters, and the earth and the cattle, and preserve the lives of the children.^[42]

Fravashis help the living. These spiritual forces wield great power in both the worlds, rendering great help to those who invoke them, and keeping watch and ward about the abodes in which they once had lived. In the field of battle, moreover, they help the fighting armies to victory. Awful and vanquishing in battle, they smite and rout the foes, and bring triumph unto those who invoke them.^[43] The heroes invoke them to succour them in the battle.^[44] When the ruling chief who finds himself in danger on the battlefield invokes them with offerings, they come flying unto him like winged birds and fight gallantly in his behalf against his foes. They become to him a weapon and a shield; they guard him on every side, protecting him with the strength that a thousand men would use in guarding one man, so that neither sword, nor club, nor arrow, nor spear, nor any stone may injure him.^[45] They rush down in great numbers in the thick of the battle to crush the foes.^[46] They cause havoc in the battlefield, and smite the malice of the demons and wicked men.^[47] The nations against whom the Fravashis march are smitten by their fifties, and hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands, and myriads.^[48] Both the vanquisher who pursues his foe and the vanquished who flees from the field invoke them to grant them swiftness in running.^[49] The Fravashis turn to help that side which has first invoked them with uplifted hands and heart-felt devotion.^[50] They hasten for help to the righteous, but for harm to the wicked.^[51] They are ever anxious to aid their kindred and countrymen, and they give course to the waters so that they may flow to the land they inhabited during their lifetime.^[52] The householders pray that the august Fravashis may come to their, houses with blessings of righteousness as wide as the earth, as long as the rivers, and as high as the sun.^[53]

Ahura Mazda advises Zarathushtra to invoke them for help whenever he finds himself in danger.^[54] When the supplicant needs help of some specific nature, he invokes the Fravashi of one whom he knows to be specially endowed with the corresponding virtue during his lifetime. For instance, Yima's Fravashi is invoked to enable one to withstand drought and death,^[55] because that illustrious king is reported to have driven away these calamities from his kingdom. The Fravashi of king Thraetaona who is generally confounded by the later writers with Thrita, the reputed inventor of medicine, is invoked for help against itches, fevers, and other diseases.^[56] Similarly the Fravashis of other great men are invoked for help in the respective sphere in which they are believed to have been conspicuous during their lives.^[57]

Fravashis of the dead long for sacrifices. These are eager to communicate with the living among whom they have lived on this earth. They desire that their descendants and kindred shall not forget them. They seek their praise and prayer, sacrifice and invocation.^[58] They come down flying from their heavenly abode to the earth on the last ten days of the Zoroastrian calendar, which are especially consecrated to them, and interest themselves in the welfare of the living.

Fravashis bless if satisfied, but curse when offended. The Fravashis are entreated by the living to be propitious to them. They are besought to come down from the heavenly regions to the sacrifices held in their honour. If they are propitiated with offerings, they bless their supplicants with riches and flocks, horses and chariots, and with offspring who will serve God and their country.^[59] Those who piously solicit their benediction receive these in abundance, for the Fravashis bring down unto them from the spiritual world the very best of blessings. But those who neglect or offend them are cursed; and their curse is terrible indeed. It brings untold harm to the family. Loving as the Fravashis are when propitiated, they become dreadful when offended.^[60] Yet they never harm until they are vexed.^[61] The wise, therefore, propitiate them to gain their goodwill, and placate them to allay their wrath. The householder prays that they may walk satisfied in his house, that they may not depart offended from his abode, but may leave the house in joy, carrying the sacrifice and prayer to Ahura Mazda and the Amesha Spentas.^[62] They are implored to accept the offerings and be propitiated thereby.^[63] They are asked to come with riches as widespread as the earth, as vast as the rivers, as high as the sun, in order to help the righteous and harm the wicked.^[64] Those who honour them attain to power and greatness.^[65]

Fravashis of the righteous ones of one's family, clan, town, or country invoked individually. The survivors of the dead commemorate the pious memory of their departed ancestors. The members of a family sacrifice unto their elders, the citizens laud their patriots and heroes, and the devout revere the sacred memory of their sainted dead. The latter part of the Yasht that is consecrated to the Fravashis treats of the great personalities of Iran that have illumined the pages of her history in various ways. The Fravashis of the righteous men as well as women of all times and places who have worked for the furtherance of righteousness, and who have contributed to the welfare of mankind are constantly commemorated.

Fravashis of the righteous ones of all ages and all places invoked collectively. These celestial beings are invoked in a body by the faithful. The supplicant generally winds up his prayers by announcing that he sacrifices unto the Fravashis of the righteous from the time of the first man, Gaya Maretan, up to the time of the advent of Saoshyant at the end of the world.^[66] Not only are the Fravashis of the departed ones commemorated, but those of living persons, as well as those of persons that are still to be born in future ages, are also equally honoured with praise and invocation.^[67]

In addition to this, the righteous ones of all the Aryan countries, nay what is still more, even those who are righteous among the Turanians, the national foes of the Iranians, receive their share in this homage to the saintly ones.^[68] The commemoration list ends with explicitly mentioning the righteous ones of all countries of the world.^[69] The individual is thus taught to recognize his fellowship with the human beings of all ages and all places. Herodotus attests that a Persian does not pray for himself, but for the whole nation and his king.^[70]

The faithful may infer from the spirit that runs through the Zoroastrian scriptures that there are no breaks in the life story of humanity. Each individual is a unit in the long line of countless generations between the first and the last man. He realizes his individuality in his own age and place. Each generation is the product of the past and parent of the future. It finds itself placed in the midst of religious, social, economical, and political institutions of the past and inherits the accumulated heritage of the wisdom and civilization of the collective humanity that has lived before it. The past has made the present in body, mind, and spirit; and the present has to make the future physically, mentally, and spiritually. No generation can live exclusively by itself and for itself. To the past it owes a deep debt of gratitude, to the future it is bound by parental duty. A wise parent instinctively works for the good of his children, and no age can be regardless of the material and spiritual welfare of those that are to follow it in time. Each age has its righteous persons by the million, who further the human progress. The Fravashis of such only are commemorated. Those that have wilfully chosen to tread the path of wickedness and hamper the onward march of humanity towards perfection do not share this honour, the highest that collective humanity confers upon its dutiful children of all ages and places. The Pneuma, likewise, in the New Testament is not associated with unrighteous persons.

Dual nature of the Zoroastrian ancestor-worship. The commemoration of the Fravashis of the dead represents but one phase of ancestor- worship. As we have already seen, the spiritual prototype of man is something apart from and above his soul. It is the soul that constitutes the individuality of his person, and it is natural for the survivors to feel that they should look to the soul of the dead for the continuity of communication with them. The sacrifices and prayers offered to the Fravashis are primarily for soliciting their help and favour. Those offered to the soul of the dead on the anniversaries soon take a vicarious form and rest on the central idea that the performance of rites by the descendants enables the soul of the dead to progress from a lower to a higher place in the next world. Thus man's

 

1. RV. 8. 48. 13.
2. RV. 7. 76. 4.
3. RV. 10. 15. 10.
4. RV. 10. 68. 11.
5. RV. 7. 33. 1; 10. 15. 8.
6. RV. 1. 36. 18.
7. RV. 10. 15. 10, 11.
8. RV. 10. 15. 1, 5, 6.
9. RV. 10. 15. 7-11; AthV. 18. 3. 14; 4. 62.
10. RV. 10. 15. 2, 5, 6.
11. Yt. 13. 28, 29, 76.
12. Yt. 22. 39, 40; see also Kanga, A New Interpretation of the Spenta Mainyu of the Gaithas … the Progenitor of Fravashis in the Avesta … Bombay, 1933.
13. Yt. 13. 17.
14. Ys. 16. 7; 26. 7, 11; 71. 23; Yt. 22. 39.
15. Bh. 2. 24, 31, 32, 35; 4. 52.
16. Ys. 37. 3.
17. Ys. 16. 5.
18. Ys. 23. 2; Yt. 13. 80, 82, 85.
19. Ys. 26. 2.
20. Yt. 13. 74, 86.
21. See my article Ahura Mazda's Fravashi in The Indo-Iranian Studies in honor of Darab Sanjana, p. 115, 116.
22. Ys. 26. 4; 55. 1.
23. Yt. 13. 75.
24. Yt. 13. 23, 24.
25. Yt. 13. 30.
26. Yt. 13. 31.
27. Yt. 13. 32.
28. Yt. 13. 26, 45.
29. Yt. 13. 64.
30. Yt. 13. 76.
31. Yt. 13. 1, 2, 9, 22, 28, 29.
32. Yt. 13. 12, 13.
33. Yt. 13. 14.
34. Yt. 13. 15.
35. Yt. 13. 11, 22.
36. Yt. 13. 16.
37. Yt. 13. 53, 54.
38. Yt. 13. 55-58.
39. Yt. 13. 16.
40. Yt. 13. 4.
41. Yt. 13. 59, 60.
42. Ys. 23. 1.
43. Yt. 13. 40.
44. Yt. 13. 23, 27.
45. Yt. 13. 63, 69-72.
46. Yt. 13. 40.
47. Yt. 13. 33.
48. Yt. 13. 48.
49. Yt. 13. 35.
50. Yt. 13. 47.
51. Yt. 13. 39.
52. Yt. 13. 65-68.
53. Ys. 60. 4.
54. Yt. 13. 19, 20.
55. Yt. 13. 130.
56. Yt. 13. 131; WFr. 2. 2.
57. Yt. 13. 104, 105, 132-138.
58. Yt. 13. 49, 50.
59. Yt. 13. 51, 52.
60. Yt. 13. 31.
61. Yt. 13. 30.
62. Yt. 13. 156, 157.
63. Yt. 13. 145, 147.
64. Ys. 60. 4.
65. Yt. 13. 18.
66. Yt. 13. 145.
67. Ys. 24. 5; 26. 6; Vsp. 11. 7; Yt. 13. 21.
68. Yt. 13. 143.
69. Yt. 13. 144.
70. Herod. 1. 132.