ity, 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.[1] The Yasna Haptanghaiti mentions them for the first time.[2] 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,[3] 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.
