Ancien Culture and Languages

Ancien Culture and Languages

repelling evil in combat : with focus on Bahram yasht and athrava veda

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Faculty of literature and humanities, Tehran university
2 Department of ancient languages.faculty of literature and humanity. Tehran university
Abstract
Religious and ancient beliefs have a special place among Indo-Iranians. For this ancient people, the simultaneous presence of Daevas and Ahuras, evil and good forces in the universe is an obvious matter, in which evil and demonic forces always try to harm the opposite group, that is, Ahuraic and good creatures, in various forms. In such a philosophy, repelling destructive and damaging forces that are in constant conflict with their opposing group makes the necessity of using all kinds of spells, amulets and other mysterious rituals natural and inevitable for a warrior nation that wants to win the battle. The same origins of the Indo-Iranian peoples make many similarities in the ancient rituals, creeds and myths, as well as the ancient language of both nations, Vedic and Avestan, which were once a united tribe. After their separation, they keep a lot of their believes and rituals, in spite of changes. These changes resulted from the cultural mixing of the Iranian branches of the Indo-Iranian, after entering the Iranian plateau, with great non-Aryan native civilizations. In this research, we have tried to examine the Bahram Yašt, which is dedicated to the warrior god Bahram in Avesta, and compare it with the Athrava Veda, to look at the similarities in the customs of warding off the evil of demonic forces in both mentioned cases. The evidence of such similarities are as follows: similarities in the use of the supernatural power of the Holy Word, the use of sacred plants (case in point: Haoma/Soma), the use of special animals with magical powers or a part of their bodies (case in point: Warigna/feather), and the use of special stones (case in point: Siguir/Pebble).
Keywords

Volume 4, Issue 1 - Serial Number 6
September 2023
Pages 133-154

  • Receive Date 18 December 2023
  • Revise Date 19 February 2024
  • Accept Date 24 February 2024