Page:History of Zoroastrianism.djvu/269

Rh 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. Ahura Mazda's Fravashi is the greatest, the best, the most beautiful, the most courageous, the most wise, the most efficacious, the most righteous. Even the sky, waters, earth, plants, animals, and all objects of the kingdom of goodness, are not without their special Fravashis. 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. 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.