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AṦA, “truth” in Avestan, from Indo-Iranian *ṛtá-, a neuter noun having the same meaning. The religious poet drives the true words of his hymn as the charioteer the horses; the metaphors of Indo-Iranian poetry are taken from the world of warriors. From that we can conclude that there were in that period no classes like those attested later in the Avesta and the Veda. Nomad feudalism will have prevailed with cattle breeding as the most important economic basis. The poet follows the truth as follower of a feudal lord; “troops of truth”; “combatant of truth;” “to uphold the truth”; “to venerate the truth”; “to serve truth”.
Many scholars understand aṧa- and Vedic ṛtá- as also meaning “order” (cosmic order, social order, moral order) or “righteousness." “(Lord) Wisdom (is) the father of truth:” The hymns are mainly devoted to the association of abstract concepts with Wisdom: "Truth", "Good Thinking”, “Dominion”, “Devotion”, “Reward”, “Life”, “Wholeness”, “Obedience”. A central theme in the Gathas is that Ahura Mazdā is identical with these abstract powers. They coincide and merge in Ahura Mazdā. The underlying aim is to make them “aspects” of Ahura Mazdā. Dominion is a form of truth and results from truth. Since the Aməṧa Spəṇtas represent the totality of good moral qualities, it is easy to understand why the other Aməṧa Spəṇtas were assigned evil counterparts.
JEH, name of a female demon in a small number of Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts. The name of Jeh is commonly, but with little justification, translated as “whore.” That word is used in a number of different meanings, but it appears to have originally meant “woman”. The word is used in a pejorative sense, to denote women who are somehow flawed; women who do not produce children; adulterous women, dressing inappropriately or by behaving immodestly. This theme of adultery, in addition to the theme of sorcery, was apparently understood as its basic meaning when Zoroastrian scholars in the Sasanian period began to study and interpret the whole body of Avestan texts.
A small number of passages, however, speak of a demoness named Jeh, who was made famous as Jeh, the Primal Whore by R. C. Zaehner (esp. pp. 183-92). In the fourth chapter of the Bundahišn (q.v.), the story is told of the initial stages of the struggle between Ohrmazd (see ) and Ahriman (q.v.). When they had sealed the pact that bound them to battle, Ahriman realized that his efforts would be fruitless because of Ohrmazd’s creation of the Righteous Man. This brought him into a state of unconsciousness that lasted 3,000 years.
One by one, his demons told him of their wicked plans, in order to awaken their lord, but this did not work, until Jeh came and told him of her plan to attack the good creation by perverting the righteous man. This restored Ahriman to consciousness, and he rewarded Jeh by kissing her on her forehead, which caused her to menstruate (the “mark” [daxšta-] passed on to mortal women since), and by promising to give her whatever she wanted. At that moment, she was shown (presumably by Ohrmazd) the image of a young man, and she chose as her reward the love of men, which Ahriman grudgingly granted her.
A more likely background to the myth of Jeh can be found in two aspects of her personality: the fact that she is Ahriman’s wife, daughter, and Queen of Hell and the fact that she threatens the Righteous Man, Ohrmazd’s chief aide in the battle against evil. These aspects are the exact inversion of the most important characteristics of the goddess Spandārmad in Middle Persian literature, who is described as Ohrmazd’s queen, daughter, and wife. This imagery appears to have developed fairly late in the Zoroastrian tradition and in being thus elevated to the position of “mother of creation,” Spandārmad appears to have usurped various aspects of other goddesses (Aši [q.v.] and Anāhitā [see ]), especially as an image of the desirable behavior of married women.
A largely parallel story has been preserved by the Syrian theologian Theodore Bar Koni (Benveniste; see ), with one dramatic difference: in his version of the story, it is not a demoness who is rewarded by Ahriman, but it is women themselves, who were created by Ohrmazd, but defected to the Evil Spirit. By combining these two passages, from the Bundahišn and from Bar Koni, Zaehner believed he could prove that in Zurvanism (a purported “heretical” variety of Zoroastrianism), women were seen as creatures of Ahriman. He attempted to support this striking idea by collecting various Zoroastrian passages which spoke about women in negative terms and then simply claiming them to be Zurvanite. These suggestions were picked up and elaborated upon by Geo Widengren and others, but they have since been shown to be unsoundly based (De Jong).
In such a context, where Ohrmazd and Spandārmad embodied and patronized the ideal of good men and women, united in marriage and dedicated to virtue, it is understandable that Ahriman also needed a wife, who would embody those aspects of female behavior that were considered most damaging to the cause of good. Since the word jeh was obviously in use for adulterous women who engaged in sorcery, a hypostatized Jeh eminently fitted the profile. But the development was late and remained confined to two texts: the Bundahišn and Zādspram. It did not develop into a fixed part of Zoroastrian cosmogonical myths and did not eclipse the use of the word jeh in its technical, human meaning.
