Spenta Armaiti
Also known as: Spandarmad, Esfand, Armaiti
Mythological Narrative
One of the Amesha Spentas, the Beneficent Immortals: devotion personified, called Ahura Mazda's daughter in the Gathas, and in later tradition the guardian of the earth, whom Yima asks to stretch wider to hold the growing world.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## In the Gathas
Armaiti, 'right-mindedness' or 'devotion', is one of the qualities of Ahura Mazda that the Gathas address almost as persons. One hymn (Yasna 45.4) calls her his daughter, the doer of good deeds. With Truth (Asha), Good Mind (Vohu Manah), Dominion (Khshathra), Wholeness (Haurvatat), and Immortality (Ameretat), she belongs to the group later called the Amesha Spentas, the 'Beneficent Immortals', each of whom came to be associated with one part of the good creation.
## Guardian of the earth
Armaiti's part is the earth. In the Vendidad, when the world has grown too crowded, Yima presses the earth with his golden seal and calls on her by name: 'O Spenta Armaiti, kindly open asunder and stretch thyself afar', and the earth grows larger. Middle Persian texts make Spandarmad the guardian of the earth and of good women.
## Esfand
The twelfth month of the Iranian calendar, Esfand, and the fifth day of each month bear her name, and the festival of Sepandarmazgan, when the day and month names coincide, was traditionally a festival of women and of the earth; it has been revived in modern Iran.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Spenta Armaiti.
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