Yazatas

Yazata is the Avestan language word for a Zoroastrian concept with a wide range of meanings but generally signifying (or used as an epithet of) a divinity. The term literally means "worthy of worship or veneration", and is thus, in this more general sense, also applied to certain healing plants, primordial creatures, the fravashis of the dead, and to certain prayers that are themselves considered holy. The yazatas collectively are "the good powers under Ohrmuzd", who is "the greatest of the yazatas".

Yazata is an Avestan language passive adjectival participle derived from yaz-; "to worship, to honor, to venerate". The word yasna – "worship, sacrifice, oblation, prayer" – comes from the same root. A yaza+ is accordingly "a being worthy of worship", "an object of worship" or "a holy being".

As the stem form, yazata- has the inflected nominative forms yazatō, pl. yazatåŋhō. These forms reflect Proto-Iranian *yazatah and pl. *yazatāhah. In Middle Persian the term became yazad or yazd, pl. yazdān, continuing in New Persian as izad.

Related terms in other languages are Sanskrit yájati "he worships, he sacrifices", yajatá- "worthy of worship, holy", yajñá "sacrifice", and perhaps also Greek ἅγιος "devoted to the gods, sacred, holy".

The term yazata is already used in the Gathas, the oldest texts of Zoroastrianism and believed to have been composed by Zoroaster himself. In these hymns, yazata is used as a generic, applied to Ahura Mazda as well as to the "divine sparks", that in later tradition are the Amesha Spentas. In the Gathas, the yazatas are effectively what the daevas are not; that is, the yazatas are to be worshipped while the daevas are to be rejected.

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