Yazata

Yazata (Avestan, “one worthy of worship” or “venerable being”) is the Zoroastrian term for the divine beings who serve Ahura Mazda, govern aspects of creation, and receive veneration from the faithful. The Yazatas are not gods in competition with Ahura Mazda but divine agents of his will — presences through whom the invisible order of Asha becomes tangible in the specific domains of existence they govern.

The Yazatas as governing presences

The Yazatas are assigned governance of specific aspects of creation: Mithra governs the sun, light, and covenants; Sraosha governs obedience and the divine word; Atar governs fire; Anahita governs water; Tishtrya governs the star Sirius and the rains. Each Yazata’s domain is not merely symbolic but real — to honor Mithra is to take covenants seriously; to honor Atar is to tend fire with reverence; to honor Anahita is to treat water as sacred rather than merely useful.

Yazatas in the five gehs

The Geh Prayers practice — the five daily prayer watches that sanctify the Zoroastrian day — is organized entirely around the Yazatas who preside over each watch. Havan (sunrise to noon) is presided over by Mithra. Rapithwin (noon to mid-afternoon) by Asha Vahishta. Uzirin (mid-afternoon to sunset) by Apam Napat. Aiwisruthrem (sunset to midnight) by the Fravashis. Ushahin (midnight to dawn) by Sraosha. Each geh prayer addresses the presiding Yazata and sets an intention aligned with that Yazata’s domain.

This structure means that the practitioner moves through five different divine presences in a single day, encountering covenant, righteousness, hidden fire, ancestral protection, and obedient vigilance in turn. The Yazatas are not distant — they are the texture of the day itself, present in its turning hours.

Yazatas and the Amesha Spentas

The seven Amesha Spentas — Vohu Manah, Asha Vahishta, Khshathra Vairya, Spenta Armaiti, Haurvatat, Ameretat, and Spenta Mainyu — are the highest of the Yazatas, the direct emanations of Ahura Mazda himself. The other Yazatas — Mithra, Sraosha, Atar, Anahita, Tishtrya, and many more — are sometimes distinguished from the Amesha Spentas, sometimes included within the broader category of Yazatas. In either case, the structural point is consistent: Ahura Mazda governs through a hierarchy of divine presences, each embodying a specific virtue or governing a specific aspect of creation, and each accessible to the devoted practitioner through prayer and righteous conduct.

The Yashts as the Yazatas’ own scripture

Where the household prayers name the Yazatas in passing, the Yashts are hymns addressed to them directly and at length — twenty in total, one or more for each major Yazata: the Ohrmazd Yasht for Ahura Mazda himself, the Mihr Yasht for Mithra, the Tishtar Yasht for Tishtrya, the Frawardin Yasht for the Fravashis, the Aban Yasht for Ardvi Sura Anahita, and others besides. Each opens with a near-identical formula — “we sacrifice unto” the Yazata by name, followed by an enumeration of the being’s qualities and the sacrifices due — establishing yazata as a liturgical category with its own dedicated genre of scripture, not merely a term used loosely of any divine figure.

Yazata and human aspiration

The word yazata — “worthy of worship” — also implies a standard. The Yazatas are worthy of worship because they embody the qualities Asha demands: truth, justice, compassion, vigilance, devotion. The practitioner who invokes them is not merely asking for help but aspiring to resemble them. In the Dawn Salutation, Mithra is hailed as “the most beneficent one” who “surveys the whole land” — the invitation being to see one’s own day through the same wide, just, covenant-keeping vision.