In Tradition
According to Denkard 3.157, it is due "to the superior assistance and friendship" of Airyaman (→ MP Erman) that a physician can heal through medicinal herbs. The physician's medical skills depend on the quality of his relationship with Airyaman. In the same section, Airyaman's healing powers are said to be "hidden" or have "occult efficacy." He has the God-commanded power to cure 4,333 kinds of diseases.
The Avesta's identification of Airyaman with Asha Vahishta (→ MP Ardavahisht) is carried forward into Zoroastrian trandition. In Denkard 8.37.13, Airyaman's role as healer is even shared with Asha Vahishta: While Airyaman is responsible for corporeal health, Asha Vahishta is responsible for spiritual health.
In the eschatology of Zoroastrian tradition, "Fire and Airyaman will melt the metals that are in the mountains and hills, and they will flow over the earth like rivers. And they will make all men to pass through that molten metal and thereby make them clean." Similarly, in the Bundahishn (completed 12th century), the proper noun airyaman is an epithet of the saoshyant, an eschatological figure who brings about the final renovation of the world. Like the divinity Airyaman, the saoshyant is closely connected to Asha Vahishta.
In a Pazend nuptial hymn that continues to recited as Zoroastrian weddings, the divinity of health is invoked as the guardian of matrimony. The doctrinal foundation of this identification is Yasna 54.1 (reiterated in the hymn), which invokes Airyaman "for the joy of the marrying couple."
In present-day Zoroastrianism, the Gathic airyaman ishyo prayer is considered to be an invocation of the divinity Airyaman.
Read more about this topic: Airyaman
Famous quotes containing the word tradition:
“Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created. The average conservative is a slave to the most incidental and trivial part of his forefathers’ glory—to the archaic formula which happened to express their genius or the eighteenth-century contrivance by which for a time it was served.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“In former years it was said that at three o’clock in the afternoon all sober persons were rounded up and herded off the grounds, as undesirable. The tradition of insobriety is still carefully preserved.”
—For the State of Vermont, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)