ĀXŠTI

 

ĀXŠTI (Avestan) “Peace, contract of peace.” The existence of a late Avestan divinity Āxšti (fem.) is doubtful. The common noun, “peace,” occurs several times (Yt. 10.29, 11.14; Y. 60.5; Pursišnīhā 26) but personified only in the Young Avestan litanies, in which a large number of abstract notions are personified: as direct object of yaz- “to revere” (yazamaidē, “we revere,” Yt. 11.15; [ispe]r[ed] 7.1: S[īrōza] 2.2; and yazāi “I shall revere,” Yt. 15.1), or of āvaē’ayamahī (“we invite,” Vr. 11.16), and associated with Vohu Manah (S. 1.18, 2.2). In Middle Persian literature there seems to be no trace of a divinity Āštīh “Peace.” In the Avestan litanies āxšti is accompanied by hąm.vaintī which Bartholomae (AirWb., col. 311) took as an adjective “victorious” (conceivably by haplology from the present participle *hąm.vanaintī) but which is more likely to be the substantive “victory” (with an unusual full grade of the root before the suffix -ti).

 

Bibliography:

AirWb., col., 311.

Gray, Foundations, pp. 138ff.

E. Benveniste and L. Renou, Vṛtra et Vṛθragna, Paris, 1934, pp. 54ff.

H.-P. Schmidt, Vedish vratá und awestisch urvata, Hamburg, 1958, p. 137 n. 67 (with criticism of Benveniste and Renou).

On hąm-vaintī see also K. F. Geldner, Studien zum Avesta, Strasburg, 1882, p. 119.

S. Wikander, Vayu, Lund, 1942, pp. 16ff.

J. Kellens, Les noms-racines de l’Avesta, Wiesbaden, 1974, pp. 44ff.

Search terms:

آخشتی   akhshti aakhshti

 

(B. Schlerath)

Originally Published: December 15, 1987

Last Updated: August 18, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 2, pp. 122-123