and the Bridge of Judgment, likewise Apam Napat, Haoma, Dahma Afriti, and Damoish Upamana, invoked along with Anaghra Raochah.[1] It is the name of the highest paradise.[2]
Asman
Firmament deified. In its original meaning Asman means the sky; it is later personified as the genius of the sky, and invoked as a Yazata.[3] He is shining, exalted, and powerful. Asman and Vahishta Ahu, or Paradise, are invoked together,[4] and the twenty-seventh day of the Zoroastrian month is called after the name of Asman.
Ushah
The female divinity of dawn. Ushah is identical with the Vedic Ushas, and is the female divinity of the dawn in both religions, thus coming down from the common Indo-Iranian period. It is she who announces as the first glimpse of light, to creation, the approach of dawn. Ushah's personality is very faintly pronounced both in the Rig Veda and in the Younger Avestan texts. The Vedic poets have, however, produced most exquisite lyric poetry in praise of the dawn in about twenty hymns. There is only a short Avestan hymn in prose composed to celebrate the dawn and even this has but six lines devoted to the subject of the composition. Here she is described as beautiful, resplendent, possessed of bright steeds, blessed, and heroic; and her light illumines all the seven zones.[5] Auxiliaries to Ushah are Ushahina and Berejya and Nmanya. In fact Ushahina, who is also a male personification of dawn, is the name of the fifth period of the day, and the prayer consecrated to Ushah bears his name. The priest at the sacrifice undertakes to propitiate Ushahina by sacrifice, if he has in thought, word, deed, or will offended him.[6]
