Haptoiringa.[1] They uphold the sky and the waters, and the earth and the cattle, and preserve the lives of the children.[2]
Fravashis help the living. These spiritual forces wield great power in both the worlds, rendering great help to those who invoke them, and keeping watch and ward about the abodes in which they once had lived. In the field of battle, moreover, they help the fighting armies to victory. Awful and vanquishing in battle, they smite and rout the foes, and bring triumph unto those who invoke them.[3] The heroes invoke them to succour them in the battle.[4] When the ruling chief who finds himself in danger on the battlefield invokes them with offerings, they come flying unto him like winged birds and fight gallantly in his behalf against his foes. They become to him a weapon and a shield; they guard him on every side, protecting him with the strength that a thousand men would use in guarding one man, so that neither sword, nor club, nor arrow, nor spear, nor any stone may injure him.[5] They rush down in great numbers in the thick of the battle to crush the foes.[6] They cause havoc in the battlefield, and smite the malice of the demons and wicked men.[7] The nations against whom the Fravashis march are smitten by their fifties, and hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands, and myriads.[8] Both the vanquisher who pursues his foe and the vanquished who flees from the field invoke them to grant them swiftness in running.[9] The Fravashis turn to help that side which has first invoked them with uplifted hands and heart-felt devotion.[10] They hasten for help to the righteous, but for harm to the wicked.[11] They are ever anxious to aid their kindred and countrymen, and they give course to the waters so that they may flow to the land they inhabited during their lifetime.[12] The householders pray that the august Fravashis may come to their, houses with blessings of righteousness as wide as the earth, as long as the rivers, and as high as the sun.[13]
Ahura Mazda advises Zarathushtra to invoke them for help whenever he finds himself in danger.[14] When the supplicant needs help of some specific nature, he invokes the Fravashi of
