Div (Persian mythology)
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A div (earlier Persian dēv, Middle Persian dēw, Avestan daēva) is an evil spirit in Persian mythology that loves to cause harm and destruction. However, some divs may be benign, actually helping the protagonist. Usually, such a myth contains both benign and evil divs, the former helping the protagonist overcome the latter.
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[edit] Etymology
Daēva is the Avestan form of the reconstructed Proto-Iranian word *daivah, an exact cognate of Proto-Indo-Aryan *daivas, Sanskrit devaḥ, meaning "god" or "deity".
Both *daivah and *daivas descend, via expected sound-changes, from Proto-Indo-European *deywos, an adjective meaning "celestial" or "shining", whose other descendants include Latin deus and Lithuanian dievas "god", and via the Proto-Germanic Teiwaz and Tîwaz, the Old Norse deity Tyr.
Cognate to the Sanskrit asura is the Avestan and later Persian ahura, which by the time of Zarathustra (Zoroaster) was the term for the "right" kind of divinity that opposed the daeva, the "wrong" kind of divinity. As such, by c. 1000 BCE, the Avestan terms were the moral opposites of their Sanskrit equivalents.
The process by which a general term for any divinity acquired the sense of "evil spirit" has occasioned much speculation; however, the semantic shift is prehistoric, and the only certainty is that words descended from *daivah have evil connotations in all Iranian languages.
[edit] Description
A div is usually pictured as a being with combined human and animal characteristics; they have two arms and legs like a human, but they may be dark blue, bright red, chalk-white or spotted; they are often hairy, and have a tufted tail like a lion; their faces are bestial, with sharp fangs, horns, and animal-like snouts, or in some cases the beak of a bird; for feet they might have clawed talons or hooves (though ordinary feet are more common); and though they are fond of gold ornaments, they wear very little in the way of clothing, and often display enormous genitalia.
[edit] Word Meaning
Div literally means "demon," seen in Dīv-e Sapīd ("White demon") from the story of Rostam and the White demon.
Divs are mentioned frequently in Persian epic Shahnameh, where the story of Rostam and the white demon comes from, they inhabit the province of Mazandaran in northern Iran.
[edit] In popular culture
- In Final Fantasy X-2, Daeva is a demon-like enemy.
- The game Aveyond features a demon with powerful servants he refers to as Daevas.
- In Supernatural (TV series) Sam and Dean encounter a Daeva when Meg summons one to kill them both.
- In the Prince of Persia series, it is belived that Kaileena is Daeva because of her abilities to read the timeline of fate, turn people into monsters, etc.
- In The Redemption of Althalus (by David and Leigh Eddings), Daeva is an evil God, brother to Deiwos and Dweia.
