Ameretat

Ameretat is attested in the oldest Zoroastrian hymns (the Gathas) and in later Avesta and Pahlavi cosmological texts. In Bundahishn cosmological narrative, when Angra Mainyu/Ahriman withers the primordial plant, Ameretat is said (in that work) to have crushed it to pulp and mixed it with water, after which Tishtrya spreads the water as rain and many plants arise; Bundahishn chapters also describe the White Haoma and passages in which the ambrosia or nectar of immortality is prepared from White Haoma or in some chapters from Ameretat herself for the final renovation (Bd. 19.13; 26.113; 30.25).

Textual sources treat Ameretat primarily as an abstract divine principle/personification rather than supplying a consistent anthropomorphic iconography. The Avestan name is grammatically feminine and later Middle and New Persian continuations describe her as female; Middle Persian forms include Amurdad (Pahlavi) and later Mordad/Amordad. No detailed physical description is provided in the cited sources; she is frequently identified with aspects of plant life and sustenance.

Ameretat functions both as the abstract concept of immortality/perpetual life and as a divine guardian of long life, especially through association with plant creation and nourishment. She is invoked as the Amesha Spenta of long life on earth and perpetuality in the hereafter, cooperates with divinities such as Rashnu, Arshtat, and Zam, and in Bundahishn material plays a regenerative role in restoring the primordial plant. Some Pahlavi chapters describe her role in the production of the ambrosia/nectar of immortality at the final renovation.