User:Warrior4321/articles/Gāh

Gāh is a Middle Persian and New Persian word meaning time.

Time

In Zoroastrianism, a Gah is one of the five time divisions applied to the 24 hour day. There is no current Avestan term found to represent these divisions. According to Boyce, the pre-Zoroaster Iranians divided the day into three divisions for prayer and worship, sunrise, noon, and sunset.

The day is currently divided into five divisions of worship:

• Havan (from sunrise to noon)

• Rapithwan (from noon until 3 PM)

• Uziren (from 3 PM to sunset)

• Aiwisruthrem (from sunset to midnight)

• Ushahen (from midnight to sunrise)

At each division, a separate obligatory prayer exists which is mainly consisted of verses from the Gathas. These prayers contain invocation of the divinities that watch over each of the divisions. The five daily prayers, each to be prayed in it's period of the day are an important binding duty on every Zoroastrian. It is part of his necessary service to his God to pray these daily prayers to aid in the fight against Angra Mainyu and evil.

Each of the five divisions are under the protection of it's own divinity. They also divided the day into two periods, the morning under the protection of Mithraand the afternoon under the protection of Apam Napat. The night constituted of a blank third period which was assigned to the Fravashis of the dead. Zoroaster asked his adherents to create two more divisions for prayer, one at midnight and one at noon. The division that he created at noon was created because noon was the time when time froze during creation, and will freeze once again during frashokereti. This division was placed under the protection of Asha Vahishta. This division is only present during the summer when the Spenta powers are in the ascendant. During the winter months, when the Daevas are in the ascendant, the month was assigned to Havani under the protection of Mithra, becoming the second Havan. The other division that Zoroaster created was at midnight. This division split the night in two, leaving the first half of the night under the protection of the Fravashis while the second half of the night, called Ushah was put under the protection of Sraosha. These five Gahs also have 5 days dedicated to their divinity on the Zoroastrian calendar. Originally, the Zoroastrian calendar consisted of 360 days, but Zoroastrian priests added the 5 Gah days to the calendar under the reign of Ardashir I. Traditionally, each day in the Zoroastrian calendar had a divinity devoted to that day, who was invoked on the day dedicated to them. However, the 5 Gah days were created to be outside of the regular religious calendar and be added on to the 360 days calendar.

At the beginning of each Gah, a ceremony is performed at the Agiarys and Atash Behrams. The ceremony begins with a priest of the Dastur or Mobed ranks to recite the Atash Nyaish prayer one to seven times, depending on the priest while simultaneously offering sandalwood to the fire. Following the completion of the prayers, the priest will take any of the recent ash that was formed from the sandalwood and offer it to any of the Zoroastrians in the praying room in a metal bowl-like container or on the metal ladle used to offer sandalwood to the fire.

Other meanings

In the Younger Avesta, the word's common meaning is place, specifically proper or appointed place, or place for sitting or lying such as a couch. In Old Persian, the common meaning of the word was a place of standing such as a platform. In Babylonian and Elamite translations, the word translates to throne.

Bibliography

• Boyce, Mary (1990), Textual sources for the study of Zoroastrianism, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 9780226069302
• Boyce, Mary (2001), Zoroastrians: their religious beliefs and practices, Routledge, ISBN 9780415239028
• Edwards, Linda (2001), A brief guide to beliefs: ideas, theologies, mysteries, and movements, Westminster John Knox Press, ISBN 9780664222598