Jahi

Also Known As: Avestan jahi, a word for a loose woman; Middle Persian Jeh, also written Jeh or Geh in older translations; classed among the druj, the female fiends of the Lie
Region/Culture: West Asia/Middle East
Mythos: Zoroastrian Mythology, Persian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Demons and Devils
Mythical Attributes: Jahi is a female fiend whose look alone dries up a third of the rivers, withers a third of the plants and saps a third of the earth’s strength.
Role in Mythos: She is the demon who rouses the Evil Spirit from three thousand years of stupor and so sets off his attack on the good creation.
Relation to Humans: Jahi drains the good thoughts, words and deeds of any faithful man she touches. The Middle Persian books say menstruation first appeared in her and passed from her to women, which is the ground the old purity laws stand on.

For three thousand years the Evil Spirit lay in the dark and would not get up. He had seen the first man, bright and upright at the centre of the new world, and the sight had knocked the fight out of him. His demons came to him one after another. Each listed the damage it would do, the hunger, the rot, the fevers, and begged him to rise and make war. He listened to all of them and did not move.

Then Jeh came.

That is how the Bundahishn tells it, the Zoroastrian book of creation written down in Middle Persian. Jeh is the later form of an older name, Jahi, and she is the one voice in hell that the devil could not ignore. She spoke to him as the others had, and at first she did no better. So she spoke a second time. She promised to pour so much misery on the righteous man and the toiling ox that life would stop being worth having. She would take the soul out of them. She would trouble the water, the plants and the fire, and spoil everything the good god had made. Hearing it twice was enough. The Evil Spirit came out of his long stupor, delighted, and kissed her on the head.

The kiss left a mark. The book says that the impurity called menstruation appeared in Jeh at that moment, the first time it had appeared anywhere. Then he asked what she wanted as a reward. She asked for a man. Now the Evil Spirit’s own body, the text says, was a thing like a lizard or a frog, and he knew it would not do. He showed himself to her instead as a young man of fifteen, and she fixed her desire on that.

What followed is the central disaster of Zoroastrian myth. The Evil Spirit and his host went up against the lights of heaven, then dropped through the sky like a snake. He burst into the world at noon on the first day of spring. He fouled the water, bored into the earth, blighted the plants, killed the sole-created ox and brought sickness and death on Gayomard, the first man, who lasted thirty years more. Smoke mixed with fire. Biting and crawling things spread over the ground so thickly that a needle’s point could not have been set down between them. All of it traces back to one speech and one kiss.

She is older than that story. In the Avesta, the scripture in the ancient Iranian tongue, jahi is first of all an ordinary harsh word for a woman of loose life. One chapter of the Vendidad, the book of law against the demons, turns the word into something more. The prophet asks the good god who grieves him most, and the answer is the Jahi. She mixes the seed of the faithful with the seed of the faithless. Then comes a list of what she does simply by being present. Her look dries up a third of the streams that run from the mountains. Her look stops the growth of a third of the golden plants. Her look takes a third of the strength from the earth. Her touch strips a faithful man of a third of his good thoughts, a third of his good words, a third of his good deeds, and a third of his power to win. The chapter ends by ruling that such a one deserves death more than a gliding snake or a howling wolf.

A small picture survives elsewhere in the same scripture. At the pressing of the sacred haoma plant, with the mortar ringing and the green juice running, the worshipper turns away a polluting woman who has sat herself down to eat what was set out for the god. That is the Jahi at her daily work, where a crust of offering and a moment’s carelessness are all she needs.

The priests filed her under a larger heading. Druj is the Avestan word for the Lie, the force of falsehood and disorder that stands against truth in every part of the faith. The word is feminine, and the Vendidad uses it freely for female fiends, among them the corpse demon Nasu and a nameless Druj who boasts to the angel Sraosha about the four kinds of sinner that make her fruitful. Jahi is a druj in that sense. She is one of the shapes the Lie takes when it wants to walk about.

Nobody describes her. That is odd for a figure so strongly tied to desire, and it may be deliberate. The texts care about what she does to a river, a field, or a man’s resolve. They give her no hair, no eyes, no height. The only body in her story that gets described is the devil’s, and he is hiding it.

It is a hard doctrine. A later Middle Persian writer, Zadspram, says plainly that the Evil Spirit appointed Jeh to defile women, and that monthly bleeding comes of it. The rules that kept a Zoroastrian woman apart from fire, water and the household during her period rest on that idea. The myth blames a demon, and the law fell on women.

Her power is the power to diminish. She breaks nothing outright. She takes a third of the stream and a third of the virtue, and she can talk despair itself back onto its feet. She works by sight, by touch and by speech, which are the ways one person spoils another’s day.

Her limits are those of every creature of the Lie. The holy word recited aloud is named as a cure for her. She can lessen what the good god made but cannot unmake it, and the two thirds she never reaches are the measure of that. She also needed the righteous man to be mortal. The stories say he will not always be.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Jahi in Zoroastrianism?

Jahi is a female demon in Zoroastrian tradition, known in Middle Persian as Jeh. She stands for sexual licence and defilement. In the Bundahishn she is the companion of the Evil Spirit, Ahriman, and the one who persuades him to attack the good creation.

What did Jahi do to wake Ahriman?

Jahi woke Ahriman by promising him ruin. He had lain stunned for three thousand years out of fear of the righteous man, and no other demon could rouse him. Jahi told him twice how she would torment the righteous man and the ox and spoil the water, plants and fire, and at the second telling he rose and kissed her.

What is the link between Jahi and menstruation?

In the Bundahishn, menstruation first appears in Jahi when the Evil Spirit kisses her on the head. The later writer Zadspram adds that the Evil Spirit appointed her to defile women, and that this is the cause of their monthly bleeding. Zoroastrian purity rules about menstruation rest on this story.

What does Jahi’s gaze do?

According to the Vendidad, Jahi’s look dries up a third of the mountain streams, withers a third of the growing plants and takes a third of the strength from the earth. Her touch removes a third of a faithful man’s good thoughts, words and deeds.

What is the difference between Jahi and druj?

Druj is the Avestan word for the Lie, the principle of falsehood that opposes truth in Zoroastrianism, and it is also used as a name for female fiends in general. Jahi is one particular fiend of that class. The corpse demon Nasu is another.