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Description
Spenta Armaiti, whose name means "Bounteous Devotion" or "Holy Devotion", is one of the six (sometimes seven) Amesha Spentas, divine emanations used by the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda to sculpt the world. She is said to embody the entire world itself, and indeed exemplifies the motherly devotion of our great Mother Earth, who shelters and feeds us without asking anything in return. Interestingly, Spenta Armaiti is poetically referred to as Ahura Mazda's daughter by Zarathustra in the Gathas, Zoroastrianism's sacred poems. Some scholars have taken this to indicate that Armaiti is actually a reflex on a Proto-Indo-Iranian Earth goddess, but I should note that this theory is not accepted by everyone. Indeed, while cognates to her name in other languages are used to apply to a few Earth goddesses in ancient India and Khotan, it is often used more like a title, generally emphasizing the more abstract concept of the bounty of the Earth. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I personally haven't seen enough evidence to make a definitive statement one way or the other yet. The Amesha Spentas in general seem to originate as abstract concepts that became personified in later tradition, not the other way around. To me it seems more likely that Spenta Armaiti got her start as the personification of the Earth's bounty created by Ahura Mazda, hence Zarathustra referring to her as the god's "daughter". More research, like always, is of course needed.

Internally, Spenta Armaiti is nonetheless revered as a sort of Mother Earth figure. She is often called upon as a protector of women, who traditionally were seen as mothers and nurturers just like the Earth herself. Indeed, the ancient Iranian holiday of Sepandarmazan was a festival of women throughout society, celebrated every year even well into the Islamic period. However, what the Earth giveth, the Earth can just as easily taketh away. While we often think of the Earth as a force of life, life of course cannot exist without death. It is the way of things. Spenta Armaiti's cognate in ancient Armenia, Spandaramet, shows this darker side to the spirit. The Armenians identified her as a goddess of the underworld, a caretaker for the dead just as much as she is a caretaker of the living. Indeed, Spenta Armaiti is said to be the one who nurtured the essence from the remains of the murdered primordial cow Gavaevodata, and redistributed it to give new life to all of Earth's creatures. Similarly, she is also said to take in and nurture the… uh… let's call it the "seed of man" which… uhhh… wasn't expressly used for conception, ensuring that life continues, even if not on this mortal plane. Not sure how happy DeviantArt will be with me including that detail, but it's educational, so I think I'm safe-

Design notes, this one gave me a bit of trouble. There's definitely room for improvement. When you think "Earth divinity", the first image that probably comes to mind is a plant theme. However, there's another Amesha Spenta which specifically represents plant life, so I didn't want to lean into that. I could've also gone for more of a stone theme, but then I thought I didn't want to give the impression that she represented "earth" as in soil or rocks as we often define in English. Spenta Armaiti is more representative of the planet as a whole, not just any one elemental aspect of it. I did my best to incorporate all walks of the Earth: water, plants, soil, stone, life, etc, but the composition ended up far from perfect. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but that's what I do. For her wings and tail, I referenced the Arctic Tern, a bird commonly cited as migrating from one pole of the planet to the other each year, a longer trip with more regularity than the vast majority of species on Earth. That, at least, I was fairly confident on incorporating into the design. A fitting little bird to represent our beautiful world.

Description
Spenta Armaiti, whose name means "Bounteous Devotion" or "Holy Devotion", is one of the six (sometimes seven) Amesha Spentas, divine emanations used by the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda to sculpt the world. She is said to embody the entire world itself, and indeed exemplifies the motherly devotion of our great Mother Earth, who shelters and feeds us without asking anything in return. Interestingly, Spenta Armaiti is poetically referred to as Ahura Mazda's daughter by Zarathustra in the Gathas, Zoroastrianism's sacred poems. Some scholars have taken this to indicate that Armaiti is actually a reflex on a Proto-Indo-Iranian Earth goddess, but I should note that this theory is not accepted by everyone. Indeed, while cognates to her name in other languages are used to apply to a few Earth goddesses in ancient India and Khotan, it is often used more like a title, generally emphasizing the more abstract concept of the bounty of the Earth. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I personally haven't seen enough evidence to make a definitive statement one way or the other yet. The Amesha Spentas in general seem to originate as abstract concepts that became personified in later tradition, not the other way around. To me it seems more likely that Spenta Armaiti got her start as the personification of the Earth's bounty created by Ahura Mazda, hence Zarathustra referring to her as the god's "daughter". More research, like always, is of course needed.

Internally, Spenta Armaiti is nonetheless revered as a sort of Mother Earth figure. She is often called upon as a protector of women, who traditionally were seen as mothers and nurturers just like the Earth herself. Indeed, the ancient Iranian holiday of Sepandarmazan was a festival of women throughout society, celebrated every year even well into the Islamic period. However, what the Earth giveth, the Earth can just as easily taketh away. While we often think of the Earth as a force of life, life of course cannot exist without death. It is the way of things. Spenta Armaiti's cognate in ancient Armenia, Spandaramet, shows this darker side to the spirit. The Armenians identified her as a goddess of the underworld, a caretaker for the dead just as much as she is a caretaker of the living. Indeed, Spenta Armaiti is said to be the one who nurtured the essence from the remains of the murdered primordial cow Gavaevodata, and redistributed it to give new life to all of Earth's creatures. Similarly, she is also said to take in and nurture the… uh… let's call it the "seed of man" which… uhhh… wasn't expressly used for conception, ensuring that life continues, even if not on this mortal plane. Not sure how happy DeviantArt will be with me including that detail, but it's educational, so I think I'm safe-

Design notes, this one gave me a bit of trouble. There's definitely room for improvement. When you think "Earth divinity", the first image that probably comes to mind is a plant theme. However, there's another Amesha Spenta which specifically represents plant life, so I didn't want to lean into that. I could've also gone for more of a stone theme, but then I thought I didn't want to give the impression that she represented "earth" as in soil or rocks as we often define in English. Spenta Armaiti is more representative of the planet as a whole, not just any one elemental aspect of it. I did my best to incorporate all walks of the Earth: water, plants, soil, stone, life, etc, but the composition ended up far from perfect. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but that's what I do. For her wings and tail, I referenced the Arctic Tern, a bird commonly cited as migrating from one pole of the planet to the other each year, a longer trip with more regularity than the vast majority of species on Earth. That, at least, I was fairly confident on incorporating into the design. A fitting little bird to represent our beautiful world.