Drvaspa

Drvaspa is the Avestan language name of an "enigmatic" and "strangely discreet" Zoroastrian divinity, whose name literally means "with solid horses" and which she is then nominally the hypostasis of.

The female genius of cattle.
She is a female genius of the animal world. As the guardian of herds, she is invoked in company with Geush Tashan and Geush Urvan.-" A Yasht (9) is consecrated to her and bears her name, or more familiarly that of Gosh or Geush Urvan. Drvaspa moves about in her own chariot. Mazda has made her heroic and righteous. She is the bestower of health upon the cattle and kine. She watches well from afar, gives welfare and long-continuing friendship. She is nourishing, courageous, well-formed, possessed of weal, giver of health, and powerful helper of the righteous.

Her sacrificers. The Yasht gives a list of her supplicants who have asked her to grant them various boons. They are the same persons that invoke Ashi Vanghuhi and pray for the same boons that they ask from her. The only difference between the forms of invoking Drvaspa and Ashi is that no offering is made to Ashi by any of her supplicants, whereas, in the case of Drvaspa we see that with the exception of Haoma and Zarathushtra the other heroes, Haoshyangha, Yima, Thraetaona, Haosravah, and Vishtaspa, bring to her offerings of a hundred horses, a thousand oxen, ten thousand small cattle, and the libations.

The 33 verses of Yasht 9, the hymn to Drvaspa, are—appropriately adjusted—copies of verses 27–52 of Yasht 17, which is dedicated to Ashi. This has in turn prompted a suggestion that Drvaspa was once an epithet of Ashi, and as is common in Indo-Iranian religious tradition, the epithet developed into a name of an independent divinity.
Because the hymn to Drvaspa is a copy of a section of the hymn to Ashi, and a part of this section also appears in the hymn to Aredvi Sura Anahita, these three divinities share several characteristics.


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