Daeva
demon of Persia
A daeva (Avestan: 𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬎𐬎𐬀 daēuua) is a Zoroastrian supernatural entity with disagreeable characteristics. In the Gathas, the oldest texts of the Zoroastrian canon, the daevas are "gods that are (to be) rejected". This meaning is – subject to interpretation – perhaps also evident in the Old Persian "daiva inscription" of the 5th century BC. In the Younger Avesta, the daevas are divinities that promote chaos and disorder. In later tradition and folklore, the dēws (Zoroastrian Middle Persian; New Persian divs) are personifications of every imaginable evil. Over time, the Daeva myth as Div became integrated to Persian mythology.
Daeva, the Iranian language term, shares the same origin of "Deva" of Hinduism, which is a cognate with Latin deus ("god") and Greek Zeus. While the word for the Vedic spirits and the word for the Zoroastrian entities are etymologically related, their function and thematic development are altogether different. Originally, the term was used to denote beings of cultural folklore which predate use in scripture.
Equivalents for Avestan daeva in Iranian languages include Pashto, Balochi, Kurdish dêw, Persian dīv/deev. The Iranian word was borrowed by Old Armenian as dew, Georgian as devi, Urdu as deo with the same negative associations in those languages.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1157107. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Daeva” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.