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According to theZoroastriancosmogony,Mashya andMashyana were the first man and woman whose procreation gave rise to the human race.
The names are fromAvestan, nominally transliterated asmašyā andmašyānē, but like other Avestan words also, spellings (and hence transliterations) vary from manuscript to manuscript.Mašyā may thus also appear asmaṣ̌iiā ormaš́iiā ormašiiāi (and variants).
Originally and etymologically,Mašyā means "mortal being" as Old Persianmartya, Persianmard and evenSanskritmartya also mean "mortal" and therefore "man". The root in Avesta and Sanskrit for death ismar,mr, "to die". The causativemâr means "to kill". Its derivativesmerethyu/mrtyu means "death";mareta andmaretan means "mortal", and then "man, human being"mashya. For more on the etymology of theaša andarta variants of these terms, seeAvestan phonology.
According to thecreation myth as described in theBundahishn,Ohrmuzd's sixth creation is the primeval beastGayomart, who was neither male nor female.Ahriman, the Spirit of Evil that dwelt in the Absolute Darkness, sought to destroy all that Ohrmuzd had created, and sent the demonessJeh to kill Gayomard. In this she was successful, butMah, the moon, captured his seed before the animal died, from which all animal life then grew. From Gayomard's corpse grew a tree, the seeds of which were the origin of all plant life, and from the branches of which grew Mashya and Mashyana.
They promised to aid Ohrmuzd in his battle with Ahriman, and gave birth to fifteen sets of twins which scattered around the Earth and became the races of mankind.
Indo-European connections toAsk and Embla have been proposed. InNorse mythology, Ask and Embla were the first man and woman, created from trees and given various gifts of life by three gods. According toBenjamin Thorpe "Grimm says the word embla, emla, signifies a busy woman, from amr, ambr, aml, ambl, assidous labour; the same relation as Meshia and Meshiane, the ancient Persian names of the first man and woman, who were also formed from trees."[1]
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