What is "aeshma"

Aeshma (, ) is the Younger Avestan name of Zoroastrianism's demon of "wrath." As a hypostatic entity, Aeshma is variously interpreted as "wrath," "rage," and "fury." His standard epithet is "of the bloody mace."

Tri-syllabic aeshma is already attested in Gathic Avestan as aēšəma, though not yet—at that early stage—as an entity. The word has an Indo-Iranian root, descendant of the Proto-Indo-European root *eis, making it cognate with the Latin īra. In the Zoroastrian texts of the 9th–12th centuries, aeshma appears as Middle Persian eshm or kheshm, continuing in Pazend and New Persian as kashm. Judaism's Asmodeus ( Talmudic ʼšmdʼy, Book of Tobit asmodios) derives from Avestan aeshma. daeva. The Georgian language word for devil—eshmaki—likewise derives from aeshma.