Story of Yima - Jamshid
The builder of a perfect enclosure (vara) to preserve creation during a winter cataclysm.
In the first days of creation, when the world was fresh and the sun shone upon mountains unscarred, Ahura Mazda looked down and saw humankind fragile and uncertain. He called upon Yima, the shining king, and said, “Take up the care of this earth, for I have given you farr, the divine glory. Guard creation and let it prosper.”
Yima bowed, but he did not wish to be a priest or prophet. Instead, he pledged to be shepherd of the world. And so it was: under his hand the earth flourished. He drove out sickness, lengthened the lives of men and women, and filled the land with cattle and crops. The people sang his name, and every valley rang with plenty.
As the years passed, the earth grew full. Yima raised his golden staff, struck the soil, and three times he widened the world. First by one-third, then by another, and at last to threefold its measure. Meadows opened, rivers lengthened, and forests stretched to the horizon, so that every creature found its place.
But the joy of those days was shadowed by a warning. Ahura Mazda spoke again: “O Yima, a winter shall come, harsh and unending, sent by the Lie-Spirit to scourge the world. Frost will fall thick, snow will bury the mountains, and life will wither unless you prepare.”
Then Yima built the Vara — the Great Enclosure. With his golden staff he marked its boundary, a place sheltered beneath the earth yet bright within. There he gathered the seeds of creation: of every beast and bird, of every tree and herb, of men and women fair of form and strong of limb. He set them two by two within, each chosen for beauty and health, so that when the storm raged above, life would endure below.
Within the Vara flowed a river of clear water. Sun and moon shone with their own light, and stars glittered overhead though the walls were sealed. Cattle grazed in green fields, birds sang in groves, and the chosen people walked in peace. There was no sickness, no hunger, no death — only the preservation of all that was good.
Outside, the winter came. The snow fell deep, the frost cracked stone, and the breath of the Lie covered the world. Crops failed, beasts perished, and men shivered in caves. Yet within the Vara, Yima’s people were safe. They watched the seasons of destruction pass as if they were but shadows on the walls.
For long years they remained hidden, until the storm abated and the earth once more grew warm. Then Yima opened the gates, and from the Vara came forth the seeds of life to renew the world. Forests sprouted, herds spread across plains, and humankind walked again beneath the open sky.
So the story tells: Yima, though later fallen through pride, was once the preserver of creation, the builder of the Vara that carried life through the storm. And in the telling, his name is remembered not only as a king, but as a savior who held the world safe in its most perilous hour.
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