Note 5 — Chapter XVIII · The Last Solomon.

Asmodeus (identified as Aêshma by West, Bundahis xxv. 15, n. 10) has (Tobit vi. 13) slain seven men who successively married Sara, whom he (and Tobit) loved, and in Bundahis Aêshma has seven powers with which he will slay seven Kayan heroes. But one is preserved, as Tobit is. (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. V, p. 108.) Darmesteter says: “One of the foremost amongst the Drvants (storm-fiends), their leader in their onsets, is Aêshma, ‘the raving,’ ‘a fiend with the wounding spear.’ Originally a mere epithet of the storm fiend, Aêshma was afterwards converted into an abstract, the demon of rage and anger, and became an expression for all moral wickedness, a mere name of Ahriman.”