Ameretat — "Immortality," or "Deathlessness" — was the seventh of the Amesha Spentas, the patroness of the plants, and the inseparable companion of her sister Haurvatat the Wholeness. Where Haurvatat was the perfection of being whole, Ameretat was the perfection of being unending; the two together were the gifts that the renewed world would receive in their fullness, when the work of redemption was complete.
Her element was the plants, the green vegetable life of the world, the gift of Ahura Mazda by which living creatures were nourished. The herbs of healing, the trees that gave fruit, the grain that gave bread — all were under her care, and the Zoroastrian was particularly to honor her by tending growing things. The destruction of a healthy plant was an act of impiety against Ameretat, just as the wounding of an animal without ritual purpose was an offense against Vohu Manah's cattle. To plant a tree, to nurture a garden, to make the desert bloom — these were religious acts, cooperations with Ameretat against the powers of death.
She was sometimes connected with the haoma plant in particular — the sacred plant from which the priestly drink was prepared, identified by some as Ephedra — for the haoma was held to grant a small measure of immortality to those who consumed it ritually. So Ameretat presided over the rite of the haoma in alliance with the yazata Haoma himself, and the worshipper who drank the haoma-juice was for that moment a participant in her gift.
Her opposition was the demon Astovidhotu, "the Bone-Disconnector," who was the demon of death, who appeared at the moment of dying to lay his hand upon the soul and separate it from the body. Against him stood Ameretat, who would in the end of time, at the resurrection, restore all who had died to the immortality that was originally Ahura Mazda's intention for his creatures. The Zoroastrian doctrine that death is not original to the world but an intrusion of Angra Mainyu, and that the final state of the world will be deathless — the foundation of the Zoroastrian apocalyptic — was rooted in the doctrine of Ameretat.
