Aka Manah

Aka Manah is the Avestan language name for the Zoroastrian daeva "Evil Mind", "Evil Purpose", "Evil Thinking" or "Evil Intention". Aka Manah is the demon of sensual desire that was sent by Ahriman to seduce the prophet Zarathustra. His eternal opponent is Vohu Manah. Aka Manah is the hypostatic abstraction of accusative akem manah (akәm manah), "manah made evil". The objectification of this malign influence is the demon Aka/Akem Manah, who appears in later texts as Middle Persian Akoman and New Persian Akvan.

In scripture

In the Gathas

The concept of akem manah is already attested in the Gathas, the oldest texts of Zoroastrianism and believed to have been composed by Zoroaster himself.

In two of the three instances where the term is used in these pre-historic texts, akem manah is an attribute of humans. In Yasna 33.4, the poet promises to counter his own "disobedience and aka manah" through worship. In Yasna 47.5, aka manah is the motivation (the state of mind) that causes deceitful actions. In the third instance where the term appears, Akem Manah is a property of the daevas, entities that in later Zoroastrianism are demons but in the Gathas are gods that are to be rejected. There, in Yasna 32.3, the daevas are identified as the offspring, not of angra mainyu, but of akem manah.