Aban (Āb/Ābān)

In Zoroastrian cosmogony Aban (Avestan apas) is among the primordial material creations: water is described as the second of the seven creations after the sky. From Aban issues the great sea (Vourukasha/Varkash) and the world-encircling rivers that flow east and west; in Bundahishn accounts the tidal sea (Putik/Putika) cleanses waters before they return to the great sea. Aban as the collective waters are thus foundational to the ordered, life-sustaining cosmos and are ritually and calendrically acknowledged (the tenth day of each month is dedicated to waters; the eighth month is named Aban; the Abanagan/Aban Ardvisur Jashan is celebrated when the day- and month-names coincide).

Sources treat Aban primarily as a collective divine principle rather than a single anthropomorphic figure. Linguistically Apas is a feminine noun in Avestan and the waters are characterized as female hypostases — called the Ahuranis or 'wives of the Ahura' in Yasna Haptanghaiti. While related named divinities such as Aredvi Sura Anahita developed prominent iconography in later tradition, the canonical descriptions emphasize the waters themselves (waves, drops, streams, rivers, wells, sea) and association with sacred emblems such as the water-lily (Bundahishn 27.24) rather than providing a single standardized human form for Aban.

Aban embodies and regulates all forms of water and is described as Mazda-made and holy. As the collective waters the Apas nourish and give life ('mothers of our life'), sustain ritual purity, and function cosmologically as the source and reservoir of the world's waters (Vourukasha and its rivers). Aban operates within a network of divine relations — associated with Apam Napat, the Amesha Spentas Haurvatat and Armaiti, and the named waters-deity Aredvi Sura Anahita — and is the object of ritual strengthening (notably the ape zaothra rite within the Yasna) and veneration (Aban Yasht, Abanagan). The sources present these capacities in terms of elemental, ritual, and cosmological function rather than as arbitrary magical feats.