Six thousand years ago, in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, there lived a people known to linguists and archaeologists as the Proto-Indo-Europeans. They were sheep and cattle herders, probably nomadic, which is why they left few archaeological sites. They had no written script, so we cannot directly read their stories. But the language they spoke is the progenitor from which over four hundred modern languages evolved — everything from Assamese to Sinhala to Gujarati to Greek to Gaelic.

By fitting together clues from these latter-day descendants, some bits of the ancient language and culture can be reconstructed. Among the Proto-Indo-European words the linguists are surest of is the name of a god, Dyeus, the Sky-Father. The name of this powerful deity became Zeus in Greek, Deus in Latin, deva and devata in Sanskrit; it is the root of the English word “deity” itself, as well as “devil”. It has been borrowed into Dravidian languages too, becoming theyyam (“spirit”) in Malayalam and Deyyam (“ghost”) in Telugu.

In Avestan, the ancient Iranian language of Zoroastrian scripture, the word became Daeva; and in later Persian, this evolved to Dev.

In Zoroastrianism, the Devs are a class of demonic giants or “rejected gods”. They were created by Angra Mainyu, the destructive spirit and principle of evil, from the demonic essence, to battle the Yazatas or angels of Ahura Mazda.

There are six arch-Devs:

• Akoman, the Dev of evil intent.
• Indar, the Dev who constrains virtuous thought.
• Savar, the Dev of corruption, lawlessness, and drunkenness.