SAOSHYANT. — From the verb *sav*, Old Persian, meaning "to benefit" (whence the future participle *saoshyant* "benefactor"), in the most ancient Avesta it is a generic epithet of ZARATHUSTRA and other beneficent spirits in the form of liberators from the powers of evil. In Mazdean eschatology, which belongs to the later Avesta, that epithet is applied as a personal name to the liberator who, at the end of the world, will rise up and deal the final defeat to the evil spirits who follow AHRÎMAN. S. will be born from the seed of ZARATHUSTRA, preserved for millennia in the waters of the lake of Khausava (Ka[n]saoya, Yast, 19, 66) and absorbed by a virgin during a bath. In 2398 A.D. (since ZARATHUSTRA was born 3000 years after the creation of the first man GAYŌ.MARETAN and the world will end 3000 years after the time of ZARATHUSTRA; according to the traditional calculations of later Mazdeism: (Dhalla, op. cit. in bibl. p. 424) the conflagration of the world will occur and everything will end with the complete victory of the principle of Good, with the destruction of ANGRA MAINYU and his maleficent spirits and with the renewal of the world.
Mithraism, which is an autonomous offshoot of Mazdeism developed in Cappadocia, has identified S. with MITHRA and makes the tauroctony the representation of the great final sacrifice with the tasting of bull’s fat and ambrosia (haoma), which will bring the consummation of all things (Bundahish, 30).
It is to be noted that the idea of the future savior remained in Persia even after the forced conversion of the country to Islam, and it can be recognized in the belief in the hidden imam, peculiar to Ismaili Shiism, an imam who will manifest himself to the world as a guide (mahdi) when the times are ripe.