Sraosha — hearkening, obedience, or more precisely the readiness to listen — is the busiest being in day-to-day Zoroastrian practice after Ahura Mazda himself. He carries prayer upward; he patrols the world at night with a raised mace while everything else sleeps, and the Avesta says he is the only yazata who never rests; he guards the soul during the three nights it remains near the body before the judgment, which is why the Srosh Baj is recited for the dead. His association with the cockerel, whose crowing announces the dawn and drives off the demon of sloth, makes killing one a serious offence and gives the bird a place in Zoroastrian iconography. In practice the Srosh Baj — a short formula invoking him — is said before an enormous range of ordinary actions, and along with the kusti prayer it constitutes most of what a Zoroastrian says in a day.