Search Results for “mithra”

• MITHRA

  Multiple Authors

  i. Mitra in Old Indian and Mithra in Old Iranian   ii. Iconography in Iran and Central Asia   iii. in Manicheism

• MITHRA i. MITRA IN OLD INDIAN AND MITHRA IN OLD IRANIAN

  Hanns-Peter Schmidt

  Indo-Iranian god, with name based on the common noun mitrá “contract” with the connotations of “covenant, agreement, treaty, alliance, promise.”

• MITHRA iii. IN MANICHEISM

  Werner Sundermann

  The Iranian Manicheans adopted the name of the Zoroastrian god Mithra (Av. Miθra; Mid. Pers.Mihr)and used it to designate one of their own deities.

• MITHRA ii. ICONOGRAPHY IN IRAN AND CENTRAL ASIA

  Franz Grenet

  On coins of the Arsacids the seated archer dressed as a Parthian horseman has been interpreted as Mithra. In the Kushan empire Mithra is among the deities most frequently depicted on the coinage, always as a young solar god.

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• MITHRAISM

  Roger Beck

  the cult of Mithra as it developed in the West, its origins, its features, and its probable connection with Mithra worship in Iran.

• MEHRAGĀN

  Simone Cristoforetti

  an Iranian festival apparently dedicated to the god Miθra/Mehr, occurring also in onomastics and toponymy.

• DĀTAMIΘRA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Iranian personal name resulting from an inversion of Miθra-dāta- “given by Mithra” and continued in the New Persian Dādmehr.

• CAUTES AND CAUTOPATES

  William W. Malandra

  the two dadophoroi or torch bearers who often flank Mithras in the bull-slaying scene and who are sometimes shown in the birth scenes of Mithras.

• AŠTĀD

  G. Gnoli

  Old Iranian female deity of rectitude and justice.

• AHURA

  F. B. J. Kuiper

  designation of a type of deity inherited by Zoroastrianism from the prehistoric Indo-Iranian religion.

• RAŠN

  William Malandra

  Avestan Rašnu, the deity of the ancient Iranian pantheon who functions as the divine Judge.

• GORZ

  Jalil Doostkhah

  or gorza, gorz-e gāvsār/sar, lit. "ox-headed club/mace,"  a weapon often mentioned and variously described in Iranian myths and epic. In classical Persian texts, particularly in Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma, it is characterized as the decisive weapon of choice in fateful battles.

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• ARIZANTOI

  C. J. Brunner

  one of the six tribes of the Median nation as listed by Herodotus.

• DURIS OF SAMOS

  RÜDIGER SCHMITT

  (Gk. Doûris), (ca. 340-281/270 B.C.E.), Greek historiographer of the early Hellenistic period.

• AHURA.ṰKAĒŠA

  M. Boyce

  an infrequent Avestan adjective meaning “following the Ahuric doctrine.”

• BĀGAYĀDIŠ

  R. Schmitt

  name of the seventh month (September-October) of the Old Persian calendar, mentioned in Darius I’s Behistun inscription.

• ČISTĀ

  Jean Kellens

  and Čisti; Avestan derivatives of the verb cit “to notice, to understand.”

• APĄM NAPĀT

  M. Boyce

  (Son of the Waters), Zoroastrian divinity of mysterious character whose true identity, like that of his Vedic counterpart, Apām Napāt, has been much debated.

• HERTEL, JOHANNES

  Almut Hintze

  Hertel’s lasting contributions to scholarship are his earlier works on Sanskrit narrative literature and its transmission. They culminated in the publication of a four-volume edition of the Pañcatantra in the Harvard Oriental Series, vols. 11-14 (1908-15). After his appointment to the Indology chair in Leipzig, he turned to Vedic studies and, from 1924, to Avestan.

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• AŠI

  B. Schlerath, P. O. Skjærvø

  Avestan feminine noun meaning “thing attained, reward, share, portion, recompense” and, as a personification, the goddess “Reward, Fortune.”

• MIHR YAŠT

  Almut Hintze

  Middle Persian form of the name of the tenth of the 21 Yašts of the Avesta; It constituted the seventh Fargard of the Avestan Bagān Yašt Nask, of which a Pahlavi summary survives in the Dēnkard. The Mihr Yašt is the hymn of the sixteenth day of the 30-day month of the Zoroastrian cal­endar.

• IŠKATA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  in the Avesta the name of a mountain and of the land (situated in the Hindu Kush region) which is dominated by this mountain.

• CUMONT, FRANZ VALÉRY MARIE

  Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  classical philologist and historian of religions, whose research resulted in a substantial contribution to the understanding of Mithraism and other oriental reli­gions in the Roman empire.

• GABAIN, ANNEMARIE VON

  Peter Zieme

  Von Gabain was particularly interested in the question of the extent to which the religious ideas of the Central Asian peoples had been influenced by Zoroastrianism or other Iranian beliefs, and this perspective is reflected in several of her publications.

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• ANTHROPOMORPHISM

  J. Duchesne-Guillemin

  in Iranian religions. Ahura Mazdā in the Gāthās was conceived of, although invisible and immortal, as of human form, with eyes, hands, and tongue; but he was of gigantic size. 

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY ii. In Mithraism

  Roger Beck

  That Mithraism had an elaborate cosmology, central to its doctrines, is proven first by the structure of its cult shrines (mithraea), which took the form of caves (real or artificial). As Porphyry (6) stated, the cave is an “image of the cosmos.” 

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• MAGOPHONIA

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  An appropriate Iranian word for magophonia is the Sogdian mwγzt- (killing of the Magi).

• AĒŠMA

  J. P. Asmussen

  “wrath” in Younger Avestan, both metaphysically, as a distinct demon, and psychologically as the function and quality of that demon realized in man.

• SRAOŠA

  William W. Malandra

  a major deity (yazata) in Zoroastrianism, whose great popularity reserved a place for him in Iranian Islam as the angel Surōš. In Avestan, the word occurs both as a noun and as a name. Its basic common meaning is “to hear and obey.”

• M~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Cross-Reference

  list of all the figure and plate images in the letter M entries.

• DĒN YAŠT

  Jean Kellens

  a relatively short text, consisting for the most part of repetitive or formulaic sentences.

• ALBORZ i. The Name

  W. Eilers

  etymology and meaning.

• DAIVA

  Clarisse Herrenschmidt and Jean Kelllens

  Old Iranian noun (Av. daēuua-, OPers. daiva-) corresponding to the title devá- of the Indian gods and thus reflecting the Indo-European heritage (*deiu̯ó-).

• ARDAŠĪR II

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Sasanian king of kings, A.D. 379-83; he was deposed by the nobles in favor of Šāpūr III.

• ALBORZ ii. In Myth and Legend

  M. Boyce

  stories about the Alborz mountains in Iran and Zorastrianism.

• Bahrām I

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  the fourth Sasanian king and son of Šāpūr I.

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• DĀMI

  Jean Kellens

  Avestan word, probably the noun of agency connected with Old Avestan dāman- “stake," thus “the one who drives the stake.”

• ARIYĀRAMNA

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Old Persian proper name.

• CLASS SYSTEM i. In the Avesta

  Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  The evidence for the existence of a highly developed class structure in the community in which the Avestan texts were composed is very slight, and the available information must be culled from sources chronologically as far apart as the Avesta itself and the Pahlavi texts.

• ĀBĀN YAŠT

  Mary Boyce

  Middle Persian name of the fifth hymn among the Zoroastrian hymns to individual divinities. It is the third longest, with 131 verses.

• BABYLONIA ii. Babylonian Influences on Iran

  G. Gnoli

  In the Achaemenid period, the influence of Babylonia was strong in the fields of the arts, science, religion, and religious policies, even affecting the concept of kingship.

• HERMES

  Albert de Jong

  Hermes was identified with the Roman god Mercury, god of commerce and trade, and came to be symbolized with the moneybag. In Egypt, he was identified with the god Thoth; he was the source of a large number of writings outlining the ways in which the soul could be released from the bonds of matter.

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• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY i. In Zoroastrianism/Mazdaism

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  The “orthodox” myth. The extant Avesta contains no systematic exposition of the cosmological beliefs of the people among whom it was composed and who eventually brought Zoroastrianism to western Iran.

• ABARSĒN

  C. J. Brunner

  Middle Persian form of the Avestan name Upāiri.saēna, designating the Hindu Kush mountains (Av. iškata; Mid. Pers. kōf, gar) of central and eastern Afghanistan.

• ARDWAHIŠT

  M. Boyce

  one of the six great Aməša Spəntas who, with Ahura Mazdā and/or his Holy Spirit, make up the Zoroastrian Heptad. Of the six, Aša has the clearest pre-Zoroastrian antecedents.

• SCHMIDT, HANNS-PETER

  Touraj Daryaee

  (1930-2017), a German Indo-Iranist who specialized in studies on Indian mythology and the Zoroastrian religion.

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• ARTAXIAS I

  J. Russell

  reigned 189-160 B.C., founder of the Artaxiad dynasty in Greater Armenia.

• ARD YAŠT

  P. O. Skjærvø

  Middle Persian name of the Avestan hymn dedicated to Aši.

• ČEHR

  Bruce Lincoln

  two homographic neuter substantives čiθra- in Avestan, one meaning “face, appearance,” which is translated in Pahlavi as paydāg, and another rendered in Pahlavi as tōhmag and denoting “origin, lineage,” as well as “seed,” although the latter sense is attested only in compounds.

• ARTĒŠTĀR

  W. Sundermann

  a learned calque on and translation of the Avestan raθaēštā.

• INDO-IRANIAN RELIGION

  Gherardo Gnoli

  Indo-Iranian comparative studies enable us to distinguish a fund of religious concepts, beliefs, and practices that are common to ancient Iran and ancient India.

• BAGA

  H. W. Bailey, N. Sims-Williams, St. Zimmer

  an Old Iranian term for “god,” sometimes designating a specific god. i. General. ii. In Old and Middle Iranian. iii. The use of baga in names.

• INDIA iv. RELATIONS: SELEUCID, PARTHIAN, SASANIAN PERIODS

  Pierfrancesco Callieri

  Seleucus I (d. 281 BCE) led an expedition to India (Matelli, 1987) ca. 305 B.C.E. It ended, however, with the cession of  territories to a new Indian king, Candragupta Maurya.

• FATALISM

  Based on a longer article by ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Zarrīnkūb

  in the Islamic period. The concept of fatalism as commonly used in Islamic philosophy and Persian literature denotes the belief in the pre-ordained Decree of God (qażā wa qadar), according to which whatever happens to human beings or in the whole universe has been pre-determined by the will and knowledge of the Almighty, and that no changes or transformations in it can be made through the agency of the human will.

• FESTIVALS i. ZOROASTRIAN

  Mary Boyce

  fall into two broad categories. There are the seven feasts of obligation, that is, No Rōz (Nowrūz) and the six gāhānbārs, which formed the framework of the religious year, and which it was a sin not to keep; and others, which it was a merit, not a duty, to observe.

• AHURA MAZDĀ

  M. Boyce

  the Avestan name with title of a great divinity of the Old Iranian religion, who was subsequently proclaimed by Zoroaster as God.

• HAFT KEŠVAR

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  (seven regions), the usual geographical division of the world in Iranian tradition; ancient Iranians  envisioned the world as vast and round and encircled by a high mountain.

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• HELMAND RIVER ii. IN ZOROASTRIAN TRADITION

  Gherardo Gnoli

  According to Avestan geography, the region of the Haētumant River extends in a southwest direction from the point of confluence of the Arḡandāb with the Helmand.

• ANTIOCHUS OF COMMAGENE

  G. Widengren

  (full title: Theos Dikaios Epiphanes Philoromaios Philhellen, Theos signifying his divinity), 1st-century BC Seleucid ruler.

• AVESTAN GEOGRAPHY

  G. Gnoli

  Geographical references in the Avesta are limited to the regions on the eastern Iranian plateau and on the Indo-Iranian border.

• DUCHESNE-GUILLEMIN, JACQUES

  Pierre Lecoq

  (1910-2012), distinguished scholar of classical philology and Indo-Iranian studies.

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• FARR(AH) ii. ICONOGRAPHY OF FARR(AH)/XᵛARƎNAH

  Abolala Soudavar

  The core myth that reveals the characteristics of farr is the myth of Jamšid  in the Avesta. Empowered by his farr, Jamšid rules the world, but loses it when he strays from the righteous path.

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• BAHRĀM (Vərəθraγna)

  G. Gnoli, P. Jamzadeh

  the Old Iranian god of victory, Avestan Vərəθraγna (“smiting of resistance”);  Middle Persian Warahrān, frequently used as a male proper name.

• AŠAVAN (possessing Truth)

  G. Gnoli

  (Avestan), lit. “possessing truth (aša),”  referring to humans, Ahura Mazdā, and the divine or angelic entities.

• COMMAGENE

  Michael Weiskopf

  the portion of southwestern Asia Minor bordered on the east by the Euphrates river, on the west by the Taurus mountains, and on the south by the plains of northern Syria. It was part of the Achaemenid empire and successor kingdoms and did not achieve status as an independent kingdom until the mid-2nd century BCE.

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• BATTLE-AXES in Eastern Iran

  Boris A. Litvinsky

  Battle-axes made of bronze appeared in Eastern Iran during the Bronze Age. One such object comes from a burial at the Sapalli-tepa settlement in southern Uzbekistan.

• ARTAXERXES II

  R. Schmitt

  Achaemenid Great King whose personal name is given as Arsaces.

• ALEXANDER THE GREAT ii. In Zoroastrian Tradition

  F. M. Kotwal and P. G. Kreyenbroek

  heritage of the Sasanian period includes two widely divergent storylines about Alexander, both of which were presumably transmitted by Zoroastrians and can therefore be labelled “Zoroastrian.”

• HAFTA

  Badri Gharib

  (“week”), history of the calendar week in Iran.

• HUVIŠKA

  A. D. H. Bivar

  ruler of the Great Kushan lineage, successor of Kaniška I the Great, known chiefly from inscriptions and from a prolific coinage. He reigned from at least the year 28 to 60 of the Kaniška Era, equivalent to 154-86 CE.

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• HUNTING IN IRAN i. In the pre-Islamic Period

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  Persian has two terms for hunting, naḵjīr and šekār, both of which have spread beyond Iranian languages. i. In the pre-Islamic Period.

• WIKANDER, Oscar Stig

  Bo Utas; Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  Wikander soon became known as a brilliant young scholar with wide interests and a deep knowledge of many fields. In 1935 and 1936, he and Geo Widengren (1907-1996) were among the members of the Avesta seminars, held by his older compatriot, the professor of Semitic languages at Uppsala University, H. S. Nyberg (1889-1974).

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• RAŠN YAŠT

  Leon Goldman

  the Middle Persian title given to the twelfth Yašt of the Avesta. It is dedicated to the Zoroastrian deity Rašnu

• SPEAR

  Boris A. Litvinsky

  (Av. aršti- ‘spear,’ OPers. aršti ‘throwing weapon’ or ‘javelin’) is mentioned in the Avesta several times.

• DĀD (1)

  Mansour Shaki

  (Av. dāta- “law, right, rule, regulation, statute, command, institution, decision”), in the Zoroastrian tradition the most general term for law.

• PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN iii. ACHAEMENID PERIOD

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Evidence from the Achaemenid period is considerable, but in authentic sources, the inscriptions of the kings themselves, fewer than fifty names are documented in their Old Persian form.

• KARAFTO CAVES

  Hubertus von Gall

  an ensemble of artificially cut rock chambers dated to the 4th or 3rd century BCE, in Kordestān Province, 20 km west of Takab. The site is of considerable importance because of its Greek inscription, one of the very few examples preserved in situ in Persia.

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• ARMENIA AND IRAN iii. Armenian Religion

  J. R. Russell

  In the formative period the Armenians appear to have absorbed Hurrian, Hittite, and Urartian elements in their religious beliefs. Iran, however, was to be the dominant influence in Armenian spiritual culture.

• ARCHEOLOGY iii. SELEUCID AND PARTHIAN

  K. Schippmann

  Very few monuments from the Seleucid period have been discovered in Iran, and probably none from the time of Alexander the Great.

• PAIRIKĀ

  Siamak Adhami

  a class of female demonic beings in the Avesta, often translated “sorceress, witch, or enchantress.”

• INDRA

  W. W. Malandra

  the name of a minor demon (daēwa) in the Avesta, In sharp contrast to the Indra of the Ṛgveda [RV], the most celebrated god (devá) of the Vedic pantheon.

• BEHRŪZ, ḎABĪḤ

  Paul Sprachman

  (1889-1971), Persian satirist,  writer of highly popular parodies and burlesques.

• BAHMAN (1)

  J. Narten, Ph. Gignoux

  the New Persian name of the Avestan Vohu Manah (Good Thought) and Pahlavi Wahman.

• KHALCHAYAN

  Lolita Nehru

  in Surxondaryo prov., southern Uzbekistan, site of a settlement and palace of the nomad Yuezhi, with paintings and sculptures of the mid-1st century BCE. The Yuezhi, and perhaps other nomad groups, overthrew the Hellenistic Greek dynasty which had ruled there since the mid-3rd century as successor to the post-Achaemenid governments of Alexander and the Seleucids.

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• AHRIMAN

  J. Duchesne-Guillemin

  "demon," God’s adversary in the Zoroastrian religion.

• DEIPNOSOPHISTAÍ

  Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  lit. "Banquet of the Sophists"; a miscellany in the form of dialogues ostensibly conducted at table, including approximately one hundred passages pertaining to Persia.

• WIDENGREN, GEO

  Anders Hultgård

  (b. 24 April 1907; d. 28 January 1996), historian of religions, particularly those of the ancient Near East and Iran.

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• Italy v. IRANIAN STUDIES, PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

  Carlo G. Cereti

  Although Italian contacts with Iran date from ancient times, scientific interest in pre-Islamic Iran cannot be traced earlier than the second half of the eighteenth century.

• ŠĀPUR II

  Touraj Daryaee

  (r. 309-79 CE), longest reigning monarch of the Sasanian dynasty.

• SASANIAN ROCK RELIEFS

  G. Herrmann and V. S. Curtis

  one of the primary sources for documentation of the Sasanian period.

• PERSONAL NAMES, SOGDIAN i. IN CHINESE SOURCES

  Y. Yoshida

  Especially during some hundred years before the An Lushan’s rebellion (755-63 C.E.), when Tang controlled Central Asia, a great many Sogdians were encountered in northern China.

• DURA EUROPOS

  Pierre Leriche, D. N. MacKenzie

  ruined city on the right bank of the Euphrates between Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris, founded in 303 BCE by Nicanor, a general of Seleucus I. Its military function of the Greek period was abandoned under the Parthians, but at that time it was an administrative and economic center.

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• CLOTHING v. In Pre-Islamic Eastern Iran

  Gerd Gropp

  Modern knowledge of the dress of the eastern Iranian peoples is derived from literary and archeological sources, which can be compared, though with caution. Although there were regional differences, as well as a broad change over time, on the whole the costume remained fairly uniform.

• NEMRUD DAĞI

  Bruno Jacobs

  The burial mound of Antiochus I is flanked by terraces in the east, north, and west. The settings of the sculptures on the east and west terraces are essentially identical: in each case, a row of five limestone statues (originally up to 8 m in height) overlook the terrace, their backs to the mound.

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• ĀTAŠ

  M. Boyce

  “fire” in Zoroastrianism. The hearth fire, providing warmth, light and comfort, was regarded by the ancient Iranians as the visible embodiment of the divinity Ātar, who lived among men as their servant and master. Fire was also present at their religious ceremonies.

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• CILICIA

  Michael Weiskopf

  the southeastern portion of the present Turkish coast, a satrapy of the Achaemenid empire (6th-4th centuries BCE, subsequently incorporated into the Macedonian and Roman empires.

• BAHMAN YAŠT

  W. Sundermann

  Middle Persian apocalyptical text preserved in  Pahlavi script, a Pāzand (i.e., Middle Persian in Avestan script) transliteration, and a garbled New Persian translation.

• ASTŌDĀN

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  “bone-receptacle, ossuary.” The term has an important place in the vocabulary of ancient Iranian funerary rites.

• Greece iii. Persian Influence on Greek Thought

  Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  The idea of Iranian origins of Greek philosophy had a legendary aura, either by declaring that Pythagoras had been Zoroaster’s pupil in Babylon, or by writing, as did Clement of Alexandria, that Heraclitus had drawn on “the barbarian philosophy.”

• ZOROASTER v. AS PERCEIVED BY THE GREEKS

  Roger Beck

  The Greek constructions of Zoroaster relate to the historical Zoroaster and to the Zoroaster of the Zoroastrian faith in one respect only. The Greeks knew that Zoroaster was the “prophet,” in the sense of the human founder, of the national Persian religion of their times.