Anahita Ghazvinizadeh

Anahita is the Old Persian form of the name of an Iranian goddess and appears in complete and earlier form as ('), the Avestan name of an Indo-Iranian cosmological figure venerated as the divinity of "the Waters" ( Aban) and hence associated with fertility, healing and wisdom. There is also a temple named Anahita in Iran. Aredvi Sura Anahita is ''Ardwisur Anahid'' (اردویسور آناهید ) or ''Nahid'' (ناهید) in Middle and Modern Persian, and ''Anahit'' in Armenian. An iconic shrine cult of Aredvi Sura Anahita was – together with other shrine cults – "introduced apparently in the 4th century BCE and lasted until it was suppressed in the wake of an iconoclastic movement under the Sassanids.".
The symbol of goddess Anahita is the Lotus flower. Lotus Festival (Persian: Jashn-e Nilupar) is an Iranian festival that is held on the sixth day of July. Holding this festival at this time was probably based on the blooming of lotus flowers at the beginning of summer.

The Greek and Roman historians of classical antiquity refer to her either as Anaïtis or identified her with one of the divinities from their own pantheons. 270 Anahita, a silicaceous S-type asteroid, is named after her. Based on the development of her cult, she was described as a syncretistic goddess, who was composed of two independent elements. The first is a manifestation of the Indo-Iranian idea of the Heavenly River who provides the waters to the rivers and streams flowing in the earth while the second is that of a goddess of uncertain origin, though maintaining her own unique characteristics, who became associated with the cult of the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Inanna-Ishtar. According to one theory, this arose partly from a desire to make Anahita part of Zoroastrianism following the diffusion of her cult from the extreme northwest into the rest of Persia.

According to Herman Lommel, the proper name of the divinity in Indo-Iranian times was Sarasvatī, which also means "she who possesses waters". In Sanskrit, the name आर्द्रावी शूरा अनाहिता (Ārdrāvī Śūrā Anāhitā) means "of the waters, mighty, and immaculate". Like the Indian Sarasvatī, Anāhitā nurtures crops and herds; and she is hailed both as a divinity and as the mythical river which she personifies, "as great in bigness as all these waters which flow forth upon the earth" (Yasht 5.3).

Characteristics

Nomenclature

Only ' (a word otherwise unknown, perhaps with an original meaning "moist") is specific to the divinity..
The words ' and ' are generic Avestan language adjectives,. and respectively mean "mighty" and "pure"... Both adjectives also appear as epithets of other divinities or divine concepts such as . and the Fravashis.. Both adjectives are also attested in Vedic Sanskrit.''cf.'' .

As a divinity of the waters ('), the yazata is of Indo-Iranian origin, according to Lommel related to Sanskrit '' '' that, like its Proto-Iranian equivalent ', derives from Indo-Iranian '... In its old Iranian form ', "her name was given to the region, rich in rivers, whose modern capital is Kabul (Avestan ', Old Persian ', Greek ')." "Like the Devi Saraswati, redvi Sura Anahitanurtures crops and herds; and is hailed both as a divinity and the mythical river that she personifies, 'as great in bigness as all these waters which flow forth upon the earth'." Some historians note that despite Anahita's Aryan roots and the way she represented the commonly shared concept of the Heavenly River, which in the Vedas was represented by the goddess '' '' (the later heavenly Ganga), she had no counterpart in the ancient text who bear the same name or one that remotely resembled hers.

In the (Middle-)Persian texts of the Sassanid and later eras, appears as '. The evidence suggests a western Iranian origin of ''Anāhīta''. (see borrowing from Babylonia, below).

Anahita also shares characteristics with Mat Syra Zemlya (Damp Mother Earth) of Slavic mythology.

Conflation with Ishtar

At some point prior to the 4th century BCE, this yazata was conflated with (an analogue of) Semitic , likewise a divinity of "maiden" fertility and from whom Aredvi Sura Anahita then inherited additional features of a divinity of war and of the planet Venus or "Zohreh" in Arabic. It was moreover the association with the planet Venus, "it seems, which led Herodotus to record that the /nowiki>Persis">Persis.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Persis">/nowiki>Persis/nowiki> learnt 'to sacrifice to "the heavenly goddess"' from the Assyrians and Arabians." Cit. There are sources who based their theory on this aspect. For instance, it was proposed that the ancient Persians worshiped the planet Venus as *''Anahiti'', the "pure one", and that, as these people settled in Eastern Iran, *''Anahiti'' began to absorb elements of the cult of Ishtar. Indeed, according to Boyce, it is "probable" that there was once a Perso–Elamite language">Elamite divinity by the name of ' (as reconstructed from the Greek ').. It is then likely (so Boyce) that it was this divinity that was an analogue of Ishtar, and that it is this divinity with which Aredvi Sura Anahita was conflated.

The link between Anahita and Ishtar is part of the wider theory that Iranian kingship had Mesopotamian roots and that the Persian gods were natural extensions of the Babylonian deities, where Ahuramazda is considered an aspect of Marduk, Mithra for Utu, Shamash, and, finally, Anahita was Ishtar. This is supported by how Ishtar "apparently". gave Aredvi Sura Anahita the epithet ''Banu'', 'the Lady', a typically Mesopotamian construct that is not attested as an epithet for a divinity in Iran before the common era. It is completely unknown in the texts of the Avesta, but evident in Sassanid-era middle Persian inscriptions (see Evidence of a cult, below) and in a middle Persian ''Zend'' translation of ''Yasna'' 68.13.. Also in Zoroastrian texts from the post-conquest epoch (651 CE onwards), the divinity is referred to as 'Anahid the Lady', 'Ardwisur the Lady' and 'Ardwisur the Lady of the waters'..

Because the divinity is unattested in any old Western Iranian language, establishing characteristics prior to the introduction of Zoroastrianism in Western Iran (''c.'' 5th century BCE) is very much in the realm of speculation. Boyce concludes that "the Achaemenids' devotion to this goddess evidently survived their conversion to Zoroastrianism, and they appear to have used royal influence to have her adopted into the Zoroastrian pantheon.". According to an alternate theory, Anahita was perhaps "a '' daeva'' of the early and pure Zoroastrian faith, incorporated into the Zoroastrian religion and its revised canon" during the reign of "Artaxerxes I, the Constantine of that faith.".

Cosmological entity

The cosmological qualities of the world river are alluded to in '' Yasht'' 5 (see in the Avesta, below), but properly developed only in the '' Bundahishn'', a Zoroastrian account of creation finished in the 11th or 12th century CE. In both texts, Aredvi Sura Anahita is not only a divinity, but also the source of the world river and the (name of the) world river itself. The cosmological legend runs as follows:

All the waters of the world created by Ahura Mazda originate from the source Aredvi Sura Anahita, the life-increasing, herd-increasing, fold-increasing, who makes prosperity for all countries. This source is at the top of the world mountain Hara Berezaiti, "High Hara", around which the sky revolves and that is at the center of Airyanem Vaejah, the first of the lands created by Mazda.

The water, warm and clear, flows through a hundred thousand golden channels towards Mount Hugar, "the Lofty", one of the daughter-peaks of Hara Berezaiti. On the summit of that mountain is Lake Urvis, "the Turmoil", into which the waters flow, becoming quite purified and exiting through another golden channel. Through that channel, which is at the height of a thousand men, one portion of the great spring Aredvi Sura Anahita drizzles in moisture upon the whole earth, where it dispels the dryness of the air and all the creatures of Mazda acquire health from it. Another portion runs down to Vourukasha, the great sea upon which the earth rests, and from which it flows to the seas and oceans of the world and purifies them.

In the Bundahishn, the two halves of the name "Ardwisur Anahid" are occasionally treated independently of one another, that is, with Ardwisur as the representative of waters, and Anahid identified with the planet Venus: The water of the all lakes and seas have their origin with Ardwisur (10.2, 10.5), and in contrast, in a section dealing with the creation of the stars and planets (5.4), the ''Bundahishn'' speaks of 'Anahid i Abaxtari', that is, the planet Venus.. In yet other chapters, the text equates the two, as in "Ardwisur who is Anahid, the father and mother of the Waters" (3.17).

This legend of the river that descends from Mount Hara appears to have remained a part of living observance for many generations. A Greek inscription from Roman times found in Asia Minor reads "the great goddess Anaïtis of high Hara".. On Greek coins of the imperial epoch, she is spoken of as "Anaïtis of the sacred water".

In scripture

Aredvi Sura Anahita is principally addressed in ''Yasht'' 5 ('' Yasna'' 65), also known as the Aban ''Yasht'', a hymn to the waters in Avestan and one of the longer and better preserved of the devotional hymns. ''Yasna'' 65 is the third of the hymns recited at the Ab-Zohr, the "offering to the waters" that accompanies the culminating rites of the Yasna service. Verses from ''Yasht'' 5 also form the greater part of the ''Aban Nyashes'', the liturgy to the waters that are a part of the ''Khordeh Avesta''.

According to Nyberg. and supported by Lommel. and Widengren,. the older portions of the ''Aban Yasht'' were originally composed at a very early date, perhaps not long after the Gathas