Mithra

Mithra, ancient god of Persia and India (where he was called Mitra). Until the 6th cent. B.C., Mithra was apparently a minor figure in the Zoroastrian system. Under the Achaemenids, Mithra became increasingly important, until he appeared in the 5th cent. B.C. as the principal Persian deity, the god of light and wisdom, closely associated with the sun. His cult expanded through the Middle East into Europe and became a worldwide religion, called Mithraism. This was one of the great religions of the Roman Empire, and in the 2d cent. A.D. it was more general than Christianity. Mithraism found widest favor among the Roman legions, for whom Mithra (or Mithras in Latin and Greek) was the ideal divine comrade and fighter. The fundamental aspect of the Mithraic system was the dualistic struggle between the forces of good and evil. Mithra, who gave to his devotees hope of blessed immortality, represented the fearless antagonist of the powers of darkness. The story of Mithra's capture and sacrifice of a sacred bull, from whose body sprang all the beneficent things of the earth, was a central cultic myth. The ethics of Mithraism were rigorous; fasting and continence were strongly prescribed. The rituals, highly secret and restricted to men only, included many of the sacramental forms common to the mystery religions (e.g., baptism and the sacred banquet). Mithraism, which bore many similarities to Christianity, declined rapidly in the late 3d cent. A.D.

In Indo-Iranian myth, the god of light. He was born bearing a torch and armed with a knife, beside a sacred stream and under a sacred tree, a child of the earth itself. He soon rode, and later killed, the life-giving cosmic bull, whose blood fertilizes all vegetation. This deed became the prototype for a bull-slaying fertility ritual. As god of light, Mithra was associated with the Greek Helios and the Roman Sol Invictus. The first written reference to Mithra dates to 1400 BC. Seealso Mithraism.

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This article is about the Zoroastrian yazata Mithra (Miθra). For other divinities with related names, see the general article Mitra.

Mithra (Avestan Miθra, modern Persian مهر Mihr, Mehr, Meher) is an important deity or divine concept (Yazata) in Zoroastrianism and later Iranian history and culture.

Mithra is descended, together with the Vedic deity Mitra, from a common proto-Indo-Iranian entity *mitra "treaty, bond".

Etymology

Main article: Etymology of *mitra

The Avestan common noun miθra, meaning "covenant, contract, oath", derives from proto-Indo-Iranian *mitra, which has a root mi- "to bind", with the "tool suffix" -tra- "causing to." Thus, etymologically miθra means "that which causes binding", preserved in the Avestan word for "covenant, contract, oath".

In Zoroastrianism

The reforms of Zoroaster retained the multitudes of pre-Zoroastrian divinities, reducing them in a complex hierarchy to "immortals" who, under the supremacy of the Creator Ahura Mazda, were now either ahuras or daevas. In this scheme, Mithra is a member of the ahuric triad, protectors of asha, the order of the universe. Mithra is additionally the protector of truth and justice and the source of cosmic light. In Middle Persian Mithra came to be known as Meher.

Mithra is not present in the Gathas of Zoroaster (Zarathustra) but appears in the younger Yashts of the Avesta (Campbell p 257). There, Mithra comes to the fore among the created beings. "I created him" Ahura Mazda declares to Zoroaster, "to be as worthy of sacrifice and as worthy of prayer as myself" (Campbell, loc. cit.). In the Yashts, Mithra gains the title of "Judge of Souls" and is assigned the domain of human welfare (which he shares with the Creator). Mithra occupies an intermediate position in the Zoroastrian hierarchy as the greatest of the yazata, created by Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd in later Persian) to aid in the destruction of evil and the administration of the world. He is then the divine representative of the Creator on earth, and is directed to protect the righteous from the demonic forces of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman in later Persian).

As the protector of truth and the enemy of error, Mithra occupied an intermediate position in the Zoroastrian pantheon as the greatest of the yazatas, the beings created by Ahuramazda to aid in the destruction of evil and the administration of the world. He was thus a divinity of the realms of air and light, and, by transfer to the moral realm, the manifestation of truth and loyalty. As the enemy of darkness and evil spirits, he protected souls, accompanying them to paradise, and was thus a redeemer. Because light is accompanied by heat, he was the promoter of vegetation and increase; he rewarded the good with prosperity and annihilated the bad.

In Iranian culture

In older Zoroastrianism Mithra is seen as a creation of Ahura Mazda, and in his role as 'Judge of Souls' as the rewarder of good and annihilator of the bad. Mithra was seen as omniscient, undeceivable, infallible, eternally watchful, and never-resting.

Similarly, while in the Sirozeh, Mithra is also referred to as Dae-pa-Meher, or Creator of Meher, this separation between 'Meher' and the 'Creator of Meher' dissolves in later texts and the distinguishing characteristics of Mithra and Meher blend. Mithra, reincorporated as "Meher", thus also becomes the representative of truth and justice, and, by transfer to the physical realm, the divinity of air and light. As the enemy of darkness and evil spirits, he protected souls, a psychopomp accompanying them to paradise. As heat accompanying light, Mithra became associated with growth and resultant prosperity.

Mithra worship spread first with the empire of the Persians throughout Asia Minor, then throughout the empire of Alexander and his successors.

The Parthian princes of Armenia were hereditary priests of Mithra, and an entire district of this land was dedicated to Anahita. Many temples were erected to Mithra in Armenia, which remained one of the last strongholds of the Mazdaist cult of Mithra until it became the first officially Christian kingdom.

Royal names incorporating Mithra's (e.g. "Mithradates") appear in the dynasties of Parthia, Armenia, and in Anatolia, in Pontus and Cappadocia.

In Manichaeism

Persian and Parthian-speaking Manichaeans used the name of Mithra current in their time (Mihryazd, i.e. Mithra-yazata) for two different Manichaean angels.

1. The first, called Mihryazd by the Persians, was the "The Living Spirit" (Aramaic rūḥā ḥayyā), a savior-figure who rescues the "First Man" from the demonic Darkness into which he had plunged.
2. The second, known as Mihr or Mihr yazd among the Parthians, is "The Messenger" (Aramaic īzgaddā), likewise a savior figure, but one concerned with setting up the structures to liberate the Light lost when the First Man had been defeated.

Remains

The calendar instituted by the Achaemenid dynasty (c. 648–330 BCE), the first Persian empire, was based on the Egyptian solar calendar, which had months of the year and days of the month dedicated to their divinities. The Achaemenids replaced these with divinities from the Zoroastrian faith, and the fifteenth day of each month was consecrated to Mithra (Dae-pa-Meher). The sixteenth day of each month and one month of the year were consecrated to Meher, whose identity blends with that of Mithra in later Persian culture. These calendarial dedications are still present in the religious calendar of the Zoroastrians. The month that was consecrated to Meher in pre-Islamic times was revived as the name of the seventh month of the year in the official national calendar of Iran of 1925.

The festivities in the week following the winter solstice (after which the days grow longer), today called Shab-e Yalda in Iran, are a remnant of the culture which celebrated the birth of the divinity of light on that day. Yalda literally means "The birth of sun".

See also

• Mitra (Vedic)
• Maitreya (Buddhist)
• Mithras
• Mithraism
• Zoroastrianism

References

• Malandra, William (1983). An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1115-7.
• Hans-Peter Schmidt, Mithra, Encyclopedia Iranica (2006)

External links

• Iconography of Mithra (PDF-article)
• Mithra and its association with archeological polar star