Anahita.
The waters, and the strength that comes with them. Kings sacrificed to her for victory, the Sasanians endowed her shrines heavily, and the ruined temple at Kangavar is one of the largest stone structures in Iran. Iranian Zoroastrians still make visits to springs and mountain shrines associated with her.
Aredvi Sura Anahita — the moist, the strong, the undefiled — is the yazata of the waters and the most fully described divine figure in the Avesta after Ahura Mazda. The Aban Yasht gives her an unusually concrete portrait: a tall, strong, beautiful young woman, high-girdled, in a cloak of three hundred beaver skins, with a golden diadem of eight rays and a hundred stars, gold earrings and a square gold necklace, driving a chariot drawn by four horses named Wind, Rain, Cloud and Sleet. Kings and heroes sacrifice to her for victory. Artaxerxes II erected statues to her in the fourth century BCE — an innovation, since the tradition is otherwise aniconic — and the Sasanians endowed her shrines heavily; the enormous ruined structure at Kangavar in western Iran is traditionally associated with her, though the identification is disputed. Iranian Zoroastrians continue to make pilgrimages to mountain springs, notably the shrines around Yazd, and the association of flowing water with her persists in ordinary Iranian practice well beyond the Zoroastrian community.
The same ground, other faiths
claims that share this one's ideasSign in to open the first thread. Everything here is attributed.