Goddess Anahita of Persia

(Image: The winged-angel Goddess Anahita flanked by felines, wearing her golden crown of stars). I really enjoyed reading this! I found it at Iranian.com Anahita – Lady of Persia by Nabarz 02-Sep-2009 By Payam Nabarz The following is based on the Anahita chapter from ‘The Mysteries of Mithras: The Pagan Belief That Shaped the Christian World’. By Payam Nabarz, Inner Traditions, 2005. Mighty Anahita with splendor will shine, Incarnated as a youthful divine. Full of charm her beauty she will display, Her hip with charming belt she will array. Straight-figured, she is as noble bride, Freeborn, herself in puckered dress will hide. Her cloak is all decorated with gold, With precious dress Anahita we shall behold. -Original poem based on Kashani’s Persian folk songs, from an Avestan invocation to Anahita. Dusk of Shabe Yalda (Yule) 777 B.C. somewhere on a beach by the Caspian sea. A young Magi (who later was to be known as the prophet Zoroaster) has been keeping a night vigil. His solitary fire is the only light for miles around and his recitation of Aban Yasht the hymn to angel-goddess Anahita the only sound to be heard apart from the waves gently crashing onto the beach. “Angel-Goddess of all the waters upon the earth and the source of the cosmic ocean; she who drives a chariot pulled by four horses: wind, rain, cloud, and sleet; your symbol is the eight-rayed star. You are the source of life, purifying the seed of all males and the wombs of all females, also cleansing the milk in the breasts of all mothers. Your connection with life, means warriors in battle prayed to you for survival and victory. A maid, fair of body, most strong, tall-formed, high-girded, pure, . . . wearing a mantle fully embroidered with gold; ever holding the baresma [sacred plant] in your hand, . . . you wear square golden earrings on your ears . . . a golden necklace around your beautiful neck, . . . Upon your head . . . a golden crown, with a hundred stars, with eight rays . . . with fillets streaming down.” 1 The Magi’s prayer is answered by the sea in the form of a vision; as midnight approaches and time slows, the sea parts. A large silver throne appears; on either side of it sits a lion with eyes of blue flame. On the throne sits a Lady in silver and gold garments, proud and tall, an awe-inspiring warrior-woman, as terrifying as she is beautiful. Tall and statuesque, she sits, her noble origins evident in her appearance, her haughty authority made clear and commanding through a pair of flashing eyes. A dove flies above her and a peacock walks before her. A crown of shining gold rings her royal temples; bejeweled with eight sunrays and one hundred stars, it holds her lustrous hair back from her beautiful face. Her marble like white arms reflect moonlight, and glisten with moisture. She is clothed with a garment made of thirty beavers, and it shines with the full sheen of silver and gold. The planet Venus shines brightly in the sky. 2 Time passes.....history takes place.... The Sassanian Empires fades and Islam arrives in Iran. 900 C.E. Moslem pilgrims make their way to the 1100-year-old shrine of Bibi Shahr Banoo, the Islamic female saint, near the old town of Rey (South of Tehran). Town of Rey is thought to be 5000 years old, the site of this shrine with its waterfall is believed by some to have been an Anahita shrine at one time. It is also close to the Cheshmeh Ali Hill (the spring of Ali Hill), which is dated to 5000 years ago. Perhaps this is an echo of Mithra-Anahita shrines being close to each other and then becoming linked to later Islamic saints, a process seen frequently in Christianized Europe too; for example, sites sacred to the Celtic goddess Brigit became sites dedicated to Saint Brigit. Furthermore, according to Susan Gaviri in Anahita in Iranian Mythology (1993): “. . . it must not be forgotten that many of the famous fire temples in Iran were, in the beginning, Anahita temples. Examples of these fire temples are seen in some parts of Iran, especially in Yazad, where we find that after the Muslim victory these were converted to Mosques.”8 Time passes.... history takes place.... Pilgrims continue to visit the Pre-Islamic Zoroastrian shrine of Pir e Sabz, or Chek Chek (“drip drip,” the sound of water dripping), in the mountains of Yazd. This is still a functional temple and the holiest site for present-day Zoroastrians living in Iran, who take their annual pilgrimage to Pir e Sabz Banu, "the old woman in the mountain,” also called Pir e Sabz, “the green saint,” at the beginning of summer. Pir means “elder,” and it can also mean “fire.” The title of Pir also connotes a Sufi master. Sabz means green.9 Pilgrims also continue to visit Pir e Banoo Pars (Elder Lady of Persia) and Pir e Naraki are located near Yazd. (The dates are unclear.) The Pir Banoo temple is in an area that has a number of valleys; the name of the place is Hapt Ador, which means Seven Fires.10 Time passes.... history take place..... yet she is still remembered.... “Tomorrow (21.8.03), I (Jalil Nozari) will take part in a ceremony to commemorate a very poor, old woman, a relative of mine, who died recently. Her name was Kaneez. The name in modern Farsi has negative connotations, meaning a “female servant.” But, in Pahlavi, the language spoken in central Iran before the coming of Islam, it meant “a maiden,” a virgin, unmarried girl. Indeed, it has both meanings of the English “maid.” Anahita, too, means virgin, literally not defiled. But this is not the end of story. When I was a child, there was a place in Ramhormoz, my hometown, that now is under a city road. In it, there was a small, single-room building with a small drain pipe hanging from it. Women in their ninth month and close to delivery time stood under this pipe and someone poured water through it. There was the belief that getting wet under the drain would assure a safe delivery of the baby. The building was devoted to Khezer (the green one).* Yet, the cult is very old and clearly one of Anahita’s. The role of water and safe child delivery are both parts of the Anahita cult. My deceased aunt, our Kaneez, was a servant of this building. The building was demolished years ago to build a road, and Kaneez is no more. I wonder how will we reconstruct those eras, so close to us in time yet so far from our present conditions. It is also of interest that there exist remains of a castle, or better to say a fort, in Ramhormoz, that is called “Mother and Daughter.” It belongs to the Sasanides era. “Daughter,” signifying virginity, directs the mind toward Anahita. There are other shrines named after sacred women, mostly located beside springs of water. These all make the grounds for believing that Ramhormoz was one of the oldest places for Anahita worshippers.”12 Full article. We have seen the Goddess on a throne flanked by felines in may other cultures - the oldest to my knowledge is from Catalhoyuk (Chatalhoyuk), located in modern-day Turkey. The association of the Goddess with "wild beasts" is age-old, as indicated by one of her myriad titles "Mistress of Beasts"; in the Greek tradition she was embodied as Artemis. The crown with "eight rays" is an obvious reference to Venus, revered by the Sumerians and associated with the Goddess Inanna and immortalized on some of the 20-squares game boards excavated from the graves of Ur by Woolley. The association of the Goddess with a water shrine, often in a cave or outcropping of rock, is also extremely ancient. Ancient sacred places, sometimes built upon over and over and over through the millenia (such as Chatres Cathedral built upon the site of ancient goddess worship in France), were usually built upon or near water - a spring, a stream, a river, or upon a sacred island, and also associated with outcroppings of rock, sacred mountains and plateaus (the Acropolis in Athens, for instance). A modern example is the shrine at Lourdes, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Birds (dove, peacock, owl) are likewise associated with the earliest renderings of the Goddess. There are "bird goddess" drawings that are as old (maybe older) as the drawings in the caves as Lascaux, for instance. The use of the double-entendre pir ("old, elder;" "fire") is reminiscent of how both the ancient Egyptians and the Chinese love to use "pun" words with double meanings. What I find particularly interesting about this article - and what I didn't know before - is the term "chek chek" -- "drip drip" -- a sound uniquely associated with water! Also learned the word "chemesh" meaning "spring" (of water). This will add to my "well" of research (pun!) about the true meaning of the name of the game we call "chess" today. And what is that sacred plant that Zoroaster saw the Goddess holding in her hand in that awe-inspiring vision that night on the shores of the Caspian Sea? Might it have been a mandrake plant (chatrang in Pahlavi)? Chatrang - the Persian name for chess...