Anahita

Uncommon card · No. 123055

Anahita is an Iranian goddess. She is praised in the Aban Yasht, one of the Zoroastrian hymns contained in the Avesta, under the name Aradvi Sura Anahita (Arədvī Sūrā Anāhita). In Middle Persian, her name was rendered Ardwisur Anahid. She is thought to have developed from an Indo-Iranian divinity of the mythical river which is the source of all the waters of the world and who was thus associated with fertility and procreation. According to Herman Lommel, the original name of this deity was Sarasvati, who was still worshipped under that name in Vedic India; the Iranian cognate would have been *Harahvatī. Eventually, the actual name fell out of use among Iranians, while the epithet Aradvi Sura Anahita remained. During the Achaemenid period, Aradvi Sura Anahita appears to have merged with a goddess of the western Iranians called *Anāhiti (attested only in Greek sources as Anaïtis) who had acquired traits of the Mesopotamian Inanna-Ishtar and was identified with the planet Venus. Anahita...

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