Temple of Anahita: goddess of ancient Persia, Iran.

Anāhitā (or Nāhid in Modern Persian), whose name means "unstained" or "immaculate", was an ancient Persian deity. Her cult was strongest in Western Iran, and had extensive parallels with that of the Semitic Near Eastern "Queen of Heaven", deification of the planet Venus, eternal virgin (however many sexual encounters she had), goddess of war, love, and fertility Ishtar, who was probably derived from the Sumerian Inanna. Anāhitā may have been a direct borrowing from the Near East, or may have acquired Near Eastern characteristics from a confrontation between Iranian and Mesopotamian cultures. Image File history File links Ruins of the ancient Temple of Anahita, Iran. ... Image File history File links Ruins of the ancient Temple of Anahita, Iran. ... Temple of Anahita, Goddess of ancient Persia, Iran. ... The Persian Empire was a series of historical empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau (Irān - Land of the Aryans) and beyond. ... The Persian Empire was a series of historical empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau (Irān - Land of the Aryans) and beyond. ... Ishtar (Arabic: عشتار) is the Assyrian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess Astarte. ... Inanna was one of the most revered of goddesses among later Sumerian mythology. ... Mesopotamia refers to the region now occupied by modern Iraq, eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and Southwest Iran. ...

Anāhitā is not present in the earliest parts of the Avesta; her cult would have been alien to the henotheistic spirit of the Zaraθuštra (Zoroaster) presented in the Gāθās. By the later Avestic period, however, more lenient priests had adapted the goddess to the new religion. The fifth Yašt, the "Hymn to the Waters", praises Anāhitā as "the wide-expanding and health-giving". "Strong and bright, tall and beautiful of form, who sends down by day and by night a flow of motherly waters as large as the whole of the waters that run along the earth, and who runs powerfully." In Modern Persian Nāhid (Anāhitā) is the name of the planet Venus. See Avesta Municipality for the Swedish town Yasna 28. ... Henotheism (Greek heis theos one god) is a term coined by Max Müller, to mean devotion to a single God while accepting the existence of other gods. ... now. ... The Gathas (Gāθās) are the most sacred of the texts of the Zoroastrian faith, and are traditionally believed to have been composed by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) himself. ... See Avesta Municipality for the Swedish town Yasna 28. ... Persian, (local name: FārsÄ« or PārsÄ«), is an Indo-European language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and by minorities in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Southern Russia, neighboring countries, and elsewhere. ... (*min temperature refers to cloud tops only) Atmospheric characteristics Atmospheric pressure 9. ...

Anāhitā was the goddess of pure waters and fertility (hence pomegranates being her representative fruit). Her temples where, therefore, built around natural springs, lakes, or major rivers. There are myriad bridges, castles and other buildings in Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and the Caucasus with the element "dokhtar" (daughter or maiden) as a part of their names (e.g., Pul-i dokhtar, Qala dokhtar, Diz-i dokhtar, Ab-i dokhtar). These all hark back to the ancient times and the existence of a shrine or a temple dedicated to Anāhitā. The full title of the Goddess was Ardvi Sura Anahita Shahr Banu--the Lady of the Land.

By the Hellenistic era, if not before, Anāhitā's cult came to be closely associated with that of Mithra. The Anahita Temple at Kangavar in western Iran and the magnificent temple in Bishapur in southwestern Iran are the most important Anahita temples. The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... Mithra (Avestan Miθra, modern Persian مهر Mihr, Mehr, Meher) is an important deity or divine concept (so called Yazata) in Zoroastrianism and later Persian mythology and culture. ... Temple of Anahita, Goddess of ancient Persia, Iran. ... City of Bishapur Another view of Bishapur Bishapur (or Bishâpûr) is an ancient city situated south of modern Faliyan, Iran on the ancient road between Persis and Elam. ...

See also

• Anahit

Goddess Anahit in Hellenistic style with the likeness of Aphrodite, the brass head bronze sculpture (2nd/1st century BC) was found in the 19th century in the district of Yerznka (Satala) and is currently kept at the British Museum (a replica can be seen at the State History Museum of...

External links

• Anahita, A Research Article by Manouchehr Saadat Noury on the First Iranian Goddess of Productivity & Values.
• The fifth Avestan Yasht
• The Anāhitā Temple at Kangavar.
• Iconography of Anahita (PDF-article)