ion: 017c.jpg MITHRA]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a coin of King Huvishka,
published by Percy Gardner.

Sometimes Ahura-mazda is himself included among the Amesha-spentas, thus
bringing their number up to seven; sometimes his place is taken by a
certain Sraosha (obedience to the law), the first who offered sacrifice
and recited the prayers of the ritual. Subordinate to these great
spirits were the Yazatas, scattered by thousands over creation,
presiding over the machinery of nature and maintaining it in working
order. Most of them received no special names, but many exercised wide
authority, and several were accredited by the people with an influence
not less than that of the greater deities themselves. Such Were the
regent of the stars--Tishtrya, the bull with golden horns, Sirius, the
sparkling one; Mao, the moon-god; the wind, Vato; the atmosphere, Vayu,
the strongest of the strong, the warrior with golden armour, who gathers
the storm and hurls it against the demon; Atar, fire under its principal
forms, divine fire, sacred fire, and earthly fire; Vere-thraghna, the
author of war and giver of victory; Aurva-taspa, the son of the waters,
the lightning born among the clouds; and lastly, the spirit of the dawn,
the watchful Mithra, "who, first of the celestial Yazatas, soars above
Mount Hara,* before the immortal sun with his swift steeds, who, first
in golden splendour, passes over the beautiful mountains and casts his
glance benign on the dwellings of the Aryans."**

* Hara is Haroberezaiti, or Elburz, the mountain over which
the sun rises, "around which many a star revolves, where
there is neither night nor darkness, no wind of cold or
heat, no sickness leading to a thousand kinds of death, nor
infection caused by the Daovas, and whose summit is never
reached by the clouds."

** This is the Mithra whose religion became so powerful in
Alexandrian and Roman times. His sphere of action is defined
in the Bundehesh.

Mithra was a charming youth of beautiful countenance, his head
surrounded with a radiant halo. The nymph Anahita was adored under the
form of one of the incarnations of the Babylonian goddess Mylitta, a
youthful and slender female, with well-developed breasts and broad hips,
sometimes represented clothed in furs and sometimes nude.* Like the
foreign goddess to whom she was assimilated, she was the dispenser of
fertility and of love; the heroes of