Talk:Anahita/Archive 1

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User:Bacchiad, on the ball, moves fast! Wetman 00:12, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Wetman. I dig your stuff, too. ;) Bacchiad 00:37, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Even I know that Ishtar has never been much of a mother goddess, and I have only written a couple of articles on assyriology. Ugly. --Oop 09:25, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

correct. Persian *Anahiti's "mother" attribute is not derived from her Babylonian-Akkadian analogue. -- Fullstop 16:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The name sounds soooo Sanskrit!! There's a *very* good chance that it means the same thing in Sanskrit. An- is a negation, "a" at the end makes it feminine. deeptrivia (talk) 06:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The reference to an inscription describing Anahita as 'the Immaculate Virgin mother' of Mithra is found on many websites. Unfortunately, its origin seems to be an online version of a kid's High School essay and nothing scholarly. It is spread around the internet largely because it appeals to those who ty to argue that Christianity is simply repackaged paganism and that Jesus never existed. I'm an atheist myself, so I don't care too much about whether Jesus existed or not, but unless someone can provide a better source for this supposed inscription than a child's high school essay, it has no place in this article.

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it may well be that Anahita is immaculate, but afaik, the name means "unfettered", not "immaculate". dab (ᛏ) 22:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

This is true of the context of the rushing river (which is what Aredvi Sura Anahita cosmological role is, cf. Lommel's Saraswati-Anahita). Nonetheless, the "immaculate" meaning, as it appears in Western Iranian languages, could justifiable also apply to "pure" water and healing, but presumably not with wisdom. :) -- Fullstop 16:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Merge

I suggest a merge of Anahit into Anahita. They are both essentially the same goddess (who is of Persian origins), with some difference in practice of worship. Much of the information here about Anahit (which is name of Anahita in Armenian language) is true for both instances. Khorshid 06:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. AnonMoos 17:05, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this problem is much more subtle than that, and the root of the problem is that the Anahita article is dealing with two different goddesses as if they were one. At some point they did indeed become one, but the article is horribly confused in its presentation.

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These two goddesses that the Anahita article is indiscriminately mashing together are:

• Aredvi Sura Anahita - A Proto-Iranian goddess of great antiquity (<15th century BCE) that derives from an even older Proto-Indo-Iranian *Sarasvati.
• Anahiti - A Persian goddess of the 6th/5th century BCE that developed out of close contacts with Babylon.
  P.S. for readers confused by the difference between Persia/Iran: in a historical and scholastic context, Persian refers to the language and people of Pars. Iranian is a collective term for all the languages and peoples of the cultural continent, of which Pars is in the south-west.

By virtue of the name *Anahiti (the Pure One) being similar to an epithet (attribute) of Aredvi, *Anahita was merged with Aredvi Sura Anahita at some point between 450 BCE and 350 BCE. This merger was a deliberate act of king and priesthood, and occurred following the arrival of a "new" religion in western Iran, in which Aredvi Sura Anahita occupied an important position.

The aspect of *Anahiti as a goddess of war continued to be worshipped until about 300 CE.

Aredvi Sura Anahita, goddess of the world river that descends from the mythical Mount Hara, and hence goddess of all waters, and thus of fertility and wisdom (water is associated with wisdom in all Indo-Iranian religions), continues to be worshipped even today.

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Notes:

1. On the antiquity of Aredvi Sura Anahita:

a) Haraxuvati Aredvi Sura Anahita is Proto-Iranian, attested in Gathic Avestan (an extinct East-Iranian language) verses of the older Yasna, and in the name (or related to the origin of the name) of various topographical landmarks such as "Oxus", "Arachosia", "Bahrain", and the mythological "Mount Hara" that lies in "Aryana Vaeja". These are all evident in the cosmological mythology of speakers of *all* Iranian languages, including the people from Pars.

b) By virtue of being cognate with Vedic Saraswati, she even qualifies as being Proto-Indo-Iranian. She is hence truly archaic, from a time long before the westward migrations of the Proto-Iranians that eventually led to the establishment of the various ethnic groups of Western-Iran (including the Persians, Medeans, Elamites etc).

2. On the name of the Persian goddess:

Anahita is not actually attested in Old Persian. In the oldest *indigenous* West-Iranian reference to her, which dates to about 390 BCE, the name used is that from the Avestan, which by that time was already a sacred language, and gods were dutifully names as they appeared in that sacred language. In that inscription (Artaxerxes II' inscription at Susa), there are 3 gods named, in 3 different languages, yet in all three languages the names of the gods are the Avestan ones and not the Old Persian ones (which we know for two of them).

However, from Greek Anaitis it has been possible to reconstruct what the Old Persian name must have been like: *Anahiti, "The Pure One". Anahita may also be considered a loan word.

3. On the antiquity and properties of the Persian goddess:

a) The West-Iranians had excellent connections with Babylon, many of the Achaemenid kings had Babylonian mothers, and four of the Achaemenid kings even had their capital in Babylon. Given the close proximity between the two regions, it is absolutely natural for each to have borrowed from the other. The ideas of gods connected with planets, or that gods had human features, or even the idea of temples (as a way to collect taxes) are all of Babylonian origin. Even the epithet "Lady" ("Banu", as used for Anahita) is actually alien to all Iranian religion.

b) Independent of what is attested of Perso-Babylonian connections, we also have Herodotus' mid-5th century commentary, which tells us

"the Persians worship the sun and moon, to the earth, to fire, to water, and to the winds. These are the only gods whose worship has come down to them from ancient times. At a later period they began the worship of Urania, which they borrowed from the Arabians and Assyrians. Mylitta is the name by which the Assyrians know this goddess, whom the Arabians call Alitta, and the Persians [Anaitis]."

Herodotus' comment does not (by itself) imply that the Persians worshipped a foreign god, but only that the similarities between West-Iranian *Anahiti and Babylonian-Akkadian Ishtar-Innana were very great. There is however no doubt that the West-Iranians did appropriate some of the features of the Babylonian goddess for their own: Hence *Anahiti as the goddess of the planet Venus, and as the goddess of war, and as the "Lady". The "mother" attribute is however purely Persian, deriving presumably from the Persian language word for mother which is in the first syllable of the name *Anahiti.

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To cut it short,...

1. Its just as justifyable for Armenian Anahit to have her own article as it is for a Persian *Anahiti to have one. The two are related, but not in any way presently evident on the Anahita page. In the way the Anahita article is now, one does not derive from the other.
2. The Anahita article is horribly confused about which goddess it is talking about. It starts with the name of the article which is immediately contradicted by the lead sentence which introduces another goddess as she was worshipped at a very specific time, in in a very specific (and small) region. Then the article starts making general statements about a more universal divinity. And then in the final section, it reverts to talking about the divinity mentioned in the lead sentence, but mashes the two together by giving Avestan "Aredvi Sura Anahita" a Persian language suffix "Banu". Wierd. The article should be fixed to be either all specifically-Persian, or all generally-Iranian. Not a mash, or at least properly distinguished.

-- Fullstop 16:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Merge II

To Khoikhoi and others:

how do you all feel about a merge with Aredvi Sura Anahita?

-- Fullstop 10:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Greek

The Greek form is Anaitis, right? AnonMoos 17:05, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

yes (among other Greek "translations") -- Fullstop 16:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)