Nikola Benin. Persian Mythology

Nikola Benin, Ph.D

It developed in what is now Iran after about 1500 B. C. Zoroastrianism emerged in the region about a thousand years later. It held on to many of the earlier beliefs but added new themes, deities, and myths. The result was a mythology based on a dualistic vision: a cosmic clash between good and evil.The earliest information about Persian mythology comes from Avesta.

The driving forces of that mythology were two powerful gods, Ahura Mazda the creator, a god of light, truth, and goodness, and his enemy Ahriman, the spirit of darkness, and evil, created only destructive things such as vermin, disease, and demons.

The world was their battlefield.

The ancient Persian pantheon also included Mithras, a god associated with war, the sun, and law and order, who became the object of a widespread cult in the Roman empire. Anahita was a goddess of water and fertility. Verethraghna, a god of war and victory, appeared on earth in ten forms: as wind, a bull, a horse, a camel, a boar, a youth, a raven, a ram, a buck, and a man.

Zoroastrianism was one of the first belief systems to include a vision of the end of the world. Historians of mythology think that certain beliefs in the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths probably grew out of Persian tradition.

Gholnar Ghal’e Khani – „I. Avesta Sources Zend-Avesta is the Zoroastrian's religious text, teaching the worship of Ahura Mazda in  the  context  of  a  universal  struggle  between  the  forces  of  light and  darkness.  In Zend-Avesta, Iranian national and epic stories are narrated. It is written in one of the ancient  Persian  languages,  and  except  for  Avesta  and  the  attached  manuscripts,  no other text is written in this language. Its written symbols and alphabets are based on a version  of  Pahlavi  writing  invented  in  the  reign  of  Sasasnian  dynasty  (3rd  to  17th A.D.).“

References 1. Afifi, Rahim.. Iranian Mythology and Culture in Pahlavi Texts. Tehran: Toos Publications, 1995.

2. Amozegar, Jaleh. The History of Iranian Mythology. Tehran: Samt Publications, 1988.

3. Bahar, Mehrdad. Resarch on Iranian Mythology. Tehran: Agah Publications, 1981.

4. Bartholemae, C. The Altiranisches Worterhuch. Berlin: 1975.

5. Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. Trans. Abbas Mokhber. Tehran: Markaz Publications, 2002.

6. Christensen, Arthur. Les Kayanides. Kobenhavn: Fred. Host, 1931.

7. Curtis, Vesta S. Iranian Mythology. Trans. Abbas Mokhber. Tehran: Markaz Publications, 1994.

8. Eliade, Mircea. (1998). Avesta of Myth of Eternal Return.

 9. Ferdowsi, Abol Ghasem. Shahnameh. Trans. Helen Zimmern. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.