Mithra
Also known as: Mihr, Mehr, Mithra of wide pastures
Mythological Narrative
Mithra is among the greatest of the yazatas, the venerated divinities of Zoroastrianism, and his name means "covenant" itself. The Mihr Yasht (Yasht 10), one of the longest hymns of the Avesta, describes him with a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes, never sleeping, watching all the Aryan lands from his broad lookout; before the sun rises he mounts the peak of Mount Hara, driving a golden-wheeled chariot drawn by four white horses and wielding a mace cast with a hundred bosses. Whoever breaks a compact — whether sworn to a believer or an unbeliever — becomes a liar to Mithra, and his horses carry ruin into the oath-breaker's country.
With Rashnu the judge and Sraosha the spirit of conscience, he weighs the souls of the dead at the Chinvat Bridge. In the later Achaemenid period he re-enters royal writing: Artaxerxes II invokes Ahura Mazda, Anahita, and Mithra together in his inscriptions at Susa and Hamadan, asking the three to protect his palace and person. His bond with the sun grew ever closer; Middle Persian mihr means at once sun, covenant, and affection, the sixteenth day of every month and the seventh month of the Zoroastrian calendar bear his name, and the autumn festival of Mehregan is still kept in Iran. The mystery cult of Mithras that spread through the Roman legions in the first centuries CE borrowed his name, but its bull-slaying icon and underground rites have no Persian counterpart and are generally regarded as a Roman creation.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## The Mihr Yasht
Yasht 10, one of the longest hymns of the Avesta, is devoted to Mithra. It opens with Ahura Mazda declaring that he created Mithra as worthy of sacrifice and prayer as himself, and it describes a watchful, terrible god of the covenant: the first of the heavenly beings to rise over Mount Hara before the sun, he drives a chariot across the sky, sees everything with his thousand ears and ten thousand eyes, and brings ruin on the 'Mithra-deceiver' who breaks a contract, while protecting those who keep faith. Before him runs Verethragna, victory, in the shape of a boar.
## Kings, oaths, and the Sun
Artaxerxes II (r. 404-358 BCE) is the first Achaemenid king to invoke Mithra in his inscriptions, alongside Ahuramazda and Anahita. Greek writers equated Mithra with the Sun: Strabo reports that the Persians honor Helios, 'whom they call Mithras'. In Middle Persian tradition Mihr, with Sraosha and Rashnu, judges each soul at the Chinvat Bridge, and the seventh month and the autumn festival of Mehregan bear his name.
## Mithra and Mithras
The Roman mystery god Mithras, worshipped in underground chambers across the Roman Empire from the first century CE and shown slaying a bull, shares Mithra's name. How much the Roman cult drew from Iranian religion is a long-standing scholarly debate; the bull-slaying scene, central to Roman Mithraism, has no counterpart in the Avesta.
Cross-Pantheon Parallels & Archetypes
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Mithra.
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Ahura Mazda
Supreme god of Zoroastrianism, the "Wise Lord" who created the world and the order of asha, locked in a cosmic struggle with the destructive spirit Angra Mainyu.
Anahita
Goddess of rivers and fertility, "the moist, the strong, the immaculate." She pours from the divine mountain into the world sea; heroes and tyrants alike offered her sacrifice for victory.
Chinvat Bridge
The bridge every soul must cross after death in Zoroastrian belief: nine spear-lengths wide for the righteous, narrow as a blade's edge for the wicked, with divine judges weighing each life at its head.
Helios
The Titan-born sun who drives his chariot across the sky each day and sees everything beneath it. Son of Hyperion and Theia, brother of Selene (Moon) and Eos (Dawn), Helios is the witness gods and mortals call on because nothing happens outside his gaze.