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THE GODS of PAGAN IRAN Many Divine Beings Are Honoured in The CHAPTER TWO THE GODS OF PAGAN IRAN Many divine beings are honoured in the Avesta, and probably the original pantheon of Iranian gods is very largely represented there.l The names of some are recorded elsewhere in ancient Iran (notably in tablets and inscriptions from Pars), and a few of the greatest were worshipped also by the Vedic Indians. These particular divinities must have been venerated for countless generations by the Indo-Iranians in their nomad days for their cults to have survived in this manner long after the two peoples had parted and made their slow ways to new and very different homes; and it was ancient nomadism, lived on vast steppes, which gave an especial character to these ancestral gods. The Indo-Iranians, as wanderers, had had no temples with images, such as reduced the divinities of settled peoples to local powers with fixed habitations and merely regional authority. Their gods were seen as exercising unbounded in­ fluence throughout the world, their sway being limited only by function, since each had his particular character and task ;2 and their universality was splendidly celebrated by the poets of Iran and India, as in the follow­ ing verses in honour of Mithra/Mitra: "His place is of the width of the earth", "he looks upon all that is between earth and heaven", "he holds embraced heaven with his greatness, (holds) embraced the earth with his glory."3 In this the high gods of the Indo-Iranians already resembled the 1 Although many of the interpretations offered there are out of date, L. H. Gray, "The foundations of the Iranian religions", ]COl 15, 1929, 1-228, remains the most complete reference book for the Iranian pantheon, bringing together as it does the Avestan and Pahlavi data for every divine being, as well as providing references to their Vedic counter­ parts. For a more recent bibliography of studies on the Vedic material see J. Gonda, Die Religionen Indiens I, Veda und iilterer Hinduismus, Stuttgart 1960. 2 The facts that the gods are distinguished by function, and that there is a basic similarity between the Avestan and Vedic pantheons, makes it impossible to accept the theory advanced by H. S. Nyberg (Die Religionen des Alten Iran, German transl. by H. H. Schaeder, Leipzig 1938, repr. 1966) that in Iran the ancient Indo-Iranian pantheon was for a time broken up, with the different Iranian peoples worshipping each their own "supreme gods" ( Hockgotter), only to have them brought together again-by chance on the old pattern-in Zoroastrianism, in which faith they were uneasily subordinated to Ahura Mazda, who had previously been only one of their number. Against Nyberg's theory (which was adopted and developed by his pupils S. Wikander and G. Widengren), see F. B. J. Kuiper, II] V, 1961, 56; Mote, Culte, mytke et cosmologie dans l' Iran ancien, Paris 1963, Ch. I; W. Lentz, A Locust's Leg, Studies in honour of S. H. Taqizadek, London 1962, IJJ. 3 Yt. 10.44, 75; RV 3·59·7· These verses are quoted by P. Thieme, JAOS LXXX, 1960, THE GODS OF PAGAN IRAN 23 Deity of monotheistic religions, and foreshadowed in their greatness the dignity of Zoroaster's own concept of the supreme Lord. Various collective terms were used by the Indians and Iranians for their divine beings. One was Vedic deva, Avestan daeva, an ancient word cognate with Latin deus and coming from an Indo-European base "shine, be bright". The "Shining Ones" were also called the "Immortals" (Vedic amrta, Avestan amasa); and the Iranians generally seem also to have used the term baga "one who distributes", a giver of good things. The most in­ teresting expression, however, from the point of view of the history of Zoroastrianism is Vedic asura, Avestan ahura, which is a title meaning "lord", used in both languages for men as well as gods. 4 In the Vedas this title is freely given to divine beings in general, the one who receives it most often being in fact Dyaus Pi tar, "Father Sky", 5 the Indian equivalent of Jupiter, who was originally perhaps the mightiest of the devas. In the often more conservative Iranian tradition, however, only three gods are ever addressed as ahura. They form a group, appearing closely linked in concept and function; and it seems very likely that it is these three who were the original "Lords" of the Indo-Iranian pantheon, and that it was only gradually that among the Indians their characteristic title came to be used respectfully for other gods also. 6 According to a coherent interpretation worked out during the present century, the ancient Indo-Iranian asuras all personify abstract concepts. In order to comprehend this aspect of Indo-Iranian religion it is vital to grasp the fact that such personifications could become strong and ever­ present divinities for their worshippers. "Whatever the origin of the gods which are called abstract many of them attained ... to genuine and real popular belief, and were every whit as much living to the popular mind as gods for whom we can see a basis in nature". 7 It was indeed general Indo­ European usage, it has been said, "to conceive as an active reality every 317, at the end of an admirable exposition of the universality of the Indo-Iranian gods. 4 For references to discussions of the word see J. Duchesne-Guillemin, "L'etude de l'iranien ancien au vingtieme siecle", Kratylos VII, 1962, 18; T. Burrow, ]RAS 1973. 127-8. 5 See P.v. Bradke, Dyiius Asura, Ahura Mazda und die Asuras, Halle 1885. On the use of the term deva in the Rigveda see C. W. J. van der Linden, The concept of deva in the Vedic age, Diss. Utrecht 1954, cited by Gonda, op. cit., 41 n. 63; and on daeva in the Avesta most recently E. Benveniste, "Hommes et dieux dans !'Avesta", Festschrift W. Eilers, Wiesbaden 1967, 144-7. 8 See von Bradke, 42 ff. As he says, this fairly general use of what was probably in origin a particular honorific seems in accord with the Vedic tendency to address each of the great gods in the same laudatory terms. See also Gonda, op. cit., 46-7. 7 A. B. Keith, The religion and philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads, Harvard 1925, 203. .
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