Mithra

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.