THE COMMON SOURCE OF MYTHOLOGY—MYTHICAL MOUNTAINS—RIVERS—MYTHICAL BIRDS—AHURA MAZDA—ATAR—THE STORM GOD—YIMA—THE CHINVAT BRIDGE—MITHRA—RÉSUMÉ.

We have briefly sketched in the preceding chapter the more tolerable features of a mythology which is evidently the common source of the later pantheons. The picture of human sacrifices, and practices which are still more revolting, have been avoided, as unnecessary to the general purpose, while the poetic figures of these ancient myths are dwelt upon with peculiar pleasure.

Persian civilization was to a great extent the product of Babylonian elements, and her mythology was born of that type of sensual idolatry too gross for description. But the Persians were a poetic people, and in their hands these ancient myths were refined and somewhat elevated. The hideous idols called sun-images, which were used in the worship of Chemosh, gave place to the adoration of the sun itself, as the great source of all physical light. It was by the hand of Persia that the sacred bull of Egypt was smitten down, and also the golden couch of Baal, with all its attendant horrors. But even Persia is accused of having at times practiced the horrible rite of human sacrifice, and the Babylonian Venus found admission, even among the people whose king had stabbed the Egyptian Apis, and overturned his shrine.^[113]

Persia was a land of extremes, and the richest part of her dominions was fated to lie beneath the early snows, and feel the severity of winter, while the central portion of the country was one vast desert, whose scorching simoons were as much to be dreaded as the snows of her northern table-lands. The early settlers of Iran, therefore, were forced to win their bread and develop their resources by the most arduous labor, and the dreamy mythology of the Hindus gave way in their minds to the sterner conflict between good and evil.

The opposition between light and darkness became a prominent feature of their mythology, for the battles which raged in Hindu skies between Indra, the storm king, and his constant enemy, V?itra, became to the sons of Iran a personal strife with the powers of nature, and instead of dreaming of a contest in the clouds, they sang of the daily battle in lives which were crowded with hardship. Hence it is that Ormazd and Ahriman, in their continual strife, form the background of the national mythology, although Persia took the sun for her emblem, and called her kings by his royal name; a flashing globe was the signal light above the imperial tent, and the golden eagle was perched upon the ensign that led the Persian troops to victory.

MYTHICAL MOUNTAINS.

The silent mountains standing calmly beneath the skies of blue, while the ages come and go, always command the reverence of the human heart. With forests around their feet, the gray peaks reach upward to dim and ashen heights, where the white snow lies unpolluted by the foot of man. Their frost-crowns gleam in the sunlight of noon, or change to tints of opal and crimson light beneath the farewell fires of the setting sun. No wonder, then, that in the fables of all people the gods are enthroned on wondrous heights. The old Assyrian kings wrote upon their strange tablets of “the world mountain,” which, although rooted in hades, still supported the heavens with all their starry hosts. The world was bound to it with a rope, like that with which the sea was churned in the later Hindu legend, for the lost ambrosia of the gods,^[114] or like the golden cord of Homer with which Zeus proposed to suspend the nether earth, after binding the cord about Olympus.^[115] This mythical mountain was the abode of the gods, and it was this of which the Babylonian king said:

It was between the “Twin Mountains” that the sun passed in its rising and setting, and the rocky gates were guarded by the “scorpion men,” whose heads were at the portals of heaven, and their feet in hell beneath.^[117]

In the mythology of the Hindus, Mount Meru rises in her solitary grandeur in the very centre of the earth to the height of sixty-four thousand miles; and there on her sun-kissed crown, amidst gardens of fabulous beauty, and flowers that never of winter hear—where the skies are of rose and pearl, and the dreamlike harmonies of far-off voices are borne upon the air, we find the heaven of Indra, the abode of the gods.^[118]

Among the Greeks the gates of Olympus open to receive the imperial throng, when

When the chambers of the east were opened, and floods of light were poured upon the peak, the Greek poet dreamt that:

But even the storm-swept heights of Olympus, where the chariots of the gods were crushed to fragments beneath the lightnings of Jove, were not lofty enough for the spirit of the Norseman. Odin’s Valhal, with its roof of shields and walls of gleaming spears, lies in heaven itself, and higher still is Gimle, the gold-roofed hall of the higher gods. Far away to the northward, on the heights of the Nida mountains, stands a hall of shining gold which is the home of the Sindre race.^[119] These are they who smelt earth’s gold from her rough brown stone, and flashing through her crystals, the tints which are hidden in the hearts of the roses, they are changed to rubies and garnets. These are they who make the sapphires blue with the fresh lips of the violet, and mould earth’s tears into her purest pearls.

In Persian mythology we find a trace of “the world mountain” of the old Assyrian kings, as well as a thought which is akin to the vine-clad bowers of Meru, the shining gates of Olympus, and the Nida mountains of the Norsemen, for here the Qaf mountains surround the world after the manner of the annular system described in the Maha-Bharata.^[120] This mythical range is pure emerald, and although it surrounds the world, it is placed between two of the horns of a white ox, named Kornit or Kajuta. He has four thousand horns, and the distance from one horn to another could not be traversed in five hundred years. These mountains are the abode of giants, fairies and peris, while their life-giving fountains confer immortality upon those who taste of their waters.

The highest portion of the emerald range is the Alborz,^[121] where the fabled Simurgh builds her colossal nest of sandal wood, and the woven branches of aloe and myrtle trees. Mount Alborz is represented as standing upon the earth, while her crown of light reposes in the region far beyond the stars. It is Hara-Berezaita (the lofty mountain)—the sphere of endless light, where the supreme god of Persian mythology dwells in his own temple which is the “abode of song.” This is the “Mother of Mountains” and from it have grown all the heights that stand upon the earth; it is the fabled center of the world, and around it the sun, moon and stars revolve. Hence, in the Vendidad^[122] we find the following hymn:

RIVERS.

In the mythology of every people we find mystic rivers in connection with the worship of their divinities. They are winding everywhere through the enchanted land of fable. Often born in the highlands of the celestial mountains, they are represented as coming down to earth with the glint of the sunlight on their waves. The great river of Egypt, which is supposed to give life to the gods as well as men, is thus fabled to have sprung from the mountains of the sky, and a “Hymn to the Nile,” recorded on a clay tablet, begins with the words:

In Greek mythology, we find the river ocean flowing around the earth, with its calm current unbroken by storm, and unswerved by the angry tempest. The sea, with her sun-kissed billows, received her waters from this unfailing fountain, and far beyond the northern mountains, where the “golden gardens” gleamed in the sunlight and the winds were rocked to sleep, there lived a happy people, where sorrow could not enter and death would never come.

Among the Hindus, the sacred Ganges flowed at first only through the blue fields of heaven, and fell to the earth from the divine feet of Vishnu:

The Norseman also sings of heavenly rivers, as well as the Ifing, which flows in a never-freezing current between the world of men and the world of gods; he sings, too, of the river GyÖll, which flows nearest to the gates of Hel,^[124] and over whose golden bridge the countless bands of the dead are passing.

In Persian mythology there is a crystal stream which gushes from a golden precipice of the mythical mountain and descends to the earth from the heavens, as does the celestial Ganga of the Hindus. This is the heavenly spring from which all the waters of the earth come down.... It is the Ardvi Sura Anahita which ever flows in a life-giving current, bringing blessings unto man and receiving in return the sacrifices of the material world.

This river has a thousand cells and a thousand channels, and each of these extend as far as a swiftly mounted horseman can ride in forty days; in each channel there stands a palace gleaming with an hundred windows and a thousand columns; these palaces are surrounded with ten thousand balconies founded in the distant channels of the river, and within their courts are luxurious beds, “well scented and covered with pillows.” In the golden ravines around these palace halls are the wondrous fountains of the Ardvi Sura Anahita, and the stream rushes down from the summit of the mountain with a volume greater than all the rivers of earth, and falls into the bosom of the celestial sea that lies at the foot of the Hara-Berezaita. When the waters of the river fall into the Vouru-Kasha, the waves of the sea boil over the shores, and the billows chant a song of welcome.

This celestial spring, with its mighty torrent of waters, is personified as a beautiful goddess^[125]—a maiden tall and shapely, who is born of a glorious race. She is stately and noble, strong as the current of a mighty river, and pure as the snows that lie on the mountain’s crown. Her beautiful arms are white and thick, her hair is long and luxuriant, for she is large and comely, radiant with the glory of a perfect womanhood.

This glorious maid of the mountain has four white horses, which were made for her by Ahura Mazda; one is the snow, and one is the wind, while the others are the rain and the cloud; thus it happens that ever upon the earth it is snowing, or the rain is somewhere coming down to gladden the flowers with refreshing touch.

The beautiful goddess springs from a golden fissure in the highest peak, and mounting her chariot draws the reins above her white steeds and drives them down the steep incline, which is a thousand times the height of a man, and continual sacrifice is offered to her brightness and glory.

Clothed with a golden mantle and wearing a crown radiant with the light of an hundred gems, she comes dashing down the mountain side, thinking in her heart: “Who will praise me? Who will offer me a sacrifice with libations?”

The cloud-sea represents the “dewy treasures” of the Hindus—the rains which are held in the reluctant cloud, and only drawn therefrom by the lightning bolts of Indra, who is assisted in the battle by the Maruts when they “harness their deer for victory.”^[126] The Persian Vendidad represents a continual interchange between the waters of the earth and sky.

MYTHICAL BIRDS.

Birds have always held a prominent place in the various mythologies. Among the Assyrians, the zu or vulture was the symbol of the “god of the storm-cloud,” who was believed to have stolen the laws and attributes of Bel for the benefit of mankind, and to have been punished for the theft by transformation into a vulture.^[128]

In Egyptian mythology, the tablets represent Isis as a bird. “For she is Isis, the charmer, the avenger of her brother, who seeks him without failing, who traverses the earth with lamentations, without resting before she has found him—creating the light with her feathers, producing the wind with her wings, celebrating the sacred dances, and depositing her brother in the tomb ... raising the remains of the god, with immovable heart ... she makes him grow, his arm becomes strong in the great dwelling.”^[129]

In the Hindu poem of the Ramaya?a, during the banishment of the innocent and beautiful Sita, the pitying birds dipped their pinions in the sacred waters of the Ganges, and fanned her feverish face, that she might not faint with the heat.^[130] In the same poem we have also descriptions of Garu?a, the eagle-steed of Vish?u, and Sampati, the sacred vulture, who gave information concerning the demon king that carried away the beautiful princess. Hindu mythology also contains “the celestial birds,” who were acquainted with right and wrong, and who, in one of the Pura?as answered the questions of the sages, and also gave an account of the creation.

In northern Europe we find a wondrous eagle, who sits amongst the branches of the Ygdrasil—that beautiful tree of Norse mythology, whose three great roots strike downward among the Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians, and Germans. This great ash tree spreads its life-giving arms through the heavens, and on the topmost bough is the eagle “who knows many things,” and between his eyes sits the keen-eyed hawk, Vedfolner.^[131]

We have also the Griffin of chivalry, the fabulous monster, half bird and half lion, that protected the gold of the Hyperborean regions from the one-eyed Arimaspians, and the Phoenix of Egyptian fable—the bird of gold and crimson plumage, that is burned upon her nest of spices every thousand years, and as often springs to life from her ashes. The Turks have their Kerkes, and the Japanese their Kirni, while China exhibits a nondescript dragon, which is a combination of bird and reptile. In the Greek Iliad we have the imperial bird of Jove—“Strong sovereign of the plumy race” bearing a signal from the god. Among the Persian myths we find the Karmak, a gigantic bird “which overshadowed the earth, and kept off the rain until the rivers were dried up.” And the law was brought to the Var of Yima by the bird Karsipta who recites the Avesta in the language of birds.

The raven was sacred to Apollo, and in Persia the priests of the sun were named ravens. In the Avesta this bird is called “the swiftest of all—the highest of the flying creatures ... he alone of all living things—he or none—overtakes the flight of an arrow, however well it has been shot; he grazes in the hidden ways of the mountains, he grazes in the depths of the vales, he grazes on the summit of the trees listening to the voices of the birds.”^[132] Again it is said of the Varenga?a or raven: “Take thou a feather of that bird, with that feather thou shalt rub thine own body—with that feather thou shalt curse thine enemies; if a man holds a bone of that strong bird, no one can smite or turn to flight that fortunate man. The feather of that bird of birds brings him help, it brings unto him the homage of men, it maintains him in glory.”^[133] It is said that the glory departed from Yima three times in the shape of a raven, and the raven is also one of the incarnations of the genius of Victory.

The Saena, which, in later literature, is the Sinamru or Simurgh, occupies an important place in Persian mythology. His resting place is on the Ja?-besh, or the tree of the eagle; this tree is the bearer of all seeds, and when the Simurgh leaves it in his flight, a thousand twigs will shoot from the tree, and when he returns and alights thereon, he breaks off the thousand twigs, and sheds the seed from them. Then the bird Chan_mrosh who always sits near, watching the tree, will collect the seed which falls from the Ja?-besh, or tree of all seeds, and carry it to the fountain where Tishtar (or Tistrya) receives the waters, so that Tishtar may gather the seed of all kinds with the waters, and may shower it down upon the world with the rain.^[134]

The Simurgh was the son of Ahum-stut, who was perhaps “the holy falcon—praiser of the lord.” He builds his nest amidst the cliffs of Mount Alborz, and the gigantic structure is woven with the branches of the aloe and the fragrant sandal-wood. Around it gleam the white cliffs in the sunlight, and precious stones lie beneath it, for it is far beyond the reach of man. The Simurgh became, in later literature, a mythical incarnation of supreme wisdom.

This deity is represented as the supreme god of the Persians, the creator of the other gods, and the ruler of them all.

The word Ahura appears to have much kinship with Asura, of the Hindu mythology. In the early portions of the ?ig-veda this word has a good meaning, but in the latter part of the same work the AsuraAsura is represented as a black demon, who committed fearful devastation until he was defeated by Indra. Among the Persians, Asura, or Ahura is pictured as the sky-god, who is represented among the Hindus as Varu?a, who looks down from heaven with his countless starry eyes and “wields the universe as the gamesters handle dice.”^[135]

The heaven of Ahura-Mazda surrounds the highest peaks of the “Lofty Mountain” in the upper air, and it is called the “Abode of Song.” It is said “the maker Ahura-Mazda has built a dwelling on the Hara-Berezaita, the bright mountain around which the daily stars revolve.... With his arms lifted up towards immortality, Mithra, the lord of wide pastures, drives forward a beautiful chariot, wrought by Ahura-Mazda and inlaid with stars.”^[136]

The attributes of Ahriman, the serpent, or evil principle, became personified, and the various forms of falsehood, darkness and death became abstract demons. So, also, Ahura-Mazda was afterward worshipped as a multitude of deities, and thus it happened that victory, benevolence, sovereignty, and even health were each worshipped as a separate divinity, and gathered together in the heavenly councils as a band of Yazatas or angels. These are numbered by thousands, but the one demanding the greatest reverence is

ATAR.

This is the god of fire. He was called the “most great Yazata,” and as such he commanded the undying worship of the Persian devotee.

The first duty of each Parsi householder was to cherish the sacred fire upon his own hearth, feeding it only with delicate bits of fragrant sandal wood, while the fires in the temples were committed to the care of the priests. Atar is the Persian form of the Hindu Agni, the guardian of the home, and the symbol of social union.

The cypress tree was planted in front of their fire temples, and when it had reached a towering height, it was surrounded by a gilded palace like a sheath of flame,^[137] while more simple altars arose from their mountain tops and blazed with the sacred symbol.

THE STORM GOD.

The Persian myth of the struggle of Tistrya with Apaosha, the drouth fiend, in order to obtain rain, is merely another form of the battle of the elements in the ?ig-veda, when Indra rides forth to the conflict and shoots his arrows into the gathering clouds.

The early idolaters worshipped the host of heaven, and from this doubtless arose the worship of the star Sirius as the storm god—Tistrya. The rising of this star to a prominent position marks the period of the ever welcome rains, when the parched earth drinks in the refreshing flood, and the flowers spring from the soil.

The dog-days are supposed to represent the time of Tistrya’s great conflict with Apaosha, and the battle is long and closely contested before he conquers his foe.

The storm god comes into the arena in three different forms; he first attacks the foe in the form of a beautiful youth, then as a bull with golden horns, and at last as a white horse with golden caparison and golden ears. The drouth fiend is represented as a black horse, and “They meet together hoof against hoof, they fight for three days and three nights, and then the Deva^[138] proves too strong for bright and glorious Tistrya; he overcomes him.” Tistrya then flees from the sea and cries out: “Oh Ahura-Mazda, men do not worship me with sacrifice and praise, invoking me by my own name; should they worship me with sacrifice and praise, invoking me by my own name as the other Yazatas are invoked, they would bring me the strength of ten horses, of ten camels, ten bulls, ten mountains and ten rivers.”

Ahura then offers him a sacrifice, in which he is invoked by his own name, and which gives him the strength of ten horses, of ten camels, ten bulls, ten mountains and ten rivers, whereupon Tistrya returns to the conflict, and Apaosha flies before him. The white horse being victorious, the copious rains come down, glad brooks spring from the rocky hillsides—they come with pearly sandaled feet, laden with love and mercy to the sun-parched plain; hence the following hymn:

YIMA.

The Persian god of death is scarcely changed from the Hindu Yama, who is “the king of death and the judge of the dead.” Among the Hindus, however, he appears as the first of men who died, while among the Persians he has many ancestors. He offered sacrifices upon the summit of “the beautiful mountain,” and prayed the gods to grant him power and dominion. Thus he became a king over men and even over the Devas. As the regions of Pluto were guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus, and the path of Yama was watched by two terrible dogs of the “four-eyed tawny breed of Sarama,” so also the souls of good men are defended from the howling and pursuing demons, by the dogs that guard

THE CHINVAT BRIDGE.

The Chinvat^[140] or Kinva? bridge reaches to Mount Alborz, and it is also called the “Bridge of the Gatherer,” over which the souls of the righteous pass easily into the abodes of bliss, while the wicked fall from it into the den of falsehood and iniquity.

The Mohammedans call it the Al-Sirat, and it is represented in the Koran as being finer than the thread of a famished spider and sharper than a two-edged sword.

More beautiful by far is the Bi-frost, or rainbow arch of the Norseman—the bridge between heaven and earth, which was also borrowed from Chaldea:

And every day the gods come down to the judgment hall, of the Udar fountain, at the roots of the great ash tree and ride back on heavenly steeds across the bridge of many hues.

MITHRA.

As fire is the favorite symbol of the Persian, so the sun-gods are their most important deities, and of these Mithra stands at the head. One of the Sansk?it names for the sun is Mitra, and the Persian form of the word retains its full significance, as the pure light of day. The sun is never without his shrine, and he is also represented in the human form. His terrible power, especially in tropical climes, could not fail to be recognized, and hence the Persian swore by the sun, while the temples and images consecrated to this god of day arose in every part of the land. Persian decrees of the fourth and fifth centuries demanded the highest worship for the sun itself, while fire and water should receive inferior service. Christians were persecuted for refusing to perform these services in Armenia^[141] and the Roman Emperor Julian centered his apostasy in the philosophy which permitted him to call the sun the living image of God and even God himself.^[142]

Mithra is represented in the Avesta as riding across the broad arch of heaven, his chariot drawn by milk-white steeds whose feet are shod with gold and silver, while the god himself wears a golden helmet and a silver breastplate. He is represented as “The first of the heavenly gods who reaches over Hara, who, foremost in battle array, takes hold of the summits, and from thence looks with a beneficent eye over the abodes of the Aryans, where the valiant chiefs draw up their many troops in array; where the high mountains, rich in pastures and waters, yield plenty to the cattle; where the deep lakes with salt water stands; where the wide flowing rivers swell and hurry.... Four stallions draw that chariot, all of the same white color, living on heavenly food and undying.... The hoofs of their fore feet are shod with gold, the hoofs of their hind feet are shod with silver.”^[143]

This is the Persian picture of the Hindu myth, where the god of day is represented as coming out of the crimson chambers of the east, in his fiery car, while his white steeds are led by the fair goddess of the morning, wearing her garments of silver and changeful opal fire.^[144]

The mythology of Mazdeism is very rich with demons, many classes of which belong to the Indo-Iranian period. The Vedic Yatus are found unchanged in the Avesta, and these are demons who can assume any form they choose. The Pairikas in the oldest Avesta are the fiendish females, who rob the gods and men of the heavenly waters. They hover between heaven and earth in the midst of the sea Vouru-Kasha, to keep off the rain floods, working in harmony with Apaosha, the drouth fiend. There are many other female demons, which it is unnecessary to describe, as their characteristics are most revolting.

There is also a host of storm fiends, called “the running ones” on account of the headlong course of the fiends in a storm—“the onsets of the wounding crew.” The Devas represent demons which belong to the Indo-European mythology, and the term originally meant “the gods in heaven.” When they were converted into evil spirits they became “the fiends in the heavens” or the fiends who assail the sky, but they afterwards became the demons of lust and doubt. Death gave rise to several abstractions, such as Sauru, which was identical in meaning as well as name with the Vedic Saru, “the arrow,” a personification of the arrow of death, as a god-like being. The same idea is conveyed by Isus, the self-moving arrow, a designation which is perhaps accounted for from the fact that Saru, in India, before becoming the arrow of death, was the arrow of lightning, with which the god killed his foe. The god of death in another form becomes “the bone divider” who, like the Yama of the Maha-bharata, holds a noose around the neck of all living creatures. In the conflict between gods and fiends he takes an active part through the sacrifice. The sacrifice is more than an act of worship, it is an act of assistance to the gods. Gods, like men, need drink and food to be strong; like men, they need praise and encouragement in order to be brave; when not strengthened by the sacrifice they fly before their foes.

Sraosha is the priest-god, he first tied the sticks into bundles and offered up sacrifice to Ahura; he first sang the holy hymns and thrice each day and night he smites the demon crew with his uplifted club, and thus protects the world of the living from the terrors of the night, when the fiends rush upon the earth; it is he who protects the dead from the terrors of death, from the assault of Ahriman. It will be through a sacrifice performed by Ormazd and Sraosha that Ahriman will finally be vanquished. A number of divinities sprang from the hearth of the altar, most of them having existed during the Indo-Iranian period. Piety, who every day brings her offerings and prayers to the altar, was worshipped in the Vedas as Aramati, the goddess who every morning and evening, being anointed with sacred butter, offers herself up to Agni. She was praised in the Avesta as an abstract genius, but there are yet a few practices which preserve the evident traces of the old myths in relation to her union with Atar, the fire-god. The riches that go up to heaven in the offerings of man, and come down to earth in the gifts of the gods, were deified as Rata, the gift, Ashi, the felicity, and more vividly in Parendi, the keeper of treasures, who comes on a sounding chariot, a sister to the Vedic Puramdhi.

Thus we have seen the fabulous “world mountain” of early Babylonia pervading the mythologies of Europe and Asia, taking the form of the star-crowned Olympus on the Ægean sea, and of Meru, with her fadeless flowers, in the valleys of India. In northern Europe it is represented by the Nida mountains with their golden palaces, and in Persia by the beautiful Hara with her crown of living light.

The Chaldean river of death, Datilla, flows also through the realms of Grecia under the name of Styx, and in the regions of the north it becomes the Ifing, and also the GyÖll. Again the mythical river seems to mount upward, and like the heavenly Nile, the Ganges springs from celestial heights and flows through the starry highlands of heaven, while the silvery torrents of the Persian stream come pouring down from the white summit of the Hara-Berezaita.

The early Baal, with all the unspeakable abominations attending his worship, becomes refined in the form of Zeus or Jove, who hurls his lightnings from the brow of Olympus, and in the Ahura-Mazda of the Persians, whose throne is “the lofty mountain.” Tammuz and Chemosh, whose hideous images called forth the contempt of the prophets, appear in the Persian pantheon as Mithra with his glittering steeds; Ashtaroth of Sidon, and Diana of Ephesus, lay aside their revolting sensuality, and come forth as the chaste and strong Diana of Grecian poetry, or the fair goddess of the dawn among the Hindus and Persians. The germs of European and Asiatic mythology are therefore found in that cradle of idolatry, where the image-worship of Babylonia received the rebuke of the prophets, and where the red altars of Baal and Moloch were stained with human blood even amidst the highest forms of early art and culture.