PERSIAN MYTHOLOGY. Only scanty traces of the mythology of ancient Persia have survived. The reform supposedly instituted by Zoroaster (q.v.) seems to have swept away the older nature worship which prevailed in Iran as in India. It is evident, however, that this re form was ndt absolutely thorough, and that un der the orthodoxy which was forced on the peo ple by Visidaspa, the royal patron of Zoroaster, according to the rather doubtful Parsi traditions, . there lurked many old beliefs and myths which were heritages of the Indo-Iranian religion. When the first enthusiasm of this Zoroastrian Protestantism died out, the ancient faith revived in some measure, and in the Yashts, a part of the Avesta (q.v.) late in form, but almost certainly old in content, many mythological allusions may he found. In some of the Pahlavi texts (see PAHLAVI LITERATURE), especially in the Bundabish, there survive numerous traces of the primitive faith, despite the Zoroastrian ortho doxy to which they theoretically eonform. The six Amsbaspands, who in Zoroastrianism ropre- • sent the cardinal virtues of Good :Wind, Best Righteousness. Desirable Kingdom, Holy Concord, Health, and Immortality, were originally deities protecting respectively cattle, fire, metals, earth, water, and plants, being therefore nature divini ties. Ormazd. who in the Zoroastrian reform be came the chief, and really the only god, was o•igi nally a sky-deity, whose son was the fire, and will was also the father of the Good Mind, or, in the early evaluation of this godling, of cattle. His daughter was Holy Concord, the earth, who from many allusions iu the Yashts was a goddess of fer tility. The demons, who play a subordinate part in the orthodox texts, find a more prominent place in the Yashts. Important here is the serpent Azhi Dahaka, who was probably the sky-serpent. cor responding to the Vedic Vritra slain by Indra (q.v.), especially as the Bundahish deseribes him
as falling from heaven. The Yashts emphasize the nature worship of the pre-Zoroastrian re ligion in the chapters devoted to the sun, the moon, the planet Tishtrya, who, mounted on a black horse. perhaps the storm-eloud, defeats the demon Apaosha, drought, and to the waters, Anahita. who is the Anaitis (q.v.) of the clas sical writers. To all these not only heroes, hut even Onnazd himself. offer sacrifices, clearly pointing to an earlier period when one god was dependent on another for aid. Ghost worship also (see GHOSTS) is represented by the cult of the Fravashis, who seem to have originally rep resented the spirits of the beneficent dead. The cosmogonie mythology (see Cosmocoxy) is large ly derived from Semitic sources, for the anti thesis of Ormazd, the god of the sky and light, to Ahriman (q.v.), the god of darkness, and their conflict at the creation of the world, is precisely analogous to the battle of the Babylonian solar deity Marduk with Tiamat, the demon of chaos. About trees and animals myths clustered. In the white Heim tree, which will give man immortal ity at the day of resurrection, there is a pre Zoroastrian reflex of the Semitic tree of life, while the human-headed bulls of .1.4syrian sculp tures are represented by Gopatshab, a being half hull and half man, who pours holy water into the sea. 1Vith the downfall of the Iranian re ligion before Mohammedanism. the old myths vanished almost entirely, so that the mythology of modern Persia is practically Islamitic. How ever, the pairiko, a female demon of Iran. is preserved as the beneficent pfri of modern Per sian folk-lore, and the simurgh, a bird of magic properties, has become the roe of the Arabian Nights.