A bridge of rainbows thrown across
The gulf of tears and sighs.”
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 Sanskṛit 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 Āryans, 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 Hindū 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-Īrānian period. The Vedic Yātus 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 Vourū-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 Saurū, which was identical in meaning as well as name with the Vedic Sarū, “the arrow,” a personification of the arrow of death, as a god-like being. The same idea is conveyed by Iśus, the self-moving arrow, a designation which is perhaps accounted for from the fact that Sarū, 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 Mahā-bhārata, 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 Ahūra; 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-Īrānian 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 Rāta, 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.