Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
The Avestan religion, however, admits other deities besides Ahura Mazda and Angro Mainyu; Mitra, Anahita, and others are objects of worship. The ancient national faiths, that is, were not content with a simple division of things between two divine beings.
It must, therefore, be considered doubtful whether the Arabs had a true star-god. +718+. A well-defined instance of such a god is the Avestan Tistrya. His origin as an object of nature appears plainly in his functions he is especially a rain-god, and, as such, a source of all blessings. Alongside of him stand three less well defined stellar Powers.
At the foundation of this scheme of the world lies the conception of order, which is particularly defined in the Vedic arta and the Avestan asha the regulation of the world in accordance with human interests, in which the ethical element becomes more and more prominent as human society is more and more formed on an ethical basis.
In the Veda traces of philosophical thought, pantheistic and other, are not lacking. The Avestan ritual is concerned largely with physical details, but is not lacking in a good ethical standard; the Gathas, particularly, though not free from national coloring, give a noteworthy picture of the government of the world according to moral law.
The Hindu figure is often compared to the Avestan first man, Yima; but Yima, so far as appears, was never divinized, and is not religiously of great importance.
II. The Apocryphal Avesta usually called the Khorda Avesta, or the short Avesta. This is much less esteemed than the Avesta proper. It comprises, Minor Prayers. The language of the Avesta can be correctly described only as Avestan, for no other literature in the same language exists. It resembles the Pahlavi, or Ancient Persian, but it is identical with no language.
It was usually to be a national apotheosis, and was not generally supposed to include the human race, though traces of this wider view might easily be quoted from Avestan, Roman, and Israelitic sources. Those who were to enjoy it were not the dead, but those who shall be living. As the myth grew, it coalesced with that of the Epochs of Nature, and assumed grander proportions.
The connection with ancient Persian mythology is closer. The Avestan religion was a reformation due to the genius of Zoroaster and therefore comparable with Buddhism rather than Hinduism, but the less systematic polytheism which preceded it contained much which reminds us of the Vedic hymns.
On the other hand, the Hindu priesthood, by its poetical productions and its metaphysical constructions, has become a permanent influence in the world. In the Avestan system, however, a great rôle is assigned the priests, as is evident from the vast number of regulations concerning ceremonial purity, of which they had charge.
In the Vedas the Hindu books the powers of Nature are gods; in the Avesta they are spirits, or servants of the Supreme. "The main difference between the Vedic and Avestan religions is that in the latter the Vedic worship of natural powers and phenomena is superseded by a more ethical and personal interest.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking