Oxford Dictionary of World Mythology

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Ahura Mazdah

Ahura Mazdah West Asia
Originally Ahura, ‘the lord’, may have been connected with Mithra, the ruler of the day, before he was elevated to the position of the supreme being in Persian religion by the prophet Zoroaster, and he acquired the epithet Mazdah, ‘wise’. Although the Indo-European pastoralists settled on the Iranian plateau derived their gods from the same pantheon as the Aryan conquerors of India, the course of their religious development was entirely different. While the Indian mind sought a unifying principle within a multiplicity of gods, in Persia this monistic tendency moved in the direction of a universal monotheism under the inspiration of Zoroaster.

Fire was conceived of as the symbol of truth which Ahura Mazdah bestowed on his followers. Light was opposed to darkness and associated with truth and righteousness, asha. In the myth of Atar, the fire of the sky and Ahura Mazdah's son, there is a struggle with Azhi Dahaka,...

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