Once upon a time, believe it or not, there were three Ahuras. Ahura Mazda, Ahura Mihr and Ahura Apam Napat. Ahura Mazda was perhaps the first among equals. Today Ahura Mazda alone reigns supreme in the Zoroastrian pantheon. Ahura Mihr or popularly Meher Yazad is now merely a deputy minister and the third divinity finds only a casual reference in some Zoroastrian prayers. How this dramatic fall from grace was engineered by the orthodox clergy in Sasanian times as also by some of their predecessors is a fascinating story.
Mithra (Meher) on the rock relief of Shapur II at Taq-i Bustan Photo: Wikipedia
Hardly any of the faithful who flock to the Aslaji Agiary on mah Meher, roz Meher are aware about the supreme spiritual status of Meher Yazad in Zoroastrian cosmology. In the Avesta, Ahura Mazda, the Supreme God, has six other ministers or ameshaspands in his cabinet, with 23 deputy ministers or yazads including Meher. To each of these 29, plus Ahura Mazda himself, a day of the month is dedicated; and to the important ones, a month is dedicated. Meher gets both, of course.
According to most scholars, this demotion of Meher from an equal of Ahura Mazda to a deputy minister was deliberate. So who exactly is Meher or Mihr, revered across many ancient faiths and cultures since Pre-Avestan Indo Iranian times? Why did his great popularity amongst the masses look so threatening to the Zoroastrian clergy? Why did Mihr worshiping societies have to go underground to escape persecution? And was this divine being a competitor of, or perhaps even superior to, Ahura Mazda? The mystery of Meher Yazad is enthralling.
The Gathas, perfectly metered poems, were divinely inspired to Zarathushtra and are believed to have great talismanic effect. The Zoroastrian funeral prayer or geh sarna is virtually the whole of the Ahunavad Gatha which, the belief goes, the pregnant are forbidden from attending lest the foetus aborts. The Gathas miraculously appear to have survived, unscathed over thousands of years. According to some scholars, some passages may have been added by the Prophet’s followers like Jamasp. The Gathas extol Mazda as the one and only Supreme Lord. Or maybe what we have today is a sanitized version which has deleted references to the exalted status of the other two Ahuras. Who was the original censor, only the Prophet knows.
Mihr was the God of Justice, one who ensured that contracts between men, and treatises between nations, were not breached. He is supposed to have presided even over the contest between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, until the concept of duality was theologically jettisoned. If Mihr had the power to judge even Mazda’s actions, he was definitely an equal if not superior to the latter. Passages from the Meher Yasht suggest that even Ahura Mazda concedes that Mihr is the only one who is worthy of being worshipped alongside him. Shapur II’s investiture tablet at Taq-i Bustan shows both Mazda and Mihr bestowing divine glory on the king.
Mihr was the great god during the Achemenid Hellenistic periods and his fame enveloped Greece and Rome. He was the international Ahura as opposed to the Persia only Ahura Mazda. King, peoples and army all swore by Him; and the festival of Mihrigan was celebrated with gusto. Modern scholars contend that one of the major causes of the decline of the Sasanian Empire and the falling apart of the Sasanian Parthian confederacy was Mihr worship by the Parthians and frowned upon by the Mazda exclusivists. Mihr worship thus led to revolutionary upheavals.
Of course, neither Mihr nor Apam Napat were originally Persian gods. So was the case with the boon bestowing all mighty Anahita or the Persian Aban Yazad (see "The cult of a Zoroastrian goddess,” Parsiana, June 21-July 6, 2023). Imported gods seamlessly floated into the mass consciousness as cultures intermingled. The most powerful gods had to be Persianized by altering their names or changing some of their attributes.
The clergy was a master of thought control. Mihr was so deeply embedded in the psyche of the Persians that to totally obliterate him was near impossible. So they did the next best thing — gradually downgraded his status. From being one of the Ahuras, a peer of Mazda, Mihr was not even listed as one of the six ameshaspands; instead he was relegated to the status of a yazad, a deputy minister in Mazda’s cabinet. Of course, a very large and adulatory Yasht was dedicated to him — Meher Yasht — whose substantial contents were pre Mazdayasni religion, describing him as the Lord of the Covenants. In all probability, the Avesta version of this Yasht was edited if not composed by the mobedan mobed (Supreme High Priest) Adarbad Marespand; present day traditionalists regard him as a quasi prophet who successfully passed the test of molten bronze being poured onto his chest. During Marespand’s reign, Zoroastrianism was at its peak as the state religion of Sasanian Persia. Marespand was saintly, gifted, ultraorthodox, autocratic, intolerant of dissent, all at the same time. In this relegation of both Mihr and Apam Napat, he played a decisive role. Cleverly, subtly, skilfully.
If truth is the central plank of Zoroastrianism, then Meher is the divinity ensuring that truth prevails by enforcing pacts and the formal sacrosanct spoken word. Meher was the one who is omnipresent and omniscient. Just like Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom. Meher is judgmental; Ahura Mazda is not — he has bestowed upon man the vohuman (the good mind to make right decisions).
As for the third Ahura, Apam Napat, he is not anywhere in Zoroastrian cosmology. But who exactly is Apam Napat, the forgotten god, also an import from other cultures? Grandson of the waters, the third Ahura, shared some of the functions with Mihr. The yazads, the powerful Srosh and Rashne, were his assistants. The Rig Veda refers to him several times as a chief god. The orthodox clergy gradually promoted Anahita, the goddess presiding over the waters, also an import from Armenia, to replace Apam Napat. Passing reference to him is to be found in Yasht 19. In every gah prayer, like Havan, a salutation to him appears as apam napatarem yazamaide; separate from the other divinities.
So these foreign gods, widely worshipped by the ruler and ranks alike, were Persianized and made one of our own, by the orthodox clergy. How public consciousness was manipulated and altered demonstrates the skills of the high priests. How these gods were stripped of their attributes and made to look small before Ahura Mazda indicates the totalitarian streak in the clergy.
Those of the devout who begin their day by worshipping Mazda and his ameshaspands can hedge their bets by invoking Mihr or Meher by reciting mithraim vohuroom gaiyotim yazamaide. And please spare a thought for Apam Napat, victim of a theological coup.
Berjis Desai, lawyer and author of Oh! Those Parsis and Towers of Silence, is a chronicler of the community.