ANAGOGIC SENSE. - She is an Iranian female divinity of the later Avesta, in which there is found a hymn in her honor: Yast 5.
In it the power and efficacy of her help are extolled, to obtain which the ancient heroes vied with one another in offering sacrifices. She appears as protectress of the waters, indeed as their personification; it is therefore affirmed that A., rising from the mythical mountain Huxaira, in part pours impetuously into the Vourukasha sea, making its waters boil, and in part spreads abundantly over the seven zones of the earth. Given this character of hers, the hymn dedicated to her is also called âbâa "waters," and in the cult the temples, erected in her honor, rise on the banks of rivers.
It does not become clear whence this divinity penetrated into the religion of the later Avesta. It may be a figure of Iranian polytheism, earlier than Zarathustra, which later, despite his reform, succeeded in penetrating into the religion of the Avesta, like so many other divinities abolished by the reformer; the Iranians' cult of water and other elements, such as fire, might lead one to think so. But on the other hand A. is found widely diffused also outside the Iranian religious territory; her cult flourished greatly in Asia Minor and also in Armenia, especially in the region of Akhlisene, where she had temples even before the decree of Artaxerxes II (cf. below). In those regions she was identified with Artemis and other divinities, but above all with Astarte, that is, Aphrodite, Venus. She was venerated as goddess of fertility, of marriage and of births; and as in the cult of Astarte, so in that of A. sacred prostitution was in use for girls before they went to a husband (Strabo, X, 16, 532). The connections, therefore, both in characteristics and in cult, with Astarte could be explained in two ways: either by admitting that A. was introduced from the Babylonian religion into the Iranian one, and in favor of this opinion there would be the fact that in the latter there is found a female divinity, protectress of women, but of a less sensual character and more in conformity with Iranian religious tradition, called Ashi Vanuhi; or by regarding her as an originally Iranian divinity, personifying the waters, strongly influenced later by the cult of Astarte.
Artaxerxes II officially introduced her cult, he who ordered, as Berosus transmits, that statues be erected to A., in Babylon, Susa, Ecbatana, in Persis and in Bactria, in Damascus and in Sardis. In the cuneiform inscription of Susa this king invokes, besides Ahuramazda, also A. and Mithra; it is probable therefore that he, besides officially introducing A., also promoted the cult of Mithra.
Of the plastic representation of A. one may have an idea from the Yašt cited, in which there is an expressive and colorful description, which suggests a statue. A. appears as a slender maiden, vigorous, with noble features, manifesting her illustrious lineage, adorned with a beautiful girdle, covered with an ample and very rich mantle. She holds in her hand the branches of sacrifice, has very rich earrings, and a precious cap, adorned with a hundred stars; a fillet with hanging strips adorns her head.
Bibliography
Giuseppe Messina