Talk:Mitra

Proposed split

Proposal

I would like to move the material on the Persian/Zoroastrian Mitra into the Mithra article. From a comparative standpoint, I see no good reason for treating the Vedic Mitra and the Zoroastrian Mithra together. There's no doubt that the deva and the yazata are the same in prehistoric origin, but by the time we get to verifiable history they are two separate deities with distinct developments. The two articles should certainly recognize and link to each other, and have similar documentation of the common linguistic origin of the names, but it is excessively confusing to treat them together and intertwined.

Anybody feel differently? RandomCritic 08:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I have created the dab page Mitra (disambiguation). I have also merged all the material on Mithra at this page into the Mithra article, and reformatted this page to show the separation (and separability) of the material on Mitra, Mithra, and Mithras. In my opinion, everything below the double line could be deleted, or at least reduced to two very short paragraphs. RandomCritic 10:14, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Response

1. Good idea with the move. Just do it (can always move back if this is problematic).
2. IMO, no need to bother with a disambiguation page because there are only two other names and although they are (near-)homonyms, only one of them is actually called Mitra, and the article that deals with that divinity in any depth is not Mitra but Mitra-Varuna. In other words, the Mitra page, when all the persian/roman stuff is gone, could either be the disambig page, ... or ... Mitra would be a redirect to Mitra-Varuna.
3. In either case, all three articles (Mithra/Mitra-Varuna/Mithras) would only need simple dab lead pointing to the other two. eg:
   This article is on the yazata Mithra. For the Vedic asura, see Mitra-Varuna. For the the Roman god, see Mithras and Mithraism.
   For other uses, see Mitra.

-- Fullstop 12:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Do not revamp the whole page arbitrarily where Mithra is solely an Indic deity. It's in fact much more important, discussed and worshiped in Iran. Amir85 14:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you misunderstood these changes. First, there is an article for Mithra as distinct from Mitra. Second, I did not delete any of the material about Mithra on this page, I merely separated the article into sections so that Mitra is in one part, Mithra is in another part, and Mithras in a third. If you look down the page you will find all of the Mithra material is still there. I am trying to open discussion on whether all of the Mithra material should be under "Mitra", or whether there should be a separate "Mithra" article with "Mitra" being mainly about the Vedic deity.

I have reverted to my last version per above. Please discuss before reverting.RandomCritic 16:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Well did you discuss at all when you created Mithra (Mitra is pronounced "Mitra" not "Mithra" in today's Persian) ? In my opinion the idea to make seperate pages for Mitra and Mithra is unscientific and ridiculous at best and it must switch back to its previous state. I'm going to call for merger. Amir85 18:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I did not create Mithra. I created a dab page. As for "unscientific" and "ridiculous" -- well, let's not go there. Let me just point out that there are lots of distinct articles for things which are etymologically related but culturally or physically distinct. For instance we have:

• Yama vs. Jamshid
• Deva (Hinduism) vs. Div (Persian mythology) (vs., say, Tyr)
• Asura vs. Ahura (vs. Aesir)

About the only other article I can think of where the Indian and Iranian concepts are together is Soma = Haoma, and this is justifiable because presumably we're talking about the same physically verifiable plant. It's not possible to physically verify devas and yazatas; we can only discuss the different traditions about them. If those traditions are largely or wholly separate, it makes sense to treat them separately. At this point, the only place where Mitra and Mithra overlap is in discussions of etymology.

RandomCritic 19:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Mitra in Persian is "Mitra" not "Mithra", we must change accordingly asap. Amir85 21:39, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry that this bothers you so much, but the Modern Persian pronunciation of the Avestan Miθra (where the θ represents a symbol in Avestan script that represents, in the Avestan language, a sound identical to English "th") is not at all relevant. It would not make any difference if their names were identically spelled and pronounced, although as a matter of fact they are not. If your entire case is based on the pronunciation, it is not very sound.

The only question at hand is: are the Avestan Miθra and the Vedic Mitra the same person or not? Since we are dealing with religion and mythology, identity implies a strong similarity in functions, myths, and/or forms of worship, usually implying a common or shared cultural and religious context.

Now, we know that Zoroastrianism and Vedic Hinduism were different religions with very different practices and philosophies, and that whatever may have been true c. 2000 BCE, by the historical period Iranian and Indic cultures had evolved in very different directions. This creates an a priori case for separating Mitra and Miθra. The question we have to ask is whether despite these differences in cultural context, Miθra and Mitra so closely resemble each other in character, function or myth, that it would be unreasonable and unhelpful to treat them separately; i.e., that information about the Vedic Mitra is indispensable to understanding the role of Iranian Miθra and vice versa.

My impression is that a separate treatment is not unreasonable, but I am willing to listen to cogent arguments on behalf of a joint treatment. (I note that the original notice of merger on the Mithra page reads "Merged Indic and Iranian material to make for meatier comparisons" – although those comparisons seem not to have emerged.) An argument based on the adventitious fact that Modern Persian no longer has the sound of [θ] is not very persuasive, however.RandomCritic 22:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

You may well branch out separate Vedic and Zoroastrian sub-articles, but we need to keep a main article for the purpose of comparison and discussion of the history of the Indo-Iranian deity. So yes, information about the Vedic Mitra is indispensable to understanding the role of Iranian Miθra and vice versa, at least from the standpoit of comparative religious studies. Do a Mitra (Vedic) and a Mithra, sub-articles like Woden and Odin wrt Wodanaz, but keep a comparative discussion here. dab (ᛏ) 12:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Summary of Possibilities

I'm going to try to summarize suggestions as they are at the moment.

• Amir85 suggests merging Mithra wholly into Mitra, which would entail making Mithra a redirect to Mitra and getting rid of the dab page. I don't know what he suggests about Mithras.

• I suggested a dab page pointing in three directions, to Mitra, Mithra and Mithras, each of which would handle a different culture (Vedic India, Iran, Roman Empire) with the etymological and comparative material (what there is of it) duplicated at Mitra and Mithra.

• Fullstop suggests Mitra as a main page, with summaries and pointers to Varuna for Vedic India (perhaps renamed Mitra-Varuna or something similar), Mithra for Iran, and Mithras.

• Dbachmann suggests Mitra for comparative information, pointing also to Mitra (Vedic) (which I suppose would or could be the same as Fullstop's Mitra-Varuna, and to Mithra (and to Mithras?).

I agree that simplifying the content to be primarily comparative would be ideal, as it would satisfy both the "lumping" and "splitting" impulses. But I'm just not sure what would go into the comparison. There are basically two things: the etymology; and the fact that both have been considered "solar deities", a characterization that is so vague as to mean almost nothing; Hinduism in particular is full of solar devas other than Mitra (particularly Sūrya) and the principal solar Yazata in the Zoroastrian texts is apparently Hvarəxšaēta. My impression is that Mitra and Miθra are not so much the Sun itself as they are comparable to the Sun -- something that could be said of other devas, yazatas, and the gods of a great many other religion. So the solar angle doesn't tell us a whole lot.

What's left? That they are both associated with contracts? If this is in fact the case, it would be nice to have some quotations from the Vedas and the Yashts documenting this. I'm not sure what else there is, particularly as neither personage has an extensive mythical cycle or a highly distinctive personality that can be compared. RandomCritic 20:54, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

1. Response to Possibilities

The vedic portion of the Mitra article a) is not well developed and b) doesn't say anything that isn't already in Mitra-Varuna. Note also that Mitra-Varuna is a redirect to Varuna. In other words, even though (as Amir85 points out) Vedic Mitra is more important than Mithra, there so little information on Vedic Mitra, that a Vedic-only Mitra article might as well be a redirect Mitra-Varuna (and thence to Varuna).

As RandomCritic points out, there was little, if any, comparison between the divinities in the old Mitra article. That all three divinities (Mitra[-Varuna]/Mithra/Mithras) may have originated from the same *mitra is all very well, but beyond that they really are different divinities. Incidentally, there are also several other divinities that also (at least linguistically) derive from *mitra, including the Armenian Mher, Manichean Mytr/Maitreya and Buddhist Maitreya. These are just as unsuitable for lumping together with *mitra as Mitra/Mithra/Mithras are.

In view of these two points, Dbachmann's suggestion for leaving Mitra as the page for comparison is a good compromise. Since all of them will be listed, and text for each will be short (because there is not very much in the way of similarities between them), the article will in effect also be a disambiguation page. The dablink at the top of each of the pages would thus read: This article is on the {Vedic Mitra[-Varuna] | [Yazata] Mithra | Roman deity Mithras | ... }. For other divinities cognate with the proto-Indo-Iranian *mitra, see mitra.

-- Fullstop 07:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Misc. edits

I was wondering if anyone here could elaborate on the connections between Mitra and the Buddhist deity Amitabha? The article does not get into this, and I know little about it.Iluvchineselit 23:24, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

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I've already posted something about this in the "mithras" article. I lack the courage to edit the page myself, but i've noticed something important that may need to be changed.

Traditionally, scholars believed that mitra = mithra = mithras. however, recent research seems to indicate that in all likelihood, mithras, the roman deity had little or nothing to do w/ mitra or mithras. in other words the line:

"His worship later spread to Persia (under the name Mithra) and then to the Roman Empire, where he was called Mithras."

is most likely incorrect. most likely the roman deity mithras had nothing to do with the persian god mithra.

The article on Mithrainism already reflects this information. thank you for your time.

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Mitra was worshipped primarily in pre-Vedic times and his importance slowly faded with the arrival of the Aryans in India. I have removed this, as it does not square with the texts. I don't know what to make of the notice above, dis-linking Mithra from Mithras. Wetman 16:57, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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Mithraeum is usually applied to cult-places of the Roman cave type. Is that what we're talking about at Kangvar (sp?) ? Or is it a regular Zoroastrian fire temple that happens to be dedicated to Mithra et sa mere? If the latter, the terminology is misleading. Also, what's the date on this temple? It matters a lot whether we're talking Achaemenid vs. Parthian etc. I could not find the specified essay by following the link. And the "ascension of Mithra"; is that based on Ulansey's astronomical theory? That assertion needs to be NPOV'ed. Bacchiad 23:48, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Mitra was born of Anahita, an immaculate virgin mother venerated as a fertility goddess among the old Iranian deities before the hierarchical reformation of Zoroaster's henotheism. Mithra's ascension to heaven was said to have occurred in 208 B.C., 64 years after his birth. The largest Mithraeum was built in western Persia at Kangavar, and dedicated to "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras". Other Mithraic temples mentioned by David Fingrut, 1993 (link): at Khuzestan; in central Iran near present-day Mahallat, (a few columns still standing at the temple of Khorheh); at excavated Nisa, later renamed Mithradatkirt (Mithraic mausoleums and shrines); at Hatra in upper Mesopotamia (Mithraic sanctuaries and mausoleums); at Dura Europas (Mithraeums with figures of Mithras on horseback, akin to Sabazios).

Parthian coins and royal inscriptions bear a double date, which records Mithra's birth and his Ascension into heaven 64 years later at a date equivalent to 208 BCE. The Parthian princes of Armenia were all priests of Mithra, and an entire district of this land was dedicated to the Virgin Mother Anahita. Many Mithraeums, or Mithraic temples, were built in Armenia, which remained both one of the last strongholds of Mithraism and the first officially Christian kingdom.

These paragraphs are nearly word-for-word copies of text at http://www.ukans.edu/history/index/europe/ancient_rome/E/Gazetteer/Periods/Roman/Topics/Religion/Mithraism/David_Fingrut**.html

Since that essay is dated 1993, it's still copyrighted.

It's the words, not the facts that are copyright. I meant to be recasting it, and I credited it as source. Now, shall I rewrite it or will you?

Be my guest. Bacchiad 00:34, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Meanwhile, [http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/publications.htm A. D. H. Bivar, emeritus of Iranian Studies, "The Personalities of Mithra in Archaeology and Literature"] in Biennial Yarshater Lecture Series, No. 1, looks at Mitra/Mithras from the Iranian side, looking for the source of Mithraism in a parallel secret organization in Iran, and asks whether Plato doesn't hunt that he was an initiate... We just don't have a cultural running-start with Mithra! Wetman 00:31, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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I continue to be concerned that the paraphrased sections from the Fingrut article are paraphrased too closely. You know the drill from expos. But I have left most of them in for now.

One coprytight-unrealted problem with incorporating material from that article into Wikipedia in a very close way is that Fingrut has a strongly polemical agenda: to show that Christianity is derived from Mithraism. It is appropriate here to note parallels where they exist, but we have to avoid hitting people over the head with them. I excised a couple of sentences or offhand remarks that I thought were over the top. But if you want to restore them, I won't get into an edit war, and will hold back.

I also yoinked these:

Mithra's ascension to heaven was said to have occurred in 208 BCE, 64 years after his birth. Parthian coins and royal inscriptions bear a double date, which records Mithra's birth and his Ascension into heaven 64 years later at a date equivalent to 208 BCE.

Given that Mit(h)ra is first attested in 1400 BC, I can't buy a 3rd century birthdate for him. The middle of the 3rd century marks the beginning of the Parthia kingdom, and I think that's a more plausible explanation for the start date of the royal calendar. But if we can get a good literary or epigraphic source for the ascension into heaven at said date, it should go back in.

at Dura Europas (Mithraeums with figures of Mithras on horseback, akin to Sabazios).

This was a Roman site; belongs in Mithras or Mithraism. I don't like the split, but we have to live with it for now.

I would also like to add that Mithras birthdate was not 25th of December, there was a week long festival that started around the 20th or 21st December and lasted 1 week, since christians could not stop people celebrating this date, 25th of december was decided to be the Birth Of Christ. I do not know why you refer it to Vedic, as Iranic tribes did not migrate or invade India till 1500BC, there for calling it Vedic is incorrect. Later on the War between the Indic and Iranic tribes seperated the Religions and Mithra being an Ahura or Ashura or Asura is evil in Vedic and Budhism and Deva or Devas are the good gods with Iranic religions having Devas as bad gods. Please expand and update this article, till then I vote it be rewritten! --Aryan 01:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Gender

Are we sure mitra is male?Geni 21:43, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

yes. dab (ᛏ) 09:24, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Yup. Bacchiad 06:48, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

"Persian" confusion

File:Iranische Sprachen.jpg

Current distribution of Iranian speakers. In antiquity, the area was even larger, extending to Kazakhstan and Eastern Europe (Scythia). Yagnobi, the only surviving language of the Avestan branch, is the tiny dot in Tajikstan.

Of course Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Persian Empire, but the Avesta itself is not in Persian, but in Avestan, an Iranian language closer to Sogdian or Bactrian than to Persian. The intro discusses the difference of Iranian Mithra vs. Vedic Mitra. Specifically Persian aspects are a subset of Iranian Mithra, and have their own section. dab (ᛏ) 10:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

also, I realize that "Asura" changed its meaning in Hinduism, but that can hardly be a reason to suppress mention of the fact that Mitra together with Varuna is the chief Asura of Rigvedic religion, as the author of the now-removed html comments seems to have intended. dab (ᛏ) 11:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I found that the mistaken html comments were added in April by Fullstop (talk · contribs) [1]. It took me about 10 minutes to find the edit: Please use the talkpage for this sort of message, it's why we have talk pages. The confusion seems to arise with some people taking "Iranian" to refer somehow to the modern state of Iran, which is obviously not intended in this context. "Iranian" as in Iranian peoples is a (large) superset of "Persian", including Sogdians, Scythians and Yaghnobi as well as Persians, Medes, Parthians and Kurds. dab (ᛏ) 11:28, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry about that.

As you noted, the comment re Persia vs Iran was a (albeit weak) attempt to discourage subsequent replacement of all instances of the word Persia with Iran.

With respect to the Avesta being in Avestan, well um, the youngest texts of the Avesta are in middle Persian. Anyhow, just because texts are in Avestan doesn't mean they can't be Persian. The 'Mihr Yasht', i.e. the hymns to Mithra, is in Younger Avestan, and dates to the Achaemenid era, which is of course the first Persian empire.

With respect to your assertion that Persian aspects of Mithra are a subset of Iranian Mithra: What happened to Mithra between the proto-indo-iranian Mitra and the Zoroastrian Mithra is open to speculation. It can't be ruled out that Zoroastrian Mithra isn't a development from the Vedic Mitra (Bactria is just as close to Vedic cultural influences as to Iranian ones, and Ahura Mazda is conceptually close to Varuna. Kuiper says Ahura Mazda is Varuna, and Boyce halfway agrees).

With respect to the Asura/Ahura issue: IMO, its problematic to use proto-Indo-Iranian terms when the words, as they are used today, have a different meaning (in both Zoroastrianism and Hinduism). Moreover, the change was in conjunction with a split of one paragraph that covered both the Vedic and Zoroastrian Mithra.

Incidentally, have you noticed the rebirth of a Mithra article?

-- Fullstop 14:56, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Mitra in current Slovakia folklore

In Vlachs folklore in Slovakia there is a holliday "Na Mitra", On the Mitra day. It was live holliday about 100 years ago, now it is known mainly from folklore festivals showing old Vlachs pastoralist culture. During this the chief shepherd (called "bača" [pron. like "butchah"] (or Mitra?)) with high cap and long hard coat from sheep fur together with his fellow shepherds ("valach" "valasi") come from the hill pastures down to the village and they start to hold a small festivity. This would happen in october.--Marcel Kosko 12:47, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Deity box

On my browser, at least, this infobox summarizing the qualities of a Hindu deity does not play well with other parts of the page, creating a large empty white space and pushing everything else out of the way. I've moved it down to the bottom pending resolution of this problem. RandomCritic 10:28, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit talk page

I've removed all of the Wikiproject flags. This is basically a disambiguation page; it doesn't need to be on the radar of all these projects (none of which is actually going to do anything with it anyway). RandomCritic 17:32, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Herodotus and Mit(h)ra

First, here are three of the many English Language translations of Herodotus I.131:

1. Macaulay (1904):
   These are the customs, so far as I know, which the Persians practise: Images and temples and altars they do not account it lawful to erect, nay they even charge with folly those who do these things; and this, as it seems to me, because they do not account the gods to be in the likeness of men, as do the Hellenes.
   But it is their wont to perform sacrifices to Zeus going up to the most lofty of the mountains, and the whole circle of the heavens they call Zeus: and they sacrifice to the Sun and the Moon and the Earth, to Fire and to Water and to the Winds:
   these are the only gods to whom they have sacrificed ever from the first; but they have learnt also to sacrifice to Aphrodite Urania, having learnt it both from the Assyrians and the Arabians; and the Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta, the Arabians Alitta, and the Persians Mitra.
2. Godley (1912):
   [1]As to the customs of the Persians, I know them to be these. It is not their custom to make and set up statues and temples and altars, but those who do such things they think foolish, because, I suppose, they have never believed the gods to be like men, as the Greeks do;
   [2] but they call the whole circuit of heaven Zeus, and to him they sacrifice on the highest peaks of the mountains; they sacrifice also to the sun and moon and earth and fire and water and winds.
   [3] From the beginning, these are the only gods to whom they have ever sacrificed; they learned later to sacrifice to the “heavenly”1 Aphrodite from the Assyrians and Arabians. She is called by the Assyrians Mylitta, by the Arabians Alilat, by the Persians Mitra.
3. Stearns (1912):
   The customs which I know the Persians to observe are the following: they have no images of the gods, no temples nor altars, and consider the use of them a sign of folly. This comes, I think, from their not believing the gods to have the same nature with men, as the Greeks imagine.
   Their wont, however, is to ascend the summits of the loftiest mountains, and there to offer sacrifice to Zeus, which is the name they give to the whole circuit of the firmament. They likewise offer to the sun and moon, to the earth, to fire, to water, and to the winds.
   These are the only gods whose worship has come down to them from ancient times. At a later period they began the worship of Urania, which they borrowed from the Arabians and Assyrians. Mylitta is the name by which the Assyrians know this goddess, whom the Arabians call Alitta, and the Persians Mitra.

Second, what is it that Herodotus is telling us here:

1. In the mid-5th century (when Herodotus wrote), there were no iconic temples yet and the Persis (the ethnic group, i.e. people from Persia proper, at the time not necessarily yet Zoroastrians) were quite iconoclastic in their beliefs.
2. Herodotus, like all Greek historians, used Greek names whenever possible, or rather when the parallels allowed easy identification as a Greek entity. Not only is this the case for "Aphrodite Urania"/"Heavenly Aphrodite"/"Urania", it is also so for "Zeus" (which the Greeks consistently used as the name for Ahura Mazda).
3. The Persis (the ethnic group, i.e. people from Persia proper) had - with only one exception - the same gods as everyone else in the Iranian-language speaking world, and had had these gods since time immemorial.

Herodotus actually uses the name Aphrodite:

“ ἐπιμεμαθήκασι δὲ καὶ τῇ Οὐρανίῃ θύειν, παρά τε Ἀσσυρίων μαθόντες καὶ Ἀραβίων. καλέουσι δὲ Ἀσσύριοι τὴν Ἀφροδίτην Μύλιττα, Ἀράβιοι δὲ Ἀλιλάτ, Πέρσαι δὲ Μίτραν ”

He is not referring to a nameless "fertility goddess". That is the point. RandomCritic 14:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

That one exception - an "import" - was a godess that they "learnt to sacrifice to from the Assyrians and the Arabians". Per the translations, Herodotus uses the following names:

• a Greek female deity: Each translation provides us a different name: a) Aphrodite Urania, b) "heavenly Aphrodite", c) Urania.

The translations may vary, but Herodotus' original doesn't. He first refers to Aphrodite by an epithet "Ourania" (which means "of or related to the heavens", hence "heavenly"), then by her proper name. It's really not significant. RandomCritic 14:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• an "Assyrian" female deity: Mylitta. With the Greek Aphrodite prefix in one translation, without in two.

You've misread the text; it says that the Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta, i.e., Mylitta is the name which the Assyrians use for the goddess that Herodotus calls Aphrodite.

• an "Arabian" female deity: Alilat in one translation, Alitta in the other two.

Alitta is erroneous, perhaps reflecting some scribal. Alilat is clearly Arabic (and so hardly merits the scare quotes): الالاهة . The name of this goddess is attested epigraphically and in the Qur'an as اللات Allat. RandomCritic 15:00, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• a "Persian" male (!) deity: Mitra

What do these four have in common? Nothing at all. "Persian Mitra" is obviously being confused with another goddess.

However, remove "Persian Mitra" from the equation and one gets a goddess of the planet Venus and (what a Greek would associate with the planet) sexuality. An Iranian godess associated with Venus AND associated with Mithra. Now which divinity could that possibly be?

Well, the other two (Mylitta and Alilat) are analogues of Semitic Ishtar-Inanna, and it stands to reason that Herodotus was referring to a Persian import of one of these. Boyce suggests a hypothetical *Anahiti (as she reconstructs it from the Greek Anaitis) and in Herodotus' time apparently not yet conflated with Indo-Iranian Anahita (otherwise Herodotus wouldn't have classified the goddess as an import).

What Herodotus meant by "Mitra" is old, Old, OLD hat. But don't take my word for it. Aredvi Sura Anahita has the backstory, which is quite well cited (if I may say so). Or alternatively pick up one of these:

• Cumont, Franz (1926), "Anahita" in Hastings, James, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, Vol. I, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.
• Lommel, Herman (1927), Die Yašts des Awesta, Göttingen-Leipzig: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht/JC Hinrichs
• Nyberg, Henrik Samuel (1938), Die Religionen des alten Iran, Leipzig: JC Hinrichs
• Widengren, Geo (1965), Die Religionen Irans (Die Religion der Menschheit, Vol. 14), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer
• Boyce, Mary (1982), A History of Zoroastrianism, Vol. II, Leiden/Köln: Brill
• Boyce, Mary (1983), "Anāhīd" in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Cosa Mesa: Mazda Pub, pp. 1003-1009

-- Fullstop 11:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying any of that is implausible; I'm just saying, pick a relevant quote from one (or all) of the above and put the reference in the article. RandomCritic 14:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I misunderstood your edit then. Anyhow, determining who Herodotus is speaking of is only tangentially relevant. Highly relevant however is that Herodotus is not speaking of Mitra or Aphrodite at all, irrespective of whether he explicitely uses the name or not.

1. That he is not speaking of Mitra at all is obvious. But is "In Herodotus,..." then relevant at all? In an article on Vahram, is it necessary to say Strabo refers to Vahram as Diana, or in an article on Aphrodite to say Herodotus (or his scribes) made a mistake?
2. Then, "as the Persian name for Aphrodite" (which is what your edit says) is not only contextually misleading, it is the opposite that is true: i.e. Herodotus is using "heavenly Aphrodite" as a Greek "translation" for Mylitta/Alilat/[etc]. (just as he - in the same text - uses Zeus as a "translation" for Ahura Mazda)
   What Herodotus is saying is that there was a Persian goddess who had an attribute that was also evident in Aphrodite, Mylitta and Alilat. Hence, (and because this attribute is the association with the planet Venus), it would be more appropriate to say "Mithra as the name of a goddess of the planet Venus" than "as the Persian name of [Aphrodite|Mylitta|Alilat]".

Do you see what I mean?

-- Fullstop 10:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Mithras and Mithra

Somebody wrote:

"which cannot descend from OP because a) the genuine OP form is something else and b) OP was already MP by the time the Mysteries came around and c) Mihr/Myhr is also already attested to have been current in Asia Minor by then and d) they didn't get it from Babylonia (i.e. through Seleucid influence) either because already in the 4th century BCE the Babylonian form is 'Mi-iš-ša' "

What's this got to do with anything? The name "Mithras" in Greek long predates the existence of Mithraism, and is in any case probably not borrowed from Persian at all, Old or Middle, but from some variant of Iranian language spoken in Asia Minor -- or perhaps even from an older form of Armenian. We already see the element Mithra- in the name Mithradates, recorded (in Greek) as far back as the 3rd century BCE. Greek Mithra- is only an approximation of Iranian Mithra- anyway, as Greek th (θ) didn't represent the same sound as Iranian th.

RandomCritic 00:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, its off topic... having to do with (not specifically, but symptomatic for Mit(h)ra*-related articles) the fact "Iranic" has never worked, it always got changed to "[Old] Persian". Such is the 'pedia. Whacky "PersianPride" cruft all over the place, like this and this and this. The reaction also has its extremes, which we see as "Aryan" at Mithra. And sometimes its just misinformed, like this or utter cluelessness like this.

Incidentally, Mithridates' name - if we are referring to the same figure - is not native Greek. "Phil-hellenes" though the Arsacids were, it is a "translation" into Greek. Even when all epigraphic/documentary evidence is exclusively in Greek (as it is in Asia Minor), it is probably unsafe to assume that Greek was the native language of the Iranian expatriates there. They "translated" proper names as well they could, and the fact that they did not calque them indicates that they understood that proper names remained proper names.

But other than that, you're right on. "Recorded in Greek" would include Herodotus (and Xanthus?), ergo mid-5th century BCE and before any Old Persian attestation of the name. And neither historiographer ever came anywhere close to Parsa (or even anywhere else beyond the Pontus), and in turn no historiographer who was in South-western Iran alludes to Mithra. Asia Minor (or the Levant or Armenia) is probably right.

-- Fullstop 17:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that "Mithradates" was a Greek name, just that some early attestations of the name are written in Greek letters in the middle of Greek-language texts. Sorry for the lack of clarity. RandomCritic 20:58, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

More meanings of Mitra and Confusion of Gender

I would like to make the gender orientation of the name Mitra a bit more clear. As a first name, Mitra is for females but can be a last name for both males and females.

One of the many meanings of Mitra is that it was a Hindu god of friendship and alliance. This god was a punisher of falsehood and brought rain upon the earth. Mitra was also a supporter of heaven and earth. There is already an explanation that Mitra was a god of sun but I also wanted to go into little more detail about his role as a Hindu god and what it means to be a god of the sun. The last thing I wanted to add was about how Mitra and Varuna were two gods that were seen as twins in the beginning and how they were seen as one god at many times. Together, they balanced one another's powers and kept the universe in balance. Since Mitra has to do with friendship, his friendship with Varuna plays a big role in explaining Mitra. This all goes under the Hindu belief of what kind of a god Mitra was.

Mitra Fazel (talk) 21:18, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Asterisk

Why does the name begin with an asterisk in the opening? It isn't explained in the text and it seems to disappear and re-appear throughout the article.168.158.220.3 (talk) 20:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

^ Same question. What's the convention and can we explain it in the body text? Scoundr3l (talk) 00:13, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Untitled

Il mitra è un arma israeliana da combattimento che spara numerosi colpi al secondo chiamata Uzo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.44.99.135 (talk) 02:02, 24 February 2011‎ (UTC)

Etymology

In Slavic there is also "omot" or "motat" (to bind) in Slovene language (and dialects); motnya is also a "disorder", "to be wrong"(your action is "binded", in a wound cord, a Gordian knot). (transmutation in Persian and Slavic went from Mit to Mot). It is INTERESTING that "etymology" gives all possible (even non linguistically related words) variants of so called term Mitra, including nonsense about German "walls", but never about Slavic & Persian (which was in fact always related to each other, geographically & linguistically, mythologically) explanation. All i can say is: occult nonsense!

Mitra indeed shares etymology with a "friend", but the correct linguistic roots are: Mit - मिथ् which means "couple" (this is where the 'friend' comes from; "to meet" somebody u know) and Ra र, which is "ray" (radiant, solar, light,...). From this comes "a Friend" मित्र. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.210.228.86 (talk) 20:43, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, IP, yours is highly non-etymological.

Think of e.g. Russian/BaltoSlavic {mir}+ {*tra} instead:

From Proto-Balto-Slavic *meiˀros, from Proto-Indo-European *mei(H)-ro-. Baltic cognates include Old Lithuanian mieras ‎(“peace”), Latvian miers ‎(“peace”). Other Indo-European cognates include Latin mītis ‎(“mild, calm, peaceful”). Zezen (talk) 08:03, 30 January 2016 (UTC)