Anahita

The Lady of the Waters

Domain: Waters, Fertility & War
Alignment: Neutral Good
Element: Water
Relics of Power: Mantle of Beaver Fur

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4 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Persians (Zoroastrians)

Region

Persia (modern Iran)

Period

c. 1500 BC – 650 AD

The Persian deities belong to Zoroastrianism, the faith of the ancient Persian Empire, founded on the teachings of Zarathustra. Centered on the cosmic struggle between good (Ahura Mazda) and evil (Angra Mainyu), it influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is still practiced by Zoroastrian communities in Iran and India (the Parsis).

In the fire temples, priests keep sacred flames that have burned for centuries — the one in Yazd, Iran, for over 1,500 years. Nowruz, the Persian new year at the spring equinox, and Yalda night, at the winter solstice, celebrate the victory of light over darkness.

At a glance

Anahita (Avestan Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā; Old Persian Anāhitā; Middle Persian Anāhīd or Ardwīsūr) is a yazata, a divinity of waters, fertility and, from the Achaemenids onward, kingship, in Zoroastrianism and ancient Iranian religion. Her full Avestan name joins three adjectives: arədvī ('moist'), sūrā ('strong', 'mighty') and anāhitā ('undefiled', 'immaculate'), according to Mary Boyce in the Encyclopaedia Iranica. The Aban Yasht (Yasht 5 of the Avesta), one of the longest and best preserved of the Avestan hymns, divided into 30 sections (kardes), presents her as the great mythical river from whose stream the waters of the seven karshvares flow (5.3–5). She purifies the seed of all males and the womb of all females, gives safe delivery and puts milk into the breasts in the right measure (5.2). Artaxerxes II (404–359 BCE) was the first Achaemenid king known to acknowledge 'Anāhit(a)' publicly: Ahuramazda, Anahita and Mithra appear together in his inscriptions at Susa (A2Sa) and Hamadan (A2Ha), and Berossus, quoted by Clement of Alexandria, says that the same king had statues of 'Aphrodite Anaitis' set up in the main cities of the empire. In Sasanian times Anāhīd became the protecting divinity of the dynasty, was called 'the Lady' (Bānū), had a fire temple at Estakhr and appears in the investiture reliefs of Naqsh-e Rostam and Taq-e Bostan.

17 min read · Reviewed on October 2, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The river, the gushing water, the golden crown and the beaver mantle

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Darmesteter, James (trans.), Khorda Avesta 5: Aban Yasht (Hymn to the Waters). translation: English translation in Sacred Books of the East, vol. 23 (1898); digital edition by J. H. Peterson. read
Peterson, Joseph H. (transcription), Khorda Avesta 5: Aban Yasht (Avestan text). translation: Transcription of the Avestan text at Avesta.org. read
Artaxerxes II; Livius.org (ed.), Achaemenid inscription A2Sa, from Susa. translation: Old Persian text and English translation at Livius.org. read
Artaxerxes II; Livius.org (ed.), Achaemenid inscription A2Ha, from Hamadan. translation: Old Persian text and English translation at Livius.org. read
Mills, L. H. (trans.), Yasna 65: To Ardvi Sura Anahita and the Waters. translation: Translation in Sacred Books of the East, vol. 31 (1898 edition), at Avesta.org. read
West, E. W. (trans.), Bundahishn (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 5). translation: Used only for the planet Venus (Anahid, ch. 5); the passages on Ardwīsūr come from the larger Bundahišn, cited by Boyce. read
Plutarch, Life of Artaxerxes. translation: English translation (Loeb) at LacusCurtius. read

Studies

Boyce, Mary, Entry 'Anāhīd i. Ardwīsūr Anāhīd'. Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1989. open
Chaumont, Marie-Louise, Entry 'Anāhīd ii. The Cult and its Diffusion'. Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1989. open
Kleiss, Wolfram, Entry 'Kangavar'. Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2010. open

Name and epithets

The full Avestan name, Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā, is a sequence of three feminine adjectives. According to Mary Boyce (Encyclopaedia Iranica), sūrā and anāhitā are common adjectives meaning 'strong, mighty' and 'undefiled, im…

In the ancient sources

Avesta (Aban Yasht / Yasht 5), Avestan oral tradition; according to Boyce, the description of the statue (5.126–129) was presumably composed after Artaxerxes II set up statues of the goddess..

The myths

The descent of the river from Hukairya to the sea Vouru-Kasha. The Aban Yasht opens with Ahura Mazda's command to Zarathushtra: offer a sacrifice to Ardvi Sura Anahita, 'the wide-expanding and health-giving', who hates…

Worship and archaeology

The cult of Anahita combined the veneration of the waters, rooted in the Avesta, with the cult of images promoted by the Achaemenid monarchy.

How the god was depicted

Boyce and Chaumont agree that few figures unquestionably represent the goddess; the surest are the reliefs of Naqsh-e Rostam and Taq-e Bostan.

What scholars debate

Two goddesses in one: Arədvī Sūrā and the western Anāhiti. Yasht 5 sings of a mythical river, whereas the Greek sources know the western goddess Anaitis.

After antiquity

Herodotus (1.131) knew the goddess as Aphrodite Urania, compared her with the Assyrian Mylitta and the Arabian Alilat, and said that the Persians had learned her cult from those peoples; Chaumont notes that the Greeks m…

Did you know?

Boyce observes that several verses of the hymn to Arədvī Sūrā correspond closely to verses addressed to Aši, the divinity of Fortune, and that the two beautiful chariot-driving goddesses came to be partly blurred togeth…

Codex relic

Mantle of Beaver Fur. The shining mantle of three hundred beaver pelts with which the water goddess covers her immaculate beauty.

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