Aramazd
Aramazd (
Name
The merging of the two words of Ahura Mazda first appears in the Old Persian section of the Behistun Inscription, carved by the Achaemenid King of Kings Darius the Great (r. 522 – 486 BC), who refers to the deity as Auramazdāha.[4] Avestan documents continued to spell the name with two words, a form which may have been accepted in Armenia.[5] Aramazd is the Parthian form of Ahura Mazda.[3]
History
Aramazd, Mihr, Anahit, Vahagn and Tir were the dominant deities of the Armenian pantheon.[6] Later attempts were made to reform the pantheon, including possibly reducing it to comprise three leading deities instead: Aramazd, Anahit and Vahagn.[7] The main sanctuary of Aramazd was located in Kamax in northern Armenia. Another sanctuary of Aramazd was located in Bagavan, which was near the seat of power in the Ararat Plain.[8] In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is considered the creator of wealth, and thus Armenians admired Aramazd as the giver of parart-utiwn (a loanword from Iranian, meaning "fatness, abundance").[9] One of the features of Parthian Zoroastrianism was that they had cult statues of the gods, which the Armenians imitated. Aramazd was associated with the Greek god Zeus.[10]
Identification with other deities
Aramazd was readily identified with
See also
References
- ^ Russell 2005, p. 29; Ellerbrock 2021; La Porta 2018, p. 1613; Boyce 2001, p. 84; Frenschkowski 2015, p. 469; Canepa 2018, p. 199
- ^ Russell 2005, p. 29.
- ^ a b Boyce 2001, p. 84.
- ^ Russell 1987, pp. 207–208.
- ^ Russell 1987, p. 208.
- ^ Garsoïan 1985, pp. 181–182.
- ^ Garsoïan 1985, p. 182.
- ^ Russell 2004, p. 378.
- ^ Russell 2004, p. 126.
- ^ Russell 2004, p. 383.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0415239035.
- ISBN 9780520379206.
- Ellerbrock, Uwe (2021). The Parthians: The Forgotten Empire. Oxford: Routledge. ISBN 978-0367481902.
- ISBN 978-0860781660.
- La Porta, Sergio (2018). "Zoroastrianism, Armenian". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8.
- Petrosyan, Armen (2002). The Indo‑european and Ancient Near Eastern Sources of the Armenian Epic. Washington, D.C. : Institute for the Study of Man. ISBN 9780941694810.
- Petrosyan, Armen (2007). "State Pantheon of Greater Armenia: Earliest Sources". Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 2: 174–201. ISSN 1829-1376.
- ISBN 978-0674968509.
- Russell, James R. (2004). Armenian and Iranian studies. Harvard Armenian Texts and Studies. Vol. 9. ISBN 978-0935411195.
- Russell, James R. (2005). "Armenian mythology". The Oxford Companion to World Mythology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19991-648-1.
- Frenschkowski, Marco (2015). "Christianity". In Stausberg, Michael; Vevaina, Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw; Tessmann, Anna (eds.). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism. John Wiley And Sons Ltd. pp. 457–477.