Abstract
There is a narrative in Herodotus’ Histories that informs us of the customs, history and religion of the Scythians in which their gods are mentioned. Api, the Goddess of Earth, is one of these deities in Herodotus’ narrative which the author will observe its details comprehensively in this article. On the one hand, Aməša Spəṇta Ārmaiti is related to the Earth in Zoroastrianism and has some features which, in its comparative sense, can be compared to the Scythian Goddess, Api. They both are the goddesses of earth and likewise are related to the water. They are also the daughters/wives of the great God in Scythian and Iranian pantheons, respectively. In the case of Api, one may doubt, for some terminological reasons, the accuracy of Herodotus’ account. However, one should point out that archaeological excavations emphasises Herodotus’ knowledge of the Scythian religion. Furthermore, there is a parallel account in the Geography of Strabo that could be used as a strong argument to confirm the reliability of Herodotus’ narrative. On the other hand, Api and Ārmaiti are both associated with a river. This feature exists in Arámati, the Indian parallel of Ārmaiti. Very well attested cultural and linguistic connections between Iranophone Scythians and Iranians could be measured as the last reason for this possibility that Scythian Api and Zoroastrian Ārmaiti are connected.
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Notes
- 1.
One may argue that Ārmaiti is not dedicated only to Zoroastrian pantheon but it belongs to the Indo-Iranian shared past. Here it is useful to quote from Boyce who says: Zoroaster’s profoundly original concepts of the one Creator and of the six Amǝša Spǝntas grew harmoniously,it seems,out of the pagan Iranian religion and its observances,a noble development due to the religious and moral genius of the prophet himself, but one prepared for by the thoughts and worship of generations of his predecessors (1975, 224).
Zam is another Iranian divinity connected to the Earth (Narten 1982: 110). For example, in Bundahišn (26, 123; Pakzad 2005: 315), Zāmyād is mentioned as mēnōg ī zamīg which means ‘Spirit of the Earth’. It seems there is a connection between Ārmaiti and Zamyād (Boyce 1975: 37, 207). In Buddhist texts in Tocharian the term ysamaśśandaa- is mentioned which reminds us of the Avestan root *zam- with śśandaa- (Avestan spəṇta-) which means ‘world’ (Bailey 1979: 345–6; cf Skjærvø 2002: 404, fn. 26). Ārmaiti could be well-known among Khotan Saka, since they have given her name ‘Śśandrāmata’ to Śrī Lakṣmī (Duchesne-Guillemin 1962: 283; Bailey 1935: 142). Apparently, Boyce doubts about Baily’s opinion that the aforementioned term refers to Bactrian word *Zam śṷantā ārmati (Boyce 1975: 78, 1983: 305–6). Ārmaiti has been consistently mentioned in other Iranian and non-Iranian attestations. She exists in sources in some other languages such as Elamite (in the Persepolis Fortification Archive), according to Razmjou’s reading, she occurs in the form of AN/AŠiš-pan-da-ra-mat-ti-iš (Razmjou 2001) among Iranian deities occurring with a ceremony: ‘lan’ (Henkelman 2008: 234, fn. 513, 281). Old Persian *Ṛmāta-, reconstructed from the Elamiteir-ma-at-tam in PF 1857: 8 or ir-ma-tam in DB iii equal with the Avestan Ārmaiti- which in Old Persian could mean ‘state’ (Tavernier 2007: 447). Her name also reflects in form of Arramati in Babylonian archives in the Achaemenid period (Dandamayev 1992: 32). Armenians worshiped ‘Spendaramet’ as protector of the earth (Boyce 1979: 84). The comparison of Ārmaiti with a less popular Goddess named Tusnamaiti (Y 43.15) is not a probable one (see: Boyce 1975: 228). Boyce assumes that portray of ‘Demeter’ on the Parthian coins is a reflection of ‘Spəṇtā Ārmaiti’ (Boyce 1979: 82).
- 2.
Perhaps, one can recognise another Scythian reference in the Avesta. In Yt. 10.14, there is a place by the name of ‘Iškata’ (Gershevitch 1967: 81; cf. Gnoli 1989: 37, 44–6, 60–1). Interpreting Yt. 10.14, Gnoli mentions the geographical name of Iškata as one of the Aryan countries in the Avesta (Gnoli 1989: 36–7) which he, himself, has compared with the well-known lands in the Vīdēvdād and in his opinion there is a correspondence between this name and Airiiana Vaējah- (Gnoli 1989: 43–7); As it seems plausible, Iškata is an Iranian land (Gnoli 1989: 60–1; cf Gershevitch 1967: 174–5) which is probably a reference to Scythians.
- 3.
The fire of Vohu Friiāna in Y 17.11 (Mills 1887: 258), and the fire of Hufryān in Bundahišn (18.1; Pakzad 2005: 228; Molé 1965: 79; see also: Dēnkard, VII, 30, Rashed-Mohassel 2010: 202) are mentioned. There is a book in middle Persian as Mādayān ī Yōšt ī Fryān (Duchesne-Guillemin 1962: 61). Two survivors of his family are also mentioned in the Avesta (see: Boyce 1975: 107–8).
- 4.
Probably, one of the most significant of those is Herodotus’ narrative which reports that when Cyaxares was in war with the Assyrians, Scythian troops under command of their king Madyas, son of Protohyas, attacked his army and could defeat them and had the 28 year predominance in Asia until Cyaxares killed them in a feast by deception (I, 103–106; see: Sulimirski 1985: 150–3). It is likely that this narrative on the border of authority and domination of Scythians on Medes has been exaggerated (Brown 1988: 82; cf. Дьяконов 1956: 19). Nevertheless, this very narrative demonstrates that there were connections between the Scythians and western Iranian people in earlier periods of history.
- 5.
Herodotus also utilises the word ‘βασíλεια’ for some other people such as Thomyris (I, 21, also see: Brosius 1996: 20).
- 6.
For etymological analysis of the divine names in this narrative, see: Humbach and Faiss 2012: 4–8.
- 7.
In this regard, One can add two remarks: 1-Strabo says the following about a Scythian tradition: And they consider it the best kind of death when they are old to be chopped up with the flesh of cattle and eaten mixed up with that flesh (Strabo, Geography, XI, 8, 6). That statement is comparable with his own report on Sogdians and Bactrians (Strabo, Geography, XI, 11, 3); this very matter can indicate that how much of the Scythian religious practices so resemble Iranian mores and traditions. 2-As Lubotsky indicates that *farnah- goes back to PIr. *parnah- and is cognate to Skt. párīṇas-, which is not only the same morphological formation but has the same range of meanings’ (Lubotsky 2002: 193), existence of the concept of farnah- among the Scythians is probable.
- 8.
Schmitt believes that the suggested origin of ‘*Āpa-sakā’ which means ‘Water-Sakas’ is incompatible with phonetic considerations; Furthermore, the suggested origin of ‘*Āpa-šyā-ka’ which means ‘rejoicing at water’ is contradicted with word formation and semantics (Schmitt 1986).
- 9.
Mentioning ‘*Abisauka-’ could be interesting since it is an Iranian name which has remained as the ‘A-be-e- su-uk-ku’ in Babylonian archives (Tavernier 2007: 99). Meanwhile, Tavernier reconstructs an Iranian form for ‘Ap-pi-šu-ka’ (mentioned in PF 57: 4–5) as ‘*Abisōka’, probably derived from ‘*Abi-sauka-’, which means ‘Shining’ (Tavernier 2007: 99; see also: Dandamayev 1992: 25; For more names including the element ‘Api’ see: Tavernier 2007: 99–100, 108–9, 465, 475 and for Scythian personal name ‘Abaris’ see: Boyce and Grenet 1991: 501; see also: Zgusta 1953: 270–1).
- 10.
One should point out that de Menasce has studied the probable connection between ‘Anāhita’ and ‘Ārmaiti’ (Menasce 1947: 13-5), but Shaked has rejected such a probability (Shaked 1994: 97). Nevertheless, one should agree with Boyce when she says: For the needs of the earth Spǝṇta Ārmaiti receives help from the Waters, Āpas, and the divinities of water, Arǝdvī Sūrā and the high Lord, *Vouruna Apąm Napāt. (Boyce 1975: 267).
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Safaee, Y. (2020). Scythian and Zoroastrian Earth Goddesses: A Comparative Study on Api and Ārmaiti. In: Niknami, KA., Hozhabri, A. (eds) Archaeology of Iran in the Historical Period. University of Tehran Science and Humanities Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41776-5_6
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