CHAPTER XIV
IRAN GOES BACK TO INDO-IRANIAN RELIGION
The Indo-Iranian cult passes under the mantle of Zarathushtra. King Vishtaspa was succeeded by weak kings and Eastern Iran soon lost political importance. Zarathushtra, likewise, was not blessed with successors of commanding personalities to carry on their missionary work. His religion could not easily penetrate into Western Iran, where the cult of the Indo-Iranian divinities had a strong hold over the minds and hearts of the people. Mithra occupied the pre-eminent position among them, with the non-Iranian Anahita as the close second in importance. Ahura Mazda outshone Mithra with his transcendent spiritual sublimity and ethical greatness. Besides, he had come with profound prestige as his cult was proclaimed by the new prophet himself. He was easily acclaimed as the most incomparable divinity that man had ever known. Mithra, Anahita, and other bagas, as we have seen from the inscriptions of the successors of Darius, accepted to work under the new supreme God.
The stronghold of Zarathushtra's religion was Eastern Iran. His religion was a reform of the primitive faith of the Iranians. But the reform did not last long, owing to the counter-reformation that followed his death. The excellence of his highly ethical religion was indelibly imprinted on the minds of the cultured classes, but it had not reached the masses. They could not comprehend the abstract ideas of the new prophet, whereas they found it easy to invoke Mithra and his heavenly associates with elaborate rituals and sacrifices. Their veneration for these older divinities, now in exile, had not ceased. They viewed the movement of the revival of the Indo-Iranian faith with great favour. The leaders of the Zoroastrian Church, on the other hand, were alarmed at this growing tendency to go back to the pre-Zarathushtrian faith. They sought a compromise. A great religious syncretism then took place, with the result that the successors of
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