holder invokes him to smite disobedience in his family.[1] He smites Kunda.[2] The Mazdayasnians are asked to sacrifice unto him.[3] Evils of all kinds vanish from the house, clan, town, and country, wherein the righteous man thinking good thoughts, speaking good words, and doing good deeds, welcomes and sacrifices unto Sraosha.[4] The faithful pray for all the houses protected by Sraosha, wherein he is friendly, beloved, and honoured.[5] They beseech him to come to their help.[6]
Mithra
His place in the Avestan pantheon. Of all the Indo-Iranian divinities that have found their place in the Zarathushtrian theology, Mithra is the most prominent figure. As an associate of Varuna, Mitra's individuality was eclipsed during the Indo-Iranian period. After the separation of these two groups of the Aryan people, Mithra rose to great eminence, and was the premier divinity in Western Iran, when Zarathushtra preached his religion. During the period of syncretism after the passing away of the prophet, Mithra became the most conspicuous angel of the Younger Avestan period. The longest Yasht, which is eight times longer than the Yasht composed in honour of Ahura Mazda, celebrates his greatness. He is the most masculine, exacting, implacable, and relentless of all the Yazatas. Ahura Mazda has created him the most glorious of the spiritual Yazatas,[7] as worthy of sacrifice and prayer as himself.[8] The description of him in the Yasht that is dedicated in his honour gives a vivid picture of the character of the pre-Zarathushtrian divinities that came to be worshipped in Iran. Mithra was the most eminent of the primitive Ahuras, as he was conjointly worshipped with Ahura Mazda.[9] The writer who consecrated Yasht 10 in his honour was conversant with the past greatness of this divinity, whose cult had struck so deep a root in the popular mind. He certainly was unsparing in eulogizing the work of this genius in the universe. The texts sometimes speak of Mithra in terms that are usually applied to Ahura Mazda, and the latter
