the sun, with the radiance of which he is identical on the physical plane. As the harbinger of light and herald of the dawn, Mithra precedes the rising sun on the summits of mountains, and from there watches all Aryan settlements, nay more, even all the seven Zones of the world.[1] The great vault of heaven is therefore Mithra's garment.[2] Ahura Mazda and the Amesha Spentas, being in one accord with the sun, have built up for Mithra a dwelling as wide as the earth in this material world, on the great mountain Hara Berezaiti (Alburz), where neither night nor darkness, nor cold wind nor hot wind, nor sickness, impurity, death and clouds can ever reach.[3] From this elysian abode Mithra surveys the whole universe at a glance.[4] Sleepless and ever wakeful, he watches and spies the doings of men, like Vedic Mitra-Varuna, as an infallible sentinel of heaven. He has posted eight of his comrades as scouts on the celestial watch-towers to spy upon men's doings.[5] After the sun has set, Mithra traverses the world all around, and surveys all that is between earth and the heavens.[6] Ahura Mazda consequently has ordained that Mithra should watch from on high over the entire moving world.[7] The heat of Mithra it is, accordingly, that gives warmth and life to the plant world and bestows fertility upon this earth. Mithra, as a guardian genius in the celestial realm, superintends the vast expanse of the universe. Varuna has a thousand eyes,[8] and Mithra is constantly spoken of as having a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. The brilliant sun is the lord of yonder heavens, who with his infinite rays of light pervades the whole world. Mithra furthermore receives in the Avesta the standing epithets dainghu-paiti, 'the lord of countries,' and vourugaoyaoiti, 'of wide pastures.' His light is the dispeller of darkness and of all the sin and evil concomitant with it. Nothing is secret from Mithra's penetrating gaze. Mitra-Varuna have a thousand-eyed spies (spasah), who descend from heaven and traverse the world, watching the doings of mankind. Mithra, as we have seen, has ten thousand spies (spaso), who work as his messengers.
Mithra, the inveterate foe of falsehood. Yet after all, the greater and more important work of Mithra lies in the abstract
