of blood falls into the water while the animal is being immolated; nor must the mixture of oil, honey, and milk be poured into water.[1] This precaution is taken lest the waters be defiled.
Any defilement of the waters evokes Ardvi Sura's displeasure. It is sinful to contaminate the waters. Such an act incurs great displeasure on the part of the genius of waters. Those who wilfully bring dead matter to the waters become unclean for ever and ever.[2] If a man while walking or running, riding or driving, happens to see a corpse floating in a river, he must enter the river and go down into the water ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep, nay even a man's full depth if need be, and take out the decaying body and place it upon the dry ground exposed to the light of the sun.[3] Herodotus informs us that the Persians do not make water, wash or bathe in a river.[4]
Ardvi Sura's chariot. Like some of the Yazatas, Ardvi Sura Anahita has a chariot of her own, in which she drives forth in majesty. She holds the reins in her own hands, and controls four great chargers who are all of white color, of the same stock, and who smite the malice of all tyrants, demons, wicked men, sorcerers, fairies, oppressors, as well as those who are wilfully blind and wilfully deaf.[5] The text enables us to understand the allegorical statement regarding the steeds that are yoked to her chariot, for we are told that the four chargers of Ardvi Sura are the wind, the rain, the cloud, and the sleet; and it was Ahura Mazda who made them for her.[6]
Apam Napat
His nature and work. This Indo-Iranian divinity of waters seems very early to have been eclipsed by Anahita, who remains the chief genius presiding over waters in the cult. Apam Napat's Vedic counterpart has an aqueous as well as an igneous nature. In the association of the Avestan Apam Napat with the fire angel Nairyosangha, Spiegel sees traces of this secondary nature.[7] Apam Napat literally means 'the offspring of waters,' and, like
