Anahita was the most important goddess of pre-Islamic Iran. From her
roots as an ancient Indo-European water deity her status was unrivalled
by any other Iranian goddess throughout the course of three successive
Iranian empires over a period of a thousand years.
The first scholarly book on Anahita, this study reconstructs the
Indo-European water goddess through a comparison of Celtic, Slavic,
Armenian and Indo-Iranian myths and rituals. Anahita's
constantly-evolving description and functions are then traced through
the written and iconographic records of Iranian societies from the
Achaemenid period onwards, including but not limited to the Zoroastrian
texts and the inscriptions and artistic representations of the great
pre-Islamic Iranian empires. The study concludes by tracing survival of
the goddess in Islamic Iran, as seen in new Persian literature and
popular rituals. Manya Saadi-nejad demonstrates the close relationship
between Iranian mythology and that of other Indo-European peoples, and
the significant cultural continuities from Iran's pre-Islamic period
into the Islamic present.