proach Mithra.[1] Mithra's help, it may be added, is invoked for both the worlds.[2]
Rashnu
Personification of truth. This angel is pre-eminently the genius of truth. His standing epithet is razishta, 'most upright.' To adopt the phraseology of the Younger Avestan texts, Rashnu is the most holy, the most well-shaped, exalted, courageous, the most knowing, the most discerning, the most fore-knowing, the most far-seeing, the most helping, the greatest smiter of thieves and bandits.[3] He is as bright as the fire.[4] Zarathushtra blesses king Vishtaspa that he may be of right faith like Rashnu.[5]
The eighteenth day of the month is consecrated to him.[6]
Rashnu presides at the ordeal court. The twelfth Yasht consecrated to Rashnu deals mainly with the preparation of the ordeal; and his presence at such trials is deemed indispensable.[7] In fact he is the chief celestial judge who presides at the ordeal. No specific habitat is assigned to Rashnu. The officiating priest has to invoke him to come to the ordeal from whatever part of the world he happens to be in at that time, whether in one of the seven zones of the habitable world, or on the great waters, or on some part of the wide earth, or on the high mountains, or on the stars and the moon and the sun, or in the endless light, or even in paradise.[8] The man who lies at the ordeal offends both Rashnu and Mithra, and is consequently punished.[9]
We have already seen how Rashnu is often invoked in company with Mithra, and likewise with Sraosha; in a similar manner, as noted in the next paragraph, we generally find Arshtat, the female personification of rectitude, invoked alongside of Rashnu.[10]
- ↑ Yt. 10. 118.
- ↑ Yt. 10. 93.
- ↑ Yt. 10. 126; 12. 5-8.
- ↑ Vsp. 16. 1.
- ↑ AZ. 7.
- ↑ Ys. 16. 5; Sr. 1. 18; 2. 18.
- ↑ See Dhalla, The Use of Ordeals among the Ancient Iranians, in Le Museon, vol. II, p. 121-133, Louvain, 1910.
- ↑ Yt. 12. 9-38.
- ↑ Vd. 4. 54, 55.
- ↑ Ys. 1. 7; 2. 7; Yt. 10. 139; 12. 40; Sr. 1. 18; 2. 18.
