| Anahita |
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Anahita is not present in the earliest parts of the Avesta ; her cult would have been alien to the Henotheistic spirit of the Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) presented in the Gathas . By the later Avestic period, however, more lenient priests had adapted the goddess to the new religion. The fifth Yasht , the "Hymn to the Waters", praises Anahita as "the wide-expanding and health-giving". "Strong and bright, tall and beautiful of form, who sends down by day and by night a flow of motherly waters as large as the whole of the waters that run along the earth, and who runs powerfully." In Modern Persian Nahid (Anahita) is the name of the planet Venus . By the Hellenistic era, if not before, Anahita's cult came to be closely associated with that of Mithra . The Anahita Temple at Kangavar in western Iran and the magnigficent temple in Bishapur in southwestern Iran are the most important Anahita temples. EXTERNAL LINKS
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