Page:The Mythology of all races ... (IA mythologyofallra71gray).pdf/42



HOEVER was the chief deity of the Armenians when they conquered Urartu, in later times that important position was occupied by Aramazd. Aramazd is an Armenian corruption of the Auramazda of the old Persian inscriptions. His once widely spread cult is one of our strongest proofs that at least a crude and imperfect form of Zoroastrianism existed in Armenia, Yet this Armenian deity is by no means an exact duplicate of his Persian namesake. He possesses some attributes that remind us of an older sky-god.

Unlike the Ahura-Mazda of Zoroaster, hc was supreme, without being exclusive. There were other gods beside him, come from everywhere and anywhere, of whom he was the father. Anahit, Nane and Mihr were regarded as his children in a peculiar sense. Although some fathers of the Greek Church in the fourth century were willing to consider Armenian paganism as a remarkable approach to Christian monotheism, it must be confessed that this was rather glory reflected from Zoroastrianism, and that the supremacy of Aramazd seems never to have risen in Armenia to a monotheism that could degrade other gods and goddesses into mere angels (Ameshas and Yazatas). Aramazd is represented as the creator of heaven and earth by Agathangelos in the same manner as by Xerxes who says in one of his inscriptions: “Auramazda is a great god, greater than all gods, who has created this heaven and this earth.” The Armenian Aramazd was called “great” and he must have been supreme in wisdom (Arm.