The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c11.s1.11

v1.c11.s1.11

Quite as striking are the similarities in the cult. In both India and Iran a priest called Hotṛ or Zaotar must originally have been the chief performer, the name denoting the act of offering the libation. The fire cult produced the Atharvan priest of India, the Āthravan of Iran, though Agni seems a specifically Indian development,² a fact which explains perhaps why he does not appear with Mitra and Varuṇa, Indra and the Nāsatyas in the list of gods of the Mitanni. The sacrifice bears the same name Yajña and Yasna respectively, and many other words used in the ritual correspond. More important still is the fact that the Soma is celebrated by the singers in both lands as the plant that grows on the mountains, watered by the rain of heaven, and brought by the eagle. It was in both lands pressed, and the juice passed through a sieve and then mixed with milk. But the deposition of Indra, who in India is the Soma drinker *par excellence*, from that place of honour in Iran, has resulted in the alteration of the old ritual of the drinking of the Soma by the god and then by the priests.³ Both peoples too at one time spread a strew, Barhis or Baresman, for the god to sit upon when he came to receive their offerings, and the old term spread (*stereta*) was preserved by the Iranians even after they had ceased altogether to conceive of the idea of the god coming to seat himself at the sacrifice. In both countries the pious offerer is styled the man who has spread the strew; in both again the service of praise consisted in large measure of hymns, whose close similarity of language and thought has already been noted.