The swastika is found in Persia as well as a sacred mountain, the Elburl.
The supreme divinity was the invisible Ahuramazda, the “creator of heaven
and earth,” who was associated with “eternal light” and appears to be
identical with the ancient Aryan god of light, Mithra, the watcher and
ruler of the world, who was worshipped under the form of fire.
Mithra and Ahuramazda alike are associated with six spirits named the
Amesha-zpenta, who are said, in the first case, to be personifications of
the sun, moon, fire, earth, water and air, and in the second, of certain
qualities of the supreme power, namely, law, power, goodness, piety,
health and immortality, abstract conceptions which evidently pertain to a
more advanced intellectual stage. The septarchy thus formed by Mithra and
his Amesha appears to assign the Middle to him and to associate the sun
with the day, heaven, light and the Above, the moon with the night and
darkness and the Below, and the elements with the Four Quarters. It is
suggestive of four-fold rule and power to find, on a bas-relief found at
the ancient holy city Pasargada, the Persian king Cyrus represented with
four wings and a diadem with two uræus serpents like that of Egyptian
kings.
The most ancient Persian monarch is said to have been Haha-manis or
Akhamanis, who was termed “the king of Anshan.” Subsequent kings bore the
title of Hakhamanisija, as for instance, Cyrus and Darius I (520-486
B.C.). At the present day, the title Charkan is that employed to designate
the Shah, whereas goda or khoda signifies lord, master, prince or ruler.
In a bas-relief published by Spamer, whose work of reference will be
referred to again later on, Darius is represented as standing under the
image of Ahuramazda, the supreme deity, who, like the Assyrian god Assur,
is figured as a king wearing the royal cap, and issuing from the centre of
a winged ring or circlet. In Persia the god holds another ring in his hand
(fig. 71, 1). It seems impossible to emphasize more strongly or express
more clearly the idea that Ahuramazda was the lord of the circle and of
the Above, the wings being emblematic of air or heaven and of motion.
The signification of the symbolical representation of the supreme power
and the adoption of fire by the founders of the ancient Parsee religion as
the most appropriate image of their highest god, become clear when
interpreted as the outcome of pole-star worship. Resisting the temptation
to prolong the study of ancient Persia, let us now hasten to the reputed
cradle of the civilization of Western Asia.