Editing Mitra (section)

==Indian religious texts==
Both [[Vedic Sanskrit|Vedic]] Mitra and Avestan Mithra derive from an Indo-Iranian common noun ''*mitra-'', generally reconstructed to have meant "[[wikt:covenant|covenant]], [[treaty]], agreement, [[promise]]." This meaning is preserved in Avestan ''miθra'' "covenant". In [[Sanskrit]] and modern [[Indo-Aryan language]]s, ''{{IAST|mitra}}'' means  "friend", one of the aspects of [[human bonding|bonding]] and alliance.

The Indo-Iranian reconstruction is attributed<ref name="Schmidt_2006">{{citation|last=Schmidt|first=Hans-Peter|chapter=Mithra i: Mithra in Old Indian and Mithra in Old Iranian|year=2006|title=Encyclopaedia Iranica|location=New York|publisher=iranica.com|chapter-url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/mithra-i}} (accessed April 2011)</ref> to Christian Bartholomae,<ref name="Bartholomae_1904_c1183">{{citation|last=Bartholomae|first=Christian|title=Altiranisches Wörterbuch|year=1904|location=Strassburg |publisher=Trübner}} (fasc., 1979, Berlin: de Gruyter), at column 1183.</ref> and was subsequently refined by A. Meillet (1907), who suggested derivation from the Proto-Indo-European root ''*mey-'' "to exchange".

A suggested alternative derivation was ''*meh'' "to measure" (Gray 1929). Pokorny ([[IEW]] 1959) refined Meillet's ''*mei'' as  "to bind". Combining the root ''*mei'' with the "tool suffix" ''-tra-'' "that which [causes] ..." (also found in ''[[mantra|man-tra-]]'', "that which causes to think"), then literally means "that which binds", and thus "covenant, treaty, agreement, promise, oath" etc. Pokorny's interpretation also supports "to fasten, strengthen", which may be found in Latin ''moenia'' "city wall, fortification", and in an antonymic form, Old English ''(ge)maere'' "border, boundary-post".

Meillet and Pokorny's "contract" did however have its detractors. Lentz (1964, 1970) refused to accept abstract "contract" for so exalted a divinity and preferred the more religious "piety". Because present-day Sanskrit ''mitra'' means "friend", and New Persian ''mihr'' means "love" or "friendship", Gonda (1972, 1973) insisted on a Vedic meaning of  "friend, friendship", not "contract".

Meillet's analysis also "rectified earlier interpretations"<ref name="Schmidt_2006" /> that suggested that the Indo-Iranian common noun ''*mitra-'' had anything to do with the light or the sun. When H. Lommel suggested<ref>{{citation|last=Lommel |first=Herman|chapter=Die Sonne das Schlechteste?|pages=360–376|title=Zarathustra|editor-last=Schlerath|editor-first=Bernfried|year=1970|location=Darmstadt|publisher=Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft}}</ref> that such an association was implied in the Younger Avesta (since the 6th century BCE), that too was conclusively dismissed.<!-- "lays to rest in a closely argued and detailed way" --><ref>{{citation|last=Gershevitch|first=Ilya|chapter=Die Sonne das Beste|pages=68–89|title=Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies.|volume=1|editor-last=Hinnells|editor-first=John R.|year=1975|location=Manchester|publisher=UP/Rowman & Littlefield}}</ref> Today, it is certain that "(al)though Miθra is closely associated with the sun in the [[Avesta]], he is not the sun" and "Vedic Mitra is not either."<ref name="Schmidt_2006" />

Old Persian ''Miθra'' <!-- (5x)--> or ''Miθ<sup style="font-size:90%">r</sup>a'' <!--(4x), -θr- represents a sibilant, see Meillet "Gammar" 56, also applied by Ward/Kent --> – both only attested in a handful of 4th-century BCE inscriptions of [[Artaxerxes II]] and [[Artaxerxes III|III]] – "is generally admitted [to be] a borrowing from the Avesta,"<ref name="WareKent_1924_55">{{citation|last1=Ware|first1=James R.|last2=Kent|first2=Roland G.|title=The Old Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions of Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III|journal=Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association|volume=55|year=1924|pages=52–61|doi=10.2307/283007|publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press|jstor=283007}} at p. 55.</ref> the genuine Old Persian form being reconstructed as ''*Miça''. (Kent initially suggested [[Sanskrit]]<!-- Quote: "Skt. mitra- 'friend' borrowed into Iranian as epithet of a divinity,..."--><ref name="Kent_1953_31b">{{citation|last=Kent|first=Ronald G.|title=Old Persian: Grammar, Lexicon, Texts|edition=2nd|year=1953|location=New Haven|publisher=American Oriental Society|at=§78/p. 31b}}</ref> but later<ref name="WareKent_1924_55" /> changed his mind).<!-- In the Babylonian version of the Artaxerxes inscription the name appears as ''mi-iš-ša'', which has been interpreted to perhaps indicate local usage. --> [[Middle Iranian languages|Middle Iranian]] ''myhr'' (Parthian, also in living Armenian usage) and ''mihr'' (Middle Persian), derive from Avestan ''Mithra''.<!-- e.g., Boyce, Z1:26; Widengren, Stand und Aufgaben II; --> <!-- This form must already have been in use by the 3rd century BCE: a commemorative inscription (found in [[Phyrgia]]) dateable to this period refers to the annual festival of Mithra as ''[[Mihragan|Mihrakana]]''. In comment because my sloppy notes don't tell me where this came from. -->

Greek/Latin "Mithras," the focal deity of the [[Greco-Roman]] cult of [[Mithraism]] is the nominative form of vocative Mithra.  In contrast to the original Avestan meaning of "contract" or "covenant" (and still evident in post-Sassanid Middle Persian texts), the Greco-Roman Mithraists probably thought the name meant "mediator". In Plutarch's 1st-century discussion of dualistic theologies, ''Isis and Osiris'' (46.7) the Greek historiographer provides the following explanation of the name in his summary of the Zoroastrian religion: Mithra is a ''meson'' ("in the middle") between "the good [[Ahura Mazda|Horomazdes]] and the evil [[Angra Mainyu|Aremanius]] [...] and this is why the [[Iranian peoples|''Pérsai''<!-- Πέρσαι -->]] call the Mediator Mithra"<!-- following Zaehner 101 & 448 -->. Zaehner<ref name="Zaehner_1955_101_102">{{Citation|last=Zaehner|first=Richard Charles|title=Zurvan, a Zoroastrian dilemma|year=1955|publisher=Clarendon|location=Oxford}} at pp. 101–102.</ref> attributes this false etymology to a role that Mithra (and the sun) played in the now extinct branch of Zoroastrianism known as [[Zurvanism]].