C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Goddess of the Waters

By The Avesta (c. Sixth Century B.C.)

OFFER up a sacrifice unto this spring of mine, Ardvi Sura Anahita (the exalted, mighty, and undefiled, image of the (128) stream celestial), who stands carried forth in the shape of a maid, fair of body, most strong, tall-formed, high-girded, pure, nobly born of a glorious race, wearing a mantle fully embroidered with gold. 129. Ever holding the baresma in her hand, according to the rules; she wears square golden ear-rings on her ears bored, and a golden necklace around her beautiful neck, she, the nobly born Ardvi Sura Anahita; and she girded her waist tightly, so that her breasts may be well shaped, that they may be tightly pressed. 128. Upon her head Ardvi Sura Anahita bound a golden crown, with a hundred stars, with eight rays, a fine well-made crown, with fillets streaming down. 129. She is clothed with garments of beaver, Ardvi Sura Anahita; with the skin of thirty beavers, of those that bear four young ones, that are the finest kind of beavers; for the skin of the beaver that lives in water is the finest colored of all skins, and when worked at the right time it shines to the eye with full sheen of silver and gold.

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