雛ドール ✵☽ on Nostr: According to the Wiley-Blackwell companion to Zoroastrianism, in the section about ...
According to the Wiley-Blackwell companion to Zoroastrianism, in the section about Sogdian Zoroastrianism in China, "The fact that Zoroastrians performed no forms of asceticism in contrast to the Nestorians and Manichaeans spurred the impression of “lewd” and “amorous” behavior on the part of the Zoroastrians. This image contributed to the association in Chinese folk literature of Zoroastrianism with adultery."
This is incredibly funny given that one of the most worshiped deities in Sogdian Zoroastrianism, is the Mesopotamian goddess Nanaya.
A trust me, Nanaya's up there as one of the hornier goddesses. With epithets in Mesopotamia as "voluptuous" and with dedicated poems that sound like straight up erotica. She's also said to swing both ways if ya catch my drift
Sadly it seems as if this book has quite outdated info on the Sogdian worship of Nanaya; it assumes that Nanaya was a water goddess syncretized with Anahita. But the West Iranian Anahita doesn't really appear much in Sogdia, and Nanaya was less of a water goddess and more of an astral goddess. The main water deity was the deification of the river Oxus, and Anahita was largely relegated to the role of Venus in it's Babylonian and Persian derived astrology. I do believe due to both Anahita and Nanaya's connection to Ishtar, I could see them being syncretized? But not in the way this book claims. It doesn't cite Michael Shenkar or Joan Goodnick Westenholtz for the parts on Nanaya in Sogdia so... yeah lol
So how did a Mesopotamian goddess get to Sogdia? Well, that's easy to answer, because since the Achaemenid Empire, Mesopotamia and Sogdia were under the same rule and lots of Mesopotamian influences came to Central Asia. The real question we should be asking is, why didn't any other deities from Mesopotamia get fully adopted into Sogdia without being syncretized with a native Iranian deity? Like, Shamash doesn't really appear in Sogdia; although Shamash was syncretized with and heavily influenced Mithra, who was worshiped in Sogdia.
Nanaya's spouse in Sogdia was the Iranian deity Tishtrya, which comes from Tishtrya's syncretism with Nabu, which was Nanaya's husband in Mesopotamia. Both were also gods of scribes and learning, and were associated with the planet Mercury (although the Greeks of the Seleucid Empire and Greco-Bactrian kingdoms, who influenced Sogdia greatly, syncretized him with Apollo) Interestingly, in Sogdia specifically, Tishtrya begins being depicted as female, a depiction that survives in Chinese Buddhist Astrology (which is separate from the Taoist astrology). So if you squint.... Sogdian Nanaya was a lesbian lol
This is incredibly funny given that one of the most worshiped deities in Sogdian Zoroastrianism, is the Mesopotamian goddess Nanaya.
A trust me, Nanaya's up there as one of the hornier goddesses. With epithets in Mesopotamia as "voluptuous" and with dedicated poems that sound like straight up erotica. She's also said to swing both ways if ya catch my drift
Sadly it seems as if this book has quite outdated info on the Sogdian worship of Nanaya; it assumes that Nanaya was a water goddess syncretized with Anahita. But the West Iranian Anahita doesn't really appear much in Sogdia, and Nanaya was less of a water goddess and more of an astral goddess. The main water deity was the deification of the river Oxus, and Anahita was largely relegated to the role of Venus in it's Babylonian and Persian derived astrology. I do believe due to both Anahita and Nanaya's connection to Ishtar, I could see them being syncretized? But not in the way this book claims. It doesn't cite Michael Shenkar or Joan Goodnick Westenholtz for the parts on Nanaya in Sogdia so... yeah lol
So how did a Mesopotamian goddess get to Sogdia? Well, that's easy to answer, because since the Achaemenid Empire, Mesopotamia and Sogdia were under the same rule and lots of Mesopotamian influences came to Central Asia. The real question we should be asking is, why didn't any other deities from Mesopotamia get fully adopted into Sogdia without being syncretized with a native Iranian deity? Like, Shamash doesn't really appear in Sogdia; although Shamash was syncretized with and heavily influenced Mithra, who was worshiped in Sogdia.
Nanaya's spouse in Sogdia was the Iranian deity Tishtrya, which comes from Tishtrya's syncretism with Nabu, which was Nanaya's husband in Mesopotamia. Both were also gods of scribes and learning, and were associated with the planet Mercury (although the Greeks of the Seleucid Empire and Greco-Bactrian kingdoms, who influenced Sogdia greatly, syncretized him with Apollo) Interestingly, in Sogdia specifically, Tishtrya begins being depicted as female, a depiction that survives in Chinese Buddhist Astrology (which is separate from the Taoist astrology). So if you squint.... Sogdian Nanaya was a lesbian lol