Mono-Mono

Question: I once heard that Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion, but then you have Mithra and the other gods. What's going on? Was I just misinformed?

You kind of were, but it's a common piece of misinformation. First, let's talk about what monotheism is, and then we'll dive into how it affects Zoroastrianism!

Zoroastrianism is often called a monotheistic religion because it holds Ahura Mazda, the omnipotent and all-wise, as the most powerful being in the universe, the eventual inevitable defeater of evil, the creator of all things and the sole source of benevolence in the universe. He's very comparable to the big-G Gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in power, scope and universal benevolence, and has probably become even more like them over time as those religions (especially Islam) grew up beside and influenced Zoroastrianism.

But Zoroastrianism isn't actually monotheistic. It's monolatristic, meaning that it acknowledges that other gods exist, but worships only one of them as the supreme power in the universe, whereas monotheism believes that there is only one god and all others are either nonexistent or some lesser power pretending to the title. Zoroastrianism is full of references to other gods, from the daevas being acknowledged as gods who are simply evil by virtue of being misled or purveyors of lies that come from Angra Mainyu, to the presence of the Yazata who are expressly acknowledged as divinities, to the references to Ahura Mazda as greatest among deities, not simply the only one that exists.

(In case you were wondering about the difference, another closely related concept is that of henotheism, which is the practice of worshiping a particular totem god above others despite acknowledging others that are equally worthy of power. The quick rule of thumb to tell the three apart is that monotheism says there is only one god, monolatrism says there is only one god worth worshiping above the others, and henotheism says there are lots of worthy gods but only this one is worshiped by a particular people.)

Zoroastrianism does have a lot of concepts in common with monotheistic religions; it has a strong good/evil duality, a single all-powerful god-figure that rules the universe and a heavy focus on the purity and good works of its worshipers to guarantee their passage through judgment day and into a heavenly afterlife. That, and the strong influence of monotheism in Persia and nearby areas, have combined to make casual readers about the religion often lump it in under the "monotheistic" label in error.

Actually, some of the Yazata, most notably Mithra and Anahita, are likely to predate Ahura Mazda completely; there's some evidence (usually from neighboring cultures that recorded Persian culture before they were recording it themselves) that they were worshiped in ancient Persia before the rise of Zoroastrianism, which only arrived on the scene around 600 B.C.E. There was certainly an ancient set of polytheistic Persian gods that were worshiped prior to Zoroaster rolling in and setting up Ahura Mazda as the supreme deity of the region, and several of the Yazata were probably among them, then translating on into the new religion as integral parts of it.

The Indo-Iranian Connection

Question: What do you think of the Hindu god Varuna? I read somewhere that he was considered an asura (before that word was used to refer to demons specifically and just meant another class of god), so are you perhaps envisioning him as a Titan? Or is he not legendary enough to be a big part of Scion?

Varuna is indeed an asura - in fact, he's the leader of the asuras in Vedic texts, closely associated with other benevolent asura figures (Mitra and Aryaman, most notably) and considered a serious power to be reckoned with.

First of all, the definition of what an asura is has definitely changed over time, but the English translation of "demon" isn't really accurate in most cases. A more appropriate term would probably be "other god", with a heavy connotation of other translating to evil; asuras in later Hinduism are still usually acknowledged as powerful divinities, but that doesn't make them any nicer to be around, and the Devas have their hands full keeping them in check. In the earliest Hindu texts, on the other hand, the evil connotation is mostly absent; asuras are still somewhat foreign or "different" gods, acknowledged as not the same as the Devas, but they aren't necessarily antagonistic or evil, and are often cooperated with or called upon by mortal worshipers. Devas and asuras are so much recognized to both be classes of gods in early Hindu texts that the labels are even used interchangeably sometimes - Indra is occasionally referred to as an asura, for example, while Mitra is once in a while called a Deva. Varuna, as the mightiest and wisest of the asuras and their leader, is a representative of order and a power in the universe to be respected, not an antagonistic figure, and by the time asuras had begun to be considered more negatively, he had all but disappeared from Hindu myth.

Varuna's not the only one, by the way - Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga and others are equally positive or at least neutral older asuras who became less and less important as the religion developed and the asuras became considered enemies of the gods rather than possible allies. None of them ever took on antagonistic roles against the Devas, and quietly faded out of the religion as a result, or, in a few cases, became considered Devas themselves and ceased to be referred to as asuras at all.

Which brings us on to a very important second definition of asura: linguistically, it's an exact cognate with the Persian ahura, meaning god. The pantheon of the Yazata are all ahuras, and among them are clearly gods who were once the asuras of Vedic myth; Mitra and Mithra, Aryaman and Airyaman, Soma and Haoma, Vayu and Vata-Vayu are all just the same deity when seen through two different cultures' religions. And by the same token, the enemies of the Yazata are the daevas, an obvious Persian version of the Devas; in Persian myth, Indra and Shiva (as Sarva) both appear as antagonistic foreign gods and followers of Ahriman. Just as the asuras of Vedic myth progressed from foreign gods who might be called upon for help and were later dropped from worship and considered evil, so in Persian myth were daevas originally considered merely gods who could not be trusted because they had been misled into believing falsehoods, and were later demoted to intrinsically evil beings themselves.

This is one of the reasons that games involving both the Devas and the Yazata are endlessly fascinating to us, because out of all pantheons, they have the unique situation of seeming to have been part of the same religion long ago in the dawn of civilization, but to now literally believe that their opposite numbers are all Titans. Exactly what happened to make the two faiths split so hard and uncompromisingly against one another is a mystery for pretty much everyone; even scholars can't come up with more than theories of social shifting (probably competing priesthoods or cults that got out of hand), since it happened so long ago that there aren't any good records detailing what caused the schism. The Devas/daevas and Yazata/asuras were once friends; now they hate each other. Storytellers have so many possibilities for what happened and how to make games out of it that it's almost overwhelmingly awesome.

But anyway, back to Varuna. Not everyone called an asura in Hindu myth needs to be among the ranks of the Yazata - after all, they probably apply the label to plenty of Titanspawn and other nasties now, pretty much anyone they don't like - so if there's no direct correlation between an asura and an ahura (or a deva and a daeva, for that matter), there's no need to try to invent one. However, Varuna probably is an ahura - and not just any ahura, but the biggest ahura of them all.

It's still a matter of scholarly debate in some circles, but we're pretty solidly down with the widely-held theory that Varuna and Ahura Mazda are probably the same figure. Both are the leaders of the ahuras/asuras, figures of cosmic power and wisdom who control the elements effortlessly and are chiefly concerned with order, justice and truth (rta for Vedic Varuna, and asha for Persian Ahura Mazda). Both of them have the same dude acting as their right-hand man (Mitra/Mithra), receive their offerings through holy purifying flame, and are considered omnipotent, omniscient and all-seeing. Ahura Mazda himself literally doesn't actually have a name - "Ahura Mazda" just means "the greatest god", a title rather than a name that leaves whether or not he once had a further identity ambiguous (but "Varuna" is in fact among the epithets assigned to him in the Avestas).

So, just as we don't really need to create antagonist asuras to be Mitra and Soma who are already gods of the Yazata, or antagonist daevas to be Indra and Sarva who are already gods of the Devas, we don't need to invent a new antagonist for Varuna. If Varuna is Ahura Mazda, then he, like many of the other Vedic ahuras, is simply a foreign divine power, one the Devas are opposed to for their own religious and political reasons. The leader of the asuras and the ahuras is one and the same.

Which of course brings us back full circle to what, exactly, Ahura Mazda should even be classified as, considering his near-monotheistic flavor and unreachable scale of power when compared to the lesser Yazata. The Scion books intentionally leave this vague and cloudy by simply claiming that he's been missing for a while and that Mithra's leading the pantheon in his absence, which neatly allows a Storyteller to run the Yazata without having to sweat why their all-powerful boss doesn't drop by and just solve all their problems.

A more reasonable approach, and the one we'd probably recommend, is that a being as powerful and remote from humanity as Ahura Mazda is probably a Titan like other pseudo-monotheistic figures such as Allah, Aten or El; the books shy away from this, most likely because they don't want to suggest that the ultimate good guy of Zoroastrianism is on the enemy team, but Titans come in many types and behaviors, and Ahura Mazda doesn't need to be evil to be one of them. He's more likely simply epically remote, doing his own incomprehensible thing in some incomprehensible Titanrealm. His extreme focus on law, order and righteousness may also prevent him from directly interfering or bothering people who fight for the right, making him still technically supporting the Yazata (or at least not opposing them). He's most likely part of the Titanrealm of Order; Sedeq if you use our version, or Logos if you run with the books (and in fact his benevolent-but-uninvolved schtick fits into Logos very well).

This has been a very long and proto-Indo-Iranian historically rambling post, but what it really boils down to is this: Varuna is probably a Titan, but not for the reasons you think. He's not just a side figure from Hindu mythology; he's running the whole show next door in Persia.