So Mithra slays the bull, huh? That works.
I'm a bit surprised that Mithra isn't given a connection to Mitra of the Vedas, but I like this. I have a weakness for drastic reinterpretations of classical mythology; this gives Mithric cultists an interesting twist.
Or was the god Mithra that Meitros killed the same as the Vedic Mitra? I could also see that Mitra as a proxy of Varuna.
I like your ruthless Darwinian ecology of the divine, where fledgling divinities stand to be absorbed by larger predatory gods at any moment.
Is this Mithra still chief of the Yazatas in the Zoroastrian pantheon?
Is this Mithra still chief of the Yazatas in the Zoroastrian pantheon?
Thanks. I decided to ignore the proto-Mithras of Earth in order to keep this as simple as possible. AFAIK, the only Mithra(s) that we really know of, the one worshiped in Rome and opposed by the Christians, was an amalgam of Persian, Phoenician, Indian, and probably other deities of the sun. Including them all in what I wanted to be a simple story about an ascended deva would have been difficult...
Yeah, I don't know where I picked that up, but when I write about deities I often have some of them assimilating others and taking over their portfolios. I don't see this as a necessarily violent act, I think it could happen as a combination of a company merger and a marriage of convenience.
I tried writing a story once about Shiva absorbing Agni (actually negotiating the conditions first) and gaining the "Dancer in the Flames" aspect, but it didn't come out right.