The Indo-European Dragon-slaying Myth: Dragons, the Avestan Saošiiant, and Possible Connections to the Iranian River Goddess

The myth of an archetypal hero (either divine or human) who slays a dragon/serpent (who is most often blocking access to a body of the heavenly water) is very ancient. Based on its prominence in the myths of many Indo-European peoples – including those of Iran, India, Greece, and Rome, with parallels among the Balts, the Slavs, the Armenians, and the Hittites – it would strongly appear to date back to the proto-Indo-European period or even earlier. The “killing of a dragon” symbolized the control over the potentially chaotic vicissitudes of flowing water. The dragon came to symbolize the harmful forms a river could take, whether drying up (the water “imprisoned”) which caused drought, or overflowing its banks, which caused destructive floods. In light of the mythological connection between dragons and rivers, this paper considers whether dragon-slaying myths can be further connected to the Iranian river goddess, Arəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā, and to the Avestan saošiiant.