The Gav-e Naer, or Aurochs, are the massive oxen of the Parsan Continent. It is probable that the first efforts at domestication of the ox in Parsa were prompted more by religious than by utilitarian concerns: at first, it must have served as a symbolic sacrifice in place of its wild counterpart, one of the largest and most powerful beasts known. This religious function is clear from many Parsan reliefs on which the bull is placed next to the lion.
From what evidence has been uncovered in the short time since
The Awakening, it is believed that before
The Quieting Gav-e Naer were used throughout the Parsan world both for riding and as beasts of burden. Current use of the ox as a mount represents a survival from the cultural level that prevailed before the diffusion of equines which seem to have weathered the frozen times better. Somewhat paradoxically, only in the most remote and mountainous regions today are the practices of oxmanship still well known.
The Lion-and-bull is one of the oldest mythological symbols in the world. The basic sense of the bull brought down by predators is an image of the fundamental struggle of life and death. As an image of the conflict that provides the sustenance of life, the lion and the bull are bound together as a single symbol.
In Parsa, the bull is tied to
Haoma and the moons, whereas the lion represents the sun and
Mithra. Just as the light of the sun never varies, the lion exemplifies the clear light of awareness of eternity. The bull represents the lunar principle, which, waxing and waning in a constant cycle, exemplifies consciousness in the field of time. While the lion-consciousness is eternal and unchanging, the bull-consciousness, like the light of the moon, follows an eternal cycle of death and resurrection.
Mithra , the sun-god, deity of wisdom, light, contract, and war in Old Parsa rode and killed the life-giving cosmic bull whose blood fertilized all vegetation and animals. Tauroctony or Mithra’s slaying of the bull, became the ritualistic prototype of fertility in Mithraic cult.
Mithra, if reluctantly, performs the sacrifice Haoma, with a sacred knife which has been lost to time. Today this ritual is reenacted each spring at New Years or
Nowruz, symbolizing the conquering of winter by spring, or the darkness by the light. Pre-awakening, this ritual had a strong element of sacrifice woven throughout, while today it is often reenacted in a more celebratory and festive manner.
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