AHURAS. The Iranian term ahura ("lord") corresponds to the Vedic asura. Whereas in the Vedas asura is usually applied to Dyaus-Pitṛ ("father sky"), the Indian equivalent of the Roman Jupiter, in Iran and in the Zoroastrian tradition ahura is applied to three divinities: Ahura Mazdā, Mithra, and Apąm Napāt ("son of the waters"). Some scholars see Apąm Napāt as the Iranian counterpart of Varuṇa, the first of the asuras, and have called him *Vouruna Apąm Napāt in an attempt to reconstruct a unitary structure of three original Indo-Iranian asuras, with Ahura Mazdā corresponding to Asura *Medhā, Mithra to Mitra, and *Vouruna Apąm Napāt to Varuṇa Apām Napāt (Boyce, 1975). These arguments, however, are not very convincing. Other scholars suppose that at the summit of an ancient Indo-Iranian pantheon was a god called Asura, without further...