Temple of Anahita (Artemis) at Kangavar (Concobar)

Anāhitā (or Nāhid in Modern Persian), whose name means "unstained" or "immaculate", was an ancient Persian deity. Her cult was strongest in Western Iran, and had extensive parallels with that of the Semitic Near Eastern "Queen of Heaven", deification of the planet Venus, eternal virgin (however many sexual encounters she had), goddess of war, love, and fertility Ishtar, who was probably derived from the Sumerian Inanna. Anāhitā may have been a direct borrowing from the Near East, or may have acquired Near Eastern characteristics from a confrontation between Iranian and Mesopotamian cultures.

Anāhitā is not present in the earliest parts of the Avesta; her cult would have been alien to the henotheistic spirit of the Zaraθu�tra (Zoroaster) presented in the Gāθās. By the later Avestic period, however, more lenient priests had adapted the goddess to the new religion. The fifth Ya�t, the "Hymn to the Waters", praises Anāhitā as "the wide-expanding and health-giving". "Strong and bright, tall and beautiful of form, who sends down by day and by night a flow of motherly waters as large as the whole of the waters that run along the earth, and who runs powerfully." In Modern Persian Nāhid (Anāhitā) is the name of the planet Venus.

Anāhitā was the goddess of pure waters and fertility (hence pomegranates being her representative fruit). Her temples where, therefore, built around natural springs, lakes, or major rivers. There are myriad bridges, castles and other buildings in Iran, Central Asia and Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and the Caucasus with the element "dokhtar" (daughter or maiden) as a part of their names (e.g., Pul-i dokhtar, Qala dokhtar, Diz-i dokhtar, Ab-i dokhtar). These all hark back to the ancient times and the existence of a shrine or a temple dedicated to Anāhitā. The full title of the Goddess was Ardvi Sura Anahita Shahr Banu--the Lady of the Land.

By the Hellenistic era, if not before, Anāhitā's cult came to be closely associated with that of Mithra. The Anahita Temple at Kangavar in western Iran and the magnificent temple in Bishapur in southwestern Iran are the most important Anahita temples.