mitra

noun

1. A person who is interested in becoming a Buddhist and elects to join a Buddhist community to learn more.

name

1. A divinity of Vedic culture, hypostasis of friendship and one-half of the dvandva (compound divinity) Varuna-Mitra.

   “[In post-Vedic India], Vedic Mitra practically disappears and Varuna is relegated to a subsidiary position”

2. (uncommon)A deity invoked in the Hurrian Mitanni of ca. 1400 BC.

   “when about 1350 B.C. a treaty was concluded between the king of Mittanni [...] and the Hittite ruler [...], the former calls upon the gods Mitra, Indra, Varuna, and the Nâsatya as guarantors of his sworn obligations.”

3. (alt-of, alternative, rare)Alternative form of Mithra (“Iranian deity”).

   “As the Avestan Mitra had a luminous character, so had the Vedic Mitra.”

   “We cannot account for Roman Mithras in terms borrowed from Persian Mitra.”

4. A surname from Sanskrit.