One can picture to himself the properly ordained household of a Zoroastrian, who has carefully imbibed the abstract principles of "Humata," "Hukhta," and "Hvarshta," and put them to practical purposes in an ordinary workaday life. Marriage is particularly recommended as a great factor towards leading a religious and virtuous life, in addition to the social comforts of physical, mental, and moral recreations. The household of a man 6f well-regulated mind is his peaceful domain, wherein he is the lord with his worthy consort, both entwined together and actuated by that religious affinity which the Zoroastrian religion, by wise and philosophical precepts, never fails to infuse.
As the land improves by fertilization, so should mankind by union, says the Zoroastrian philosophy. The husband is required to obey the laws of health and be brave, to protect and preserve his family from any outside violence, to be industrious, to provide them with necessaries of life, to be tolerant, truthful, and chaste, and to complete the domestic happiness of his family circle.
Chastity and implicit obedience from a wife to her husband are considered to be the greatest virtues in a woman, the breach whereof will be punished as a sin. In every way, the wife is equal to her husband in social status, enjoying perfect liberty of action. These wise domestic regulations are so faithfully followed by the modern Parsis that misbehaviour or misconduct of a woman is altogether conspicuous by its absence. Divorce for misconduct is almost an unknown thing, and the writer cannot but congratulate his community on the fact of total absence of women of loose morals.
It is one of the ordinances of the faith that a father must look after the spiritual and temporal education of his children, and bring them up well fortified physically and morally to fight the battle of life with perseverance, diligence, honesty, and integrity, thus enhancing the reputation of his family and the honour of his community. Tolerance is another great feature of the Parsi faith. Though taught to revere his own religion and despise and destroy idols and images, he is also impressed with the idea of observing great tolerance and discretion in passing judgment on the religious belief of others.
God, Zoroaster and immortals
Zoroaster himself set the example of this excellent precept, whilst praising the soul "Fravashi". It is evident that he prayed for all wise and holy men and women who believed in God. That the same spirit exists to the present day, is proved by the munificent gifts of the Parsis for charitable purposes to people, irrespective of creed or caste, having for their sole object the relief of mankind. Strict as the law of chastity is, a great spirit of tolerance is shown in the Avesta writing in reference to an unmarried woman, who happens to fall a victim to the charms of an insidious man.
True, it is a punishable sin, yet the Almighty, in His mercy, has taken due notice of such a misfortune happening in a household. In the poetic language of the Avesta, it is laid down that a virgin, who whilst under the protection of her parents, either betrothed or not.
She must not add to the sin already committed, a further and more heinous crime of self-destruction. Further, she is forbidden, under the penalty of a grave sin, from seeking to destroy the fruit of her body, either with the assistance of her partner in the guilt or that of her parents in order to hide her shame from the world. She must not seek, at the instigation of her betrayer from the path of chastity, the assistance of "an old woman" versed in herbology.
Zoroaster - Wikipedia
The putative father must protect the unfortunate partner of his guilt and the child. Here is a tragic drama of the twentieth century, so of ten enacted in our criminal courts, written and commented upon by Zoroaster in his gospel, in the primitive pastoral age, at the beginning of the history of the world.
What thoughts, what deep moral philosophy, what superhuman knowledge, must have been invoked by the great Iranian sage to soften the hardships of life, by introducing a ray of heavenly mercy, of which Tom Hood sang centuries after:. The whole creation is placed under the guardianship of God as the head, and six Ameshaspends archangels. Ameshaspends are mystical guardian spirits, who work night and day incessantly for the welfare and protection of the creation committed to their charge by the Almighty.
With the assistance of Yazats angels night and day they police this earth and guard their respective charges against the encroachment of the Evil Spirit Angro Mainyus. Special regulations are laid down for their kind and considerate treatment. He has recognized the necessity of slaughtering animals for human food, prescribed which kinds of animals and birds are fit for that purpose, and shown the most humane and expeditious methods of killing them methods which, curiously enough, are now recommended and adopted in this country by public authorities.
Unnecessary slaughter is forbidden, and shooting for mere pleasure is absolutely discountenanced. One instance, woven in traditional Oriental imagery, will suffice to convey the sentiments of the Parsis on this subject. The Over-Lord of the herd of the domestic cattle Geush-Urvan raises his plaintive call of heart-rending pathos to the Almighty Creator, and humbly beseeches His intercession to alleviate the pain and sufferings his fellow-kind have to undergo at the hand of men. The poor petitioner becomes aware of the fact, that in accordance with the pre-arranged plan, his herd was created for the support and advancement of the corporeal world; that it is expected of them to furnish flesh food and milk, and to be useful to the cultivator of the soil.
In return men are enjoined, under penalty of severe punishment, to be kind and attentive to their many wants, and merciful in their necessary slaughter. The bovine leader is further informed that Zoroaster, by sweetness of speech, will. The dumb petitioner, whose vision of protection being limited to the sole aspiration of obtaining the support of a powerfully armed warrior, is not able to understand that in many instances persuasive and convincing words are far more potent than a sharp-edged sword of the best tempered steel and more effective in their purpose than the brute force of a salient blow.
This merciful and ancient teaching does not call for the intervention of any public society to prevent cruelty to animals, so far as the Parsis are concerned. I humbly venture to suggest, that it is not the imposition of fine or imprisonment by the Civil Law of the country that deters the evil-doer. What is wanted, is a sound doctrine of moral philosophy, as expounded by Zoroaster, preached and brought home to these people by a carefully organised system.
Man has conscience and a soul to be saved; and, however hardened his nature may have become, it is within the bounds of possibility to awaken him to his wickedness and cowardice to dumb animals, who patiently and courageously work for him, and are the means of procuring him ease and comfort in his worldly existence. Unlike other religions, it condemns fasting or total abstaining from food as a wicked and a foolish act, which injures and enervates the body.
By eating, every material creature lives; by not eating, it dies away. Readers, such are a few salient principles of the Zoroastrian theology of the Life on the Earth, which I now close by quoting from the Vendidad:. Slowly and solemnly, now I approach this subject of great theological mystery, of the migration from the known to the unknown universe.
The worldly existence is, in the end, death, and disappearance, and of the spiritual existence, in the end, that of a soul of the righteous is undecaying, immortal, and undisturbed, full of glory and full of enjoyment, for ever and everlasting, with the angels and archangels and the guardian spirits of the righteous.
The hour of departure rings out in solemn silence, when the severance of terrestrial friendship and unity which existed in him as a man must take place—one to ascend, and the remnant to dissolve into its elements. The scriptures of Zoroaster most vividly describe this solemn event, and give evidence right through of the great belief in immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body. At the glorious sunset of the pious life, the soul remains three days near his lifelong friend the body, and perceives and "sees as much joyfulness as the whole living world possesses.
From the midst of his worldly nearest and dearest relatives, friends, and neighbours, the soul, having been bidden pious adieux in holy blessings, ascends in the company of his guardian angel, Shros, to render his account at the gate of "Chinvat Bridge. Pleased with his welcome, and having rendered his account to Mehr Davar , the recorder at the gate of Heaven, he passes the barrier to eternal bliss and happiness, and awaits his body on the great day. On the contrary, there is a drastic picture drawn of the soul of a wicked man. It must suffer till the last day of the Great Gathering, when everybody will be judged, the battle will end, the Evil Spirit will no more have power to play man as a pawn, and there will be everlasting peace—peace and happiness.
The subject is a vast one, and the space limited for this purpose does not permit me, as I should like, to deal with it in extenso. I hope the extracts given on this subject will interest the readers. A sinful soul need never despair of mercy and forgiveness of God.
Wicked as he may have been, a due notice of any good deed done by him will be taken into consideration by the Great Merciful. One of the numerous questions asked by Zoroaster of Ahura-Mazda, was in reference to a man whose body was feeling the torments of hell, with the exception of his right foot. It was participating in the heavenly bliss and comfort. The man was a wicked king in the world below, who ruled his country with oppression, lawlessness, and violence.
He was incapable of practising any known virtue. One day, when he was out hunting for his pleasure, he saw a goat, tethered to a stake, vainly trying to reach a morsel of hay. The sight of a poor hungry beast straining at the rope kindled a spark of mercy in his otherwise obdurate heart. Thus moved by a. The incident was duly recorded in the Book of Fate, and the foot received its reward.
This legend, savouring of antiquity, and backed up by ancient authorities, reveals to a Zoroastrian the sublime doctrine of reward and punishment. After a youth has attained the age of fifteen and sought the Zoroastrian Law, he is enjoined to be liberal in thoughts and deeds, pious, and religious in ceremonial rites, just and wise as a ruler, truthful and honest in his dealings, careful in keeping the elements pure and undefiled, active in destroying evil, attentive to the care and want of the domestic animals, industrious in cultivating and irrigating land, persevering in education of himself and others, temperate in all desires, and useful to mankind in promoting harmony, concord, and unity amongst his kinsfolk, friends, and others.
He must carefully weigh the merits and demerits of every step he has to take on the path of life. If by want of knowledge or ignorance, he does anything which turns out to be a sinful act, he must, at the earliest possible opportunity, rectify and remedy the same. From his early youth he is taught the belief that all his good and evil deeds will be duly recorded; that with the flight of time they will grow, multiply, and accumulate.
On the day of the ascension of his soul, the recording angel Mehr Davar will ask him to render an. Readers of this brief sketch might say that this is a philosophy couleur de rose. Nay, ask yourselves the question, What has been achieved by the teachings of Zoroaster? You will find that they have brought peace and happiness to Parsi households; they have made them loyal and peace-abiding subjects of the British Crown, and a benevolent community to the people of the world; they have lessened pauperism, crime, infamy, and immorality; they have made them a race worthy of its proud traditions, which command the respect, confidence, and admiration of those with whom they come in contact.
It is very rare to find a Parsi of a criminal instinct. Crime mania, if it can be designated as such, has no suitable soil prepared for it to flourish in, in a Parsi community. It must wither in its very inception, for the antidote prepared by Zoroaster, and faithfully handed down from generation to generation to his disciples and followers, has raised an effective rampart against the approach of this foul and degrading instinct. At the moment of writing this, a subject of vast importance to my fellow-creatures in this country passes in review before me.
In the course of my professional duties I have been, on numerous. Within a few yards of gaiety and pleasure, prosperity and brilliancy, one can easily step into a veritable slum life of this great metropolis, A poor, half-starved, pale, and delicate-looking waif, bootless and hatless, with scarcely a semblance of garments, spies your intrusion into his domain. It is sad to contemplate his fate, his end, and his ultimate destination.
This fruit, of ill-conditioned parents, grows up to look upon society as his natural foes to be preyed upon. Hardened and rendered callous by the rigour of the criminal law, the nation has in him an utterly worthless and a dangerous man. One asks, Has he heard a word of moral truth? Has he been taught the moral philosophy? Has he acquired the conception of God and Nature? Thoughtless, friendless, homeless, and Godless, he roams, a prey to the Evil Mind Akamana.
In the next scene of life we find him the willing slave of the devil Angro Mainyus. One step further and a sentence from the black-capped judge, is his reward; a short delay, and then comes the end. Who can tell the terrible anguish, the torturing thoughts, and the painful agonies of unrestrained remorse of this wretched being, who is awakened and enlightened at the eleventh hour by the ministration of some holy man of God? Sad to say, it is too late for this earth. For God's forgiveness for those who could have done better for him and his wretched kind. Let me ring down the curtain in mercy to one more miserable soul that has gone aloft to render his account.
It is not the fault of one class of men or the other; it is not the fault of the clergy that God's superior and gifted animal has been allowed to become a prey of the Evil Spirit and then hounded out of existence by our law: Were Zoroaster to visit this country, I venture to say, that his first step in practical moral philosophy would be to organize a national institution, where these poor waifs and strays could be bent from their infancy to the righteous path of Good Thoughts , Good Words , and Good Deeds.
Zarathustra asked Ahura-Mazda, "Whence does a body form again which the wind has carried and the water conveyed; and how does the resurrection occur? All the dead will rise with consciousness of their good and evil deeds. At the Great Assembly, in the presence of the righteous, they will penitently deplore their misdeeds. Then will there be the separation of the righteous from the wicked for three nights and days the wicked,. The reign of terror, at the end of the stipulated time, vanishes into oblivion, and its chief factor Ahriman goes to meet his doom of total extinction,.
After this great penance, God in His mercy prepares a bath of purification, through which all pass, and arise in sanctified purity. Hallowed and conscious of all ties of relationship and friendship which existed in their terrestrial life, they glide, in company with the hierarchy of Heaven, into the domain of Immortality for ever and everlasting. The memory of the dead is handed down, from generation to generation, in religious ceremonies, which are periodically performed by the priests.
One incident I must mention before closing this sublime theme. On an occasion somewhat similar to the Christian "All Souls" Day, the souls of the Zoroastrians visit this sublunary earth once a year. Those, who have participated in the ceremonies on these occasions, can but feel that heavenly inspiration which becomes one's nature by faith and strict pious devotion.
During the period of this pious visit, every Parsi household is thoroughly cleansed of the minutest impurity. In Zoroastrianism, water apo , aban and fire atar , azar are agents of ritual purity, and the associated purification ceremonies are considered the basis of ritual life. In Zoroastrian cosmogony , water and fire are respectively the second and last primordial elements to have been created, and scripture considers fire to have its origin in the waters.
Both water and fire are considered life-sustaining, and both water and fire are represented within the precinct of a fire temple. Zoroastrians usually pray in the presence of some form of fire which can be considered evident in any source of light , and the culminating rite of the principle act of worship constitutes a "strengthening of the waters". Fire is considered a medium through which spiritual insight and wisdom is gained, and water is considered the source of that wisdom. A corpse is considered a host for decay, i.
Consequently, scripture enjoins the safe disposal of the dead in a manner such that a corpse does not pollute the good creation. These injunctions are the doctrinal basis of the fast-fading traditional practice of ritual exposure, most commonly identified with the so-called Towers of Silence for which there is no standard technical term in either scripture or tradition.
Ritual exposure is only practiced by Zoroastrian communities of the Indian subcontinent , in locations where it is not illegal and diclofenac poisoning has not led to the virtual extinction of scavenger birds. Other Zoroastrian communities either cremate their dead, or bury them in graves that are cased with lime mortar.
While the Parsees in India have traditionally been opposed to proselytizing , and even considered it a crime for which the culprit may face expulsion, [35] Iranian Zoroastrians have never been opposed to conversion, and the practice has been endorsed by the Council of Mobeds of Tehran. While the Iranian authorities do not permit proselytizing within Iran, Iranian Zoroastrians in exile have actively encouraged missionary activities, with The Zarathushtrian Assembly in Los Angeles and the International Zoroastrian Centre in Paris as two prominent centres.
As in many other faiths, Zoroastrians are encouraged to marry others of the same faith, but this is not a requirement. The roots of Zoroastrianism are thought to have emerged from a common prehistoric Indo-Iranian religious system dating back to the early 2nd millennium BCE.
What Is It?
Zoroastrianism enters recorded history in the mid-5th century BCE. Herodotus ' The Histories completed c. According to Herodotus i. Following the unification of the Median and Persian empires in BCE, Cyrus the Great and, later, his son Cambyses II curtailed the powers of the Magi after they had attempted to sow dissent following their loss of influence. In BCE, the Magi revolted and set up a rival claimant to the throne.
The usurper, pretending to be Cyrus' younger son Smerdis , took power shortly thereafter. Darius I and later Achaemenid emperors acknowledged their devotion to Ahura Mazda in inscriptions, as attested to several times in the Behistun inscription, and appear to have continued the model of coexistence with other religions. Whether Darius was a follower of Zoroaster has not been conclusively established, since devotion to Ahura Mazda was at the time not necessarily an indication of an adherence to Zoroaster's teaching.
A number of the Zoroastrian texts that today are part of the greater compendium of the Avesta have been attributed to that period. This calendar attributed to the Achaemenid period is still in use today. Additionally, the divinities, or yazatas , are present-day Zoroastrian angels Dhalla, According to later Zoroastrian legend Denkard and the Book of Arda Viraf , many sacred texts were lost when Alexander the Great 's troops invaded Persepolis and subsequently destroyed the royal library there. According to one archaeological examination, the ruins of the palace of Xerxes bear traces of having been burned Stolze, Whether a vast collection of semi- religious texts "written on parchment in gold ink", as suggested by the Denkard , actually existed remains a matter of speculation, but is unlikely.
Given that many of the Denkard s statements-as-fact have since been refuted by scholars, the tale of the library is widely accepted to be fictional Kellens, Alexander's conquests largely displaced Zoroastrianism with Hellenistic beliefs , [37] though the religion continued to be practiced many centuries following the demise of the Achaemenids in mainland Persia and the core regions of the former Achaemenid Empire, most notably Anatolia , Mesopotamia , and the Caucasus.
In the Cappadocian kingdom , whose territory was formerly an Achaemenid possession, Persian colonists, cut off from their co-religionists in Iran proper, continued to practice the faith [Zoroastrianism] of their forefathers; and there Strabo , observing in the first century B.
As late as the Parthian period, a form of Zoroastrianism was without a doubt the dominant religion in the Armenian lands. During the period of their centuries long suzerainty over the Caucasus , the Sassanids made attempts to promote Zoroastrianism there with considerable successes, and it was prominent in the pre-Christian Caucasus especially modern-day Azerbaijan. Due to its ties to the Christian Roman Empire , Persia's arch-rival since Parthian times, the Sassanids were suspicious of Roman Christianity , and, after the reign of Constantine the Great , sometimes persecuted it.
But the Sassanids tolerated or even sometimes favored the Christianity of the Church of the East. The acceptance of Christianity in Georgia Caucasian Iberia saw the Zoroastrian religion there slowly but surely decline, [42] but as late the 5th century a. Most of the Sassanid Empire was overthrown by the Arabs over the course of 16 years in the 7th century.
Although the administration of the state was rapidly Islamicized and subsumed under the Umayyad Caliphate , in the beginning "there was little serious pressure" exerted on newly subjected people to adopt Islam. Islamic jurists took the stance that only Muslims could be perfectly moral, but "unbelievers might as well be left to their iniquities, so long as these did not vex their overlords. The Arabs adopted the Sassanid tax-system, both the land-tax levied on land owners and the poll-tax levied on individuals, [46] called jizya , a tax levied on non-Muslims i.
In time, this poll-tax came to be used as a means to humble the non-Muslims, and a number of laws and restrictions evolved to emphasize their inferior status. Under the early orthodox caliphs , as long as the non-Muslims paid their taxes and adhered to the dhimmi laws, administrators were enjoined to leave non-Muslims "in their religion and their land.
Under Abbasid rule, Muslim Iranians who by then were in the majority increasingly found ways to taunt Zoroastrians, and distressing them became a popular sport.
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In the 10th century, on the day that a Tower of Silence had been completed at much trouble and expense, a Muslim official contrived to get up onto it, and to call the adhan the Muslim call to prayer from its walls. This was made a pretext to annex the building. Such baiting, which was to continue down the centuries, was indulged in by all; not only by high officials, but by the general uneducated population as well.
Though subject to a new leadership and harassment, the Zoroastrians were able to continue in their former ways. But there was a slow but steady social and economic pressure to convert. Two decrees in particular encouraged the transition to a preponderantly Islamic society. Thus, a bonded individual owned by a Zoroastrian could automatically become a freeman by converting to Islam. The other edict was that if one male member of a Zoroastrian family converted to Islam, he instantly inherited all its property.
In time, a tradition evolved by which Islam was made to appear as a partly Iranian religion. One example of this was a legend that Husayn , son of the fourth caliph Ali and grandson of Islam's prophet Muhammad , had married a captive Sassanid princess named Shahrbanu. This "wholly fictitious figure" [52] was said to have borne Husayn a son , the historical fourth Shi'a imam , who claimed that the caliphate rightly belonged to him and his descendants, and that the Umayyads had wrongfully wrested it from him.
The alleged descent from the Sassanid house counterbalanced the Arab nationalism of the Umayyads, and the Iranian national association with a Zoroastrian past was disarmed. Thus, according to scholar Mary Boyce, "it was no longer the Zoroastrians alone who stood for patriotism and loyalty to the past.
With Iranian especially Persian support, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in , and in the subsequent caliphate government—that nominally lasted until —Muslim Iranians received marked favor in the new government, both in Iran and at the capital in Baghdad. This mitigated the antagonism between Arabs and Iranians, but sharpened the distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims. The Abbasids zealously persecuted heretics , and although this was directed mainly at Muslim sectarians , it also created a harsher climate for non-Muslims. Despite economic and social incentives to convert, Zoroastrianism remained strong in some regions, particularly in those furthest away from the Caliphate capital at Baghdad.
In Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan , resistance to Islam required the 9th-century Arab commander Qutaiba to convert his province four times.
Zoroastrianism
The first three times the citizens reverted to their old religion. Finally, the governor made their religion "difficult for them in every way", turned the local fire temple into a mosque, and encouraged the local population to attend Friday prayers by paying each attendee two dirhams. The 9th century came to define the great number of Zoroastrian texts that were composed or re-written during the 8th to 10th centuries excluding copying and lesser amendments, which continue for some time thereafter. All of these works are in the Middle Persian dialect of that period free of Arabic words , and written in the difficult Pahlavi script hence the adoption of the term "Pahlavi" as the name of the variant of the language, and of the genre, of those Zoroastrian books.
If read aloud, these books would still have been intelligible to the laity. Many of these texts are responses to the tribulations of the time, and all of them include exhortations to stand fast in their religious beliefs. Some, such as the " Denkard ", are doctrinal defenses of the religion, while others are explanations of theological aspects such as the Bundahishn 's or practical aspects e.
About sixty such works are known to have existed, of which some are known only from references to them in other works.
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In Khorasan in the northeastern Iran, a 10th-century Iranian nobleman brought together four Zoroastrian priests to transcribe a Sassanid-era Middle Persian work titled Book of the Lord Khwaday Namag from Pahlavi script into Arabic script. This transcription, which remained in Middle Persian prose an Arabic version, by al-Muqaffa , also exists , was completed in and subsequently became the basis for Firdausi 's Book of Kings. It became enormously popular among both Zoroastrians and Muslims, and also served to propagate the Sassanid justification for overthrowing the Arsacids i. Among migrations were those to cities in or on the margins of the great salt deserts, in particular to Yazd and Kerman , which remain centers of Iranian Zoroastrianism to this day.
Yazd became the seat of the Iranian high priests during Mongol Il-Khanate rule, when the "best hope for survival [for a non-Muslim] was to be inconspicuous. The descendants of that group are today known as the Parsis —"as the Gujaratis , from long tradition, called anyone from Iran" [55] —who today represent the larger of the two groups of Zoroastrians. The struggle between Zoroastrianism and Islam declined in the 10th and 11th centuries. Local Iranian dynasties, "all vigorously Muslim," [55] had emerged as largely independent vassals of the Caliphs. In the 16th century, in one of the early letters between Iranian Zoroastrians and their co-religionists in India, the priests of Yazd lamented that "no period [in human history], not even that of Alexander , had been more grievous or troublesome for the faithful than 'this millennium of the demon of Wrath '.
Zoroastrianism has survived into the modern period, particularly in India, where it has been present since about the 9th century. Today Zoroastrianism can be divided in three different sects or dominions: Traditionalists or isolationists are almost solely Parsis and accept, beside the Gathas and Avesta, also the Middle Persian works called 'Nasks of the Sassanians'.
They generally do not allow conversion to the faith. Therefore, for someone to be a Zoroastrian, they must be born of Zoroastrian parents. Some traditionalists recognize the children of mixed marriages as Zoroastrians. From the 19th century onward, the Parsis gained a reputation for their education and widespread influence in all aspects of society. They played an instrumental role in the economic development of the region over many decades; several of the best-known business conglomerates of India are run by Parsi-Zoroastrians, including Tata , Godrej , Wadia families, and others.
Though the Armenians share a rich history affiliated with Zoroastrianism that eventually declined with the advent of Christianity , reports indicate that there were Zoroastrian Armenians in Armenia until the s. A comparatively minor population persisted in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Persia, and an expatriate community has formed in the United States some from India , and to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Many of these are titled restorationists, progressives or "reformists". Progressives generally accept the Yashts and the Visperad texts of the Avesta as obligatory, along with the Gathas.
Restorationists refer only to the compositions of Zoroaster, and thus only consider the Gathas , the other texts only having value as far as they elaborate on some Gathic point and do not contradict the Gathic teaching. At the request of the government of Tajikistan , UNESCO declared a year to celebrate the "th anniversary of Zoroastrian culture", with special events throughout the world. In the Tehran Mobeds Anjuman announced that for the first time in the history of Iran and of the Zoroastrian communities worldwide, women had been ordained in Iran and North America as mobedyars, meaning women mobeds Zoroastrian priests.
Some scholars believe [64] that key concepts of Zoroastrian eschatology and demonology influenced the Abrahamic religions. The religion of Zoroastrianism is closest to Vedic religion. Some historians believe that Zoroastrianism, along with similar philosophical revolutions in South Asia were interconnected strings of reformation against a common Indo-Aryan thread. Many traits of Zoroastrianism can be traced back to the culture and beliefs of the prehistorical Indo-Iranian period, that is, to the time before the migrations that led to the Indo-Aryans and Iranics becoming distinct peoples. Zoroastrianism consequently shares elements with the historical Vedic religion that also has its origins in that era.
They are descended from a common Proto-Indo-Iranian religion. Vedic religious texts are replete with people from far flung countries practising or leaving Aryan teachings. Zoroastrianism is often compared with Manichaeism. Nominally an Iranian religion, it has its origins in Middle-Eastern Gnosticism. Superficially such a comparison seems apt, as both are dualistic and Manichaeism adopted many of the Yazatas for its own pantheon. Gherardo Gnoli, in The Encyclopaedia of Religion , [71] says that "we can assert that Manichaeism has its roots in the Iranian religious tradition and that its relationship to Mazdaism, or Zoroastrianism, is more or less like that of Christianity to Judaism".
They are however quite different. Zoroastrianism, on the other hand, rejects every form of asceticism, has no dualism of matter and spirit only of good and evil , and sees the spiritual world as not very different from the natural one the word "paradise", or pairi. Manichaeism's basic doctrine was that the world and all corporeal bodies were constructed from the substance of Satan, an idea that is fundamentally at odds with the Zoroastrian notion of a world that was created by God and that is all good, and any corruption of it is an effect of the bad.
From what may be inferred from many Manichean texts and a few Zoroastrian sources [ citation needed ] , the adherents of the two religions or at least their respective priesthoods despised each other intensely. Many aspects of Zoroastrianism are present in the culture and mythologies of the peoples of the Greater Iran , not least because Zoroastrianism was a dominant influence on the people of the cultural continent for a thousand years.
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The Avesta is the religious book of Zoroastrians that contains a collection of sacred texts. The history of the Avesta is found in many Pahlavi texts. According to tradition, Ahura Mazda created the twenty-one nasks which Zoroaster brought to Vishtaspa. Here, two copies were created, one which was put in the house of archives, and the other put in the Imperial treasury. During Alexander's conquest of Persia, the Avesta was burned, and the scientific sections that the Greeks could use were dispersed among themselves. During the Sassanid Empire , Ardeshir ordered Tansar, his high priest , to finish the work that King Valax had started.
Shapur I sent priests to locate the scientific text portions of the Avesta that were in the possession of the Greeks. The compilation of these ancient texts was successfully established underneath the Mazdean priesthood and the Sassanian emperors. Only a fraction of the texts survive today. The later manuscripts all date from this millennium, the latest being from , years after the fall of the Sassanian Empire.
The texts that remain today are the Gathas , Yasna , Visperad and the Vendidad. Along with these texts is the communal household prayer book called the Khordeh Avesta , which contains the Yashts and the Siroza. The rest of the materials from the Avesta are called "Avestan fragments". Middle Persian and Pahlavi works created in the 9th and 10th century contain many religious Zoroastrian books, as most of the writers and copyists were part of the Zoroastrian clergy. All Middle Persian texts written on Zoroastrianism during this time period are considered secondary works on the religion, and not scripture.
Nonetheless, these texts have a strong influence on the religion. Zoroastrianism was founded by Zoroaster or Zarathustra , later deemed a prophet, in ancient Iran. The precise date of the founding of Zoroastrianism is uncertain. Zoroaster was born in either Northeast Iran or Southwest Afghanistan. He was born into a culture with a polytheistic religion, which included animal sacrifice [75] and the ritual use of intoxicants, quite similar to early forms of Hinduism in India. Zoroaster's birth and early life are little documented.
What is known is recorded in the Gathas —the core of the Avesta, which contains hymns thought to be composed by Zoroaster himself. Born into the Spitama clan, he worked as a priest. He had a wife, three sons, and three daughters. Zoroaster rejected the religion of the Bronze Age Iranians, with their many gods and oppressive class structure , in which the Karvis and Karapans princes and priests controlled the ordinary people.
He also opposed animal sacrifices and the use of the hallucinogenic Haoma plant possibly a species of ephedra in rituals, but held the rooster as a "symbol of light" [76] and associated it with "good against evil" [77] because of his heraldic actions. According to Zoroastrian belief, when Zoroaster was 30 years old, he went into the Daiti river to draw water for a Haoma ceremony; when he emerged, he received a vision of Vohu Manah. After this, Vohu Manah took him to the other six Amesha Spentas, where he received the completion of his vision.
Zoroaster believed in one creator God, teaching that only one God was worthy of worship. Some of the deities of the old religion, the Daevas Devas in Sanskrit , appeared to delight in war and strife. Zoroaster said these were evil spirits, workers of Angra Mainyu. Zoroaster's ideas were not taken up quickly; he originally only had one convert: Many did not like Zoroaster's downgrading of the Daevas to evil spirits.
After 12 years of little success, Zoroaster left his home. In the country of King Vishtaspa in Bactria , the king and queen heard Zoroaster debating with the religious leaders of the land and decided to accept Zoroaster's ideas as the official religion of their kingdom. Zoroaster died in his late 70s. Very little is known of the time between Zoroaster and the Achaemenian period, except that Zoroastrianism spread to Western Iran.
By the time of the founding of the Achaemenid Empire, Zoroastrianism was already a well-established religion. In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is the beginning and the end, the creator of everything that can and cannot be seen, the Eternal, the Pure and the only Truth. In the Gathas , the most sacred texts of Zoroastrianism thought to have been composed by Zoroaster himself, the prophet acknowledged devotion to no other divinity besides Ahura Mazda. Daena din in modern Persian is the eternal Law, whose order was revealed to humanity through the Mathra-Spenta "Holy Words".
Daena has been used to mean religion, faith, law, and even as a translation for the Hindu and Buddhist term Dharma , to which it is related. Daena should not be confused with the fundamental principle asha Vedic rta , the equitable law of the universe, which governed the life of the ancient Indo-Iranians. For these, asha was the course of everything observable—the motion of the planets and astral bodies; the progression of the seasons; and the pattern of daily nomadic herdsman life, governed by regular metronomic events such as sunrise and sunset.
All physical creation geti was thus determined to run according to a master plan—inherent to Ahura Mazda—and violations of the order druj were violations against creation, and thus violations against Ahura Mazda. This concept of asha versus the druj should not be confused with the good-versus-evil battle evident in western religions, for although both forms of opposition express moral conflict, the asha versus druj concept is more systemic and less personal, representing, for instance, chaos that opposes order ; or "uncreation", evident as natural decay that opposes creation ; or more simply "the lie" that opposes truth and righteousness.
Moreover, in his role as the one uncreated creator of all, Ahura Mazda is not the creator of druj , which is "nothing", anti-creation, and thus likewise uncreated. Thus, in Zoroaster's revelation, Ahura Mazda was perceived to be the creator of only the good Yasna In this schema of asha versus druj , mortal beings both humans and animals play a critical role, for they too are created. Here, in their lives, they are active participants in the conflict, and it is their duty to defend order, which would decay without counter action.
Throughout the Gathas , Zoroaster emphasizes deeds and actions, and accordingly asceticism is frowned upon in Zoroastrianism. In later Zoroastrianism, this was explained as fleeing from the experiences of life, which was the very purpose that the urvan most commonly translated as the "soul" was sent into the mortal world to collect.
The avoidance of any aspect of life, which includes the avoidance of the pleasures of life, is a shirking of the responsibility and duty to oneself, one's urvan , and one's family and social obligations. Central to Zoroastrianism is the emphasis on moral choice, to choose the responsibility and duty for which one is in the mortal world, or to give up this duty and so facilitate the work of druj.
Similarly, predestination is rejected in Zoroastrian teaching. Humans bear responsibility for all situations they are in, and in the way they act toward one another. Reward, punishment, happiness, and grief all depend on how individuals live their lives. In Zoroastrianism, good transpires for those who do righteous deeds.
Those who do evil have themselves to blame for their ruin. Zoroastrian morality is then to be summed up in the simple phrase, "good thoughts, good words, good deeds" Humata , Hukhta , Hvarshta in Avestan , for it is through these that asha is maintained and druj is kept in check. Through accumulation, several other beliefs were introduced to the religion that, in some instances, supersede those expressed in the Gathas. In the late 19th century, the moral and immoral forces came to be represented by Spenta Mainyu and its antithesis Angra Mainyu , the "good spirit" and "evil spirit" emanations of Ahura Mazda, respectively.
Although the names are old, this opposition is a modern Western-influenced development popularized by Martin Haug in the s, and was, in effect, a realignment of the precepts of Zurvanism Zurvanite Zoroastrianism , which had postulated a third deity, Zurvan , to explain a mention of twinship Yasna Although Zurvanism had died out by the 10th century, the critical question of the "twin brothers" mentioned in Yasna