Life
of Lord Zarathustra :
This is the life-story of our holy Prophet Zarthustra, the first divine
soul of our Mazdayasni Religion, who showed us the correct path of life.
The meaning of the word Zarthustra is Zar = driver or mover arth = of
usthra = camel.
The Greeks had very high regards for the writing of Zarathustra they
named him father of all philosophers and called him Zoroaster which
means shinning star.
The times when he lived is being put from around 7000 BC to even A.D.
An attempt is being made to put the date from geographical as well as
linguistic evidence. Before coming to Iran people belonged to Indo Iranian
stock and spoke the language known as Indo-Iraninan. Later that stock
split one going towards Iran and the other going towards India. The
language also split one becoming Avestan and the other Sanskrit. As
our prayers are in Avestan language i.e. older Avestan so that was what
the spoken language of those times. The oldest Ved is Rig ved the date
on which is put at around 1800 BC. The Avestan language being also of
the same time is put at 1500 BC and the Prophet is also believed to
have been around at that time. Gathas also talk about metals, chariots,
weapons etc. so Zarathustra was not a stone age man which he would be
if the date is pushed back. In 6000 BC the Indo Iranian stock had not
yet split.
Different people claim the place of birth of the Prophet in their own
home town. But considering the language of the times, it cannot be western
Iran. It would be around North East Iran. The place of birth is put
around modern day Kazakhastan. It was an integral part of Iran in olden
times.
The information on our Prophet is available through the following
sources :
1. Younger Avestan and Pahelvi texts
2. Chirdar and Spend Nasks
3. Zadsparam Chapter 21
4. Zarathustinameh
5. Denkard
The legend :
Before the birth of Zarathustra, the magicians and wicked people knew
that a person who would teach the people the true worship of Ahura Mazda
was to be born to Dughdova. They wanted to kill her so that the people
would not turn to Zarathustra for help from their wickedness. They told
Frahimurva the father of Dughdova to let them kill her. Fearing for
his daughter he sent her to live at the house of friend Paitarasp. Paitarasp
had a son whose name was Pourushaspa. Dughdova married Pourushaspa and
they were the parents of Zarathustra.
They had a dream that they would have a child which would change the
world. Pourushaspa took the twigs of homa tree, milked the cow mixed
the milk with homa twigs in front of hearth fire, drank the milk, for
the Khorena, Fravashi and Tanu, to come together. Dry wood, Frankenstein
and fat were offered to fire.
Before Zarathustra was born, a very bright light shone all around the
house. His birth was a very special event. Most babies cry at birth
but baby Zarathustra laughed at birth. This was an indication of the
birth of a divine person.
Zarathustra was born in a priestly Spitaman family. The Spitamans had
5 sons in all. Rathushtar, Rangushtar, ZARATHUSTRA, Nodariga and Nivedis.
Soon after his birth an evil man named Durasarun planned to kill Zarathustra.
He had heard that Zarathustra was sent by Ahura Mazda to get rid of
evil.
The evil men put baby Zarathustra into burning fire, but the angel Asha-Vahishta
which look after the fire i.e. Adibest Amesaspand caused the fire to
get cold.
Next they placed him in a lane frequented by cattle, with the intention
that he would be trampled to death. But Bahman Amesaspand the angel
that protect the cattle, came to the rescue by inspiring a cow to stand
over him and protect him from the stampede. A similar attempt made by
placing him in a passage of horses also failed.
Durasarun continued his efforts to kill Zarathustra. He took him to
a wolf cave to be eaten by wolves. Angels Meher Yazad and Sarosh Yazad
came to the baby's rescue in the form of goats who suckled the baby,
until he was rescued by his parents.
In the end Durasarun tried to carry out the murder himself. He entered
Zarathustra's house when all were asleep and was going to strike him
with his deadly dagger, when angel Behram Yazad permanently paralysed
and twisted his hands so that he could never ever use them again.
Zarathustra grew up to be a good and happy boy. He was kind and always
tried to make other happy. Once he saw a starving dog. He lifted it,
fed some bread and water and nursed it to good health.
When there was famine in Iran, Zarathustra and his family shared food
with hungry people making them happy.
Zarathustra spent many years studying the faith of Ahura Mazda. When
he became 20 years old he felt the need to get closer to God. He left
home and spent ten years in prayer and meditation on the mountains.
Satan offered Zarathustra the entire world if he would forsake his worship
of Ahura Mazda the Lord of Wisdom. When he refused, Satan threatened
to destroy him.
One day when Zarathustra was 30 years old, something very special happened
to him as he was wading through the river Daitya. He had vision of God,
in the form of glowing light. The glowing entity was Bahman Ameshsaspand.
Bahman Ameshaspand led him to the Court of Ahura Mazda where he beheld
the Lord Supreme and the luminous Amesha Spentas. They revealed to Zarathustra
what each of them protected i.e.
1. Spenta Mainyu or Dadar Ohrmazd which means the good spirit which
looks after the man.
2. Vohu Manah the Good Mind or Bahman Amesaspand which looks after the
cattle, and helps man to think and understand correctly.
3. Asha Vahishta or Adibehest Amesaspand which look after fire and stands
for The Best Truth and Order and helps man to be truthful and to live
in order.
4. Kshathra Vairya or Shahrevar Amesaspand which looks after the sky
meaning desirable power and helps man to be powerful and strong so that
he can do more good.
5. Spenta Armaiti or Spendarmad Amesaspand which looks after the earth
meaning Devotion and helps man to be dutiful and hardworking.
6. Hauravatat or Khordad Amesaspand which looks after the water meaning
perfection and helps man to be very good in his work.
7. Ameretat or Amardad Amesaspand which looks after plants. It stands
for immortality and helps to preserve God's good creations.
Zarathustra saw Ahura Mazda as a "Manthran" or One who created
and spelt out the Holy Word. He realized that it was with the vibrationary
power of the 'Pak Avesta Kalaams" that creations which were formerly
inanimate were brought to life. Thus, the Prophet made the Holy Word
his own weapon to fight evil with, and through the power of this Holy
Word, light would spread throughout this world. He requested Ahura Mazda
to bestow him with the knowledge of the twenty-one Nasks. The seeker
was now the Enlightened One. Ahura Mazda also gave Zarathustra a Haoma
tree (representing wisdom and peace born of the good Mazdayasni religion).
Most importantly Ahura Mazda gave Zarathustra the spiritual fire, Adar
Burzin Meher, or the "Exalted Fire" which burned without fuel
and emitted no smoke whatsoever. This was like the spiritual scepter
of the spiritual monarch.
Zarathustra was then commanded by the Ahura Mazda to instill into the
minds of the people the Divine Thought, that in the world of men where
life is brief, those that act unrighteously find in the spiritual realm
not happiness but grief, discontentness, and pain of mind, for such
is the abode of their soul.
Zarathustra revealed all the messages he received from Ahura Mazda,
in a series of 5 Hymns called the Gathas. The names of the 5 Gathas
are Ahunavaiti, Ushtavaiti, Spentomad, Vohukhshathra and Vahishtoisti.
The essence of the religion is Humata, Hukhta and Huvarashtra, Good
Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds given to us by Zarathustra which
every child knows. and other important prayers which relieve us from
the influences of evil people and planets and help us to achieve peace
and prosperity.
Zarathustra left the mountains and went forth to preach the Mazdayasni
religion. Maidyomah, his cousin was his first disciple.
Zarathustra went to the court of King Vistasp of Bactria. The King was
interested in his teachings, but the courtiers were evil and framed
Zarathustra. He was imprisoned. While in prison, he heard that the king's
favourite horse Aspa-Siha was paralysed and very ill. In despair, the
king turned to Zarathustra for help.
Zarathustra agreed to help, but only on the following four conditions.
That :
1. The king should follow his teachings
2. The queen would follow the religion
3. The prince would protect the faith, and
4. The king should punish those who framed him
As each condition was fulfilled, each leg of the horse was freed from
paralysis.
Mazdayasni Zarathustri religion spread across the world from China to
Europe.
Zarathustra had three wives but they may have been one after another.
Their names were Orwiz, Arniz and Havovi.
The children of Aurvij were Isatavastra, Thrity, Freny and Pouruchisti
Arniz had Urvatanara, Hvarechithra. Havovi was childless and will bear
three posthumous sons: Hoshedar, Hukshatnama, Asvatereta
Zarathustra lived a long and good life. One day at age of 77 years and
40 days, when he was praying, an evil man named Bradres, crept up behind
him and stabbed him in the back. Zarathustra threw his prayer beads
at him and forgave him, but the assassin dropped dead as soon as Zarathustra
died. Sarosh Yazad took Zarathustra to heaven.
Zoroaster
/ Zarathustra :
Zoroaster
, also known as Zarathustra, Avestan :? Zara?uštra), Zarathushtra
Spitama or Ashu Zarathushtra was an ancient Iranian spiritual leader
who founded what is now known as Zoroastrianism. His teachings challenged
the existing traditions of the Indo-Iranian religion and inaugurated
a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Ancient Persia.
He was a native speaker of Old Avestan and lived in the eastern part
of the Iranian Plateau, but his exact birthplace is uncertain.
There is no scholarly consensus on when he lived. However, approximating
using linguistic and socio-cultural evidence allows for dating to somewhere
in the second millennium BCE. This is done by estimating the period
in which the Old Avestan language (as well as the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian
and Proto-Iranian languages and the related Vedic Sanskrit) were spoken,
the period in which when the Proto-Indo-Iranian religion was practiced,
and correlation between the burial practice described in the Gathas
with the archeological Yaz culture. However, other scholars still date
him in the 7th and 6th century BCE as a near-contemporary of Cyrus the
Great and Darius I. Zoroastrianism eventually became the official religion
of Ancient Persia and its distant subdivisions from the 6th century
BCE to the 7th century CE. Zoroaster is credited with authorship of
the Gathas as well as the Yasna Haptanghaiti, hymns composed in his
native dialect, Old Avestan, and which comprise the core of Zoroastrian
thinking. Most of his life is known from these texts. By any modern
standard of historiography, no evidence can place him into a fixed period,
and the historicization surrounding him may be a part of a trend from
before the 10th century that historicizes legends and myths.
Name
and etymology :
Zoroaster's name in his native language, Avestan, was probably Zara?uštra.
His English name, "Zoroaster", derives from a later (5th century
BCE) Greek transcription, Zoroastres, as used in Xanthus's Lydiaca (Fragment
32) and in Plato's First Alcibiades (122a1). This form appears subsequently
in the Latin Zoroastres and, in later Greek orthographies, as Zoroastris.
The Greek form of the name appears to be based on a phonetic transliteration
or semantic substitution of Avestan zara?- with the Greek zoros (literally
"undiluted") and the Avestan -uštra with astron ("star").
In Avestan, Zara?uštra is generally accepted to derive from an
Old Iranian *Zaratuštra-; The element half of the name (-uštra-)
is thought to be the Indo-Iranian root for "camel", with the
entire name meaning "he who can manage camels". Reconstructions
from later Iranian languages—particularly from the Middle Persian
(300 BCE) Zardusht, which is the form that the name took in the 9th-
to 12th-century Zoroastrian texts—suggest that
*Zaratuštra- might be a zero-grade form of *Zarantuštra-.
Subject then to whether Zara?uštra derives from
*Zarantuštra- or from *Zaratuštra-, several interpretations
have been proposed.
If Zarantuštra is the original form, it may mean "with old/aging
camels", related to Avestic zarant- (cf. Pashto zo? and Ossetian
zœrond, "old"; Middle Persian zal, "old") :
• "with angry/furious camels": from Avestan *zarant-,
"angry, furious".
• "who is driving camels" or "who is fostering/cherishing
camels": related to Avestan zarš-, "to drag".
• Mayrhofer (1977) proposed an etymology of "who is desiring
camels" or "longing for camels" and related to Vedic
Sanskrit har-, "to like", and perhaps (though ambiguous) also
to Avestan zara-.
• "with yellow camels": parallel to younger Avestan
zairi-.
The interpretation of the -9- (/0/) in Avestan zarathuštra was
for a time itself subjected to heated debate because the -9- is an irregular
development: As a rule, *zarat- (a first element that ends in a dental
consonant) should have Avestan zarat- or zarat?- as a development from
it. Why this is not so for zarathuštra has not yet been determined.
Notwithstanding the phonetic irregularity, that Avestan zarathuštra
with its -9- was linguistically an actual form is shown by later attestations
reflecting the same basis. All present-day, Iranian-language variants
of his name derive from the Middle Iranian variants of Zar?ošt,
which, in turn, all reflect Avestan's fricative -9-.
In Middle Persian, the name is Zardu(x)št, in Parthian Zarhušt,
in Manichaean Middle Persian Zrdrwšt, in Early New Persian Zardušt,
and in modern (New Persian), the name is Zartosht.
Place :
Painted clay and alabaster head of a Zoroastrian priest wearing a distinctive
Bactrian-style headdress, Takhti-Sangin, Tajikistan, Greco-Bactrian
kingdom, 3rd–2nd century BCE.
The birthplace of Zoroaster is also unknown, and the language of the
Gathas is not similar to the proposed north-western and north-eastern
regional dialects of Persia. It is also suggested that he was born in
one of the two areas and later lived in the other area.
Yasna 9 and 17 cite the Ditya River in Airyanem Vaejah (Middle Persian
Eran Wej) as Zoroaster's home and the scene of his first appearance.
The Avesta (both Old and Younger portions) does not mention the Achaemenids
or of any West Iranian tribes such as the Medes, Persians, or even Parthians.
However, the Atharvan caste, to which Zoroaster belonged, is mentioned,
along with other Vedic persons, such as Vashishth and Yam (Yima), the
ancestors of sage Atharvan. The Farvardin Yasht refers to some Iranian
peoples that are unknown in the Greek and Achaemenid sources about the
6th and 5th century BCE Eastern Iran. The Vendidad contain seventeen
regional names, most of which are located in north-eastern and eastern
Iran.
However, in Yasna 59.18, the zara?uštrotema, or supreme head of
the Zoroastrian priesthood, is said to reside in 'Ragha' (Badakhshan).
In the 9th- to 12th-century Middle Persian texts of Zoroastrian tradition,
this 'Ragha' and with many other places appear as locations in Western
Iran. While the land of Media does not figure at all in the Avesta (the
westernmost location noted in scripture is Arachosia), the Bundahišn,
or "Primordial Creation," (20.32 and 24.15) puts Ragha in
Media (medieval Rai). However, in Avestan, Ragha is simply a toponym
meaning "plain, hillside."
Apart from these indications in Middle Persian sources that are open
to interpretations, there are a number of other sources. The Greek and
Latin sources are divided on the birthplace of Zarathustra. There are
many Greek accounts of Zarathustra, referred usually as Persian or Perso-Median
Zoroaster; Ctesias located him in Bactria, Diodorus Siculus placed him
among Ariaspai (in Sistan),[6] Cephalion and Justin suggest east of
greater Iran whereas Pliny and Origen suggest west of Iran as his birthplace.
Moreover, they have the suggestion that there has been more than one
Zoroaster.
On the other hand, in post-Islamic sources Shahrastani (1086–1153)
an Iranian writer originally from Shahristan, present-day Turkmenistan,
proposed that Zoroaster's father was from Atropatene (also in Medea)
and his mother was from Rey. Coming from a reputed scholar of religions,
this was a serious blow for the various regions who all claimed that
Zoroaster originated from their homelands, some of which then decided
that Zoroaster must then have then been buried in their regions or composed
his Gathas there or preached there. Also Arabic sources of the same
period and the same region of historical Persia consider Azerbaijan
as the birthplace of Zarathustra.
By the late 20th century, most scholars had settled on an origin in
eastern Greater Iran. Gnoli proposed Sistan, Baluchistan (though in
a much wider scope than the present-day province) as the homeland of
Zoroastrianism; Frye voted for Bactria and Chorasmia; Khlopin suggests
the Tedzen Delta in present-day Turkmenistan. Sarianidi considered the
Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex region as "the native
land of the Zoroastrians and, probably, of Zoroaster himself."
Boyce includes the steppes to the west from the Volga. The medieval
"from Media" hypothesis is no longer taken seriously, and
Zaehner has even suggested that this was a Magi-mediated issue to garner
legitimacy, but this has been likewise rejected by Gershevitch and others.
The 2005 Encyclopedia Iranica article on the history of Zoroastrianism
summarizes the issue with "while there is general agreement that
he did not live in western Iran, attempts to locate him in specific
regions of eastern Iran, including Central Asia, remain tentative".
Life :
Zoroaster is recorded as the son of Pourušaspa of the Spitamans
or Spitamids (Avestan spit mean "brilliant" or "white";
some argue that Spitama was a remote progenitor) family, and Dugdow,
while his great-grandfather was Haecataspa. All the names appear appropriate
to the nomadic tradition. His father's name means "possessing gray
horses" (with the word aspa meaning horse), while his mother's
means "milkmaid". According to the tradition, he had four
brothers, two older and two younger, whose names are given in much later
Pahlavi work.
The training for priesthood probably started very early around seven
years of age. He became a priest probably around the age of fifteen,
and according to Gathas, he gained knowledge from other teachers and
personal experience from traveling when he left his parents at age twenty.
By the age of thirty, he experienced a revelation during a spring festival;
on the river bank he saw a shining Being, who revealed himself as Vohu
Manah (Good Purpose) and taught him about Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord) and
five other radiant figures. Zoroaster soon became aware of the existence
of two primal Spirits, the second being Angra Mainyu (Destructive Spirit),
with opposing concepts of Asha (order) and Druj (deception). Thus he
decided to spend his life teaching people to seek Asha. He received
further revelations and saw a vision of the seven Amesha Spenta, and
his teachings were collected in the Gathas and the Avesta.
Disciples of Zoroaster centered in Nineveh :
Eventually, at the age of about forty-two, he received the patronage
of queen Hutaosa and a ruler named Vishtaspa, an early adherent of Zoroastrianism
(possibly from Bactria according to the Shahnameh). Zoroaster's teaching
about individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the resurrection of the
body, the Last Judgment, and everlasting life for the reunited soul
and body, among other things, became borrowings in the Abrahamic religions,
but they lost the context of the original teaching.
According to the tradition, he lived for many years after Vishtaspa's
conversion, managed to establish a faithful community, and married three
times. His first two wives bore him three sons, Isat Vâstra, Urvatat
Nara, and Hvare Chithra, and three daughters, Freni, Thriti, and Pouruchista.
His third wife, Hvovi, was childless. Zoroaster died when he was 77
years and 40 days old. The later Pahlavi sources like Shahnameh, instead
claim that an obscure conflict with Tuiryas
people led to his death, murdered by a karapan
(a priest of the old religion) named Bradres.
Influences :
In Islam :
A number of parallels have been drawn between Zoroastrian teachings
and Islam. Such parallels include the evident similarities between Amesha
Spenta and the archangel Gabriel, praying five times a day, covering
one's head during prayer, and the mention of Thamud and Iram of the
Pillars in the Quran. These may also indicate the vast influence of
the Achaemenid Empire on the development of either religion.
The Sabaeans, who believed in free will coincident with Zoroastrians,
are also mentioned in the Quran.
Muslim scholastic views
An 8th-century Tang dynasty Chinese clay figurine of a Sogdian man (an
Eastern Iranian person) wearing a distinctive cap and face veil, possibly
a camel rider or even a Zoroastrian priest engaging in a ritual at a
fire temple, since face veils were used to avoid contaminating the holy
fire with breath or saliva; Museum of Oriental Art (Turin), Italy.
Like the Greeks of classical antiquity, Islamic tradition understands
Zoroaster to be the founding prophet of the Magians (via Aramaic, Arabic
Majus, collective Majusya). The 11th-century Cordoban Ibn Hazm (Zahiri
school) contends that Kitabi "of the Book" cannot apply in
light of the Zoroastrian assertion that their books were destroyed by
Alexander. Citing the authority of the 8th-century al-Kalbi, the 9th-
and 10th-century Sunni historian al-Tabari (i.648) reports that Zaradusht
bin Isfiman (an Arabic adaptation of "Zarathustra Spitama")
was an inhabitant of Israel and a servant of one of the disciples of
the prophet Jeremiah. According to this tale, Zaradusht defrauded his
master, who cursed him, causing him to become leprous (cf. Elisha's
servant Gehazi in Jewish Scripture).
The apostate Zaradusht then eventually made his way to Balkh (present
day Afghanistan) where he converted Bishtasb (i.e. Vishtaspa), who in
turn compelled his subjects to adopt the religion of the Magians. Recalling
other tradition, al-Tabari (i.681–683[64]) recounts that Zaradusht
accompanied a Jewish prophet to Bishtasb/Vishtaspa. Upon their arrival,
Zaradusht translated the sage's Hebrew teachings for the king and so
convinced him to convert (Tabari also notes that they had previously
been Sabis) to the Magian religion.
The 12th-century heresiographer al-Shahrastani describes the Majusiya
into three sects, the Kayumarthiya, the Zurwaniya and the Zaradushtiya,
among which Al-Shahrastani asserts that only the last of the three were
properly followers of Zoroaster. As regards the recognition of a prophet,
Zoroaster has said: "They ask you as to how should they recognize
a prophet and believe him to be true in what he says; tell them what
he knows the others do not, and he shall tell you even what lies hidden
in your nature; he shall be able to tell you whatever you ask him and
he shall perform such things which others cannot perform." (Namah
Shat Vakhshur Zartust, .5–7. 50–54) When the companions
of Muhammad, on invading Persia, came in contact with the Zoroastrian
people and learned these teachings, they at once came to the conclusion
that Zoroaster was really a Divinely inspired prophet. Thus they accorded
the same treatment to the Zoroastrian people which they did to other
"People of the Book".
Though the name of Zoroaster is not mentioned in the Qur'an, still he
was regarded as one of those prophets whose names have not been mentioned
in the Qur'an, for there is a verse in the Qur'an: "And We did
send apostles before thee: there are some of them that We have mentioned
to thee and there are others whom We have not mentioned to Thee."
(40 : 78). Accordingly, the Muslims treated the founder of Zoroastrianism
as a true prophet and believed in his religion as they did in other
inspired creeds, and thus according to the prophecy, protected the Zoroastrian
religion. James Darmesteter remarked in the translation of Zend Avesta:
"When Islam assimilated the Zoroastrians to the People of the Book,
it evinced a rare historical sense and solved the problem of the origin
of the Avesta." (Introduction to Vendidad. p. 69.).
Ahmadiyya
view :
The
Ahmadiyya Community views Zoroaster as a Prophet of Allah and describe
the expressions of the all-good Ahura Mazda and evil Ahriman as merely
referring to the coexistence of forces of good and evil enabling humans
to exercise free will.
In
Manichaeism :
Manichaeism
considered Zoroaster to be a figure (along with Jesus and the Buddh)
in a line of prophets of which Mani (216–276) was the culmination.
Zoroaster's ethical dualism is—to an extent—incorporated
in Mani's doctrine, which viewed the world as being locked in an epic
battle between opposing forces of good and evil. Manicheanism also incorporated
other elements of Zoroastrian tradition, particularly the names of supernatural
beings; however, many of these other Zoroastrian elements are either
not part of Zoroaster's own teachings or are used quite differently
from how they are used in Zoroastrianism.
In
the Bahá'í Faith :
Zoroaster
appears in the Bahá'í Faith as a "Manifestation of
God", one of a line of prophets who have progressively revealed
the Word of God to a gradually maturing humanity. Zoroaster thus shares
an exalted station with Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad, the
Báb, and the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, Bahá'u'lláh.
Shoghi Effendi, the head of the Bahá'í Faith in the first
half of the 20th century, saw Bahá'u'lláh as the fulfillment
of a post-Sassanid Zoroastrian prophecy that saw a return of Sassanid
emperor Bahram: Shoghi Effendi also stated that Zoroaster lived roughly
1000 years before Jesus.
Philosophy :
Detail of The School of Athens by Raphael, 1509, showing Zoroaster (left,
with star-studded globe).
In the Gathas, Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle
between aša and druj. The cardinal concept of aša—which
is highly nuanced and only vaguely translatable—is at the foundation
of all Zoroastrian doctrine, including that of Ahura Mazda (who is aša),
creation (that is aša), existence (that is aša), and as the
condition for free will.
The purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain
and align itself to aša. For humankind, this occurs through active
ethical participation in life, ritual, and the exercise of constructive/good
thoughts, words and deeds.
Elements of Zoroastrian philosophy entered the West through their influence
on Judaism and Platonism and have been identified as one of the key
early events in the development of philosophy. Among the classic Greek
philosophers, Heraclitus is often referred to as inspired by Zoroaster's
thinking.
In 2005, the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy ranked Zarathustra as first
in the chronology of philosophers. Zarathustra's impact lingers today
due in part to the system of religious ethics he founded called Mazdayasna.
The word Mazdayasna is Avestan and is translated as "Worship of
Wisdom/Mazda" in English. The encyclopedia Natural History (Pliny)
claims that Zoroastrians later educated the Greeks who, starting with
Pythagoras, used a similar term, philosophy, or "love of wisdom"
to describe the search for ultimate truth.
Zoroaster emphasized the freedom of the individual to choose right or
wrong and individual responsibility for one's deeds. This personal choice
to accept aša and shun druj is one's own decision and not a dictate
of Ahura Mazda. For Zoroaster, by thinking good thoughts, saying good
words, and doing good deeds (e.g. assisting the needy, doing good works,
or conducting good rituals) we increase aša in the world and in
ourselves, celebrate the divine order, and we come a step closer on
the everlasting road to Frashokereti. Thus, we are not the slaves or
servants of Ahura Mazda, but we can make a personal choice to be co-workers,
thereby perfecting the world as saoshyants ("world-perfecters")
and ourselves and eventually achieve the status of a Ashavan ("master
of Asha").
Iconography
:
Although
a few recent depictions of Zoroaster show him performing some deed of
legend, in general the portrayals merely present him in white vestments
(which are also worn by present-day Zoroastrian priests). He often is
seen holding a baresman (Avestan; Middle Persian barsom), which is generally
considered to be another symbol of priesthood, or with a book in hand,
which may be interpreted to be the Avesta. Alternatively, he appears
with a mace, the varza—usually stylized as a steel rod crowned
by a bull's head—that priests carry in their installation ceremony.
In other depictions he appears with a raised hand and thoughtfully lifted
finger, as if to make a point.
Zoroaster is rarely depicted as looking directly at the viewer; instead,
he appears to be looking slightly upwards, as if beseeching. Zoroaster
is almost always depicted with a beard, this along with other factors
bearing similarities to 19th-century portraits of Jesus.
A common variant of the Zoroaster images derives from a Sassanid-era
rock-face carving. In this depiction at Taq-e Bostan, a figure is seen
to preside over the coronation of Ardashir I or II. The figure is standing
on a lotus, with a baresman in hand and with a gloriole around his head.
Until the 1920s, this figure was commonly thought to be a depiction
of Zoroaster, but in recent years is more commonly interpreted to be
a depiction of Mithra. Among the most famous of the European depictions
of Zoroaster is that of the figure in Raphael's 1509 The School of Athens.
In it, Zoroaster and Ptolemy are having a discussion in the lower right
corner. The prophet is holding a star-studded globe.
• Zoroastrian devotional art depicting the religion's founder
with white clothing and a long beard
• Depiction of Zoroaster in Clavis Artis [it], an alchemy manuscript
published in Germany in the late 17th or early 18th century and pseudoepigraphically
attributed to Zoroaster
• An image of Zoroaster on display at the Yazd Atash Behram (Zoroastrian
fire temple) in Yazd, Yazd province, Iran
• An image of Zoroaster on mirrored etched glass at the Zoroastrian
fire temple in Taft, Iran
Western Civilization :
The School of Athens: a gathering of renaissance artists in the guise
of philosophers from antiquity, in an idealized classical interior,
featuring the scene with Zoroaster holding a planet or cosmos.
The
Greeks—in the Hellenistic sense of the term—had an understanding
of Zoroaster as expressed by Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Agathias
that saw him, at the core, to be the "prophet and founder of the
religion of the Iranian peoples," Beck notes that "the rest
was mostly fantasy". Zoroaster was set in the ancient past, six
to seven millennia before the Common Era, and was described as a king
of Bactria or a Babylonian (or teacher of Babylonians), and with a biography
typical of a Neopythagorean sage, i.e. having a mission preceded by
ascetic withdrawal and enlightenment. However, at first mentioned in
the context of dualism, in Moralia, Plutarch presents Zoroaster as "Zaratras,"
not realizing the two to be the same, and he is described as a "teacher
of Pythagoras".
Zoroaster has also been described as a sorcerer-astrologer – the
creator of both magic and astrology. Deriving from that image, and reinforcing
it, was a "mass of literature" attributed to him and that
circulated the Mediterranean world from the 3rd century BCE to the end
of antiquity and beyond.
The language of that literature was predominantly Greek, though at one
stage or another various parts of it passed through Aramaic, Syriac,
Coptic or Latin. Its ethos and cultural matrix was likewise Hellenistic,
and "the ascription of literature to sources beyond that political,
cultural and temporal framework represents a bid for authority and a
fount of legitimizing "alien wisdom". Zoroaster and the magi
did not compose it, but their names sanctioned it.". The attributions
to "exotic" names (not restricted to magians) conferred an
"authority of a remote and revelatory wisdom."
Among the named works attributed to "Zoroaster" is a treatise
On Nature (Peri physeos), which appears to have originally constituted
four volumes (i.e. papyrus rolls). The framework is a retelling of Plato's
Myth of Er, with Zoroaster taking the place of the original hero. While
Porphyry imagined Pythagoras listening to Zoroaster's discourse, On
Nature has the sun in middle position, which was how it was understood
in the 3rd century. In contrast, Plato's 4th-century BCE version had
the sun in second place above the moon. Ironically, Colotes accused
Plato of plagiarizing Zoroaster, and Heraclides Ponticus wrote a text
titled Zoroaster based on his perception of "Zoroastrian"
philosophy, in order to express his disagreement with Plato on natural
philosophy.
With respect to substance and content in On Nature only two facts are
known: that it was crammed with astrological speculations, and that
Necessity (Ananké) was mentioned by name and that she was in
the air.
Pliny the Elder names Zoroaster as the inventor of magic (Natural History
30.2.3). "However, a principle of the division of labor appears
to have spared Zoroaster most of the responsibility for introducing
the dark arts to the Greek and Roman worlds." That "dubious
honor" went to the "fabulous magus, Ostanes, to whom most
of the pseudepigraphic magical literature was attributed." Although
Pliny calls him the inventor of magic, the Roman does not provide a
"magician's persona" for him. Moreover, the little "magical"
teaching that is ascribed to Zoroaster is actually very late, with the
very earliest example being from the 14th century.
Association with astrology according to Roger Beck, were based on his
Babylonian origin, and Zoroaster's Greek name was identified at first
with star-worshiping (astrothytes "star sacrificer") and,
with the Zo-, even as the living star. Later, an even more elaborate
mythoetymology evolved: Zoroaster died by the living (zo-) flux (ro-)
of fire from the star (astr-) which he himself had invoked, and even,
that the stars killed him in revenge for having been restrained by him.
The alternate Greek name for Zoroaster was Zaratras or Zaratas/Zaradas/Zaratos.
Pythagoreans considered the mathematicians to have studied with Zoroaster
in Babylonia. Lydus, in On the Months, attributes the creation of the
seven-day week to "the Babylonians in the circle of Zoroaster and
Hystaspes," and who did so because there were seven planets. The
Suda's chapter on astronomia notes that the Babylonians learned their
astrology from Zoroaster. Lucian of Samosata, in Mennipus 6, reports
deciding to journey to Babylon "to ask one of the magi, Zoroaster's
disciples and successors," for their opinion.
While the division along the lines of Zoroaster/astrology and Ostanes/magic
is an "oversimplification, the descriptions do at least indicate
what the works are not"; they were not expressions of Zoroastrian
doctrine, they were not even expressions of what the Greeks and Romans
"imagined the doctrines of Zoroastrianism to have been" [emphases
in the original]. The assembled fragments do not even show noticeable
commonality of outlook and teaching among the several authors who wrote
under each name.
Almost all Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha is now lost, and of the attested
texts—with only one exception—only fragments have survived.
Pliny's 2nd- or 3rd-century attribution of "two million lines"
to Zoroaster suggest that (even if exaggeration and duplicates are taken
into consideration) a formidable pseudepigraphic corpus once existed
at the Library of Alexandria. This corpus can safely be assumed to be
pseudepigrapha because no one before Pliny refers to literature by "Zoroaster",
and on the authority of the 2nd-century Galen of Pergamon and from a
6th-century commentator on Aristotle it is known that the acquisition
policies of well-endowed royal libraries created a market for fabricating
manuscripts of famous and ancient authors.
The exception to the fragmentary evidence (i.e. reiteration of passages
in works of other authors) is a complete Coptic tractate titled Zostrianos
(after the first-person narrator) discovered in the Nag Hammadi library
in 1945. A three-line cryptogram in the colophones following the 131-page
treatise identify the work as "words of truth of Zostrianos. God
of Truth [logos]. Words of Zoroaster." Invoking a "God of
Truth" might seem Zoroastrian, but there is otherwise "nothing
noticeably Zoroastrian" about the text and "in content, style,
ethos and intention, its affinities are entirely with the congeners
among the Gnostic tractates."
Another work circulating under the name of "Zoroaster" was
the Asteroskopita (or Apotelesmatika), and which ran to five volumes
(i.e. papyrus rolls). The title and fragments suggest that it was an
astrological handbook, "albeit a very varied one, for the making
of predictions." A third text attributed to Zoroaster is On Virtue
of Stones (Peri lithon timion), of which nothing is known other than
its extent (one volume) and that pseudo-Zoroaster sang it (from which
Cumont and Bidez conclude that it was in verse). Numerous other fragments
preserved in the works of other authors are attributed to "Zoroaster,"
but the titles of those books are not mentioned.
These pseudepigraphic texts aside, some authors did draw on a few genuinely
Zoroastrian ideas. The Oracles of Hystaspes, by "Hystaspes",
another prominent magian pseudo-author, is a set of prophecies distinguished
from other Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha in that it draws on real Zoroastrian
sources. Some allusions are more difficult to assess: in the same text
that attributes the invention of magic to Zoroaster,[clarification needed]
Pliny states that Zoroaster laughed on the day of his birth,[citation
needed] although in an earlier place, Pliny had sworn in the name of
Hercules that no child had ever done so before the 40th day from his
birth.
This notion of Zoroaster's laughter (like that of "two million
verses" also appears in the 9th– to 11th-century texts of
genuine Zoroastrian tradition, and for a time it was assumed that the
origin of those myths lay with indigenous sources. Pliny also records
that Zoroaster's head had pulsated so strongly that it repelled the
hand when laid upon it, a presage of his future wisdom. The Iranians
were however just as familiar with the Greek writers, and the provenance
of other descriptions are clear. For instance, Plutarch's description
of its dualistic theologies reads thus: "Others call the better
of these a god and his rival a daemon, as, for example, Zoroaster the
Magus, who lived, so they record, five thousand years before the siege
of Troy. He used to call the one Horomazes and the other Areimanius".
In
the post-classical era :
Zoroaster
was known as a sage, magician, and miracle-worker in post-Classical
Western culture.[citation needed] Although almost nothing was known
of his ideas until the late 18th century, his name was already associated
with lost ancient wisdom. Statements by Sir Thomas Browne as early as
1643 are the earliest recorded references to Zoroaster in the English
language.
Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire promoted research into Zoroastrianism
in the belief that it was a form of rational Deism, preferable to Christianity.
Zoroaster was the subject of the 1749 opera, Zoroastre, by Jean-Philippe
Rameau. With the translation of the Avesta by Abraham Anquetil-Duperron,
Western scholarship of Zoroastrianism began.
An early 19th-century representation of Zoroaster derived from the portrait
of a figure that appears in a 4th-century sculpture at Taq-e Bostan
in south-western Iran.
In E. T. A. Hoffmann's novel Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober (1819),
the mage Prosper Alpanus states that Professor Zoroaster was his teacher.
In his seminal work Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
(1885) the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche uses the native Iranian name
Zarathustra which has a significant meaning as he had used the familiar
Greek-Latin name in his earlier works. It is believed that Nietzsche
invents a characterization of Zarathustra as the mouthpiece for Nietzsche's
own ideas against morality. Richard Strauss's Opus 30, inspired by Nietzsche's
book, is also called
Also sprach Zarathustra.
Irish poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) and his wife reportedly
claimed to have contacted Zoroaster through "automatic writing".
A sculpture of Zoroaster by Edward Clarke Potter, representing ancient
Persian judicial wisdom and dating to 1896, towers over the Appellate
Division Courthouse of New York State at East 25th Street and Madison
Avenue in Manhattan. A sculpture of Zoroaster appears with other prominent
religious figures on the south side of the exterior of Rockefeller Memorial
Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago.
The protagonist and narrator of Gore Vidal's 1981 novel Creation is
described to be the grandson of Zoroaster. Zarathustra, the mythic hero
in Giannina Braschi's 2011 dramatic novel United States of Banana, joins
forces with Shakespeare's Hamlet.