Zoroastrian
- A Brief historical survey: life, work and teachings of Zoroaster, the Sassanid Dynasty; rise of Islam and the migration of Zoroastrians; migration of Zoroastrians and the rise of the Parsis in India, mainly based in Mumbai.
In
prehistoric age an important theological development concerned the
growth of beliefs about the Saoshyant or coming Saviour. Passages in
the Gathas suggest that Zoroaster was filled with a sense that the
end of the world was imminent, and that Ahura Mazda had entrusted him
with revealed truth in order to rouse mankind for their vital part in
the final struggle. Yet he must have realized that he would not
himself live to see Frasho-kereti; and he seems to have taught that
after him there would come ‘the man who is better than a good
man’(Y 43.4), the Saoshyant. The literal meaning of Saoshyant is
‘one who will bring benefit’; and it is he who will lead humanity
in the last battle against evil. Zoroaster’s followers, holding
ardently to this expectation, came to believe that the Saoshyant will
be born of the prophet’s own seed, miraculously reserved in the
depths of a lake. When the end of time approaches, it is said, a
virgin will bathe in this lake and become with child by the prophet;
and she will in due course bear a son, named Astvat-ereta, ‘He who
embodies righteousness’(Y 43.16). Despite his miraculous
conception, the coming World Saviour will thus be a man, born of
human parents, and so there is no betrayal of Zoroaster’s own
teachings about the part which mankind has to play in the great
cosmic struggle. It is said that Khvarenah will accompany the
victorious Saoshyant… so that he may restore existence… When
Astvat-ereta comes out from the Lake Kasaoya, messenger of Mazda
Ahura… then he will drive the Drug out from the world of Asha.’This
glorious moment was longed for by the faithful, and the hope of it
was to be their strength and comfort in times of adversity.
In 549 the
Persians, led by Cyrus the Great, of the Archaemenian family, a
son-in-law of the reigning Median king, rebelled, defeated the Medes,
and founded the first Persian Empire. Cyrus pressed on to conquer
Asia Minor, and Babylonia, and brought all the Eastern Iranians under
his rule. Notices by classical writers suggest that at this time the
Persians were already Zoroastrians and the Greeks considered
Zoroaster to be a Persian prophet, and ‘master of the magi’.
Cyrus’ actions were those of a loyal Mazda-worshipper, in that he
sought to govern his vast new empire justly and well, in accordance
with asha. He made no attempt, however, to impose the Iranian
religion on his alien subjects, but rather encouraged them to live
orderly and devout lives according to their own tenets. Among the
many non-Iranians who experienced his statesmanlike kindness were the
Jews, whom he permitted to return from exile in Babylon and to
rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The Jews entertained warm feelings
thereafter for the Persians, and this made them the more receptive to
Zoroastrian influences.
Persian
Emperor, Darius I, was a devotee of Ahura
Mazda, as attested to several times in the Behistun
inscription. It was during the Achaemenid period that Zoroastrianism
gained momentum. A number of the Zoroastrian texts have been
attributed to that period. It was also during the later Achaemenid
era that many of the divinities and divine concepts of
proto-Indo-Iranian religion(s) were incorporated in Zoroastrianism.
According to later Zoroastrian legend, many sacred texts were lost
when Alexander’s troops invaded Persepolis
and subsequently destroyed the royal library there.
The growth
of Zoroastrianism as a great imperial faith, possessed of temples,
shrines and broad estates, and served by an ever increasing number of
priests, can thus be traced through the Achaemenian period. All the
great temples must have had many priests. Sacred fires in particular
need constant attendance, and the high priest of a fire temple was
called ‘magupati’, ‘lord of priests’, having serving priests
under his authority. These priests would have been supported both by
income from endowments and by offerings from the faithful; and so a
new branch of the ecclesiastical hierarchy came into being, less
directly involved than the family priests with the laity in their
daily lives. Colleges of scholar-priests must also have existed,
either independently or perhaps in conjunction with the great
religious foundations. A few representations of priests survive from
the Achaemenian period, which show them wearing a long-sleeved,
belted tunic reaching to the knees. Loose trousers and a sleeved
mantle. For headgear there was a hood-like cap with side-pieces which
could be brought forward to cover the mouth. Tradition suggests that
cap and garments would all have been white, the priestly colour; but
in these representations, where colour cannot be shown, the priest is
distinguished by carrying a tall bundle of baresman-rods, for he
would otherwise have resembled many of the Iranian laity.
Close-fitting garments were more suitable than loose robes for wear
while solemnizing rituals, when there must be no danger of a fold of
cloth touching consecrated objects; and although the original purpose
of the hood-like cap with its mouth-pieces was evidently to give
protection against cold, heart and dust, this headgear also served
admirably to cover the hair of head and beard, for purity’s sake,
and to prevent the breath reaching what was consecrated.
Late
antiquity
When the
Sassanid
dynasty came into power in 228 CE, they aggressively promoted
Zoroastrianism and, in some cases, persecuted Christians.
When the Sassanids captured territory, they often built fire temples
there to promote their religion. After Constantine,
the Persian
Church (the Church
of the East) officially broke with Roman
Christianity, and was tolerated and even sometimes favored by the
Sassanids.
Sasanians
forbade the use of images in worship and statues were removed from
consecrated buildings, and whenever possible, sacred fires were
installed in their place. So the cult of images, introduced to
Zoroastrianism by the AchaemenianArtaxerxes II, was finally brought
to an end by measures initiated, it seems, by the SasanianArdashir I.
Ardashir appears to have begun a campaign of ative iconoclasm during
his wars of conquest, for in Armenia he is said to have shattered the
statues of the dead, and to have set a sacred fire in the temple a
Pakaran. In Sassanian dynasty, the Zoroastrian church was evidently
strengthened, becoming unified, enriched and served by an
every-growing body of disciplined priests. Another pious activity,
which must have continued throughout the period, was the writing down
of the Middle Persian Zand, together with much secondary Zoroastrian
literature.
By this
time an unknown genius among the Zoroastrian priests had solved the
problem of how to set down the holy texts by inventing the ‘Avestan’
alphabet. This, an elegant one of great distinction, is based on the
Pahlavi alphabet as it was written in the mid-Sasanian period; but
instead of fewer than twenty letters it has forty-six, the new ones
having been created through modifications of Pahlavi characters. The
great practical objection to writigdow the Avesta, that it was
impossible to render its sacred sounds adequately, had thus at last
been overcome. With this splendid new tool, the Persian priests set
about recording every surviving Avestan text, doing this, evidently,
at the dictation of other Persian priests. Considering the immense
expanse of time and place which separated Middle Persian itself not
only from the Gathas, but even from the Younger Avesta, it is a
matter for admiration how faithfully on the whole the sacred language
had been preserved. In a ninth-century book it is said that ‘at the
council of Khosrow, King of kings, son of Kavad’ published the
twenty-one divisions.
Well before
the 6th century CE, Zoroastrianism had spread to northern China
via the Silk Road,
gaining official status in a number of Chinese states. Remains of
Zoroastrian temples have been found in Kaifeng
and Zhenjiang.
By the 13th century, the religion had faded from prominence in China.
Middle
Ages
In the 7th
century, the Sassanid
Empire was overthrown by the Arabs. Although the administration
of the state was rapidly Islamicized, there was little serious
pressure” exerted on newly subjected people to adopt Islam, unless
they paid their taxes. Thus, the Zoroastrians were able to continue
in their former ways, although the nobility and city-dwellers
converted by social and economic pressures. 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 the fourth caliph Ali
and grandson of Islam’s prophet Muhammad,
had married a captive Sassanid princess named Shahrbanu,
who was said to have borne Husayn a son, Shi’aimam,
who claimed that the caliphate
rightly belonged to him and his descendants. 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.
With
Iranian (especially Persian) support, the Abbasids
overthrew the Ummayads in 750, and in the subsequent caliphate
government—that nominally lasted until 1258—Muslim Iranians
received marked favor in the new government. The Abbasids zealously
persecuted heretics,
and although this was directed mainly at Muslim sectarians,
it also created a harsher climate for non-Muslims. Although the
Abbasids were deadly foes of Zoroastrianism, the brand of Islam they
propagated throughout Iran became in turn ever more
“Zoroastrianized”, making it easier for Iranians to embrace
Islam.
The 9th
century was the last in which Zoroastrians had the means to engage in
creative work on a great scale, and the 9th century has come to
define the great number of Zoroastrian texts that were composed or
re-written during the 8th to 10th centuries. All of these works are
in the Middle
Persian dialect of that period, and written in the difficult
Pahlavi script.
Two decrees in particular encouraged the transition to a Islamic
society.]
The first edict, adapted from aArsacid and Sassanid one, was that
only a Muslim could own Muslim slaves or indentured
servants. 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.
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. For example, in the 9th century, a deeply
venerated cypress
tree in Khorasan
(which supposed had been planted by Zoroaster himself) was felled for
the construction of a palace in Baghdad. Another popular means to
distress Zoroastrians was to maltreat dogs, as these animals are
sacred in Zoroastrianism. Despite these economic and social
incentives to convert, Zoroastrianism remained strong in some
regions. In Bukhara
(in present-day Uzbekistan), resistance to Islam required the 9th
century Arab commander Qutaiba to convert his province four times.
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.
Yazd
and Kerman 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 was to be
inconspicuous.” Crucial to the present-day survival of
Zoroastrianism was a migration from the northeastern Iranian town to
West Gujarat in 936. The descendants of that group are today known as
the Parsis—”as
the Gujaratis,
from long tradition, called anyone from Iran”.
The life
and work of Zoroaster
Zoroaster’s
date cannot be established with any precision, since he lived in what
for his people were prehistoric times. The language of the Gathas is
archaic, and close to that of the Rigveda(whose composition has been
assigned to about 1700 B.C. onwards); and the picture of the world to
be gained from them is correspondingly ancient, that of a Stone Age
society. It is also possible that the ‘Avestan’people(as
Zoroaster’s own tribe is called for want of a better name) were
poor or isolated. It is only possible therefore to hazard a reasoned
conjecture that Zoroaster lived some time between 1700 and 1500 B.C.
In the
Gathas he refers to himself as a ‘zotar’, that is, a fully
qualified priest; and he is the only founder of a world religion who
was both priest and prophet. (In the Younger Avesta he is spoken of
by the general word for priest, a ‘athaurvan’. he also calls
himself a ‘manthran’, that is, one able to compose
‘manthra’(Sanskrit ‘mantra’) inspired utterances of power.
According to Zoroastrian tradition(preserved in the Pahlavi books),
he spent years in a wandering quest for truth; and his hymns suggest
that he must then have witnessed acts of violence, with war-bands,
worshippers of the daevas, descending on peaceful communities to
pillage, slaughter and carry off cattle. Conscious himself of being
powerless physically, he became filled with a deep longing for
justice, for the moral law of the Ahuras to be established for strong
and weak alike, so that order and tranquility could prevail, and all
be able to pursue the good life in peace.
According
to tradition Zoroaster was thirty, the time of ripe wisdom, when
revelation finally came to him. One of the Gathas(Y43) says that
Zoroaster, being at a gathering met to celebrate a spring festival,
went at dawn to a river to fetch water for the haoma-ceremony. He
waded in to draw it from midstream; and when he returned to the
bank-himself in a state of ritual purity, emerging from the pure
element, water, in the freshness of a spring dawn-he had a vision. He
saw on the bank a shining Being, who revealed himself as
VohuManah’Good Purpose’; and this Being led Zoroaster into the
presence of Ahura Mazda and five other radiant figures, before whom
‘he did not see his own shadow upon the earth, owing to their great
‘light’. And it was then, from this great heptad, that he
received his revelation.
Ahura
Mazda and his Adversary
This was
the first of a number of times that Zoroaster saw Ahura Mazda in
vision, or felt conscious of his presence, or heard his words calling
him to his service, a summons which he whole-heartedly obeyed. ‘For
this’ (he declares) ‘I was set apart as yours from the
beginning’(Y 44.11) ‘While I have power and strength, I shall
teach men to seek the right(asha)’(Y 28.4). It was as the master of
asha(order, righteousness, and justice) that he venerated Ahura
Mazda. This was in accordance with tradition, since Mazda had been
worshipped of old as the greatest of the three Ahuras, the guardians
of asha; but Zoroaster went much further, and in a startling
departure from accepted beliefs proclaimed Ahura Mazda to be the one
uncreated God, existing eternally, and Creator of all else that is
good, including all other beneficent divinities.
He came to
this exalted belief through meditating on the daily act of worship
which he as priest performed, and on the cosmogonic theories
connected with this. Scholar-priests had evolved a doctrine of the
genesis of the world in seven stages, with the seven creations all
being represented at the yasna; and they had postulated primal unity
in the physical sphere, with all life stemming from one original
plant, animal and man. From this, it would seem, Zoroaster was
inspired to apprehend a similar original uniqueness in the divine
sphere also, with, in the beginning, only one beneficent Being
existing in the universe, Ahura Mazda, the all-wise, and also the
wholly just and good, from whom all other divine beings emanated.
And in
vision he beheld, co-existing with Ahura Mazda, an Adversary, the
‘Hostile Spirit’, AngraMainyu, equally uncreated, but ignorant
and wholly malign. These two great Beings Zoroaster beheld with
prophetic eye at their original, far-off encountering: ‘Truly there
are two primal Spirits, twins, renowned to be in conflict. In thought
and word and act they are two, the good and the bad… And when these
two Spirits first encountered, they created life and not-life, and
that at the end the worst existence shall be for the followers of
falsehood, but the best dwelling for those who possess
righteousness(asha). Of the two Spirits, the one who follows
falsehood chose doing the worst things, the Holiest Spirit, who is
clad in the hardest stone[i.e. the sky] chose righteousness, and who
will satisfy Ahura Mazda continually with just actions’(Y.30.3-5).
An
essential element in this revelation is that the two primal Beings
each made a deliberate choice between good and evil, an act which
prefigures the identical choice which every man must make for himself
in this life. The exercise of choice changed the inherent antagonism
between the two Spirits into an active one, which expressed itself,
at a decision taken by Ahura Mazda, in creation and counter-creation,
or, as the prophet put it, in the making of ‘life’ and
‘not-life’(that is, death); for Ahura Mazda knew in his wisdom
that if he became Creator and fashioned this world, then the Hostile
Spirit would attack it, because it was good, and it would become a
battleground for their two forces, and in the end he, God, would win
the great struggle there and be able to destroy evil, and so achieve
a universe which would be wholly good forever.
The
heptad and the seven creations
These
teaching provided the basis for Zoroaster’s thought. The first act
which he conceivedAhura Mazda as performing was the evocation,
through his Holy Spirit, SpentaMainyu, of six lesser divinities, the
radiant Beings of Zoroaster’s earliest vision. These divinities
formed a heptad with Ahura Mazda himself, and they proceeded with him
to fashion the seven creations which make up the proceeded with him
to fashion the seven creations which make up the world. Ahura Mazda
is said either to be their ‘father’, or to have ‘mingled’
himself with them, and in one Pahlavi text his creation of them is
compared with the lighting of torches from a torch.
The six
great Beings then in their turn, Zoroaster taught, evoked other
beneficent divinities, who are in fact the beneficent gods of the
pagan Iranian pantheon. All these divine beings, who are, according
to his doctrines, either directly or indirectly the emanations of
Ahura Mazda, strive under him, according to their various appointed
tasks, to further good and to defeat evil. Collectively they are
known in Zoroastrianism as Yazatas, ‘Beings worthy of worship’,
or AmeshaSpentas, ‘Holy immortals’. To Zoroaster the Daevas were
thus both wicked by nature and wicked by choice, like AngraMainyu
himself – false gods who were not to be worshipped because they
stood for conflict among men, luring them through their greed for
offerings to bloodshed and destructive strife.
The crucial
word ‘spenta’, used by Zoroaster of Ahura Mazda and all his
creation, is one of the most important terms in his revelation.
Basically, it seems, it meant ‘possessing power’, and when used
of beneficent divinities, ‘possessing power to aid’, hence
‘furthering, supporting, benefiting’. Through constant religious
use spenta acquired overtones of meaning, like the word ‘holy’,
which similarly meant originally ‘mighty, strong’.’Holy’ is
therefore a close rendering for it; but to avoid suggesting concepts
alien to Zoroastrianism, some scholars have preferred ‘bounteous’
as a standard translation.
Although
the title Amesha Senta may be used of any of the divinities of Ahura
Mazda’s creation, it is applied especially to the great six of the
prophet’s own vision, the other lesser divinities being referred to
as the Yazatas. The doctrine of the six Holy Immortals is fundamental
to Zoroaster’s teachings. For every individual, as for the prophet
himself, the immortal who leads the way to all the rest is VohuManah,
‘Good Purpose’; and his closest confederate is AshaVahishta,
‘Best Righteousness’– the divinity personifying the mighty
principle of asha, whom Zoroaster names in the Gathas more often than
any other of the six. Then there is SpentaArmaiti, ‘Holy Devotion’,
embodying the dedication to what is good and just; and
KsharthraVairya, ‘Desirable Dominion’, who represents both the
power which each person should properly exert for righteousness in
this life, and also the power and the kingdom of God. The final pair
areHaurvatat and Ameretat, ‘Health’ and ‘Long Life’, who not
only enhance this mortal existence but confer that eternal well-being
and life, which may be obtained by the righteous in the presence of
Ahura Mazda.
3.
Zoroastrian Scriptures
The
Zoroastrian scriptures are known collectively as the ‘Avesta’;
and the language in which they are composed is called simply
‘Avestan’. The most important texts of the religion are those of
the Avesta, of which a significant portion has been lost, and mostly
only the liturgies of which have survived. The lost portions are
known of only through references and brief quotations in the later
works, primarily from the 9th
to 11th
centuries. In some form, it served as the national or state religion
of a significant portion of the Iranian people for many centuries.
Avestan
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. The twenty-one nasks were created by Ahura
Mazda and brought by Zoroaster
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. Under the reign of King Valax of the Arsacis
Dynasty, an attempt was made to restore the Avesta. 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. Under Shapur
II, ArderbadMahrespandand revised the canon to ensure its
orthodox character, while under Khosrow
I, the Avesta was translated into Pahlavi.
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 1288, 590 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/Pahlavi
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. The most significant and
important books of this era include the Denkard,
Bundahishn,
Menog-i Khrad,
Selections
of Zadspram, Jamasp
Namag, Epistles
of Manucher, Rivayats,
Dadestan-i-Denig,
and Arda
Viraf Namag. 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.
In 861, the
vigorous Muslims fell down a noted Zoroastrian sanctuary in Khorasan,
where a huge cypress tree grew, planted, according to Parthian
tradition, by Zoroaster himself. Another means of distressing
Zoroastrians was to torment dogs. Primitive Islam knew nothing of the
now pervasive Muslim hostility to the dog as an unclean animal, and
this, it seems, was deliberately fostered in Iran because of the
remarkable Zoroastrian respect for dogs. Probably maltreating a dog
was a distinctive outward sign of true conversion. It seems to have
been under the rule of local Muslim rulers that a band of
Zoroastrians, originally from the little town of Sanjan in
south-western Khorasan, despaired of finding peace or justice, and
made their way south to the port of Hormuzd on the Persian Gult,
where eventaully they secured a ship to take them overseas. According
to Parsi tradition, the migrants spent nineteen years on the island
of Div before making their final landfall on the coast of Gujarat in
936 A.C.
Main
Teachings
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 most sacred text, Gathas,
Zoroaster 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, and law. The metaphor of the
“path” of Daena
is represented in Zoroastrianism by the undershirt Sudra,
the “Good/Holy Path”, and the 72-thread Kushti
girdle, the “Pathfinder”.
Daena
should not be confused with the fundamental principle asha.
For asha
was the course of everything observable. 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. 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 uncreated. Thus, in
Zoroaster’s revelation, Ahura Mazda was perceived to be the creator
of only the good (Yasna 31.4), the “supreme benevolent providence”
(Yasna 43.11), that will ultimately triumph (Yasna 48.1).
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 counteraction.
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
(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.The
doctrine of the AmeshaSpentas and the seven creations thus inspired a
comprehensive morality, and inculcated in man a deep sense of
responsibility for the world around him. He is the chief of the
creations, but he is bound to the other six by the link of a shared
purpose, for all spenta creation is striving for a common goal, man
consciously, the rest by instinct or nature, for all were brought
into existence for this one end, namely the utter defeat of evil.
In the late
19th century, the moral and immoral forces came to be represented by
Spenta
Mainyuand its
antithesisAngra
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 1880s. Haug’s explanation of ‘twin brothers’
provided a convenient defense against Christian missionaries, who
disparaged the Parsis for their “dualism“.
Haug’s concept was subsequently disseminated as a Parsi
interpretation, and the idea became so popular that it is now almost
universally accepted as doctrine.
In
Achaemenid era (648–330 BCE) Zoroastrianism developed the abstract
concepts of heaven and hell, as well as personal and final judgment,
all of which are only alluded to in the Gathas.
Yasna
19 prescribes a Path to Judgment,
which all souls had to cross, and judgment (over thoughts, words, and
deeds performed during a lifetime) was passed as they were doing so.
However, the Zoroastrian personal judgment is not final. At the end
of time, when evil is finally defeated, all souls will be ultimately
reunited with their Fravashi.
Thus, Zoroastrianism can be said to be a universalist
religion with respect to salvation.
Creation
of the universe
In the
Zoroastrian version of the ancient myth the beneficent sacrifice
attributed originally to the pagan gods was assigned as an evil act
to AngraMainyu, for it was he who brought decay and death into the
perfect, static world of Ahura Mazda. The AmeshaSpentas were able,
however, through their holy power to turn his malicious acts to
benefit; and such must be the constant endeavor of all the good
creation. ‘Creation’ was the first of the three times into which
the drama of cosmic history is divided. AngraMainyu’s attack
inaugurated the second time, that of ‘Mixture’, during which this
world is no longer wholly good, but is a blend of good and evil; for
the cycle of being having been set in motion, AngraMainyu continues
to attack with the Daevas and all the other legions of darkness which
he had brought into existence to oppose the Yazatas, and together
they inflict not only physical ills but every moral and spiritual
evil from which man suffers. To withstand their assaults man needs to
venerate Ahura Mazda and the six AmeshaSpentas, and to bring them so
fully into his own heart and being that there is no room there for
vice or weakness. He should also worship all the beneficent yazatas,
like the two lesser Ahuras will also help him in his moral struggles.
According
to Zoraoster’s new revelation, mankind thus shared with the spenta
divinities the great common purpose of gradually overcoming evil and
restoring the world to its original perfect state. Therewith history
will cease. This is the time when good will be separated again from
evil; and since evil will then be utterly destroyed, the period of
Separation is eternal, and in it Ahura Mazda and all the Yazatas and
men and women will live together for ever in perfect, untroubled
goodness and peace. The doctrine of the Three Times-Creation,
Mixture, Separation-makes history in a sense cyclical, with the getig
world restored in the third time to the perfection it possessed in
the first one. Meanwhile all the sorrows and strivings of the present
time of Mixture are part of the battle against AngraMainyu. Zoroaster
thus not only saw a noble purpose for humanity, but also offered men
a reasoned explanation for what they have to endure in this life,
seeing this as affliction brought on them by the Hostile Spirit, and
not imputing to the will of an all-powerful Creator the suffering of
his creatures here below.
Judgment
and Salvation
As each
spirit departs, according to Zoroaster, it is judged on what it has
done in this life to aid the cause of goodness. He taught that women
as well as men, servants as well as masters, may hope to attain
paradise, for the physical barrier of pagan days, the ‘Bridge of
the Separator’, becomes in his revelation a place of moral
judgment. Here Mithra presides over the tribunal, flanked by Sraosha
and by Rashnu, who holds the scales of justice. In these are weighed
the soul’s thoughts, words and deeds, the good on one side, the bad
on the other. If the good are heavier, the soul is judged worthy of
Paradise; and it is led by a beautiful maiden, the personification of
its own conscience across the broad bridge and up on high. If the
scales sink on the bad side, the bridge contracts to the width of a
blade-edge, and a horrid hag, meeting the soul as it tries to cross,
seizes it in her arms and plunges with it down to hell, ‘the
dwelling-place of Worst Purpose’, where the wicked endure a ‘long
age of misery, of darkness, ill food and the crying of woe’. The
concept of hell, a place of torment presided over by AngraMainyu,
seems to be Zoroaster’s own, shaped by his deep sense of the need
for justice. Even for souls in Paradise bliss is not perfect during
this time of Mixture, for complete happiness can come again only at
Frashegird. This general resurrection will be followed by the Last
Judgment, which will divide all the righteous from the wicked, both
those who have lived until that time and those who have been judged
already. Then Airyaman, yazata of friendship and healing, together
with Atar, Fire, will melt all the metal in the mountains, and this
will flow in a glowing river over the earth. All mankind must pass
through this river, and, as it is said in a Pahlavi text, ‘for him
who is righteous it will seem like warm milk, and for him who is
wicked, it will seem as if he is walking in the flesh through molten
metal’. So at this last ordeal of all the wicked will suffer a
second death, and will perish off the face of the earth. The Daevas
and legions of darkness will already have been annihilated in a last
great battle with the yazatas; and the river of metal will flow down
into hell, slaying AngraMainyu and burning up the last vestige of
wickedness in the universe. Ahura Mazda and the six ameshaspentas
will then solemnize a last, spiritual yasna, offering up the last
sacrifice, and making a preparation of the mystical ‘white haoma’,
which will confer immortality on the resurrected bodies of all the
blessed, who will partake of it. Thereafter men will become like the
Immortals themselves, of one thought, word and deed, unaging, free
from sickness, without corruption, forever joyful in the kingdom of
God upon earth.
Zoroaster
was thus the first to teach the doctrines of an individual judgment,
Heaven and Hell, the future resurrection of the body, the general
Last Judgment, and life everlasting for the reunited soul ad body.
These doctrines were to become familiar articles of faith to much of
mankind; yet it is in Zoroastrianism itself that they have their
fullest logical coherence, since Zoroaster insisted both on the
goodness of the material creation, and hence of the physical body,
and on the unwavering impartiality of divine justice. According to
him, salvation for the individual depended on the sum of his
thoughts, words and deeds, and three could be no intervention,
whether compassionate or capricious, by any divine Being to alter
this. With such a doctrine, belief in the Day of Judgment had its
full awful significance, with each man having to bear the
responsibility for the fate of his own soul, as well as sharing in
responsibility for the fate of his own soul, as well as sharing in
responsibility for the fate of the world. Zoroaster’s gospel was
thus a noble and strenuous one, which called for both courage and
resolution on the part of those willing to receive it.
Zoroaster
created a community which was united by clearly defined doctrines,
shared moral endeavour, and common observances. The ancient text
begins(Y 12.1): ‘I profess myself a worshipper of Mazda, a follower
of Zoroaster, rejecting the Daevas, accepting the Ahuric doctrine;
one who praises the AmeshaSpentas, who worships the AmeshaSpentas. To
Ahura Mazda, the good, rich in treasures, I ascribe all things good.’
A believer is ‘Mazdayasna’, a worshipper of Mazda. Dualism is
also avowed in the opening lines of the Fravarane, with rejection of
the Daevas. Only what is good is ascribed to Ahura Mazda. The text
continues: ‘Holy Armaiti, the good, I choose for myself. Let her be
mine! I renounce the theft and carrying off of cattle, and harm and
destruction for Mazda-worshipping homes’– words which suggest the
sufferings and harassment of the early community. ‘I for-swear…
the company of Daevas and of the followers of Daevas, of demons, and
the followers of demons, of those who do harm to any being by
thoughts, words, deeds or outward signs.’These last lines emphasize
the characteristicZoroastrian doctrine that by choosing the good each
individual is allying himself as a humble fellow-worker with God and
the whole spenta cosmos. Ahura Mazda is honoured here as the Creator.
The
Fravarane ends with the believer engaging himself to uphold the
threefold Zoroastrian ethic, and the faith in general: ‘I pledge
myself to the well-thought thought, I pledge myself to the
well-spoken word, I pledge myself to the well-performed act.’
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