34 Mazdaism (‘Zoroastrianismf)

Julian Baldick

Mazdaism, the principal religion of pre-Islamic Iran, counted approximately 30,000 adherents there in the 1970s, and had about 87,500 followers, known as the Parsees, in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 1976.

One must pay attention to the methods used by the specialists, since Mazdaism is one of the more difficult religions of the world to investigate. The original sources are few, extremely corrupt and largely incomprehensible. As a result scholars have come to widely divergent conclu­sions, so that the student risks bewilderment. Because Mazdean texts lend them­selves to the most diverse interpretations, we are forced to concentrate upon the logic displayed by modem writers in their reconstructions, in order to deter­mine which are the more convincing. We need not take seriously anyone who claims to know ‘what actually happened’ among the ancient Iranians.

The terms ‘Mazdaism’ and ‘Mazdean’ will be used here, in line with modern international practice, and as corresponding to the terminology of the worshippers of Ahura Mazda, the ‘Wise Lord’, who appears as the chief (and to some as the sole) god of the religion. Since non-British writers use this terminology in works available in English it seems inappropriate to keep the old-fashioned words ‘Zoroastrianism’ and ‘Zoroastrian’, formed after a European version (‘Zoroaster’) of the name of the alleged founder, Zarathushtra, a figure whom scholars now tend to date to around 1000 bce.

In approaching Mazdaism it is important to bear in mind that because of its archaic, ‘fossilising’ character it presents features which go back to the Indo-Europeans, the linguistic ancestors of a variety of peoples in Asia and the West. Owing to the scantiness of Iranian and Mazdean materials we are obliged to resort to comparisons with the religions of other nations. Much disagreement has surrounded the question of where the Indo-Europeans originally lived, but now it is considered to have been somewhere in south Russia or Siberia.

Even fiercer controversy has raged around the theories concerning Indo-European religion propounded by the French scholar Georges Dumezil. In Mazdean studies the quarrels have been bitter, but here Dumezil has found the support of many specialists. This is not surprising, since it was largely from the Mazdean scriptures, the Avesta, that he reconstructed the alleged ‘threefold ideology of the Indo-Europeans’.

The Indo-Europeans, he claims, maintained that society should be organised into classes according to three ‘functions’: 1. sovereignty, linked with religion in its magical and juridical aspects; 2. war; 3. fertility, in its economic and erotic aspects. These ‘functions’ inspired the mythology expressed in the Indo-European languages. Now we may observe that this does not get one very far in studying Greek or Indian religion, given the enormous inventiveness of the Greeks and Indians, who quickly submerged their Indo-European heritage in a rich flowering of legends. But the ancient Iranians do not appear to have produced much more than an ideoloy of this kind. They expressed it in their religious texts and national epic, and put it into practice, maintaining a rigid class system until it was broken by Islam.

We must now turn to a sub-group of the Indo­Europeans, the Indo-Iranians, when they were in their original homeland, before dividing and migrating as Indians to India and as Iranians to Iran, possibly between 2000 and 1500 bce.

The view which has prevailed for most of the twen­tieth century, but has been impressively challenged, is that the Indo-Iranians worshipped two kinds of gods, seen as opposing one another: on the one hand, gods called daeva- by the Iranians and deva- by the Indians, and on the other hand gods called ahura- by the Iranians and asura- by the Indians. As a result, the first class were to be demoted to the status of demons (daevas) by the Iranians; the second class, in this theory, were similarly demoted to the status of demons (asuras) by the Indians. The work of demotion on the Iranian side is credited to the alleged founder of Mazdaism, Zarathushtra, who is supposed to have made Ahura Mazda the sole or chief god, and ‘reformed’ the old Iranian religion.

This conventional theory is weak and would now appear to be obsolete. In any case, since it presents a hostility between two classes of gods in Indo-Iranian times, the idea of a later ‘reform’ is unneces­sary, as was pointed out by the late Marijan Mole: the daevas could have been demoted to the status of demons by a natural development, as opponents of the venerated ahuras, without the intervention of a ‘Reformer’.

That this theory ‘is false from beginning to end’ has been argued by a distinguished British linguist on the Indian side, Thomas Burrow. He points out that it is absurd to say that a class of gods called the asuras were demoted into demons. For the individual Indian beings titled asura- were never so demoted, and so it is ridiculous to claim that the asuras as a class were demonised. Besides, it is wrong to speak of an original class of gods called asura- in opposition to gods called deva-.

Burrow’s argument has been accepted by the leading Italian specialist in Mazdean studies, Gherardo Gnoli, while the principal German specialist, Helmut Humbach, has reached similar conclusions. So instead of explaining things with reference to an original Indo-Iranian state of affairs, the scholars are now moving to a context of later contacts between Indians and Iranians. We may observe that in this perspective also no ‘Reformer’ is needed.

At this point we must consider some hard evidence: an inscription. It seems that some Indians, instead of making their way towards India, went to the Near East, where the names of some of their gods are preserved in an inscription of around 1380 bce. Since the same names appear together in the earliest Indian hymns, we have the first attested ‘structure’: 1. Mitra and Varuna; 2. Indra; 3. a couple called the Nasatyas. Dumezil claims these as representing his triad: religious sovereignty, war and fertility.

These gods have been connected with the most archaic, and in the usual view the oldest part of the Avesta (the Mazdean scripture) namely the Gàthàs, hymns attributed to Zarathushtra himself.

Table 34.1

Indian Deity

Mitra

Varuna

Indra Sarasvati

Nàsatya I ) Nàsatya II j

Entity

Good Thought Order (or Truth) Power

Devotion Health

Non-Death

Material Element Cattle

Fire

Metals Earth Water Plants

This correspondence is demonstrated by various arguments external to the Gathas, and also by counting the frequencies with which the Entities are mentioned or associated with one another within the Gathas. This method has the advantage of avoiding the difficulties posed by the incomprehensibil­ity of the Gathic verses themselves.

Dumezil’s analysis has been accepted by many specialists and rejected by others, who took offence at the suggestion that their cherished ‘monotheistic Reformer’ had dishonestly slipped the old gods in under new names. We need not take so simple a view of things. Dumezil has observed that there are unresolved questions. Does the name ‘Zarathushtra’ cover the ideas of a man or a group? Was there one reform, two or a long series? We may feel that such a series could be better termed a ‘development’. For Dumezil’s work is really still enclosed in the traditional academic reconstruction, in which Zarathushtra rejected an old polytheism, established monotheism, and then had his work undone by unfaithful succes­sors, who brought back the old gods (under their own old names).

It would appear, then, that if we no longer need the idea of a Reform, or a denunciation by Zarathushtra or others of old gods common to the Indians and the Iranians, Dumezil’s theory of a correspon­dence between the Entities and the Indian gods needs some adaptation if it is to be preserved. Presumably the answer would be that thefunctional properties of old Indo-Iranian deities, deities corresponding to but by no means always identical with those found on the Indian side, have been transformed into the Entities. At any rate we may agree that it is correct to concentrate not so much upon the names of gods and Entities, but rather upon how a god or Entity works.

We must now consider the Gathas themselves and the question of Zarathushtra’s existence. As regards the Gathic hymns, recent research on the continent of Europe has brought scholars to conclude that their character is above all a liturgical one. It is undoubtedly correct to concentrate upon comparison with the early Indian hymns, and this is the conclusion to which such comparison leads.

British work in this field, however, has been of a biographical and moralistic kind. It has been well summarised by the Ameri­can scholar R.N. Frye: ‘For W.B. Henning and his school it seems that one should understand Zoroaster as a meticulous thinker who carefully chose his words, and acted in an eminently rational manner. His language too was grammatically correct, though later corrupted, and he behaved as proper prophets should.’

It must be borne in mind that Henning accepted the traditional date for Zarathushtra: 258 years before Alexander the Great (336-323 bce). His argument was that nobody would invent ‘258’. He failed to notice that it had been produced by subtracting 42 years of Zarathushtra’s life from 300.

Ideas put forward by Mary Boyce have remained highly controversial. Her dating of Zarathushtra successively to c. 1000, 1500, 1700-1500, 1400-1200 and 1400 bce has not prevented her from recounting how he lived, received revelations and visions, organised his community, and established its rituals. She is the first Western specialist to take Mazdean legend as a serious source for Zarathushtra’s life. Her method has been to project back into the past all later doctrine and practice, and then claim that she has shown the continuity of Mazdaism, which she has taken for granted as her starting-point. The academics have reacted with heavy irony, notably with regard to her presentation, as historical fact, of veneration of purely imaginary Indian and Iranian deities.

The moralistic tradition of the British school has been continued by specialists in America, who have produced ‘metaphorical’ interpretations of the Gathas. Thus ‘a fertile cow and a steer’ is seen as a metaphor for ‘the good vision’ and Zarathushtra. Plants represent the believ­ers, and the pasturage ‘peace and freedom’. This has been greeted with derision from French and Belgian scholars, and a rebuke from Humbach.

The best arguments concerning Zarathushtra were presented by Mole. He observed that the diversity of academic opinions about Zarathushtra (a witch-doctor, a politician, a prophet and so on) showed the impossibility of reconstructing his personality. Since the Gathas are liturgical texts, it is dangerous to try to extract historical information from them. When they refer to alleged incidents and people these may be real or legendary. Nothing proves that Zarathushtra composed the Gathas. It is impossible to determine whether he existed or not. Translations of the Gathas are highly speculative and influenced by a traditional academic picture of Zarathushtra as resembling an old-fashioned image of a prophet of Israel. This is based on later legend, imbued with Judeo-Christian and Islamic influences. Zarathushtra in the Gathas appears as an archetypal priest.

Against Mole, it has been claimed that ancient Greek authors speak of Zarathushtra as a real person. But this is of no historical value: they are writing centuries after the Gathas. Mole seems right in pointing to the most obvious parallel to Zarathushtra: Orpheus, the mystical founder of the Greek religion of Orphism, with whose name hymns were also associated. Also against Mole, it has been said that the Gathas have a ‘unity of tone and subject’ which proves the historicity of Zarathushtra. But scholars who differ on everything else come close to agreeing that out of the 238 stanzas of the Gathas almost 190 are incomprehensible. So what weight can be given to such a subjective opinion?

We must now consider what can be found in the Gathas. In spite of assertions by the Anglo-American moralistic school that they provide an ‘ethic’ it is difficult to see what this is. To pray for good fortune for one’s family and bad fortune for one’s enemies hardly seems ethical.

The Gathas are permeated by the praise of Ahura Mazda, the ‘Wise Lord’. There are bad gods, daevas. Beneath Ahura Mazda there is a Holy Spirit, Spenta Mainyu, and an Evil Spirit, Angra Mainyu. The text is clear enough, the specialists have pointed out, to show that Ahura Mazda is not identical with the Holy Spirit, as Mazdaism later believes. So in the Gathas we do not have an absolute dualism, but rather an opposition of two spirits beneath a sovereign god. The evidence suggests henotheism, beliefin one god while not denying the existence of others. It seems unwise to assume that we have monotheism here. The Gathas do not mention another leading god of Mazdaism, Mithra (the Indian Mitra), but it would appear unfounded to imagine that he is one of the bad gods, the daevas. Since the Gathas are hymns to Ahura Mazda, there is no reason to expect Mithra to be mentioned, let alone to take absence of mention to imply condemnation. Such an unwise assumption has accompanied the idea that Zarathushtra’s unscrupulous successors brought back Mithra and the other old gods in betrayal of the ‘Founder’.

This idea has dominated discussion of other hymns in Mazdean scripture, which show the worship, not just of Ahura Mazda and the Entities, but of other gods as well. These are all called part of the ‘Younger Avesta’, although some of them could be of the same period as that of the Gathas. The so-called ‘Younger Avestan’ dialect may be as old as the Gathic one. Some of these non-Gathic hymns are certainly extremely old. Burrow dates some to before 900 âńĺ. If they are not so old as the Gathas, they can be taken to contain earlier materials. The usual interpretation is that they represent the return of the old gods, readmitted but only in a subordinate position. Such a view is just as hypothetical as that which posits an inner core of believers faithful to the Gathas and Ahura Mazda alone. It is important to avoid calling the non-Gathic gods ‘pagan’ gods. This term is no longer acceptable in the history of religions. With regard to Mazdaism it seems all the more misleading and absurd as the traditional academic reconstruction appears to be collapsing.

Let us briefly mention some of these gods. Mithra (the meaning of whose name has been much disputed, ‘contract’ still seeming the best translation) is to be venerated alongside Ahura Mazda (like Mitra alongside Varuna among the Indians). Verethraghna, ‘Victory’, we shall also encounter again. Aredvi Sura Anahita, ‘Moist, Mighty, Immaculate’, is seen by Dumezil’s followers as representing the three functions—fertility, war and religious sovereignty—in her name, but also, like the Entity ‘Devotion’, corresponding in particular to that of fertility.

Other deities are Apam Napat, ‘Offspring of the Waters’, who has an Indian counterpart of similar name, and has been convincingly linked with the Roman water-god Neptune and the Celtic Nechtan; Haoma, a plant corresponding to the Indian Soma, and now considered to have been a hallucinogen, the preparation and consumption of which are central to the Mazdean Eturgy; and Atar, ‘Fire’, the veneration of which is the most famous aspect of Mazdaism, with the distinctive fire-temples of the Mazdeans leading the Muslims to call them ‘fire­worshippers’.

Another feature is constituted by supernatural beings called the Fravashis. They are both the guardian angels and the higher souls of the faithful. They survive after death to be venerated by the Eving. They participate in battles against demons on a cosmic level, on the side of Ahura Mazda, and in the terrestrial fighting of the beEevers. In general, they correspond most closely to the Valkyries, the martial maidens of Norse mythology.

We must now pass on to the historical period, and the great Persian Empire of the Achaemenid kings, which lasted from c. 550 to 330 âńĺ. Here our sources are scanty and unreliable. The most used is the Greek writer Herodotus (c. 485-425 âńĺ), famous not only as the so-called ‘Father of History’ but also as the ‘Father of Lies’. It is difficult to see what credence can be given to this author, who in matters of Persian religion is demonstrably ignorant and misleading in the extreme. Priority must be given to the oriental materials. The inscriptions of the Persian kings them­selves give a one-sided, official propagandist picture. Archaeology gives us altars, sculpture and also inscribed tablets relating to expenditure, which are by far the best source.

The empire of the Persians was preceded by that of another Iranian people, the Medes. Of these six tribes are mentioned by Herodotus, notably the Magi, a name which is also that of the priests under the Persians. This obviously leads to speculation that the Magi might origi­nally have been a specialised priestly tribe among the Medes. That the Medes had a fire-cult and altars in temples, and a holy mountain with rooms for priests or pilgrims, is known from archaeological evidence. One surviving fire-altar clearly could not have been used for the everlasting fire characteristic of Mazdaism. Further reconstruction of Median religion is entirely speculative.

After the Medes we come to the Persian Achaemenid kings themselves, and the vexed question of whether they were followers of the religion attributed to Zarathushtra or not. A vast amount of ink has been spilt for and against. The best answer is one given by Frye, that this is a false problem, and anachronistic, since it wrongly assumes the existence at that time of a modem concept of a Mazdean religion. It would seem better to speak of‘Mazda-worship’ rather than ‘Mazdaism’ in this period, since there is no sign of a fully-fledged system of beliefs or an organisation of believers.

The founder of the empire, Cyrus (560/559-530 âńĺ), is not someone of whose religious activities much can be said. In Babylonia he did homage to the Babylonian god Marduk and expressed the wish that a variety of lesser gods should intercede on his behalf. The sculp­tural evidence shows that he had his palaces in Iran decorated with reliefs of Assyrian magical figures. We know that his policy was to allow the various peoples of his empire to follow their own religions.

Darius I (522-486 âńĺ) has left inscriptional evidence of his feeling of indebtedness to Ahura Mazda (much repeated and empha­sised) and his hostility to the Lie. But by the Lie he appears to mean his enemies, and by the Truth his own power. He says that he was helped by Ahura Mazda and ‘the other gods that are’. Much has been made of his failure to mention other gods by name, but tablets show that in his reign and that of Xerxes (486-465 âńĺ) the state paid for the worship by Iranian priests of Mithra and non-Iranian deities, as well as employing them in the cult of mountains and rivers. Again, everything points to henotheism.

Xerxes is known to have destroyed the temples of some gods. He did this in Babylon to the cult of Marduk, and in an inscrip­tion he says that he did it to daivas (false gods). Again, scholars are divided as to who and where these were. He mentions his personal worship of Ahura Mazda. As in the case of Darius, this is hardly surprising: since Ahura Mazda is a sovereign god, it is only natural that a sovereign should concentrate his worship upon him. It has been claimed that a ‘Zoroastrian’ calendar was adopted by the Achaemenid court in this reign or not long after, but this too has been much disputed.

Artaxerxes II (405/4-359/8) mentions Mithra and the goddess Anahita along with Ahura Mazda in his inscriptions. Much has been made of this, and also of the fact that he erected statues of Anahita, identified with the Greek Aphrodite. But it would be unwise to draw any conclusions by way of contrast with the previous absence of Mithra and Anahita from royal inscriptions, as we have seen.

Exaggerated claims have been made for alleged Iran­ian influences on Greek philosophy during the Achaemenid period. Classi­cal scholars accept very little of what has been attributed to ancient Greek thinkers to support this. To project later Mazdean time-speculation (‘Zur- vanism’) back into the Achaemenid period and then claim that it inspired Greek interest in Time is anachronistic: probably the inspiration went in the reverse direction. Similar excessive claims, sometimes now disproved, have been made for Iranian influences on Judaism, Christianity and the Roman religion of Mithraism.

The conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alex­ander the Great (336-323 bce) was to bring centuries of domination by Greek culture, and a rupture of continuity in Iranian civilisation. This has proved a considerable embarrassment to modern writers subsidised by the Iranian monarchy in order to emphasise such continuity. For Iran itself we have no evidence about indigenous religion in the period of Alexander’s successors, the Seleucids. A colourful attempt has been made to find a spirit of Mazdean resistance to the Greek yoke, by redating apocalyptic texts to this period. In works of this kind, in which prophecies of impending liberation are repeatedly revised after they have failed to be fulfilled, it is indeed normal to find literary strata of earlier generations. But in the absence of external corroboration one must be doubtful here.

In the third century bce an Iranian people, the Parth­ians, came to the fore. They were gradually to displace the Seleucids in Iran, and ruled until the third century ce. Of religion under the Parthians again very little is known. It may have been in their period that the final portions of Mazdean scripture were composed, since these mention Greco-Roman measures in contrast to Iranian ones in the earlier parts of the Avesta. In these later portions we find plenty of details relating to ritual purity and the utmost severity towards sexual licence. It is not clear when the Avesta was first written down, but it was certainly after a very long period of oral transmission.

The veneration of Greek deities, identified with Iran­ian ones, was popular. Of particular interest is an inscription in what is now Turkey, which appears to give striking support to Dumezil’s theories. As in the Indian inscription of c. 1380 âńĺ, we find listed first the two sovereign gods, Ahura Mazda, identified with the Greek Zeus, and Mithra, identified with Apollo, Helios and Hermes; then the war-god Verethraghna, identified with Heracles and Ares; finally, ‘my all-nourishing fatherland Commagene’, where the function of fertility is evident enough.

Other aspects of Iranian religion in the Parthian period are the everlasting fire, known from a classical source to be associated with the monarchy, as later in Iran; and temples dedicated to Anahita, in whose honour prostitution was practised. But there is no evidence of any official religion in the shape of Mazdaism as we later know it or any formally constituted sect thereof.

In the third century ce a new dynasty, that of the Sassanians, took power and ruled until the Arab conquest in the seventh. This dynasty controlled a large and powerful empire, and under it Mazdaism came to fruition as an official, established state religion. But this process of estab­lishment took a long time, and it was only in the sixth century that it was actually completed.

Study of Mazdaism as it emerges in this period is complicated by a phenomenon called ‘Zurvanism’, which, following Frye, we can see as time-speculation in Iranian form. Some scholars have seen this as a separate sect or indeed as a religion in its own right, but in recent years it has become more normal to see it as a tendency or even just as a popular myth.

In the Avesta there is already a minor god called Zurvan, ‘Time’. According to Damascius (sixth century ce) it was reported by Eudemus of Rhodes in the late fourth century âńĺ that the Iranians believed the first principle to be either Time or Space. This first principle would either have given rise to Ahura Mazda and the Evil Spirit directly or to light and darkness before them. In the third century ce the new religion of Manichaeism calls its supreme god Zurvan, which shows the exalted position now occupied by the deity, as does his occurrence in proper names. Obvi­ously, under the Parthians veneration of Time had become important in Iran, as it had in the West. During the Sassanian period Christian writers speak of a myth in which Zurvan is the original father of Ahura Mazda and the Evil Spirit, and attack it as the essential dogma of Iranian religion. But afterwards, in the Islamic era, it is condemned by the Mazdeans and virtually disappears except for traces discovered by modem scholars.

Various theories have been put forward to explain this. There has been an unfortunate use of the words ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’. It must be remembered that the emerging Mazdaism was, like ancient Roman religion, essentially a set of rites. As in Rome, it was a matter of ‘doing the done thing’ and honouring the gods, while plenty of Greek philosophical ideas were absorbed. In such a perspective what a man believes about the original source of the gods will not get him labelled a ‘heretic’, whereas in Christianity such speculation about God will. Now to the Chris­tian writers of the Sassanian period the myth of Zurvan, a god who offers sacrifice in order to have offspring, is absurd and disgusting, and conse­quently splendid material to use to discredit their opponents. Accordingly they present it as the central doctrine of the Mazdeans. For later, Muslim writers, who were apt to invent a ‘heresy’ at the slightest pretext, people who believe in the myth of Zurvan have to constitute a separate sect. From this it is only a short step to the reconstruction of a modern Christian scholar, with a Mazdean ‘orthodoxy’ confronting a ‘Zurvanite heresy’. In this perspective an original (but imaginary) Mazdean ‘orthodoxy’ is replaced by ‘Zurvanism’ in the Sassanian period only to reimpose itself under Islam.

Shapur I (240-72 ce) is of interest as the patron of Mani (d. c. 274), the founder of Manichaeism, a religion which grew out of the Gnostic movement, characterised by its emphasis on a hidden knowledge reserved for an elite. Manichaeism, like Christianity, was an international religion; Mazdaism, like Judaism, was a national one. Shapur I calls himself ‘Mazda-worshipping’, but attributes his successes to the aid of‘the gods’ in general and lays stress upon the cult of them. Since the most important Mazdean priest of the ensuing period speaks of‘Ahura Mazda and the gods’ in inscriptions, the materials point to henotheism.

After Shapur I’s death Mani was executed and the Mazdean priesthood increased its power. Its leader, Kerdir, has left fascin­ating inscriptional evidence of a journey which he made into the next world. This is undoubtedly characteristic of shamanism, the magical religion of Central and North Asia, and perhaps shows a practice surviving from the Iranians’ original homeland.

The reign of Shapur II (309-79) has sometimes been seen as establishing a kind of Mazdean ‘orthodoxy’, but it would appear that on the contrary Mazdaism itself was not firmly established as the state religion until the sixth century ce. On the other hand, the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity led to severe persecution of Christians in Iran, who were seen as belonging to the enemy. In the fifth century they pro­claimed their independence from Western Christianity, but this did not prevent an unsuccessful attempt by the Persian Empire to impose Mazdaism upon its Christian subjects in Armenia.

At the end of the fifth century we must note the remarkable movement led by the reformer Mazdak, celebrated for socialistic or communistic tendencies. Mazdakism (with a ‘k’, not to be confused with the main-line Mazdaism) has usually been seen as a gnostic religion, founded

some time before and growing out of Manichaeism. Against this Mole has argued that it was a sect of Mazdaism. But when we have an account by a Muslim who met Mazdakites and had read their writings, the doctrines are not Mazdean but undoubtedly Manichaean, maintaining that the first princi­ple was Light, which had been partially transmuted into darkness. Moreover, it seems that their faith was called ‘the joyous religion’ in direct opposition to the Mazdean self-appellation ‘the good religion’. Mazdak himself gained the favour of the king Kavad (488-531), who seems to have used the movement to break the power of the greater nobles. But at the end of Kavad’s reign Mazdak was executed and his followers persecuted. Apparently it was in a reaction to his movement that the monarchy, now closely allied with the lesser nobility, collaborated with the priesthood to make the Mazdean relig­ion the firmly established faith of the empire. This was done by Khusro I (531-79). He allowed Mazdean priests to persecute Christians, while he himself acted as a patron to Greek philosophers. He declared that Mazdaism, while not the only path to truth, was self-sufficient, and vigorously repressed religious teachings that he did not like.

There was a rise in conversion to Christianity (not­ably from the more privileged classes) in the last century of Sassanian rule. Khusro II (590-628) had a Christian wife and was devoted to St Sergius, but persecuted Christians when his territories were invaded by the Roman emperor. The intolerant character which Mazdaism now possessed, along with its insistence on class distinctions, undoubtedly weakened the Sassanian realm, as did the antiquated and national character of the religion, which was unable to compete with faiths campaigning for recruits and offering universal truths in contrast to its preoccupation with rituals and taboos. In 642 what remained of the Persian Empire’s army was destroyed by the conquering Arabs, and in 651 the last Sassanian king was killed. Iran was now to be taken over by the rising religion of Islam.

We must briefly turn to the general characteristics of Mazdaism in the Sassanian period. Here Dumezil’s principal disciple in this field, Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, has argued that four divinities dominate the scene, Ahura Mazda, Mithra, Verethraghna and Anahita. Since the goddess Anahita represents fertility, he points to a correspondence with the inscriptions of the Indians and Commagene noted above. Moreover, the Sassanians insisted on the division of society into classes: priests, warriors and a class representing the economic aspect of fertility (cultivators, craftsmen and merchants), along with a new class of bureaucrats.

The Arab conquest of the seventh century ce and the subsequent Islamicisation of Iran produced a complete reversal of fortunes for Mazdaism, as Michael Morony has well shown. From being the proud masters of society, the Mazdean priests were to become desperately defensive inferiors. Under the Sassanians they had been the guardians of privilege, with religious observance being the hallmark of social distinction, and a lowly estate in this world seen as foreshadowing a poor place in the next. Since riches were seen as good, the asceticism of Manichaeism was viewed as evil. Now the rise of Islam brought converts to the new religion, as well as more conversions to Christianity. There were economic incentives to turn Mus­lim: discriminatory taxation, and the prospect of employment in the army and bureaucracy. From being persecutors, the Mazdeans now became vic­tims of persecution. Muslim rule also brought new movements of a libertine and insurrectionist character, aimed largely against the Mazdean clergy as linked with the old nobles. Various aspects of Mazdaism would be attacked in these religious uprisings, in which Islamic and Manichaean elements were put together in a common hostility to the traditional ideology of the nobility. Moreover, now that the Mazdean priesthood could no longer itself exercise repressive powers, it had to resort to moralising instead. The priests now had to come to terms with poverty and exalt its virtues. They had to face the economic realities of living with non-Mazdeans and soften their insistence on ritual purity.

It was against this background that the main Maz­dean texts in Middle Persian were composed in the ninth and tenth centuries ce. The language of the Avesta (Mazdean scripture) had long since died, and the Mazdeans now had very little idea of what was meant by it. The Middle Persian translations of the Avestan texts are so bad that on their own they are enough to destroy the myth of the so-called ‘continuity’ of Mazdean teach­ings. In argument with the Muslims the Mazdeans now proclaimed an absolute dualism, with Ahura Mazda identified with the Holy Spirit, and consequently balanced by the Evil Spirit. This was in contradiction with the original Gathic position, in which Ahura Mazda was above both Spirits.

This absolute dualism has been seen as a ‘restored orthodoxy’, after a ‘heretical’ period in which Zurvan, Time, was venerated as supreme. It would seem, however, as Morony well observes, that there never had been or was to be a doctrinal ‘orthodoxy’. The Mazdeans found it convenient, in discussion with Jews, Christians and Muslims, to minimise their worship of divinities other than Ahura Mazda, explaining that they were merely objects of veneration rather than gods. So in dialogue with Jews and Christians they tended to present themselves as monotheists. Often, in other contexts, they seemed to formulate their opinions in henotheist, polytheistic or dualist ways. Why a dualist one in answer to Islam?

The answer is perhaps to be sought in the atmos­phere of controversy within Islam, from the eighth to the tenth centuries, about how a good God allowed evil in the world, and in the circumstance that the Muslims generally presented God as the Creator of all actions, even evil ones. To this the Mazdeans had an excellent answer in absolute dualism: there are two first principles, one good, one evil. To be sure, this view seems to have existed before Islam, but now it was to be remorselessly emphasised as the simplest and clearest answer to Muslim propaganda.

In this perspective the condemnation of ‘Zurvan- ism’, the tendency to venerate Time as the first principle, is entirely under­standable. In the context of argument with Muslims this exaltation of Zurvan would have been an embarrassment in debate, weakening, obscuring and complicating the Mazdeans’ clear-cut dualist case. Moreover, the old myth of Zurvan, a god sacrificing in order to have a child and then getting two, would have appeared an obscene absurdity in the Middle Eastern interfaith polemic of the ninth and tenth centuries ce.

Although these Mazdean writings of the early Islamic period undoubtedly contain plenty of much older materials, one has to allow for both priestly ‘filtering’ and Muslim influences. The latter would appear to be evident in the Middle Persian legend of Zarathushtra himself. At any rate plenty of Judeo-Christian traditions had been at work in the ‘bio­graphy’ of Zarathushtra, presented as a prophet. Here the latejean de Menasce did well to speak of the difficulty of determining the figure’s historicity.

Of the greatest interest in this literature is the story of a Mazdean called Arta Viraf, who takes a hallucinogen, goes into a period of apparent death, and visits heaven and hell. This state of apparent death is a further indication of the influence of shamanism, previously observed in the extraterrestrial journey of the priest Kerdir.

Also of interest is the continuing emphasis on inces­tuous marriage, a phenomenon attested beyond a shadow of doubt in Maz­dean and non-Mazdean sources, contrary to nineteenth-century attempts to deny its previous existence. It is indeed noteworthy that this practice con­tinued for so long under Muslim rule, before being replaced, sometime after the eleventh century, by cousin-marriage, and was considered in detail in the Mazdean literature of the early Islamic period, as meritorious and to be encouraged, whether children were to be expected or not. We are given evidence that women were forced against their will to marry their brothers and fathers, although the agreement of the bridegrooms was necessary.

Finally, we may note the emphasis in this literature on the division of society into four classes and the activities thereof, explicitly set out: in the priesthood, religion, education and justice; in the warrior class, horse-riding and foot-soldiering; in the peasant class, breeding and com­merce; in the artisan class, preparation of bread and other food.

There were still plenty of Mazdeans in Iran in the tenth century, but at this time an important emigrant community established itself in India. The Mazdeans of India were to be known as the Parsees. Meanwhile, in Iran, Islamic influences continued to make themselves felt in practice and belief. Mazdean influences on Islam, on the other hand, have been much exaggerated. Elements such as ‘the wine of the Magi [the Maz­dean priests]’, when found in Muslim mystical poetry, are literary motifs of a libertine or symbolic character, and do not indicate transmission of Mazdean ideas. The ‘Oriental’ philosophy ofSuhrawardi (d. 1192), often cited to show continuity with the Iranian past, shows only a minimal acquaintance with Mazdaism.

Various sources, in succeeding centuries, show the difficulties faced by the Mazdean communities in Iran and India: persecution and enforced conversion to Islam, and ignorance among Parsees of their own religion, owing to the difficulty of communication with their Iranian counter­parts, seen as the fount of authority. There was to be increased emigration from Iran to India, where attempts to combine Mazdaism with other relig­ions and Greek philosophy, under the guise of a mystical unity, met with considerable success in the seventeenth century.

In the eighteenth century the great and intrepid French pioneer Anquetil Duperron discovered the Mazdean scriptures and introduced them to Europe. Unfortunately an absurd fit of pique among British orientalists led them to reject his materials as forgeries. But from then on it was possible for the Parsees, via European scholarship, to rediscover their own religious heritage, as the linguistic study of the Avesta partially res­cued it from the confusion produced by the Middle Persian interpretations.

This rediscovery was assisted by a remarkable change of fortune among the Parsees. British rule, by freeing them from the Muslim yoke, gave them an opportunity to enrich themselves by finding favour with, and adapting themselves to, the new masters. They did this with immense dedication and success. The grateful British responded by adopting a markedly uncritical attitude towards the Parsees. This was in stark contrast to the lack of esteem usually displayed by the British rulers towards their other subjects.

The leaders of the newly-enriched Parsees, com­plaining of the ignorance and backwardness of their priests, set about encouraging the study of their religion. When a European scholar informed them that Zarathushtra was a monotheist they gladly accommodated them­selves to what appeared a convenient position. Meanwhile modernist refor­mers were instrumental in what Christine Dobbin has called ‘the largely successful struggle of the Parsi community to emancipate itself from the despotic authority of the community’s heads’.

The economic success of the Parsee merchants in the nineteenth century has been attributed to a religious inspiration inherent in Mazdaism, and comparable to the ‘Protestant work ethic’. Against this it may be said that religious and ethnic minorities generally tend to enrich themselves when not impeded by artificial restrictions. The Parsees’ success was to be reversed when the Hindus acquired the necessary skills.

On the other hand, the subsequent decline of the Parsees can be partly attributed to a new phenomenon. At the end of the nineteenth century some Parsees were much influenced by the Theosophical movement of Helena Blavatsky (1831-91), and decided that everything in the Avesta had a secret, inner meeting, reserved for themselves as an elite. It would seem that, like their European counterparts, they were trying to defend their privileged social position against rising competition, and sought to camouflage insufficiency of information and reasoning powers by a claim to wisdom naturally possessed or directly vouchsafed. These Theosophical Parsees found a natural ally in their priests, who have usually found employ­ment by ingratiating themselves with wealthy patrons, and consequently tended to be lacking in knowledge and intellect. In an ideology which conferred enormous mystical powers on the syllables of their texts the priests found a welcome weapon against the menace of rationalism.

The twentieth century has seen a sharp fall in the fortunes of the Parsees. Obviously, the end of the British Empire was a major reason for the decline of its collaborators. The Parsee population has sunk in numbers, leading to considerable academic investigation, largely inconclu­sive, into the causes of low birth- and marriage-rates. The discovery of the widespread extent of poverty among fellow-Parsees has greatly surprised and shocked their wealthier co-religionists.

Meanwhile, the fortunes of the Iranian Mazdeans followed a different pattern from the eighteenth century to the present day. The chaos of eighteenth-century Iran, with its horrific massacres, was par­ticularly severe in its consequences for them, and brought yet more enforced conversion to Islam and emigration to India. In the nineteenth century discriminatory measures were particularly oppressive, and hampered economic activity. However, in the second half of the century Parsee and British intervention created new opportunities for Iranian Mazdeans to leave village life for urban, professional careers. Thus in the twentieth century they continued to rise in the social scale, with a consequent decline in Iranian Mazdaism itself. For just as in the Muslim world in general Westernisation and economic progress have brought a decline of Islam within the ranks of the middle classes, so too Iranian Mazdaism has wilted before an impatient, progressive younger generation.

A highly romanticised picture of Mazdaism in mod­em Iran has been painted by Boyce, in an uncritical attempt to show that little had ever changed, and to suggest that there had been few differences of opinion within the community. Fortunately Michael Fischer has demon­strated that the reverse is the case: plenty of rites and legends have been taken over from the Muslims, and the feuding between Iranian Mazdeans has been particularly bitter. A large number of them were so appalled by the reaction­ary mindlessness of their elders that they left the faith for the new religion of Baha’ism.

The Islamic revolution of 1978-9 in Iran has natur­ally produced plenty of worries for the Mazdeans, who had been prospering under the monarchy now overthrown. Since the monarchy had glorified Iran’s Mazdean past in contrast to Islam, there were now, not surprisingly, to be some unfortunate excesses directed against them.

Returning to the history of Mazdean studies in the West, we may note that at the moment the most exciting and impressive work is being done by Philippe Gignoux, who has pointed the way to future improvements by concentrating on the anthropology of northern Eurasia. This gives us three significant parallels with Mazdaism, attributable to influences upon the Iranians in their original homeland: 1. the important and original significance of the bones as constituting the source of life itself (perhaps it is to this reason that one may attribute the source of Mazdaism’s method of disposing of the dead: exposing the corpse on the ‘Towers of Silence’ for the bones to be picked clean by dogs or vultures—a practice usually explained by the need to avoid polluting earth or fire with dead matter); 2. the presence of a multiplicity of souls within a single human being; 3. extraterrestrial journeys, accompanied by the use of psychotropic drugs and a state of apparent death.

In general, it may be said that Mazdaism strongly resembles other national religious traditions in its ritualism, in its forgetting of its original significations and in its conservatism. This conservatism, however, should not be seen as absolute, nor should it be confused with ‘continuity’: the original elements were to be combined in different patterns, and were modified by enormous accretions. The latter had to come from the outside: from Greek philosophy and other religions. But to learn from others is hardly discreditable.

Mazdaism’s insistence on the primordiality of Evil is a salutary antidote to the modern myth of man’s natural innocence. But its attribution of all that is bad to a demonic Other has discouraged self-criticism and provided an excuse for repression in the manner of twentieth-century states. Its emphasis on class distinctions, accompanying the loss of its empire, is of particular interest with regard to Britain today.

Further Reading

The Cambridge History of Iran, vols. 2-4 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1975-85)

Dumezil, Georges The Destiny of a King (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1973) Duchesne-Guiliemin.JacquesSyfMfco/sand Values in Zoroastrianism (New York, 1966) Religion of Ancient Iran (Bombay, 1973)

Morony, Michael ‘madjus’ in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn

Zaehner, Robert Charles The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1975)

----- The Teachings of the Magi (Sheldon Press, Oxford, 1976)