The History of Zoroastrianism

Its roots reaching back 3,000 years to the ancient Iranian tribes, Zoroastrianism by the sixth centuiy bce had become the dominant religion in Iran. But the rise of Islam in the seventh century ce changed the religious culture of the Middle East, pushing Zoroastrians into corners of the world where their numbers have dwindled.

The Background of Zoroastrianism

The Indo-lranians

At some time about 2000 bce, two nomadic peoples related by language and religion began moving southward from their ancestral home in Central Asia. One was the Indo-Aryans, who migrated to what are now Pakistan and western India. There, joining with the indigenous population, they produced Vedic culture and laid the foundations of Hinduism. The other was the Indo-lranians, who found a new homeland on the Iranian Plateau just east of Mesopotamia. Living apart from their cousins, these ancient Iranians formed a religious tradition that was very different from Hinduism. And yet both retained vestiges of their common past. Consider, for instance, a linguistic example with clear religious implications: Iranian daevas and Indian devas both mean “gods” or “spirits.”

Iranian Peoples and Languages

The languages of several early Iranian peoples became the languages of Zoroastrianism. Avestan, spoken by tribes of northeastern Iran, is the language in which the earliest Zoroastrian text, the Avesta, is written. The development of the Avesta over time resulted in some parts being written in Old Avestan and others in Younger Avestan.

Developing alongside Avestan was Old Persian, a language from the southwestern region of Pars (also Parsa), from which “Persia” derives. Old Persian texts relating to Zoroastrianism are mostly cuneiform inscriptions written on clay tablets and seals between 600 and 300 bce.

Pre-Zoroastrian Religion

Ancient texts tell us that early Iranian religion had marked similarities with early Hinduism as described in the Vedas (Chapter 4)· They describe worship of the daevas as widespread in Iran, just as devotion to the devas was common in India. The daevas were personifications of the aspects of nature on which all people depend: sty, sun, earth, fire, water, wind, and so forth. There was also a higher order of deities, known as ahuras (“lords”), responsible for maintaining order in the universe as a whole. These included Intar, a war god known as Indra in the Hindu Vedas; Mithra (Vedic Mitra), a god of light who gave cattle and children to the Iranians; and Yima (Vedic Yama), ruler of the dead. Finally, our sources describe belief in asha, an underlying natural and moral order that promoted goodness in all its forms—most notably light, truth, and justice. At times, order would be overcome by chaos in its many aspects—such as darkness, falsehood, and injustice—only to reestablish itself later. The universe was the setting for an unending struggle between order and chaos.

Human beings could support the forces of order through religious practices designed to strengthen them: sacrifices of cereal grains and, more commonly, animals; fire worship; and the preparation and consumption of haoma, a sacred drink made from the sour, milky juice of the soma plant (and similar to the soma drink described in the Vedas). In time, however, the violence involved in animal sacrifices, the cost of sacred rituals, and the power of the priests who conducted them became oppressive to many of the early Iranians. One of them was Zarathushtra.

Zarathushtra

Scholars cannot agree on where and when we should locate the life of Zarathushtra.

Legends preserved in Zoroastrianism’s sacred texts say that Zarathushtra displayed religious inclinations even as a child and that at the age of twenty he left his family and the wife they had found for him in order to search for truth. Ten years later, he had a vision of Ahura Mazda. Lifted out of his material body, Zarathushtra was taken up into a heavenly court where he beheld Ahura Mazda, the “Wise Lord,” attended by his angels. Calling upon Zarathushtra to be his prophet, Ahura Mazda, leader of the forces of asha (order), revealed the grave threat posed by Angra Mainyu, the “foul spirit” and leader of the forces of chaos. In additional visions occurring over the next eight years, each of the six principal angels of Ahura Mazda appeared to Zarathushtra and elaborated on the content of the first vision. By the time the visions ended, Zarathushtra understood the message Ahura Mazda wanted him to proclaim to human beings: Ahura Mazda was the Supreme Being and the power on which order depended. Human beings could join in the struggle against Angra Mainyu by resolving to live lives of exemplary morality. Any other decision would establish them as allies of Angra Mainyu. At the end of time, every human being would be judged on the moral quality of his or her life and would be assigned to an eternity either in the paradise of Ahura Mazda or the hellish pits of Angra Mainyu.

Much in the revelations Zarathushtra had received was new. Ahura Mazda, formerly on equal terms with other ahuras, was now raised to a level far above them. Ethical conduct on the part of the individual now displaced sacrificial rituals performed by priests as the most significant form of human activity. Human beings were now understood as full participants and no longer as semiengaged bystanders in the cosmic struggle between order and chaos, good and evil.

The unfamiliarity of ideas like these helps to explain the difficulty Zarathushtra encountered in finding converts to the new religion—the one true religion—he had learned from Ahura Mazda and his angels. It is also likely that many people resented certain reforms made by Zarathushtra, especially his prohibition of sacrifices to the daevas, whom he saw as agents of Angra Mainyu. It is said that he suffered through many years of discouragement and that Angra Mainyu himself urged him to give up. But then Zarathushtra came to the court of King Vishtaspa, whom legend describes as a good man surrounded by a class of wicked priests. Profiting from their bloody animal sacrifices and from popular belief that their magic could ensure good harvests and protection from the raids of nomadic tribes, the priests were able to arouse so great an opposition to Zarathushtra that he was thrown into prison. But when Zarathushtra managed to perform a miraculous cure for Vishtaspa’s favorite horse, the king took a stand against the priests and converted his kingdom to Zarathushtra’s new religion. From this point on, Zarathushtra and his followers had great success in bringing it to other parts of Iran. According to Zoroastrian scripture, Zarathushtra died at the age of seventy­seven, killed by a nomadic raider in the city of Balkh (in modern Afghanistan) while performing a ritual at his fire altar.

Compare the role of Zarathushtra as founder of Zoroastrianism with the roles of other founders of world religions: for example, the Buddha, Mahavira, Guru Nanak, Confucius, or Muhammad.

Zoroastrian Scriptures

The Aveste The oldest and most important of the Zoroastrian scriptures is the Avesta, a collection of sacred texts that preserve the teachings given to Zarathushtra by Ahura Mazda and a great deal besides. The history of the Avesta is described in later texts written in Pahlavi. According to the tradition, the Avesta we have today is a remnant of a much larger collection of texts said to have been destroyed when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in the fourth century BCE.

The Avesta is organized into five parts. The Yasna consists of material recited by priests when performing their liturgical functions. At the core of the Yasna are the Gathas, hymns attributed to Zarathushtra. Written in a very ancient dialect, the Gathas are the part of the Avesta thought to most accurately reflect the life and thought of Zarathushtra. The Visperad is a collection of texts recited along with the Yasna in order to solemnize seasonal celebrations, such as the Zoroastrian New Year’s Day. Unlike the Yasna and Visperad, which are liturgical collections, the primary purpose of the Vendidad is to describe the many ways in which the daevas work evil in the world and various means for confounding them. The Vendidad also contains stories about the creation of the world, the first human being, and the temptation of Zarathushtra by Angra Mainyu. The Yashts constitute a collection of hymns that venerate Zoroastrian virtues such as wisdom, truth, justice, and obedience and the angels associated with them. Originally, there were thirty Yashts, one dedicated to each day of the month. Only twenty-one survive today. The final part of the Avesta is the Khordeh Avesta. Sometimes called the “concise Avesta,” it consists of selections from the rest of the Avesta that are used by laypeople in the course of their daily lives. These include Yashts and special prayers recited during the five parts of the day, before undertaking certain tasks, and before eating and drinking.

Pahlavi Texts

In addition to the Avesta, there are numerous later texts written in Pahlavi. Two of the most important are the Denkard and the Bundahishn. The Denkard is a compendium of materials relating to Zoroastrian beliefs and customs, some of them much older than the Denkard itself. It includes doctrines; instructions for ethical behavior; the writings of Zoroastrian sages; observations on the arts and sciences, as well as on philosophical and theological topics; a history of the world up to the time of Zarathushtra; and substantial material on Zarathushtra himself. The Bundahishn (“Primal Creation”) is technically not scripture, though it elaborates on ideas found in the Avesta. Earlier in this chapter, we studied the myth of creation as presented in the Bundahishn.