Zoroaster

Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Redirect Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox religious biography Template:Zoroastrianism sidebar

Zarathushtra Spitama,Template:Efn more commonly known as ZoroasterTemplate:Efn or Zarathustra,Template:Efn was an Iranian religious reformer who challenged the tenets of the contemporary Ancient Iranian religion, becoming the spiritual founder of Zoroastrianism.Template:Efn Variously described as a sage or a wonderworker; in the oldest Zoroastrian scriptures, the Gathas, which he is believed to have authored, he is described as a preacherTemplate:Efn and a poet-prophet.Template:Efn<ref name="West 2010 17">Template:Harvnb</ref> He also had an impact on Heraclitus, Plato, Pythagoras, and the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.<ref name="West Birthplace-Surname">Template:Harvnb</ref>Template:Sfn

He spoke an Eastern Iranian language, named Avestan by scholars after the corpus of Zoroastrian religious texts written in that language. Based on this, it is tentative to place his homeland somewhere in the eastern regions of Greater Iran (perhaps in modern-day Afghanistan or Tajikistan), but his exact birthplace is uncertain.

His life is traditionally dated to sometime around the 7th and 6th centuries BC, making him a contemporary of Cyrus the Great, though most scholars, using linguistic and socio-cultural evidence, suggest a dating to somewhere in the second millennium BC.<ref name="Boyce Background96">Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="West Dating">Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="auto1" /> Zoroastrianism eventually became Iran's most prominent religion from around the 6th century BC, enjoying official sanction during the time of the Sassanid Empire, until the 7th century AD, when the religion itself began to decline following the Arab-Muslim conquest of Iran.<ref name="Boyce Intro">Template:Harvnb</ref> Zoroaster is credited with authorship of the Gathas as well as the Template:Transliteration, a series of hymns composed in Old Avestan that cover the core of Zoroastrian thinking. Little is known about Zoroaster; most of his life is known only from these scant texts.<ref name="West Birthplace-Surname" /> By any modern standard of historiography, no evidence can place him into a fixed period and the historicization surrounding him may be a part of a trend from before the 10th century AD that historicizes legends and myths.Template:Sfn

Name and etymology

Zoroaster's name in his native language, Avestan, was probably Template:Transliteration. His translated name, "Zoroaster", derives from a later (5th century BC) Greek transcription, Template:Transliteration ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}),<ref name="Schlerath_1977_133_135">Template:Harvnb</ref> as used in Xanthus's Template:Transliteration (Fragment 32) and in Plato's First Alcibiades (122a1). This form appears subsequently in the Latin {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, and, in later Greek orthographies, as Template:Langx. The Greek form of the name appears to be based on a phonetic transliteration or semantic substitution of Avestan Template:Transliteration with the Greek Template:Langx (literally 'undiluted') and the BMAC substrate Template:Transliteration with Template:Langx.

In Avestan, Template:Transliteration is generally accepted to derive from an Old Iranian Template:Transliteration; The element half of the name (Template:Transliteration) is thought to be the Indo-Iranian root for 'camel', with the entire name meaning 'he who can manage camels'.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Reconstructions from later Iranian languages—particularly from the Middle Persian (300 BC) Template:Transliteration,Template:Explain which is the form that the name took in the 9th- to 12th-century Zoroastrian texts—suggest that Template:Transliteration might be a zero-grade form of Template:Transliteration.Template:Sfn Subject then to whether Template:Transliteration derives from Template:Transliteration or from Template:Transliteration, several interpretations have been proposed.Template:Efn

If Template:Transliteration is the original form, it may mean 'with old/aging camels',Template:Sfn related to Avestic Template:Transliteration<ref name = "Schlerath_1977_133_135"/> (cf. Pashto Template:Transliteration and Ossetian Template:Transliteration, 'old'; Middle Persian Template:Transliteration, 'old'):<ref>Paul Horn, Grundriß der neupersischen Etymologie, Strassburg 1893</ref>

• 'with angry/furious camels': from Avestan Template:Transliteration, 'angry, furious'.<ref name="Mayrhofer_1977_43_53">Template:Harvnb.</ref>
• 'who is driving camels' or 'who is fostering/cherishing camels': related to Avestan Template:Transliteration, 'to drag'.<ref name="Bailey_1953_40_42">Template:Harvnb.</ref>
• Mayrhofer (1977) proposed an etymology of 'who is desiring camels' or 'longing for camels' and related to Vedic Sanskrit Template:Transliteration, 'to like', and perhaps (though ambiguous) also to Avestan Template:Transliteration.<ref name = "Mayrhofer_1977_43_53"/>
• 'with yellow camels': parallel to Younger Avestan Template:Transliteration.<ref name="Markwart_1930_7ff">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The interpretation of the Template:Transliteration ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}) in the Avestan Template:Transliteration was for a time itself subjected to heated debate because the Template:Transliteration is an irregular development: as a rule, Template:Transliteration (a first element that ends in a dental consonant) should have Avestan Template:Transliteration or Template:Transliteration as a development from it. Why this is not so for Template:Transliteration has not yet been determined. Notwithstanding the phonetic irregularity, that Avestan Template:Transliteration with its Template:Transliteration was linguistically an actual form is shown by later attestations reflecting the same basis.Template:Sfn All present-day Iranian-language variants of his name derive from the Middle Iranian variants of Template:Transliteration, which, in turn, all reflect Avestan's fricative Template:Transliteration.Template:Citation needed

In Middle Persian, the name is Template:Langx,<ref name="auto">Template:Cite book</ref> in Parthian Template:Transliteration,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> in Manichaean Middle Persian Template:Transliteration,<ref name="auto"/> in Early New Persian Template:Transliteration,<ref name="auto"/> and in modern (New Persian), the name is Template:Langx.

The name is attested in Classical Armenian sources as Template:Transliteration (often with the variant Template:Transliteration).Template:Sfn The most important of these testimonies were provided by the Armenian authors Eznik of Kolb, Elishe, and Movses Khorenatsi.Template:Sfn The spelling Template:Transliteration was formed through an older form which started with Template:Transliteration, a fact which the German Iranologist Friedrich Carl Andreas (1846–1930) used as evidence for a Middle Persian spoken form Template:Transliteration.Template:Sfn Based on this assumption, Andreas even went so far to form conclusions from this also for the Avestan form of the name.Template:Sfn However, the modern Iranologist Rüdiger Schmitt rejects Andreas's assumption, and states that the older form which started with Template:Transliteration was just influenced by Armenian Template:Transliteration ('wrong, unjust, idle'), which therefore means that "the name must have been reinterpreted in an anti-Zoroastrian sense by the Armenian Christians".Template:Sfn Furthermore, Schmitt adds: "it cannot be excluded, that the (Parthian or) Middle Persian form, which the Armenians took over (Template:Transliteration or the like), was merely metathesized to Template:Abbr. Template:Transliteration".Template:Sfn

Date

File:CIMRM 44-Mithraic pater (Dura Europos) B.jpg

3rd-century Mithraic depiction of Zoroaster found in Dura Europos, Syria by Franz Cumont

There is no consensus on the dating of Zoroaster. The Avesta gives no direct information about it, while historical sources are conflicting. Some scholars base their date reconstruction on the Proto-Indo-Iranian language and Proto-Indo-Iranian religion, while others use internal evidence.<ref name="Boyce Intro"/> While many scholars today consider a date around 1000 BC to be the most likely,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn others still consider a range of dates between 1500 and 500 BC to be possible.<ref name="auto1">Template:Harvnb: "At present, the majority opinion among scholars probably inclines toward the end of the second millennium or the beginning of the first, although there are still those who hold for a date in the seventh century."</ref>Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn<ref name="NigosianDate">Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="ShahbaziAb">Template:Harvnb</ref>

Classical scholarship

Classical scholarship in the 6th to 4th century BC believed he existed 6,000 years before Xerxes I's invasion of Greece in 480 BC (Xanthus, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Hermippus), which is a possible misunderstanding of the Zoroastrian four cycles of 3,000 years (i.e. 12,000 years).<ref name="WestDate13">Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> This belief is recorded by Diogenes Laërtius, and variant readings could place it 600 years before Xerxes I, somewhere before 1000 BC.<ref name="NigosianDate"/> However, Diogenes also mentions Hermodorus's belief that Zoroaster lived 5,000 years before the Trojan War, which would mean he lived around 6200 BC.<ref name="NigosianDate"/> The 10th-century Suda provides a date of 500 years before the Trojan War.<ref name="WestDate13"/> Pliny the Elder cited Eudoxus which placed his death 6,000 years before Plato, Template:C..<ref name="NigosianDate"/> Other pseudo-historical constructions are those of Aristoxenus who recorded Zaratas the Chaldeaean to have taught Pythagoras in Babylon,<ref name="WestDate13"/><ref name="Tuplin2007"/> or lived at the time of mythological Ninus and Semiramis.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> According to Pliny the Elder, there were two Zoroasters. The first lived thousands of years ago, while the second accompanied Xerxes I in the invasion of Greece in 480 BC.<ref name="WestDate13"/> Some scholars propose that the chronological calculation for Zoroaster was developed by Persian magi in the 4th century BC, and as the early Greeks learned about him from the Achaemenids, this indicates they did not regard him as a contemporary of Cyrus the Great, but as a remote figure.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Zoroastrian and Muslim scholarship

Some later pseudo-historical and Zoroastrian sources (the Template:Transliteration, which references a date "258 years before Alexander") place Zoroaster in the 6th century BC,Template:Efn<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> which coincided with the accounts by Ammianus Marcellinus from the 4th century AD. The traditional Zoroastrian date originates in the period immediately following Alexander the Great's conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC.<ref name="NigosianDate"/> The Seleucid rulers who gained power following Alexander's death instituted an "Age of Alexander" as the new calendrical epoch. This did not appeal to the Zoroastrian priesthood who then attempted to establish an "Age of Zoroaster". To do so, they needed to establish when Zoroaster had lived, which they accomplished by (erroneously, according to Mary Boyce some even identified Cyrus with Vishtaspa)<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> counting back the length of successive generations, until they concluded that Zoroaster must have lived "258 years before Alexander".<ref name="WestDate13"/><ref name="Shahbazi_1977_25_26">Template:Harvnb</ref> This estimate then re-appeared in the 9th- to 12th-century Arabic and Pahlavi texts of Zoroastrian tradition,Template:Efn like the 10th century Al-Masudi who cited a prophecy from a lost Avestan book in which Zoroaster foretold the Empire's destruction in 300 years, but the religion would last for 1,000 years.<ref name="West 2010 6"/>

Modern scholarship

In modern scholarship, two main approaches can be distinguished: a late dating to the 7th and 6th centuries BC, based on the indigenous Zoroastrian tradition, and an early dating, which places his life more generally in the 15th to 9th centuries BC.Template:Sfn

Late date

Some scholars<ref name="auto1"/> propose a period between 7th and 6th century BC, for example, Template:C. or 559–522 BC.<ref name="NigosianDate"/><ref name="ShahbaziAb"/> The latest possible date is the mid 6th century BC, at the time of Achaemenid Empire's Darius I, or his predecessor Cyrus the Great. This date gains credence mainly from attempts to connect figures in Zoroastrian texts to historical personages;<ref name="ShahbaziAb"/> thus some have postulated that the mythical Vishtaspa who appears in an account of Zoroaster's life was Darius I's father, also named Vishtaspa (or Hystaspes in Greek). However, if this was true, it seems unlikely that the Avesta would not mention that Vishtaspa's son became the ruler of the Persian Empire, or that this key fact about Darius's father would not be mentioned in the Behistun Inscription. It is also possible that Darius I's father was named in honor of the Zoroastrian patron, indicating possible Zoroastrian faith by Arsames.<ref name="West 2010 6">Template:Harvnb</ref>

Early date

Scholars such as Mary Boyce (who dated Zoroaster to somewhere between 1700 and 1000 BC) used linguistic and socio-cultural evidence to place Zoroaster between 1500 and 1000 BC (or 1200 and 900 BC).<ref name="West Dating"/><ref name="ShahbaziAb"/> The basis of this theory is primarily proposed on linguistic similarities between the Old Avestan language of the Zoroastrian Gathas and the Sanskrit of the Rigveda (Template:Circa–1100 BC), a collection of early Vedic hymns. Both texts are considered to have a common archaic Indo-Iranian origin. The Gathas portray an ancient Stone-Bronze Age bipartite society of warrior-herdsmen and priests (compared to Bronze tripartite society; some conjecture that it depicts the Yaz culture),<ref>Template:Citation</ref> and that it is thus implausible that the Gathas and Rigveda could have been composed more than a few centuries apart. These scholars suggest that Zoroaster lived in an isolated tribe or composed the Gathas before the 1200–1000 BC migration by the Iranians from the steppe to the Iranian Plateau.<ref name="Boyce Background96"/><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref name="West Dating"/><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> The shortfall of the argument is the vague comparison, and the archaic language of Gathas does not necessarily indicate time difference.<ref name="WestDate13"/><ref name="NigosianDate"/>

It has been suggested by Silk Road Seattle, using its own interpretations of Victor H. Mair's writings on the topic that Zoroaster could have been born in the 2nd millennium BC.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Sfn

Almut Hintze, the British Library, and the European Research Council have dated Zoroaster to roughly 3,500 years ago, in the 2nd millennium BC.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Place

Template:See also The birthplace of Zoroaster is also unknown, and the language of the Gathas is not similar to the proposed north-western and north-eastern regional dialects of Persia. It is also suggested that he was born in one of the two areas and later lived in the other area.<ref name="NigosianPlace">Template:Harvnb</ref>

Template:Transliteration 9 and 17 cite the Ditya River in Airyanem Vaējah (Middle Persian Template:Transliteration) as Zoroaster's home and the scene of his first appearance. The Avesta (both Old and Younger portions) does not mention the Achaemenids or of any West Iranian tribes such as the Medes, Persians, or even Parthians. The Template:Transliteration refers to some Iranian peoples that are unknown in the Greek and Achaemenid sources about the 6th and 5th century BC Eastern Iran. The Template:Transliteration contain 17 regional names, most of which are located in north-eastern and eastern Iran.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

However, in Template:Transliteration 59.18, the Template:Transliteration, or supreme head of the Zoroastrian priesthood, is said to reside in 'Ragha' (Badakhshan).<ref name="West Birthplace-Surname"/> In the 9th- to 12th-century Middle Persian texts of Zoroastrian tradition, this 'Ragha' and with many other places appear as locations in Western Iran. While the land of Media does not figure at all in the Avesta (the westernmost location noted in scripture is Arachosia), the Template:Transliteration, or "Primordial Creation", (20.32 and 24.15) puts Ragha in Media (medieval Rai). However, in Avestan, Ragha is simply a toponym meaning 'plain, hillside.'<ref name="Gershevitch_1964_36_37">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Apart from these indications in Middle Persian sources that are open to interpretations, there are a number of other sources. The Greek and Latin sources are divided on the birthplace of Zoroaster. There are many Greek accounts of Zoroaster, referred usually as Persian or Perso-Median Zoroaster; Ctesias located him in Bactria, Diodorus Siculus placed him among Ariaspai (in Sistan),<ref name="West Birthplace-Surname"/> Cephalion and Justin suggest east of greater Iran whereas Pliny and Origen suggest west of Iran as his birthplace.<ref name="NigosianPlace"/> Moreover, they have the suggestion that there has been more than one Zoroaster.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

On the other hand, in post-Islamic sources Shahrastani (1086–1153), an Iranian writer originally from Shahristān, in present-day Turkmenistan, proposed that Zoroaster's father was from Atropatene (also in Medea) and his mother was from Rey. Coming from a reputed scholar of religions, this was a serious blow to the various regions which all claimed that Zoroaster originated from Template:Em homelands, some of which then decided that Zoroaster must then have then been buried in their regions or composed his Gathas there or preached there.<ref name="cf_Boyce_1975_2_26">cf. Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="cf_Gronke_1993_59_60">cf. Template:Harvnb.</ref> Arabic sources of the same period and the same region of historical Persia also consider Azerbaijan as the birthplace of Zarathustra.<ref name="NigosianPlace"/>

By the late 20th century, most scholars had settled on an origin in eastern Greater Iran. Gnoli proposed Sistan, Baluchistan (though in a much wider scope than the present-day province) as the homeland of Zoroastrianism; Frye voted for Bactria and Chorasmia;<ref name="Frye_1992_8">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Khlopin suggests the Tedzen Delta in present-day Turkmenistan.<ref name="Khlopin_1992_107_110">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Sarianidi considered the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex region as "the native land of the Zoroastrians and, probably, of Zoroaster himself."<ref name="Sarianidi_1987_54">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Boyce includes the steppes to the west from the Volga.<ref name="Boyce_1975_1">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The medieval "from Media" hypothesis is no longer taken seriously, and Zaehner has even suggested that this was a Magi-mediated issue to garner legitimacy, but this has been likewise rejected by Gershevitch and others.

The 2005 Encyclopedia Iranica article on the history of Zoroastrianism summarizes the issue with "while there is general agreement that he did not live in western Iran, attempts to locate him in specific regions of eastern Iran, including Central Asia, remain tentative".<ref name="Malandra_2005">Template:Harvnb</ref>

Life

File:Zoroaster 1.jpg

19th century painting depicting the events of Zoroaster's life

Zoroaster is recorded as the son of Pourushaspa of the Spitama family,<ref name="West 2010 17"/> and Dugdōw,<ref name="NigosianPlace" /> while his great-grandfather was Haēčataspa. All the names appear appropriate to the nomadic tradition. His father's name means 'possessing gray horses' (with the word Template:Transliteration meaning 'horse'), while his mother's means 'milkmaid'. According to the tradition, he had four brothers, two older and two younger, whose names are given in much later Pahlavi work.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Zoroaster's training for priesthood probably started very early around seven years of age.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> He became a priest probably around the age of 15, and according to Gathas, gaining knowledge from other teachers and personal experience from traveling when he left his parents at age 20.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> By the age of 30, Zoroaster experienced a revelation during a spring festival; on the river bank he saw a shining being, who revealed himself as Template:Transliteration (Good Purpose) and taught him about Template:Transliteration (Wise Lord) and five other radiant figures. Zoroaster soon became aware of the existence of two primal spirits, the second being Template:Transliteration (Destructive Spirit), with opposing concepts of Template:Transliteration (order) and Template:Transliteration (deception). Thus he decided to spend his life teaching people to seek Template:Transliteration.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> He received further revelations and saw a vision of the seven Template:Transliteration, and his teachings were collected in the Template:Transliteration and the Template:Transliteration.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

File:Iranianhistory-tekyemoaven.jpg

The rings of the Template:Transliteration

Eventually, at the age of about 42, Zoroaster received the patronage of queen Hutaosa and a ruler named Vishtaspa, an early adherent of Zoroastrianism (possibly from Bactria according to the Shahnameh).<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

According to the tradition, he lived for many years after Vishtaspa's conversion, managed to establish a faithful community,<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> and married three times. His first two wives bore him three sons, Isat Vâstra, Urvatat Nara, and Hvare Chithra, and three daughters, Freni, Thriti, and Pouruchista. His third wife, Hvōvi, was childless.<ref name="Boyce 1975 188">Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> Zoroaster died when he was 77 years and 40 days old.<ref name="Boyce 1975 188"/> There are conflicting traditions on Zoroaster's manner of death. The most common is that he was murdered by a Template:Transliteration (priest of the old religion) named Brādrēs, while performing at an altar. The [[Dēnkart|Template:Transliteration]], and the epic Template:Transliteration, ascribe his death to a Turanian soldier named Baraturish, potentially a spin on the same figure, while other traditions combine both accounts or hold that he died of old age.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>

Cypress of Kashmar

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The Cypress of Kashmar is a mythical cypress tree of legendary beauty and gargantuan dimensions. It is said to have sprung from a branch brought by Zoroaster from Paradise and to have stood in today's Kashmar in northeastern Iran and to have been planted by Zoroaster in honor of the conversion of King Vishtaspa to Zoroastrianism. According to the Iranian physicist and historian Zakariya al-Qazwini, King Vishtaspa had been a patron of Zoroaster who planted the tree himself. In his Template:Transliteration ('The Wonders of Creatures and the Marvels of Creation'), he further describes how the Al-Mutawakkil in 247 AH (861 AD) caused the mighty cypress to be felled, and then transported it across Iran, to be used for beams in his new palace at Samarra. Before, he wanted the tree to be reconstructed before his eyes. This was done in spite of protests by the Iranians, who offered a very great sum of money to save the tree. Al-Mutawakkil never saw the cypress, because he was murdered by a Turkic soldier (possibly in the employ of his son) on the night when it arrived on the banks of the Tigris.<ref name="cypress of kashmar">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Influences

In Christianity

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Athanasius Kircher identified Zoroaster with Ham.<ref name="Mungello Ham">Template:Harvcolnb and Template:Harvcolnb</ref> The French figurist Jesuit missionary to China Joachim Bouvet thought that Zoroaster, the Chinese cultural hero Fuxi and Hermes Trismegistus were actually the Biblical patriarch Enoch.<ref name="Mungello Enoch">Template:Harvcolnb</ref>

In Islam

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The Encyclopædia Iranica claims that the stories of Zoroaster's life were attributed to him by quoting stories from Christianity and Judaism, but the most quotations were from Islam after the entry of Muslims into Persia, as it was a means for the Zoroastrian clergy to strengthen their religion.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The orientalist Arthur Christensen in his book ''Iran During The Sassanid Era'', mentioned that the sources dating back to the era of the Sasanian state in ancient Persian that refer to the Zoroastrian doctrine do not match the sources that appeared after the collapse of the state, such as the Pahlavi source and others. The reason is that because of the fall of the Sasanian state, the Zoroastrian clerics tried to save their religion from extinction through modifying it to resemble the religion of Muslims to retain followers in the Zoroastrian religion.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Gherardo Gnoli comments that the Islamic conquest of Persia caused a huge impact on the Zoroastrian doctrine:<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

After the Islamic conquest of Persia and the migration of many Zoroastrians to India and after being exposed to Islamic and Christian propaganda, the Zoroastrians, especially the Parsis in India, went so far as to deny dualism and consider themselves completely monotheists. After several transformations and developments, one of the distinctive features of the Zoroastrian religion gradually faded away and almost disappeared from modern Zoroastrianism{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

}}

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Maneckji Nusserwanji Dhalla described the doctrine of the Gayomarthians sect as another attempt to mitigate the dualism that has always been the essence of Zoroastrianism. This was due to the Prophet Muhammad’s emphasis on monotheism and the Muslims’ mockery of the doctrine of worshipping two gods, which made the Zoroastrians view dualism as a defect, so they added monotheism, which led to the Zoroastrians’ division into sects and he mentions examples of the Zoroastrian attempt to establish a monotheistic belief by diminishing the importance of Ahriman, including that Ahura Mazda and Ahriman were created from time, or that Ahura Mazda himself allowed the existence of evil, or that Ahriman was a corrupt angel who rebelled against Ahura Mazda. Then he mentions the name of a Persian book from the 15th century in which it is written that the Magi (Zoroastrians) believe that Allah and Iblis are brothers.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

This provides an explanation of why a number of parallels have been drawn between Zoroastrian teachings and Islam. Such parallels include the evident similarities between Amesha Spenta and the archangel Gabriel, praying five times a day, covering one's head during prayer, and the mention of Thamud and Iram of the Pillars in the Quran.

The Sabians, who believed in free will coincident with Zoroastrians, are also mentioned in the Quran 22:17.<ref name="Hinnel 1997">Template:Citation</ref>

Muslim scholastic views

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Like the Greeks of classical antiquity, Islamic tradition understands Zoroaster to be the founding prophet of the Magians (via Aramaic, Arabic Template:Transliteration, collective Template:Transliteration). The 11th-century Cordoban Ibn Hazm (Zahiri school) contends that the designation Template:Transliteration "[follower] of the Scripture [of God]" cannot apply in light of the Zoroastrian assertion that their books were destroyed by Alexander. Citing the authority of the 8th-century al-Kalbi, the 9th- and 10th-century Sunni historian al-Tabari (I, 648)Template:Citation needed reports that Zaradusht bin Isfiman (an Arabic adaptation of "Zarathushtra Spitama") was an inhabitant of Israel and a servant of one of the disciples of the prophet Jeremiah.<ref name="IbnKathir">Ibn Kathir, Stories of the Prophets, The Story of the Prophet Jeremiah</ref> According to this tale, Zaradusht defrauded his master, who cursed him, causing him to become leprous (cf. Elisha's servant Gehazi in Jewish scripture).Template:Citation needed According to Ibn Kathir, Zoroaster came into conflict with Jeremiah which resulted in angry Jeremiah cast a curse upon Zoroaster, causing him to suffer Leprosy, and exiling him. Zoroaster later moved to a place of modern-day Azerbaijan which ruled by Bashtaasib (Vishtaspa), governor of Nebuchadnezzar, and spread his teaching of Zoroastrianism there. Bashtaasib then followed his teaching, forces the inhabitants of Persia to convert to Zoroastrianism and killed those who refused.<ref name="Ibn Kathir; chapter Jeremiah">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Ibn Kathir has quoted the original narrative was borrowed from Tabari's record of the "History of Jerusalem". He also mentioned that Zoroastrian was synonymous with Majus.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Sibt ibn al-Jawzi instead stated that some older narration said that Zoroaster was a former disciple of Uzair.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Al-Tabari (I, 681–683)Template:Citation needed recounts that Zaradusht accompanied a Jewish prophet to Bishtasb/Vishtaspa. Upon their arrival, Zaradusht translated the sage's Hebrew teachings for the king and so convinced him to convert (Tabari also notes that they had previously been Template:Transliteration) to the Magian religion.Template:Citation needed

The 12th-century heresiographer al-Shahrastani describes the Majusiya into three sects, the Template:Transliteration (an otherwise undocumented sect that – per Sharastani – seems to have had a stronger doctrine of Ahriman's "non-reality"), the Template:Transliteration and the Template:Transliteration, among which Al-Shahrastani asserts that only the last of the three were properly followers of Zoroaster. As regards the recognition of a prophet, Zoroaster has said: "They ask you as to how should they recognize a prophet and believe him to be true in what he says; tell them what he knows the others do not, and he shall tell you even what lies hidden in your nature; he shall be able to tell you whatever you ask him and he shall perform such things which others cannot perform." (Namah Shat Vakhshur Zartust, .5–7. 50–54)

Ahmadiyya view

The Ahmadiyya Community views Zoroaster as a Prophet and describe the expressions of the all-good Ahura Mazda and evil Ahriman as merely referring to the coexistence of forces of good and evil enabling humans to exercise free will.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In Manichaeism

File:Manichaean Diagram of the Universe (Detail 12).jpg

The four primary prophets of Manichaeism in the Manichaean Diagram of the Universe, from left to right: Mani, Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus.

Manichaeism considered Zoroaster to be a figure in a line of prophets of which Mani (216–276) was the culmination.<ref name="Widengren_1961_76">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Zoroaster's ethical dualism is—to an extent—incorporated in Manichaeism's doctrine which, unlike Mani's thoughts,<ref>Amin Maalouf 1991, The Gardens of Light</ref> viewed the world as being locked in an epic battle between opposing forces of good and evil.<ref name="Widengren_1961_43-45">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Manicheanism also incorporated other elements of Zoroastrian tradition, particularly the names of supernatural beings; however, many of these other Zoroastrian elements are either not part of Zoroaster's own teachings or are used quite differently from how they are used in Zoroastrianism.<ref name="Widengren_1961_44-45">Template:Harvnb.</ref><ref name="Zaehner_1972_21">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

In the Bahá'í Faith

Zoroaster appears in the Bahá'í Faith as a "Manifestation of God", one of a line of prophets who have progressively revealed the Word of God to a gradually maturing humanity. Zoroaster thus shares an exalted station with Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, and the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, Bahá'u'lláh.<ref name="Taherzadeh_1976_3">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Shoghi Effendi, the head of the Bahá'í Faith in the first half of the 20th century, saw Bahá'u'lláh as the fulfillment of a post-Sassanid Zoroastrian prophecy that saw a return of Sassanid emperor Bahram;<ref name="Buck_1998">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Effendi also stated that Zoroaster lived roughly 1000 years before Jesus.Template:Efn

Philosophy

File:Sanzio 01 Zoroaster Ptolmey.jpg

Detail of The School of Athens by Raphael, 1509, showing what may be Zoroaster (left, with star-studded globe)

In the Template:Transliteration, Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle between Template:Transliteration and Template:Transliteration. The cardinal concept of Template:Transliteration—which is highly nuanced and difficult to translate—is at the foundation of all Zoroastrian doctrine, including that of Template:Transliteration (who is Template:Transliteration), creation (that is Template:Transliteration), existence (that is Template:Transliteration), and as the condition for free will.

The purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain and align itself to Template:Transliteration. For humankind, this occurs through active ethical participation in life, ritual, and the exercise of constructive/good thoughts, words, and deeds.

Elements of Zoroastrian philosophy entered the West through their influence on Judaism and Platonism and have been identified as one of the key early events in the development of philosophy.Template:Sfn Among the classic Greek philosophers, Heraclitus is often referred to as inspired by Zoroaster's thinking.<ref name="August Gladisch">Template:Citation</ref>

In 2005, the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy ranked Zoroaster as first in the chronology of philosophers.Template:Sfn<ref>Frankfort, H., Frankfort, H. A. G., Wilson, J. A., & Jacobsen, T. (1964). Before Philosophy. Penguin, Harmondsworth.</ref> Zoroaster's impact lingers today due in part to the system of religious ethics he founded called Template:Transliteration. The word Template:Transliteration is Avestan and is translated as 'Worship of Wisdom/Mazda' in English. The encyclopedia Natural History (Pliny) claims that Zoroastrians later educated the Greeks who, starting with Pythagoras, used a similar term, philosophy, or "love of wisdom" to describe the search for ultimate truth.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Zoroaster emphasized the freedom of the individual to choose right or wrong and individual responsibility for one's deeds. This personal choice to accept Template:Transliteration and shun Template:Transliteration is one's own decision and not a dictate of Template:Transliteration. For Zoroaster, by thinking good thoughts, saying good words, and doing good deeds (e.g. assisting the needy, doing good works, or conducting good rituals) one increases Template:Transliteration in the world and in themselves, celebrating the divine order, and coming a step closer on the everlasting road to Template:Transliteration. Thus, mankind are not the slaves or servants of Template:Transliteration, but can make a personal choice to be co-workers, thereby perfecting the world as saoshyants ("world-perfecters") and eventually achieving the status of an Template:Transliteration ("master of Template:Transliteration").Template:Citation needed

Iconography

File:ClavisArtis.MS.Verginelli-Rota.V1.003r.jpg

Depiction of Zoroaster in Template:Ill, an alchemy manuscript published in Germany in the late 17th or early 18th century and pseudoepigraphically attributed to Zoroaster

Although a few recent depictions of Zoroaster show him performing some deed of legend, in general the portrayals merely present him in white vestments (which are also worn by present-day Zoroastrian priests). He often is seen holding a collection of unbound rods or twigs, known as a Template:Transliteration (Avestan; Middle Persian Template:Transliteration), which is generally considered to be another symbol of priesthood, or with a book in hand, which may be interpreted to be the Avesta. Alternatively, he appears with a mace, the Template:Transliteration—usually stylized as a steel rod crowned by a bull's head—that priests carry in their installation ceremony. In other depictions he appears with a raised hand and thoughtfully lifted finger, as if to make a point. Alternatively, this could be an Islamic influence, drawing parallels between both religions' conception of the oneness of God.Template:Citation needed

Zoroaster is rarely depicted as looking directly at the viewer; instead, he appears to be looking slightly upwards, as if beseeching. Zoroaster is almost always depicted with a beard along with other factors bearing similarities to 19th-century portraits of Jesus.Template:Sfn

File:Persia past and present; a book of travel and research, with more than two hundred illustrations and a map (1906) (14577344417).jpg

Indian Zoroastrian depiction of Zoroaster from a 1906 travel guide. Derived from a figure that appears in a 4th-century sculpture at Taq-e Bostan in South-Western Iran. The original is now believed to be either a representation of Mithra or Hvare-khshaeta.Template:Sfn

Many modern depictions of Zoroaster derive from a Sassanid-era rock-face carving at Taq-e Bostan. In this depiction, a figure is seen to preside over the coronation of either Ardashir I or II. The figure is standing on a lotus, with a Template:Transliteration in hand and with a gloriole around his head. Until the 1920s, this figure was commonly thought to be a depiction of Zoroaster, but in recent years is more commonly interpreted to be a depiction of Mithra.

Western references to Zoroaster and Zoroastrianism

In classical antiquity

The Greeks—in the Hellenistic sense of the term—had an understanding of Zoroaster as expressed by Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Agathias<ref>See Plutarch's Isis and Osiris 46-7, Diogenes Laertius 1.6–9, and Agathias 2.23-5.</ref> that saw him, at the core, to be the "prophet and founder of the religion of the Iranian peoples," Beck notes that "the rest was mostly fantasy".<ref name="Beck_525">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Zoroaster was set in the ancient past, six to seven millennia before the Common Era, and was described as a king of Bactria or a Babylonian (or teacher of Babylonians), and with a biography typical of a Neopythagorean sage, i.e. having a mission preceded by ascetic withdrawal and enlightenment.<ref name = "Beck_525"/> However, at first mentioned in the context of dualism, in Moralia, Plutarch presents Zoroaster as Template:Anchor"Zaratras," not realizing the two to be the same, and he is described as a "teacher of Pythagoras".<ref name=PlutarchMoraliaBrenk/><ref name="Tuplin2007">Template:Cite book</ref>

Zoroaster has also been described as a sorcerer-astrologerTemplate:Sndthe creator of both magic and astrology. Deriving from that image, and reinforcing it, was a "mass of literature" attributed to him and that circulated the Mediterranean world from the 3rd century BC to the end of antiquity and beyond.<ref name = "Beck_491"/><ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The language of that literature was predominantly Greek, though at one stage or another various parts of it passed through Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic, or Latin. Its ethos and cultural matrix was likewise Hellenistic, and "the ascription of literature to sources beyond that political, cultural and temporal framework represents a bid for authority and a fount of legitimizing "alien wisdom". Zoroaster and the magi did not compose it, but their names sanctioned it."<ref name="Beck_491">Template:Harvnb.</ref> The attributions to "exotic" names (not restricted to magians) conferred an "authority of a remote and revelatory wisdom."<ref name="Beck 1991 p=493">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Among the named works attributed to "Zoroaster" is a treatise On Nature (Template:Transliteration), which appears to have originally constituted four volumes (i.e. papyrus rolls). The framework is a retelling of Plato's Myth of Er, with Zoroaster taking the place of the original hero. While Porphyry imagined Pythagoras listening to Zoroaster's discourse, On Nature has the Sun in middle position, which was how it was understood in the 3rd century. In contrast, Plato's 4th-century BC version had the Sun in second place above the Moon. Colotes accused Plato of plagiarizing Zoroaster,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and Heraclides Ponticus wrote a text titled Zoroaster based on his perception of "Zoroastrian" philosophy, in order to express his disagreement with Plato on natural philosophy.Template:Sfn With respect to substance and content in On Nature only two facts are known: that it was crammed with astrological speculations, and that Necessity (Ananké) was mentioned by name and that she was in the air.Template:Citation needed

Pliny the Elder names Zoroaster as the inventor of magic (Natural History 30.2.3). "However, a principle of the division of labor appears to have spared Zoroaster most of the responsibility for introducing the dark arts to the Greek and Roman worlds." That "dubious honor" went to the "fabulous magus, Ostanes, to whom most of the pseudepigraphic magical literature was attributed."<ref name="Beck_2003_para7">Template:Harvnb.</ref> Although Pliny calls him the inventor of magic, the Roman does not provide a "magician's persona" for him.<ref name = "Beck_2003_para7"/> Moreover, the little "magical" teaching that is ascribed to Zoroaster is actually very late, with the very earliest example being from the 14th century.<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Association with astrology according to Roger Beck, were based on his Babylonian origin, and Zoroaster's Greek name was identified at first with star-worshiping (Template:Transliteration, 'star sacrificer") and, with the Template:Transliteration, even as the 'living' star.<ref name="Beck_523">Template:Harvnb.</ref>Template:Verify source Later, an even more elaborate mythoetymology evolved: Zoroaster died by the living (Template:Transliteration) flux (Template:Transliteration) of fire from the star (Template:Transliteration) which he himself had invoked, and even, that the stars killed him in revenge for having been restrained by him.<ref name="Beck_523" />Template:Verify source

The alternate Greek name for Zoroaster was Template:AnchorZaratras<ref name=PlutarchMoraliaBrenk>Template:Cite book</ref> or Zaratas/Zaradas/Zaratos.<ref>Cf. Agathias 2.23–5 and Clement's Stromata I.15.Template:Primary source inline</ref> Pythagoreans considered the mathematicians to have studied with Zoroaster in Babylonia.<ref>See Porphyry's Life of Pythagoras 12, Alexander Polyhistor apud Clement's Stromata I.15, Diodorus of Eritrea and Aristoxenus apud Hippolytus VI32.2, for the primary sources.Template:Primary source inline</ref> Lydus, in On the Months, attributes the creation of the seven-day week to "the Babylonians in the circle of Zoroaster and Hystaspes," and who did so because there were seven planets.<ref>Lydus, On the Months, II.4.Template:Primary source inline</ref> Lucian of Samosata, in Mennipus 6, reports deciding to journey to Babylon "to ask one of the magi, Zoroaster's disciples and successors," for their opinion.<ref>Lucian of Samosata, Mennipus 6.Template:Primary source inline</ref>

While the division along the lines of Zoroaster/astrology and Ostanes/magic is an "oversimplification, the descriptions do at least indicate what the works are Template:Em"; they were not expressions of Zoroastrian doctrine, they were not even expressions of what the Greeks and Romans "Template:Em the doctrines of Zoroastrianism to have been".<ref name="Beck 1991 p=493" /> The assembled fragments do not even show noticeable commonality of outlook and teaching among the several authors who wrote under each name.<ref name="Beck_495">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

Almost all Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha is now lost, and of the attested texts—with only one exception—only fragments have survived. Pliny's 2nd- or 3rd-century attribution of "two million lines" to Zoroaster suggest that (even if exaggeration and duplicates are taken into consideration) a formidable pseudepigraphic corpus once existed at the Library of Alexandria. This corpus can safely be assumed to be pseudepigrapha because no one before Pliny refers to literature by "Zoroaster",<ref name = "Beck_526"/> and on the authority of the 2nd-century Galen of Pergamon and from a 6th-century commentator on Aristotle it is known that the acquisition policies of well-endowed royal libraries created a market for fabricating manuscripts of famous and ancient authors.<ref name="Beck_526">Template:Harvnb.</ref>

The exception to the fragmentary evidence (i.e. reiteration of passages in works of other authors) is a complete Coptic tractate titled Template:Transliteration (after the first-person narrator) discovered in the Nag Hammadi library in 1945. A three-line cryptogram in the colophones following the 131-page treatise identify the work as "words of truth of Zostrianos. God of Truth [[[:Template:Transliteration]]]. Words of Zoroaster."<ref>Template:Harvnb.</ref> Invoking a "God of Truth" might seem Zoroastrian, but there is otherwise "nothing noticeably Zoroastrian" about the text and "in content, style, ethos and intention, its affinities are entirely with the congeners among the Gnostic tractates."<ref name="Beck_495"/>

Another work circulating under the name of "Zoroaster" was the Template:Transliteration (or Template:Transliteration), and which ran to five volumes (i.e. papyrus rolls). The title and fragments suggest that it was an astrological handbook, "albeit a very varied one, for the making of predictions."<ref name="Beck 1991 p=493"/> A third text attributed to Zoroaster is On Virtue of Stones (Template:Transliteration), of which nothing is known other than its extent (one volume) and that pseudo-Zoroaster 'sang' it (from which Cumont and BidezTemplate:Who conclude that it was in verse). Numerous other fragments preserved in the works of other authors are attributed to "Zoroaster", but the titles of those books are not mentioned.Template:Citation needed

These pseudepigraphic texts aside, some authors did draw on a few genuinely Zoroastrian ideas. The Oracles of Hystaspes, by "Hystaspes", another prominent magian pseudo-author, is a set of prophecies distinguished from other Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha in that it draws on real Zoroastrian sources.<ref name="Beck 1991 p=493"/> Some allusions are more difficult to assess:Template:Original research inline in the same text that attributes the invention of magic to Zoroaster,Template:Cn Pliny states that Zoroaster laughed on the day of his birth, although in an earlier place, Pliny had sworn in the name of Hercules that no child had ever done so before the 40th day from his birth.<ref>Pliny, VII, I.Template:Primary source inline</ref> This notion of Zoroaster's laughter also appears in the 9th– to 11th-century texts of genuine Zoroastrian tradition, and for a time it was assumedTemplate:Weasel inline that the origin of those myths lay with indigenous sources.Template:Citation needed Pliny also records that Zoroaster's head had pulsated so strongly that it repelled the hand when laid upon it, a presage of his future wisdom.<ref>Pliny, VII, XV.Template:Primary source inline</ref> The Iranians were however just as familiar with the Greek writers, and the provenance of other descriptions are clear.Template:Citation needed For instance, Plutarch's description of its dualistic theologies reads thus: "Others call the better of these a god and his rival a daemon, as, for example, Zoroaster the Magus, who lived, so they record, five thousand years before the siege of Troy. He used to call the one Horomazes and the other Areimanius".<ref>Plutarch's Isis and Osiris, 46–7.Template:Primary source inline</ref>

In the modern era

Template:More citations needed section An early reference to Zoroaster in English literature occur in the writings of the physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne who asserted in his Religio Medici (1643):

I believe, besides Zoroaster, there were diversTemplate:Efn that writ before Moses, who notwithstanding have suffered the common fate of time.{{#if:Religio Medici, Part 1, Section 23<ref>Religio Medici Part 1 Section 23</ref>|{{#if:|}}

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

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In E. T. A. Hoffmann's novel Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober (1819), the mage Prosper Alpanus states that Professor Zoroaster was his teacher.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In his seminal work Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885), the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche uses the native Iranian name Zarathustra, which has a significant meaning as he had used the familiar Greek-Latin name in his earlier works.<ref name="eiashouri">Template:Harvnb.</ref> It is believed that Nietzsche invents a characterization of Zarathustra as the mouthpiece for Nietzsche's own ideas about morality.Template:Efn By choosing the name of 'Zarathustra' as prophet of his philosophy, as he has expressed clearly, he followed the paradoxical aim of paying homage to the original Iranian prophet and reversing his teachings at the same time. The original Zoroastrian world view interprets being essentially on a moralistic basis and depicts the world as an arena for the struggle of the two fundamentals of being, Good and Evil, represented in two antagonistic divine figures.<ref name= eiashouri /> On the contrary, Nietzsche wants his philosophy to be Beyond Good and Evil.

Notable influence on modern Western culture

The German composer Richard Strauss's tone-poem {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} (1896) was inspired by Nietzsche's book.

File:2010 Appellate courthouse statues 1&2.jpg

Zoroaster statue (left) atop the Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State

A sculpture of Zoroaster by Edward Clark Potter, representing ancient Persian judicial wisdom and dating to 1896, towers over the Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State at East 25th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A sculpture of Zoroaster is included among other prominent religious figures in a procession representing major faith traditions on the south side of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago. It features figures from Abraham to the Reformation, illustrating a historical continuum of religious thought that includes the likes of Zoroaster, Moses, Plato and others.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

See also

• List of founders of religious traditions
• Criticism of Zoroastrianism
• List of unsolved deaths
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, a philosophical novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
• Zartosht Bahram e Pazhdo, author of a Persian epic biography on Zoroaster.
• Zoroaster and the Mount Savalan
• {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau

Bibliography

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• Template:Citation. Cf. especially Chapter IV: Prophets Outside Israel

External links

• Zoroaster at Encyclopædia Iranica
• Zoroaster at Encyclopædia Britannica
• Template:Internet Archive author
• Template:Librivox author