ZOROASTRIANISM | ANAKI77

What Is Zoroastriansim?

Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest world religions and arguably the first monotheistic faith in the world. Originated in ancient Persia approximately 3500 years ago, Zoroastrianism expanded to become one of the most important religions in the ancient world. From 600 B.C.E. to 650 C.E. it was the official religion of Persia (ancient Iran).

Zoroastrianism (Persian: دین زرتشتی Dīn-e Zartoshtī), also called Mazdayasnā (Avestan) or Beh-dīn (بهدین), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the name Zoroaster (Greek: Ζωροάστρις Zōroastris).

Among the world's oldest organized faiths, its adherents exalt an uncreated, benevolent, and all-wise deity known as Ahura Mazda, who is hailed as the supreme being of the universe. Opposed to Ahura Mazda is Angra Mainyu, who is personified as a destructive spirit and the adversary of all things that are good. As such, the Zoroastrian religion combines a dualistic cosmology of good and evil with an eschatological outlook predicting the ultimate triumph of Ahura Mazda over evil.

Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, all-good, and uncreated supreme divine entity, Ahura Mazda, or the “Wise Ahura”. Like Brahman of the Veda, Ahura Mazda is more of a divine force, and not a "God" as per Judeo-Christian understanding.

Zoroastrians believe that everyone in the world are created by Ahura Mazda and are equal. Zoroastrians are advocates of free will. Zoroastrian theology includes foremost the importance of following the Threefold Path of Asha revolving around Good Thoughts, Good Words, and Good Deeds.

Asha is a Zoroastrian concept with a complex and highly nuanced range of meaning. It is commonly summarized in accord with its contextual implications of 'truth' and 'right' (or 'righteousness'), 'order' and 'right working'. It is of cardinal importance to Zoroastrian theology and doctrine. In the moral sphere, aṣ̌a/arta represents what has been called "the decisive confessional concept of Zoroastrianism". The opposite of aṣ̌a is druj (lit. 'deceit, falsehood').

Fundamental Moral Practices

The basic moral principles that guide the life of a Zoroastrian are three:

Humata, "Good Thoughts," the intention or moral resolution to abide by Asha, the right order of things.
Hukhata, "Good Words," the communication of that intention.
Havarashta, "Good Deeds," the realization in action of that intention.

Living these three principles is the way we exercise our freewill by following the law of Asha. These three principles are included in many Zoroastrian prayers, and children commit themselves to abide by them at their initiation ceremony, marking their responsible entry into the faith as practicing Zoroastrians. They are the moral code by which a Zoroastrian lives.

Symbols Of Zoarastrianism

Fire—along with water—are seen as symbols of purity in Zoroastrian religion. Zoroastrians believe that all the elements are pure and that fire represents Ahura Mazda’s light or wisdom. Fire is an important symbol of Zoroastrianism, as it represents light, warmth and has purifying powers. Some Zoroastrians also recognize the evergreen cypress tree as a symbol of eternal life.

Zoroastrians turn towards a flame (Atash) or a source of light when they worship. The light can come from a natural source such as the sun, an oil lamp or a wood fire. Fire is a source of light and light represents wisdom while darkness represents ignorance. Ignorance and darkness are the absence of wisdom and light. A fire temple (called Agiyari or Atash-Behram) where the holy fire is always kept burning, is the place of worship for Zoroastrians. Zoroastrian places of worship are sometimes called fire temples. Each fire temple contains an altar with an eternal flame that burns continuously and is never extinguished.

Cosmology

Zarathustra proclaimed that Ahura Mazda was the supreme creator and sustaining force of the universe, working in gētīg (the visible material realm) and mēnōg (the invisible spiritual and mental realm) through the Amesha Spenta, a class of seven divine entities that represent various aspects of the universe and the highest moral good. Emanating from Ahura Mazda is Spenta Mainyu (the Holy or Bountiful Spirit), the source of life and goodness, which is opposed by Angra Mainyu (the Destructive or Opposing Spirit), who is born from Aka Manah (evil thought). Angra Mainyu was further developed by Middle Persian literature into Ahriman (𐭠𐭧𐭫𐭬𐭭𐭩), Ahura Mazda's direct adversary.

Zoroastrian doctrine holds that, within this cosmic dichotomy, human beings have the choice between Asha (truth, cosmic order), the principle of righteousness or "rightness" that is promoted and embodied by Ahura Mazda, and Druj (falsehood, deceit), the essential nature of Angra Mainyu that expresses itself as greed, wrath, and envy. Thus, the central moral precepts of the religion are good thoughts (hwnata), good words (hakhta), and good deeds (hvarshta), which are recited in many prayers and ceremonies. Many of the practices and beliefs of ancient Iranian religion can still be seen in Zoroastrianism, such as reverence for nature and its elements, such as water (aban). Fire (atar) is held by Zoroastrians to be particularly sacred as a symbol of Ahura Mazda himself, serving as a focal point of many ceremonies and rituals, and serving as the basis for Zoroastrian places of worship, which are known as fire temples.

Zoroastrians treat Ahura Mazda as the supreme god, but believe in lesser divinities known as Yazata. These yazata ("good agents") include Anahita, Sraosha, Mithra, Rashnu, and Tishtrya. Yazata is the Avestan word for a Zoroastrian concept with a wide range of meanings but generally signifying (or used as an epithet of) a divinity. The term literally means "worthy of worship or veneration".

The religion of Iran is closely akin to that of northern India, and, hence, the people of the two lands probably had common ancestors who spoke a common Indo-Aryan language. The religion of those peoples has been reconstructed by means of common elements contained in the sacred books of Iran and India, mainly the Avesta and the Veda.

Zarathustra's religious philosophy divided the early Iranian gods of Proto-Indo-Iranian paganism into emanations of the natural world—the ahura and the daeva; the former class consisting of divinities to be revered and the latter class consisting of divinities to be rejected and condemned.

Both the Avesta and the Veda exhibit the same kind of polytheism with many of the same gods, notably the Indian Mitra (the Iranian Mithra), the cult of fire, sacrifice by means of a sacred liquor (Soma in India, Haoma in Iran), and other parallels. There is, moreover, a list of Indo-Iranian gods in a treaty concluded about 1380 bce between the Hittite emperor and the king of Mitanni. The list includes Mitra and Varuna, Indra, and the two Nāsatyas. All of these gods also are found in the Vedas but only the first one in the Avesta, except that Indra and Nāñhaithya appear in the Avesta as demons; Varuna may have survived under another name.

The Indo-Iranians appear to have distinguished from among their gods the Daiva (Indo-Iranian and Old Persian equivalent of Avestan Daeva and Sanskrit Deva, related to the Latin deus), meaning “heavenly,” and the Asura, a special class with occult powers. This situation was reflected in Vedic India; later on, Asura came to signify, in Sanskrit, a kind of demon, because of the baleful aspect of the Asura’s invisible power. In Iran the evolution must have been different: the Ahura were extolled to the exclusion of the Daeva, who were reduced to the rank of demons.

It is in the framework of the religion of the Ahura, hostile to the cult of the Daeva, that Zarathushtra’s message should be understood. He emphasized the central importance of his god, the wise Ahura (Ahura Mazda), by portraying him with an escort of entities, the powers of all the other gods, in an array against the forces of evil.

The moral dualism expressed in the opposition Asha–Druj (truth–falsehood) goes back at least to Indo-Iranian times, for the Veda knows it too, as rita-druh, though the contrast is not as sharply defined as in the Avesta. Between these two principles, the Twin Spirits made an ominous choice, the Bounteous One becoming in thoughts, words, and deeds a partisan of Asha, Ashavan, while the other became Dregvant, partisan of the Druj. After them it was the Daeva’s turn, and they all chose wrongly. Ever since, the Daeva have tried to corrupt each human being’s choice also.

Saoshyant is an Avestan-language term that literally means "one who brings benefit", and which is used in several different ways in Zoroastrian scripture and tradition. In particular, the expression is the proper name of the Saoshyant, an eschatological saviour figure who brings about Frashokereti, the final renovation of the world in which evil is finally destroyed.

AVESTA

The Avesta, sacred book of Zoroastrianism containing its cosmogony, law, and liturgy, the teachings of the prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster). The extant Avesta is all that remains of a much larger body of scripture, apparently Zarathushtra’s transformation of a very ancient tradition. The voluminous manuscripts of the original are said to have been destroyed when Alexander the Great conquered Persia. The present Avesta was assembled from remnants and standardized under the Sasanian kings (3rd–7th century ce).

The Avesta is in five parts. Its religious core is a collection of songs or hymns, the Gāthā, thought to be in the main the very words of Zarathushtra. They form a middle section of the chief liturgical part of the canon, the Yasna, which contains the rite of the preparation and sacrifice of haoma. The Visp-rat is a lesser liturgical scripture, containing homages to a number of Zoroastrian spiritual leaders. The Vendidad, or Vidēvdāt, is the main source for Zoroastrian law, both ritual and civil. It also gives an account of creation and the first man, Yima. The Yashts are 21 hymns, rich in myth, to various yazatas (angels) and ancient heroes. The Khūrda Avesta (or Little Avesta) is a group of minor texts, hymns, and prayers for specific occasions.

Zend-Avesta literally means “interpretation of the Avesta.” It originally referred to the commonly used Pahlavi translation but has often been used as the title of Western translations.

Avestan language, eastern Iranian language of the Avesta, the sacred book of Zoroastrianism. Avestan falls into two strata, the older being that of the Gāthā, which reflects a linguistic stage (dating from c. 600 bc) close to that of Vedic Sanskrit in India. The greater part of the Avesta is written in a more recent form of the language and shows gradual simplification and variation in grammatical forms. When the canon of the Avesta was being fixed (4th to 6th century ad), Avestan was a dead language known only to priests.

Zoroastrians have no dietary restrictions. They also do not fast, as the religion teaches them, that the body must be well nourished to be able to work and live a healthy life.

Zoroastrians gave their dead “sky burials.” They built circular, flat-topped towers called dakhmas, or towers of silence. There corpses were exposed to the elements—and local vultures—until the bones were picked clean and bleached. Then they were collected and placed in lime pits called ossuaries.

The Zoroastrian new year is called Nowruz (or Navroze). It falls on the day of the vernal equinox (March 21), and marks the beginning of spring.

YASNA

Yasna is the Avestan name of Zoroastrianism's principal act of worship. It is also the name of the primary liturgical collection of Avesta texts, recited during that yasna ceremony.

The function of the yasna ceremony is, very roughly described, to strengthen the orderly spiritual and material creations of Ahura Mazda against the assault of the destructive forces of Angra Mainyu. The yasna service, that is, the recitation of the Yasna texts, culminates in the apæ zaothra, the "offering to the waters." The ceremony may also be extended by recitation of the Visperad and Vendidad texts. A normal yasna ceremony, without extensions, takes about two hours when it is recited by an experienced priest.

The Yasna texts constitute 72 chapters altogether, composed at different times and by different authors. The middle chapters include the (linguistically) oldest texts of the Zoroastrian canon. These very ancient texts, in the very archaic and linguistically difficult Old Avestan language, include the four most sacred Zoroastrian prayers, and also 17 chapters consisting of the five Gathas, hymns that are considered to have been composed by Zoroaster himself. Several sections of the Yasna include exegetical comments. Yasna chapter and verse pointers are traditionally abbreviated with Y.

The Avestan language word yasna literally means 'oblation' or 'worship'.

GATHA

The Gatha are 17 hymns in the Avestan language from the Zoroastrian oral tradition of the Avesta. The oldest surviving text fragment dates from 1323 CE, but they are believed by scholars to have been composed before 1000 BCE and passed down orally for centuries. They are traditionally believed to have been composed by the prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) himself. They form the core of the Zoroastrian liturgy (the Yasna). They are arranged in five different modes or metres.

The 17 hymns of the Gathas consist of 238 stanzas, of about 1300 lines or 6000 words in total. They were later incorporated into the 72-chapter Yasna (chapter: ha or had, from the Avestan ha'iti, 'cut'), that in turn is the primary liturgical collection of texts within the greater compendium of the Avesta. The 17 hymns are identified by their chapter numbers in the Yasna, and are divided into five major sections:

Ahunavaiti Gatha (cf. Ahuna Vairya), 100 stanzas, (3 verses, 7+9 syllable meter)
Ushtavaiti Gatha 'Having Happiness', 66 stanzas (5 verses, 4+7 syllable meter)
Spenta Mainyu Gatha 'Bounteous Spirit', 41 stanzas (4 verses, 4+7 syllable meter)
Vohu Khshathra Gatha 'Good Dominion', 22 stanzas (3 verses, 7+7 syllable meter)
Vahishto Ishti Gatha 'Best Beloved', 9 stanzas (4 verses, two of 7+5 and two of 7+7+5 syllables)

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