Zoroastrianism

"By the grace of Auramazda I am king: Auramazda gave me the kingdom."

"All this I have done according to the will of Auramazda: may Auramazda protect me, together with the gods, and (protect) my lordship and what was built by me. May Auramazda protect me together with the gods; and that which was built by me, and that which was built by my father, king Darius, that also shall protect Auramazda. (Xerxes I of Persia)"

"The name Ahura, like the name of Yahveh that the Bible gives to the God of Israel, means the Being, that is, the Being par excellence; and it is obvious to understand that such a concept, high and sublime, a mere and pure metaphysical abstraction, can only proceed from a select speculative mind and cannot belong to the order of ideas proper to naturalistic religions. And did this idea perhaps come to Zarathustra from the Semites, or rather from the Jews? (Italo Pizzi)"

"Zarathustra's god is a unique god. This is a concept that is not only foreign to the entire Iranian tradition, but is in absolute contrast with it. For it Zarathustra inaugurates a new era in the history of the Iranian people. He is the prophet of Ahura Mazda, and Ahura Mazda is the only god. (Raffaele Pettazzoni:)"

"He has all the attributes of a very high God, because he is omniscient, very wise, guardian and defender of his creatures, inaccessible to deception because he sees and knows everything, creator of light, of men and of the so-called primeval heifer which is, as will be seen, the living symbol of the strength and productive virtue of nature. His throne is in the highest heaven, and he sits there surrounded by the celestial hosts. This last concept is common, one can say, to almost all religions; but the attributes now enumerated are of a philosophical and theological nature, such that they bring Ahura Mazdao closer to the Semitic god, to the Yahveh in particular of the Jews, while distancing him from every other Indo-European god to whom, usually, they are always, or almost always, accompanied anthropomorphic attributes. (Italo Pizzi)"

"A great god (baga) (is) Auramazda, who created this earth, who created that sky, who created man, who created abundance of goods for man, who made Darius king, the 'one (made) king of many."

"Auramazda brought me help, and with it the other gods that are there. Therefore Auramazda and the other gods that are there brought me help, because I was not evil, I was not deceitful, I was not arrogant, neither I nor my family."

"I was not a little surprised to find that out of ten words in Du Perron’s Zind Dictionary, six or seven were pure Sanskrit."

"A keystone in the traditional short chronology for Indo‐European, for instance, is the perception that Avestan and Vedic are ‘so close’ that the divergence between them ‘must’ be but a matter of a few centuries. Sims‐Williams (1998: 126), for example, offers selected sentences that “may be transposed from the one language into the other merely by observing the appropriate phonological rules.” Much the same, though, can be said of selected phrases in Italian and Spanish, for instance: see Heggarty and Renfrew (2014: 545). Change and divergence have been minimal in no end of word pairs, such as Italian [liŋgwa] vs. Spanish [lɛŋgwa] tongue (from Latin [liŋgʷa]), [mɔndo]~[mundo] world, [θjelo]~[t͡ʃelo] sky, etc. Indeed, other cases show no real divergence at all: [kanto]~[kanto] I sing, [salta]~[salta] s/he jumps, and so on. Here too, simply applying phonological rules can straightforwardly transpose one language to the other, but that hardly proves a time‐depth of divergence of just a few centuries, as traditionally envisaged between Avestan and Vedic. For the net diver- gence between Italian and Spanish to arise, out of Latin, took the same two millennia that in French saw much more radical change."

"[In the Avestan descriptions of VarAna (in the VendidAd), Gnoli sees] “a country, where the ‘Airyas’ (Iranians) were not rulers and where there was probably a hegemony of Indo-Aryan or proto-Indoaryan peoples.”"

"“the importance of cattle in various aspects of the Gathic doctrine can be taken as certain. This importance can be explained as a reflection in religious practice and myth of a socioeconomic set-up in which cattle-raising was a basic factor.” ..."

"[This region is subject to] “a process of spiritualization of Avestan geography … in the famous celebration of the Hilmand in the ZamyAd YaSt…”, and “this pre-eminent position of SIstAn in Iranian religious history and especially in the Zoroastrian tradition is a very archaic one that most likely marks the first stages of the new religion … the sacredness of the HAmUn-i Hilmand goes back to pre-Zoroastrian times…” ..."

"The Hilmand region and the HAmUn-i Hilmand are beyond all doubt the most minutely described countries in Avestan geography. ..."

"[Likewise, in later Greek tradition, ArianE] “is the Greek name which doubtless reflects an older Iranian tradition that designated with an equivalent form the regions of eastern Iran lying mostly south, and not north, of the HindUkuS. It is clear how important this information is in our research as a whole.” ..."

"[the airyo-Sayana refers to] “the vast region that stretches southward from the HindUkuS,” ... “from the southern slopes of the great mountain chains towards the valleys of the rivers that flow south, like the Hilmand…” “there is a substantial uniformity in the geographical horizon between Yt.XIX and Yt.X ... and the same can be said for Vd.I … these Avestan texts which contain in different forms, and for different purposes, items of information that are useful for historical geography give a fairly uniform picture: eastern Iran, with a certain prevalence of the countries reaching upto the southern slopes of the HindUkuS.” ..."

"“we may consider that the northernmost regions where Zoroaster carried out his work were Bactria and Areia”. ..."

"“in the denomination of Ariana, which became known to the Greeks after the Macedonian conquest of the eastern territories of the old Persian empire, there was obviously reflected a tradition that located the Aryan region in the central-southern part of eastern Iran, roughly from the HindUkuS southwards, and that considered some of the Medes and the Persians in the west and some of the Bactrians and Sogdians in the north as further extensions of those people who were henceforth known by the name of Ariani. And this, to tell the truth, fits nicely into the picture we have been trying to piece so far. Here too, as in the passages of the Avesta we have studied from the Mihr YaSt and the ZamyAd YaSt, the geographical horizon is central-eastern and southeastern; the northern lands are also completely peripheral, and Chorasmia, which is present only in the very peculiar position of which we have spoken in the Mihr YaSt, is not included.” ..."

"[the Avesta reflects] “an historical situation in which Iranian elements exist side by side with … Aryan or Proto-Indoaryan (elements)”. ..."

"“With VarAna and RaNhA, as of course with Hapta HAndu, which comes between them in the Vd. I list, we find ourselves straight away in Indian territory, or, at any rate, in territory that, from the very earliest times, was certainly deeply permeated by Indo-Aryans or Proto-Indoaryans.” ..."

"[the attempt to transpose the geography of the Avesta from Afghanistan to western Iran] “was doubtless due to different attempts made by the most powerful religious centres of western Iran and the influential order of the Magi to appropriate the traditions of Zoroastrianism that had flourished in the eastern territories of the plateau in far-off times. Without a doubt, the identification of RaYa with AdurbAdagAn, more or less parallel with its identification with Ray, should be fitted into the vaster picture of the late location of Airyana VaEjah in ADarbAyjAn.” ..."

"“The fact [is] that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd. I, is confined to the east,” ...[this list is] “remarkably important in reconstructing the early history of Zoroastrianism”. ..."

"[The horizon of the Avesta] “is according to Burrow, wholly eastern and therefore certainly earlier than the westward migrations of the Iranian tribes.” ..."

"If we compare the toponyms and personal names established for the western parts of the Iranian highlands by cuneiform inscriptions of the 9th and 7th centuries B.C., with the toponyms and personal names, and in general with the vocabulary, of the oldes part of the sacred book of the Zoroastrians, the Avesta, we find that even taking the most optimistic view on the number of possible Iranian etymologies of names in the Western area, there is no escaping the conclusion that what obtained there during the first part of the Ist millennium B.c was a mixture of languages. In the Avesta, by contrast, no traces of an alien, non Iranian lexicological substratum have been detected, This points to the superimposition of the Avestan language on a substratum which already was Indo-Iranian, consequently to a much longer occupation of the area where the Avesta was composed, by speakers of Indo-Iranian languages."

"For all that, the geographical horizon of the Avesta appears unitary and compact, without any sudden leaps from eastern countries to presumed western ones. Substantially it includes the regions Of modern Afghanistan.."

"“Given its very Oriental horizon, this list must be pre-Achaemenid; on the other hand, the remarkable extendedness of the territories concerned recommends situating them in a period much later than the Zoroastrian origins. (…) one or several centuries later than Zarathuštra’s preaching.”"

"Also, Airyanam Vaejo, mentioned ibidem, is a bit of a mystery to iranologists, but one serious candidate is certainly Kashmir, where summer does indeed last only two months, in conformity with the description given."

"However, it is clear that the list of sixteen Iranian lands is arranged in rough geographical order, in an anti-clockwise direction which leads back close to the starting point; and the fact that the sixteen evils created by Angra Mainyu in the sixteen lands created by Ahura Mazda start out with ―severe winter‖ in the first land Airyana Vaējah, move through a variety of other evils (including various sinful proclivities, obnoxious insects, evil spirits and physical ailments), and end again with ―severe winter‖ in the sixteenth land, Raηhā, shows that the sixteenth land is close to the first one. And since Gnoli identifies the sixteenth land, Raηhā, as an ―eastern mountainous area, Indian or Indo-Iranian, hit by intense cold in winter, it is clear that Airyana Vaējah is also likely to be an eastern, mountainous, Indian area."

"Significantly, Iranian traditions record the earliest homeland of the Iranians as Airyana Vaējah, a land characterized by extreme cold. Gnoli, one of the greatest Avestan scholars, suggests that this land, mentioned in the list of the sixteen Iranian lands in the Avesta in Vendidād I, should be ―left out of the discussion since ―"the country is characterized, in the Vd.I context, by an advanced state of mythicization"."

"”The first chapter of the Vendidad or the handbook of the Parsees enumerates sixteen holy lands created by Ahura Mazda which were later rendered unfit for the residence of man (i.e. the ancestors of the Iranians) on account of different things created by Angra Mainyu, the evil spirit of the Avesta… The first of these lands was of course Airyana Vaejo which was abandoned by the ancestors of the Iranians because of severe winter and snow; of the others, one was Hapta Hindu, i.e. Saptasindhu”."

"The main obstacle to a reconstruction that closely links the western Aryas to the Avestan Airyas is, in my opinion, the one arising from the theories that the Medes and the Persians emigrated from the North rather than from the East, that is to say, for instance, from south-east Russia.... Now, the obstacle that arises from the theory of the Medes and the Persians having emigrated from the North ... on the basis of a highly conjectural interpretation of the archaeological evidence, is now removed by the archaeologists themselves. A body of evidence... orients us in quite a different direction, namely towards that of a migratory movement, probably a slow, progressive one, from East to West, along the great Khorasan Road..... A much more convicing theory than that of the western Iranians having emigrated from North to South across the Caucasus is that of a slow, progressive East-West emigration, a gradual penetration as it were, over the centuries, from the end of the 2nd millenium to the first half of the 1st millenium B.C. ... Having done away with the obstacle provided by the theory of the trans-Caucasian migration..., we can see both these peoples as western branches of those same Airyas that in the Younger Avesta are described as being settled in such a large part of the eastern Iranian world...."

"The following are some of the [miraculous] events of that night, which became to everybody as plain as daylight : The disappearance of the water from the lake Sadah ; the overflowing of the river Samavah, which is one of the watercourses of Syria, and had been dry during one thousand years. … During that night also the palace of Naushirvan, the strength of which will be mentioned in the record of the Khalifate of Abu Ja’far Manssur the Abbaside, so trembled that fourteen of its pinnacles fell to the ground. This event filled the mind of Kesra with terror and apprehension, which, however, he did not communicate to anyone, until at last he one day convoked his intimate friends and courtiers, and wished to do so, when all of a sudden news arrived from Estakhar that the fire of the chief temple of Persia, which had been burning for a thousand years, had become extinguished. Having searched their historical books for the meaning of this sign, they found that it portended ‘ decline of power.’"

"Who routed infidel armies and destroyed them with bloody slaughter? Who put out and made cold the sacred flame in Iran?"

"An article in a magazine, edited by a Parsi youth, gave an account of the Prophet of Arabia which lacked ‘‘that sentiment of respect and tolerance which is due to a sister community”. The lithographed portrait of the Prophet, which was given with the article, also gave umbrage, and “an undiscovered villain added fuel to the fire by posting a copy of the picture, with ribald and obscene remarks underneath, on the main entrance of the principal mosque.” Large crowds of Muhammadans assembled in the mosques of the town with the Qur’an in one hand and a knife in the other. At a meeting held on October 7, 1851, they proclaimed a Jih&d (holy war) against the Parsis. They overwhelmed the small police force on duty and marched triumphantly to the Parsi quarters of the Bombay town. The Parsis were “belaboured mercilessly by the rioters”. “For weeks together, that part of Bombay was a scene of pillage and destruction, and the Parsis had to put up with shocking atrocities such as defilement of corpses”. “Only after the editor had been compelled to tender a written apology a truce was declared”. “In connection with this disturbance the Parsi community looked in vain to the police for protection. If not altogether hostile, they were indifferent. Dddabhai Naoroji, who witnessed the tragedy, hastened the publication of the eRast Goftar’ and wrote strong articles against the Government for indifference and failure of duty. He also rebuked the cowardly Parsi leaders for having tamely submitted to such outrages.”"

"Both Pherozeshah Mehta and Dadabhai, whom no one would accuse of having any special animosity against the Muslims or the British Government, have laid emphasis on the callousness of the police and the . indifference of the Government. "The attitude of the Commissioner of Police was particularly hostile and objectionable. Even the Governor advised a Parsi deputation, that waited' on him, to make its peace with the Muhammadans and to learn the lesson of defending itself without dependence on the authorities.” 44"

"They "invaded Parsi places of worship, tore up the prayer- books, / extinguished the sacred fires and subjected the fire-temples to various indignities. Parsis were attacked in the streets and in their houses and free fights took place all over the city. Thanks to the weakness and supineness of the police and the Govern- ment, hooliganism had full play and considerable loss of life and damage to property were caused.” The riot continued for several days till the military was called out."

"There was again a similar riot in Bombay in 1874 » of which there are eye witnesses' accounts from two great Indian leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji and Pherozeshah Mehta. In a book written by a Parsi vaccinator there was a reference to the Prophet which was regarded as objectionable by the Muslims. The publication was accordingly suppressed by the Government and the author was made to apologize for arty affront he might have> inadvertently offered. Nevertheless, there was “a brutal and unwarranted attack on Parsis by a mob of Mohamedans.”"

"A serious riot took place in Bombay in 1851. An article written by a Parsi youth on the Prophet of Arabia gave umbrage to the Muslims. At a meeting held on 7 October, 1851, they proclaimed a jihad (holy war) against the Parsis. They over- whelmed the small police force on duty and marched triumphantly to the Parsi quarters of the Bombay town. The Parsis were "belaboured mercilessly by the rioters.” “For weeks together that part of Bombay was a scene of pillage and destruction,, and the Parsis had to put up with shocking atrocities such as defile- ment of corpses.” Throughout the trouble the Parsi community failed to secure any police protection. 43"

"Another riot took place in 1874 of which there is an eye-witness account by the great Indian leader Pherozeshah Mehta.67*. In a book written by a Parsi vaccinator there was a reference to the Prophet which was regarded as objectionable by the Muslims. The publication was accordingly suppressed by the Government and the author was made to apologize for any affront he might have inadvertently offered. Nevertheless, there was “a brutal and unwarranted attack on Parsis by a mob of Mohamedans”, on 13 February, 1874. They “invaded Parsi places of worship, tore up the prayer- books, extinguished the sacred fires and subjected the fire-temples to various indignities. Parsis were attacked in the streets and in their houses and free fights took place all over the city. Thanks to the weakness and supineness of the police and the Government, hooliganism had full play and considerable loss of life and damage to property were caused”. The riot continued for several days till the military was called out. Pherozeshah Mehta, like Dadabhai Naoroji, none of whom one would accuse of having any special animosity against the Muslims or the British Government, has laid emphasis on the callousness of the police and the indifference of the Government. “The attitude of the Commissioner of Police was particularly hostile and objectionable. The Governor told a Parsi deputation that waited on him that the conduct of the community had been injudicious and unconciliatory and advised it to make its peace with the Muhammadans and to learn the lesson of defending itself without dependence on the authorities.”"

"News arrived from Estakhan that the fire of the chief temple of Persia, which had burned for a thousand years, had become extinguished [at the time of the birth of Muhammad]."

"Hajjaj ibn Yousef, the governor of Iraq who was responsible for the introduction of a great deal of what became standard Islamic practice, made a concerted effort to destroy the Zoroastrians’ writings and kill all their priests, so that their history and doctrine would be largely obliterated."

"And this religion, namely, all the Avesta and , written upon prepared cow-skins, and with gold ink, was deposited in the archives, in , and the hostility of the evil-destined, wicked Ashemok, the evil-doer, brought onward Alexander, the westerner, who was dwelling in Egypt, and he burned them up. And he killed several high priests and judges and priests and the masters of the and upholders of the religion, and the competent and wise of the country of Iran. And he cast hatred and strife, one with the other, amongst the nobles and householders of the country of Iran; and self-destroyed, he fled to hell."

"Nizamu-d din Ahmad mentions no other event of Ibrahim's reign but the following : " The Sultan turned his face towards Hindustan, and conquered many towns and forts, and amongst them was a city exceedingly populous, inhabited by a tribe of Khurasani descent, whom Afrasiyab had expelled from their native country. It was so completely reduced by the power and perseverance of the Sultan, that he took away no less than 100,000 captives." ... There is, therefore, no improbability that the independent tribe which had been expelled by Afrasiyab, and practised their own peculiar rites, and whom Ibrahim the Ghazni- vide attacked in a.d. 1079, were a colony of fire-worshippers from Iran."

"Who routed infidel armies and destroyed them with bloody slaughter? Who put out and made cold the sacred flame in Iran?"

"…the Persies are a Sect very considerable in India, of whom the Tradition is, that coming from Persia in a Tempest, at the time that Mahomet and his Followers gave Laws to the Persians, (which they were unwilling to submit to) they were driven to that distress, that they almost despair’d of Life, ‘till hearing a Cock Crow, and espying Fire at Land, they recover’d their hopes of safety, and gain’d a speedy Arrival. The Cock therefore is as much esteemed by them as the Cow is by the Bannians, of the lives of both which, they are the zealous Patrons and Protectors."

"Zoroastrianism survives today only among small communities in the province of Fars, and among the ninety thousand Parsees of India. These devotedly preserve and study the ancient scriptures, worship fire, earth, water and air as sacred, and expose their dead in “Towers of Silence” to birds of prey lest burning or burial should defile the holy elements. They are a people of excellent morals and character, a living tribute to the civilizing effect of Zarathustra’s doctrine upon mankind."

"Zoroastrians were a colony from Northern India...[who] migrated westward to Arachosia and Persia."

"The pantheon was never eliminated, and Zoroastrianism, in some sense at least, remained a polytheistic religion throughout its history, although today the many deities have lost their individual divine character and are not worshipped for themselves but have been reinterpreted as allegories or symbols. Thus, modern Zoroastrianism is probably best described as monotheistic, certainly as monotheistic as Christianity with its Trinity and angels, though less monotheistic than Judaism and Islam."

"Dualistic religions flourished for more than a thousand years. Sometime between 1500 BC and 1000 BC a prophet named Zoroaster (Zarathustra) was active somewhere in Central Asia. His creed passed from generation to generation until it became the most important of dualistic religions - Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrians saw the world as a cosmic battle between the good god Ahura Mazda and the evil god Angra Mainyu."

"Zoroastrianism is the oldest of the revealed credal religions, and it has probably had more influence on mankind, directly and indirectly, than any other single faith."

"“It must be emphasised that the process of polarisation of relations between the Ahuras and the DaEvas is already complete in the GAthAs, whereas, in the Rigveda, the reverse process of polarisation between the Devas and the Asuras, which does not begin before the later parts of the Rigveda, develops as it were before our very eyes, and is not completed until the later Vedic period. Thus, it is not at all likely that the origins of the polarisation are to be sought in the prehistorical, the Proto-Aryan period. More likely, ZarathuStra’s reform was the result of interdependent developments, when Irano-Indian contacts still persisted at the dawn of history. With their Ahura-DaEva ideology, the Mazdayasnians, guided by their prophet, deliberately dissociated themselves from the Deva-Asura concept which was being developed, or had been developed, in India, and probably also in the adjacent Iranian-speaking countries… All this suggests a synchrony between the later Vedic period and ZarathuStra’s reform in Iran.”"