Zoroastrianism

ZOROASTRIANISM

Pre-Islamic religion founded by the Iranian prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster).

Founded as early as 1400 to 1200 b.c.e., Zoroastrianism spread from central Asia to Iran around the ninth century b.c.e., where it was propagated by priests called the magi, or mobeds. Zoroastrianism remained the major faith in Iran until the Sassanian state fell to the Arabs in 651 c.e. Thereafter, the religion lost many followers through conversion to Islam between the eighth and the thirteenth centuries. Zoroastrianism reached India in the tenth century, when some Zoroastrians migrated from Iran to avoid adopting Islam. Descendants of these immigrants are called the Parsis (Parsees). Those who remained behind sought refuge from Islam by moving to sparsely populated regions in central Iran. By the thirteenth century, extensive contact between Parsis and Persian Zoroastrians had recommenced. In 1854, when the Parsis sent an emissary to the Qajar court, the poll tax levied on Iranian Zoroastrians by the Muslim state was abolished. The community in India flourished, and in the mid-1990s it numbered around 72,000.

Zoroastrians in Iran encountered less success, though there was a respite from financial hardship and pressure to practice Islam during the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979). Since the Iranian Revolution, despite being recognized as an official minority of about 30,000, Zoroastrians are offered little protection from their Muslim neighbors, and many have fled Iran. International dispersion during the twentieth century has produced Zoroastrian communities in Pakistan (3,700), England (7,000), Australia (1,000), the United States and Canada (10,000), and other countries. By the early 1990s, low birthrates together with widespread nonacceptance of converts contributed to an overall decline in the number of Zoroastrians.

The faith's central canon is the Avesta (Pure instruction), a scripture that includes the Gathas (Songs), which were probably composed by Zarathushtra himself. Prayers recited by the laity in daily religious observances are compiled in a text known as the Khorde Avesta (Shorter Avesta). Next in importance are religious exegeses written in Pahlavi, a Middle Iranian language; among these are the Zand, a commentary on the Avesta, and the Bundahishn (Book of creation). There are more recent Zoroastrian texts in the New Persian, Gujarati, and English languages that transmit tenets of the faith and the meanings of rituals to believers who no longer understand the Avestan and Pahlavi languages.

The religion proposes an ethical dualism—which later became a cosmic dualism—between righteousness and falsehood, personified by a pair of primal spirits: Ahura Mazda (Ohrmazd), the Lord Wisdom, and Angra Mainyu (Ahreman), the Destructive Spirit. Ahura Mazda, the supreme deity, is believed to have created the spiritual and material worlds completely pure. Evil, disease, pollution, and death are attributed to Angra Mainyu, the devil. According to Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda created six amesha spentas, or beneficent spiritual beings, and other minor good spirits to assist him in protecting the material creations. Angra Mainyu produced numerous daevas, or demons, to defile the spiritual and material worlds. Zoroastrian texts claim that human beings were created by Ahura Mazda as allies in the struggle against Angra Mainyu, and that humans entered into a covenant with their creator to combat the forces of evil through daily good deeds.

Between the ages of seven and twelve, each Zoroastrian child undergoes initiation into the religion. %
The ritual, which symbolizes a spiritual rebirth, is termed sedra pushun in Iran and navjote in India. Every initiate dons a white undershirt called the sedra, or sudra, and ties a sacred girdle known as the kashti, or kusti, around the waist. The girdle, which most Zoroastrians continue to wear, should be untied and retied with the recitation of prayers on awakening each morning, and prior to performing worship. Many rituals, such as the jashan, or thanksgiving ceremony, are conducted within buildings known as fire temples. Fire is one of the seven sacred creations; the others are water, earth, metal, plants, animals, and human beings. Moreover, fire is believed to destroy evil, and thus it became the religion's icon. Sacred fires burn constantly in altars at major temples at Sharifabad, near Yazd, in Iran and at Surat, Navsari, and Bombay in India. Smaller temples in Iran and India and elsewhere do not maintain constantly burning fires; rather, a fire is lit in an altar prior to acts of worship. Because impurity is thought to arise from evil, Zoroastrians undergo elaborate rituals to ensure their spiritual purity. In addition to rituals of worship and purification, other acts of devotion include seven feasts, such as that celebrating Nav Ruz, the new year.

Zoroastrian doctrine holds that earth, fire, and water are polluted if a corpse is buried, cremated, or placed in water. Consequently, corpses are washed, then placed in a dakhma (funerary tower), which is open to the sky and accessible to birds of prey. Thereafter, the bones are collected and disposed of. Exposure of corpses has been phased out in Iran since the 1940s, replaced with interment (burial), but many Parsis in India and Pakistan continue the tradition of exposing bodies in funerary towers, particularly at Bombay and Karachi. Most Zoroastrians elsewhere follow their Iranian coreligionists' adaptation. Certain Zoroastrian communities, particularly those in North America, now perform cremation. Zoroastrians believe that after death each individual's soul is judged by a triad of gods—Mithra, the keeper of covenants; Rashnu, the judge; and Sraosha, the messenger—at the Bridge of the Separator, which connects earth to heaven over the pit of hell. If the soul's good deeds are greater than its evil deeds, it is led across the bridge into paradise. When its evil deeds outweigh the good, the soul is cast into hell until the day of universal judgment. In cases where a soul's good and evil deeds are equal, it is consigned to limbo. The faithful believe that at the end of time a savior (saoshyant) will resurrect the dead. Thereafter, Ahura Mazda will descend to earth and separate the righteous individuals from the evil ones. Each sinner will be purified of his or her transgressions and granted immortality. Then Angra Mainyu will be forced back into hell, and the world will become free of evil and impurity forever.

Bibliography

Boyce, Mary. A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1977. Reprint edition, Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994.

Choksy, Jamsheed K. Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrianism: Triumph over Evil. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989.

Writer, Rashna. Contemporary Zoroastrians: An Unstructured Nation. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994.

Zaehner, Robert C. The Teachings of the Magi: A Compendium of Zoroastrian Beliefs. New York: Macmillan; London: Allen and Unwin, 1956. Reprint, London: Sheldon, 1975.

jamsheed k. choksy
updated by eric hooglund