ZARATHUSHTRA

ZARATHUSHTRA . Zarathushtra (known in the West under his Graeco-Latin name of Zoroaster) is seen by all Zoroastrians and by most modern scholars as the founder or the prophet of Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion in the Iranian world up to the ninth century ce. Since modern scholarship dates the earliest texts of Zoroastrianism (attributed to Zarathushtra himself) to the beginning of the first millennium bce and there is broad agreement over the fact that these texts were not written down before the fifth century ce, it is not surprising that the historicity of Zarathushtra has been doubted by several modern scholars. Two different approaches are available for an introduction to this pivotal person in the development of one of the oldest and most influential of all religions. The first is based on the Zoroastrian traditions concerning his life and mission and the second on the findings of modern scholarship. These two approaches, which often interlock in both religious and academic writings, need to be discussed separately here not only to avoid anachronisms but also because modern assumptions about Zarathushtra's activities tend to distort the image of the prophet in premodern Zoroastrianism itself. Modern scholars agree on the fact that Zarathushtra can only count as the author of a tiny portion of the corpus of the Avesta. However, in premodern Zoroastrianism the text of the entire Avesta and its commentaries were seen as the revelation brought to the world by Zarathushtra according to the wish of the supreme god Ahura Mazdā. Therefore the "sources" available for reconstructing his life and activities cannot be immediately settled.

Zarathushtra in Zoroastrianism

The focus here is on the image of Zarathushtra in "classical" Zoroastrianism, that is, the Zoroastrianism of the Pahlavi books (dated to the ninth century ce), with additional materials from earlier texts and evidence from non-Zoroastrian sources. If Zarathushtra counts as the "founder" of Zoroastrianism at all in these sources, it is usually in his capacity of the chosen person who brings Ahura Mazdā's revelation to the world. This revelation is usually referred to as dēn, a word that has a wide range of meanings but most often simply means "religion." This is not a banal detail: most Zoroastrian texts use the words "it is revealed in the religion" as an introductory formula to the claim that what is being transmitted is part of the "original" revelation of Ahura Mazdā to Zarathushtra. This revelation, the religion, was prepared by Ahura Mazdā even before the work of creation. Small parts of it were revealed by Ahura Mazdā to earlier persons from the mythical history of the Iranians as is told explicitly in the Pahlavi books and follows naturally from the fact that Ahura Mazdā regularly speaks to such important early humans as the first man (Gayōmard), the first human couple (Mašya and Mašyāna), and the first king (Yima). It is also part of the evolved theology of Zoroastrianism: if Ahura Mazdā is good and the religion is necessary for the benefit of humankind, Ahura Mazdā should be protected from the reproach that he had left humankind unaware of his intentions up to the time of Zarathushtra.

Other traditions, however, mention that all "prophets" before Zarathushtra refused to bring his revelation into the world and that it was only Zarathushtra who took this work upon himself. The revelation he brought consisted of the whole Avesta (in its own special language) with its commentaries (in the vernacular). This is evident especially from later texts (in Pahlavi), which had to account for the fact that the religion was formulated and that priestly decisions were based on the Zand, the (exegetical) translation of the Avesta, rather than on the Avestan texts themselves (several of which had been lost). The Gāthās were occasionally attributed to Zarathushtra in a more direct sense than the other parts of the revelation. In the Avesta, Zarathushtra is presented "while singing the Gāthās" (Y. 9.1), and the recitation of the Gāthās in the Yasna liturgy is preceded by important introductory formulae. But the suggestion by a nameless heretic that one should accept as Zarathushtra's revelation only the Gāthās is firmly rejected in the Dēnkard, one of the most important Pahlavi texts (Dēnkard 3.7).

As bringer of the revelation, Zarathushtra occupies a pivotal place in the history of the world. From the early texts onward, this aspect of his life is stressed regularly. In order to emphasize his importance, the world before Zarathushtra is portrayed as a world where demons roam freely. With the first utterance of the sacred Ahuna Vairya-prayer, Zara-thushtra smashed the shape of the demons and repelled them from the face of the earth.

The Zoroastrian tradition has preserved a lengthy legendary biography of the prophet, the value of which is enormous for a proper understanding of Zoroastrianism and its sense of history. Every aspect of his life is characterized by miracles and portents. His coming to the world came to be seen as preordained: his guardian spirit (fravashi ) was created millennia before his actual birth. His birth in itself was miraculous in many ways: the various constituent elements of his human life (body, soul, guardian spirit, "glory") were all transmitted by Ahura Mazdā and several of his divine helpers in a very complicated process, which involved his father and mother and various elements from the natural world.

During the pregnancy of his mother, the demons and evil priests were struck by terror and feelings of impending disaster for their ways of life. At birth, Zarathushtra laughed, and as a boy, he showed every sign of great accomplishments. The most crucial episodes from his life took place when he was thirty years old. Having moved to the "land of the Aryans," he entered a river to draw water for the morning rituals. Purifying himself, he encountered a shining figure on the banks of the river who introduced himself as Wahman (Vohu Manah, "good thought") and brought him to heaven, before Ahura Mazdā. There were a total of seven meetings between Zarathushtra and Ahura Mazdā. During these, Ahura Mazdā gave Zarathushtra the revelation and ordered him to spread it in the world.

This was not an easy task. Zarathushtra had to overcome the opposition of the wicked priests and their secular overlords of the religion(s) he meant to replace and was, initially, not very successful in doing this. Success only came after a lengthy stay at the court of King Wištāsp. After a series of philosophical debates, an episode of treachery leading to his arrest and incarceration, and Zarathushtra's success in curing the king's favorite horse, he finally found an audience willing to listen to his words. He recited the revelation for the king and his family, and they were the first to convert outside his own family. From the conversion of Wištāsp onward, the history of Zoroastrianism was to be a history of growth and success, but hostilities continued nonetheless. According to late traditions, Zarathushtra lived to be an old man but was eventually murdered and received into heaven.

A part of Zarathushtra remained, however: his semen is kept in a lake, where it will rest until the period of the separation of good and evil begins. When this time arrives, a virgin will bathe in the lake and become pregnant, giving birth to Zarathushtra's son(s), the Savior(s), who will lead humankind in bringing about the Renovation of the world. Thus Zarathushtra is represented, in Zoroastrian traditions, in all periods of world history, from the beginning of creation up to the desired end.

Many elements from these Zarathushtra legends can be found already in the Avesta. His meetings with Ahura Mazdā are alluded to in what is undoubtedly an old text, the confession of faith (Fravarānē, Y. 12). Parts of the Avesta are cast in the literary genre of questions and answers between Zarathushtra (asking the questions) and Ahura Mazdā (giving the answers) and thus stress the fact that he was responsible for the whole revelation. Although the Gāthās contain little if any information relevant for his personal life according to modern opinions, many elements from the Zarathushtra legends can be traced back to (often obscure) passages from the Gāthās. Although Zarathushtra played a role in the Zoroastrian version of the history of the world that is almost incommensurate with human capacities, there is no evidence that he was ever seen as something other than human.

In contemporary Zoroastrianism, pictures of Zara-thushtra are omnipresent in houses as well as fire-temples and sanctuaries. It is not certain how old this custom is, but the iconography used in the Iranian and Parsi communities cannot be traced to a period before the late eighteenth century. Small devotional rituals can be performed in the presence of these pictures: lighting a candle or an oil lamp or decorating the picture with a garland of flowers. On the sixth day of the first month of the Zoroastrian calendar, Zoroastrians commemorate Zarathushtra's birth and the beginning of his meetings with Ahura Mazdā.

In ancient and medieval non-Zoroastrian sources, Zarathushtra is often mentioned. Usually he is presented as the founder of the Persian priesthood (the magi) and the founder of the religion of the Persians. From an early period, Zoroaster was also annexed in Western traditions. Among Greeks and Romans, he came to be known as an early sage, who invented magic and astrology. The Western traditions on Zoroaster owe little to Zoroastrian ideas. This is true for antiquity but also for the remarkable popularity of Zoroaster in western European traditions from the Renaissance up to the late eighteenth century.

Zarathushtra in Modern Scholarship

The traditional biography of Zarathushtra is of course a myth. This myth is of great importance for a proper understanding of Zoroastrianism, but it yields little information on the historical Zarathushtra. Modern scholars (and indeed most modern Zoroastrians) do not accept the entire Avesta as the work of Zarathushtra, not to mention the vast body of exegetical literature in the Zand. When the Avesta and other Zoroastrian texts reached Europe in the late eighteenth century, the study of these texts remained under the influence of traditional Zoroastrian understanding only for a short while. The academic study of Zarathushtra and his message had to disengage itself more and more from the tradition that grew out of it. In the middle of the nineteenth century the German Orientalist Martin Haug demonstrated that a small part of the Yasna (sacrifice), the text of the daily high ritual, was written in a different language than the rest of the Avesta; that this language was more archaic; and that the texts in this more archaic language were the only texts that could be accepted as Zarathushtra's own words. These are the Gāthās (songs), five in number, to which modern scholarship has now added a few prayers and a short ritual prose text, all written in the same archaic dialect. These texts have now been recognized as the only possible source of information for the earliest period of Zoroastrianism. They are attributed to Zarathushtra himself by many scholars, but others have voiced doubts about the historicity of Zarathushtra or about the possibility of gaining accurate knowledge about him from these texts.

The corpus of relevant texts is thus small and unfortunately difficult. It is not only full of words of disputed or unknown meaning, but especially the difficulty of the poetic Gāthās is seen as intentional. Although earlier scholars thought of these texts as "verse sermons" or solemn declarations of new religious insights, it is now generally assumed that the poems are to be interpreted as visionary poetry composed in a ritual setting. The Old Avestan prose text, by contrast, is much less opaque. Since the texts do not refer to historical or geographical settings known from other sources, the possibility of contextualizing these texts is slim. Even though there is no shortage of speculation on this matter, it seems impossible to date the texts with precision or to situate them in a geographical environment. The texts mention the names of several persons, all known from the later Zoroastrian tradition, but it is a moot point whether that tradition has preserved knowledge of these persons or has invented a narrative in which these persons could fit.

In order to confront these difficulties, most scholars use two different sets of comparative materials. The first of these are the later Zoroastrian traditions, which reflect the religion that grew out of these early texts. The second set of comparative texts is offered by the hymns of the Ṛgveda, which were composed in a language that resembles Old Avestan closely and are full of set expressions and poetic usages that both traditions share.

There are certain dangers in using either approach to the exclusion of the other. Both sets of comparanda are, in a sense, quite far removed from the Old Avestan texts. Using both sets of data in combination seems to be the best option to guard against anachronisms (by reading later developments into the early texts) and against reading into these texts Vedic ideas that may never have been present in them. The truth is that the Gāthās are different from the Vedic hymns. There are certain similarities in poetic expressions and in the grammar of the texts, but the poems as compositions are completely different, as are the main components of the contents of the Gāthās.

Since contexts are unavailable, only rough indications of dating and localization, based on the content of the texts and the archaisms of their language, can be given. There seems to be a broad agreement that the texts (and therefore Zarathushtra himself) should be dated around the beginning of the first millennium bce in an eastern part of the Iranian world, perhaps the area known as Bactria-Margiana (present-day Afghanistan and Turkmenistan).

Two names stand out in importance in the Gāthās. The first of these is the name of the god who is celebrated in these hymns: Ahura Mazdā, "the Wise Lord." The second is the name of the most important man in these hymns: Zarathushtra, who occurs regularly as singer of the hymns and as performer of the rituals that the hymns accompanied. Following an established poetic pattern, the singer of the hymns declares that he is going to proclaim certain truths about the gods, the world and reality. In these proclamations, Ahura Mazdā is extolled as the creator of the world, dispenser of justice, lord of all that is good, and rightful recipient of prayer and sacrifice. But he is not alone: there are his children and his (spiritual) creations, personifying mental attitudes and human virtues, who aid him in the struggle against evil, which is taking place in front of one's own eyes. For there are evil beings in this world and in the spiritual world; although they are worshipped by those of little intellect, they should not be worshipped, for they cause nothing but harm to humankind and to the world at large. These evil beings are called daēvas and they too appear to be ruled by a separate being, who is chiefly alluded to as the "evil one," "the deceitful one," or "the one of evil doctrine" and who is said to have destroyed existence once (but will not do so again: [Y. 45.1]; the interpretation of this verse is debated). In several passages, two spirits are referred to who are each other's total opposites and between which humans must choose. If one makes the wrong choice, this has consequences for his or her afterlife. Indeed many passages have a marked focus on the implications of human choices for their fate in the other world.

The marked polarity between good and evil in these texts, focusing chiefly on the options for "righteousness" or "deceit," also splits human society. Even though some scholars have doubted the interpretation of the Gāthās as containing elements from Zarathushtra's biography, there are many passages that hint at an acute crisis, instigated by enemies and borne by the majority of the people surrounding Zara-thushtra. In these passages, various individuals and groups of enemies are mentioned, together with examples of their hostilities. This may reflect an actual struggle between competing groups of religious specialists, divided over matters of ritual and ideas about the gods and reality.

Many passages of the Gāthās show that rituals and religious views mattered not only for this world but also for the afterlife. Those who oppose truth will certainly be held accountable for their wrong choice through an ordeal and a judgment of their souls. A blessed existence is promised the righteous ones and a life of woe the wicked.

In a number of passages, all rather cryptic, there are allusions to the most influential of all Zoroastrian ideas: that the world as humans know it will come to an end in a decisive, collective transformation according to the wish of its creator. The most important passage is Y. 30.7–11, which contains the famous words "thus may we be those who will make existence brilliant" (Y. 30.9). Although other suggestions have been made, it is most likely that these verses indeed refer to the notion that the battle between good and evil, and therefore the world and "history," will eventually come to an end. This is certainly how it has always been understood in the tradition.

In spite of the many lexical parallels with hymns from the Ṛgveda, these are all aspects from the Gāthās for which one would look in vain in the Vedic corpus. The god Ahura Mazdā is as absent from India as the important Indian gods are from the Gāthās. Although ideas on the importance of ritual for the life and well-being of the people are characteristic for both traditions, the pervasive focus on the distinction between good and evil, their existence as (the only) two "primal" spirits, and their impact on the lives of humans in this world—in the afterlife and in the transformation of the world—is wholly specific for the Gāthās. Something resembling the Gathic insistence on the primary nature of Ahura Mazdā and his sole responsibility for the origins of everything—and especially the idea that history would come to an end—is likewise difficult to find in early Indian literature. There are no indications whatsoever that these were ideas that had grown slowly among the Iranians. For these reasons, the idea that a single person, Zarathushtra, was responsible for the Gāthās and in a real sense the founder of the religion that grew out of them raises fewer historical difficulties than the idea that such a person did not exist. One can question the suitability of the concept of "originality" in the writing of history but not doubt the possibility of real innovations. All the evidence suggests that the oldest Zoroastrian texts, which were preserved in a different language among a much larger body of ritual literature, offered a new vision of reality, using traditional words and concepts for the (successful) propagation of an innovative message.

See Also

Amesha Spentas; Avesta; Saoshyant; Zoroastrianism.

Bibliography

The literature on the subject is enormous and shows a wide variety of approaches and interpretations. The selection given here assembles some fundamental works and examples of the various methods scholars have used to make sense of the data.

There are many translations of the Old Avestan texts, ranging from intensely personal interpretations with an almost mystical message to elaborate philological studies. The most recent of these certainly show great improvements over earlier attempts.

Humbach, Helmut, Josef Elfenbein, and Prods Oktor Skjaervø. The Gāthās of Zarathushtra and the Other Old Avestan Texts. 2 vols. Heidelberg, Germany, 1991.

Insler, Stanley. The Gāthās of Zarathustra. Leiden, 1975.

Kellens, Jean, and Eric Pirart. Les textes vieil-avestiques. 3 vols. Wiesbaden, Germany, 1988–1991.

Studies of Zarathushtra

These include discussions of his historicity and, where accepted, his most likely dates and place.

Boyce, Mary. A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 1: The Early Period. Leiden, 1975.

Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrianism: Its Antiquity and Constant Vigour. Costa Mesa, Calif., 1992.

Gnoli, Gherardo. Zoroaster's Time and Homeland: A Study on the Origins of Mazdaism and Related Problems. Naples, 1980.

Gnoli, Gherardo. Zoroaster in History. New York, 2000.

Kellens, Jean. Essays on Zarathustra and on Zoroastrianism. Costa Mesa, Calif., 2000.

Lommel, Herman. Die Religion Zarathustras: Nach dem Awesta dargestellt. Tübingen, Germany, 1930.

Molé, Marijan. Culte, mythe, et cosmologie dans l'Iran ancien: Le problème zoroastrien et la tradition mazdéenne. Paris, 1963.

Schlerath, Bernfried, ed. Zarathustra. Darmstadt, 1970.

Skjaervø, Prods Oktor. "The State of Old Avestan Scholarship." JAOS 117 (1997): 103–114.

Studies of the Image of Zarathustra in Zoroastrian and Non-Zoroastrian Traditions

De Jong, Albert. Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature. Leiden, 1997.

Molé, Marijan. La légende de Zoroastre selon les textes pehlevis. Paris, 1967.

Rose, Jenny. The Image of Zoroaster: The Persian Mage through European Eyes. New York, 2000.

Stausberg, Michael, ed. Faszination Zarathushtra: Zoroaster und die europäische Religionsgeschichte der Frühen Neuzeit. Berlin, 1998.

Zoroastrian Works on Zarathustra

There are many modern Zoroastrian studies of Zarathustra and his importance for the Zoroastrian tradition. Most of these appear in Persian or Gujarati. Some representative examples are:

Dhalla, Maneckji Nusservanji. Zoroastrian Theology. New York, 1914.

Kapadia, Shapurji Aspandiarji. The Teachings of Zoroaster and the Philosophy of the Parsi Religion. London, 1905.

Mehr, Farhang. The Zoroastrian Tradition: An Introduction to the Ancient Wisdom of Zarathustra. Costa Mesa, Calif., 2003.

Mistree, Khojeste. Zoroastrianism: An Ethnic Perspective. Bombay, 1982.

Nanavutty, Piloo. The Gathas of Zarathustra: Hymns in Praise of Wisdom. Ahmadabad, 1999.

Taraporewala, Irach Jehangir Sorabji. The Divine Songs of Zarathustra. Bombay, 1951.

Albert de Jong (2005)