Zoroastrianism

The religion of Zoroastrianism arose from the preaching of a devotional poet named Zarathushtra (one who leads old camels), who lived around 1750 to 1500 bce in central Asia among proto-Iranian tribal people. As these people settled on the Iranian plateau between 1500 and 800 bce, they took their beliefs with them. In Iran, influenced by near Eastern stereotypes of holy men, Zarathushtra's image was revised posthumously to depict him as a prophet who established a faith. Contact between the Iranians and classical Greeks produced the Europeanized name of Zoroaster.

Devotees term their religion the Zarathushti din, or Zoroastrian religion. They refer to themselves as Zartoshtis, Zardoshtis, or Jarthushtis, namely, Zoroastrians. Other phrases used include one to denote the faith as Mazdayasna daena, or the religion of Mazda, and one to designate followers as Mazdayasna, or worshipers of Mazda. In the early twenty-first century Zoroastrianism has a largely hereditary global following, with estimates of adherents ranging from 137,250 to 208,000 (including anywhere from 10,800 to 17,700 in North America and approximately 6,350 in the European Union). Zoroastrian subgroups include Iranis (or Zoroastrians of Iran), Parsis (or Zoroastrians of India), immigrants from the latter groups to other countries, and a few recent converts.

IMPACT OF GENDER AND SEX ON DOCTRINE, THEOLOGY, AND MYTHOLOGY

Zoroastrian doctrine is based on two opposing concepts: asha, or order, which is grammatically neuter and is regarded as good, and drug, or confusion, which is grammatically feminine and is regarded as evil. The supreme divinity or god of Zoroastrianism is Ahura Mazda or Ohrmazd, the wise lord and creator, whose hypostasis, or principle essence, is Spenta Mainyu or Spenag Menog, the holy spirit. Ahura Mazda is believed to uphold order. The supreme demon of Zoroastrianism is Angra Mainyu or Ahriman (also called Ganag Menog), the angry spirit or destroyer. Angra Mainyu is believed to have chosen the path of confusion. The grammatical gen-ders of Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu were transformed into biological gender as male during the personification of these two spirits. So, in Zoroastrianism the primary creative and destructive spirits are male, the force of order is neuter, and the force that causes problems is female.

Zoroastrian doctrine envisions Amesha Spentas, or holy immortals (comparable to archangels), created by Ahura Mazda. Among these immortals Spenta Armaiti or Spandarmad (also Aspandarmad), representing holy devotion, was regarded as the earth spirit, the mother of life, and a granter of fertility. In ninth-century ce texts she was evoked in the corporeal "form of a woman wearing a luminous garment" who would lay in Ahura Mazda's embrace as the masculine creator's "daughter and mistress" (Wizidagiha [Selections] 4:4-8; Pahlavi Rivayat Accompanying the Dadestan i Denig [Book of religious judgments] 84). Veneration of Spenta Armaiti continues to be important for Zoroastrians of both genders and of all ages and socioeconomic levels, but she is especially dear to women, who turn to her for boons, good health, and happy family life.

Likewise, many of the yazatas, or worship-worthy spirits, which were created by Ahura Mazda, are either masculine or feminine in grammatical gender and male or female in biological gender. Most prominent are Mithra, or Mehr, and Aredvi Sura Anahita, or Anahid. Mithra is believed to enforce covenants and contracts between god and humans and between individuals. He is said, in scripture, to punish persons who violate contracts, while rewarding individuals who fulfill obligations with wealth, success, and happy families. He came to be associated with the sacral coronation of ancient Iranian, Zoroastrian monarchs who upheld god's laws and precepts. Not surprisingly, Mithra is still venerated by Zoroastrians as a yazata associated with success and wealth. Anahita, by contrast, is a more complex spirit. Her physical descriptions in prayers focus on sexuality and fertility with phrases such as "her breasts are well-shaped and prominent" (Aban Yasht [Hymn to Anahita] 5:126-129). Female devotees are still expected to invoke her to ensure easy childbirth and an adequate flow of breast milk. Yet, because she had been syncretized with the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar during the Achaemenian period (550–330 bce), Anahita came to be regarded as a yazata who dispensed success and glory—including kingship and other leadership roles—from Ahura Mazda to worthy individuals.

The daevas or divs are believed to oppose Ahura Mazda, the Amesha Spentas, and the yazatas, as demonic spirits who side with Angra Mainyu. One important harmful spirit was Drukhsh Nasush, or Druz i Nasush, the female ghoul of corpses and carrion whose corporeal shape was described in Zoroastrian scripture as "a fly, disgusting, with crooked knees, protruding buttocks, [covered with] numerous spots, the most horrible, noxious creature" (Videvdad [Code for abjuring demons], composed around 300 bce, 7:2, 9:26). Zoroastrians from antiquity to premodern times regarded her as preying upon humans, polluting their corpses, and spreading impurity and pollution from the dead to the living. Only after the eighteenth century did fear of Drukhsh Nasush wane as modern science replaced diabology. Another female daeva is Azi, or Az, who represents concupiscence and lust. Although bearing a grammatically masculine epithet demon-spawned in the Avesta [Praise] Scriptures, Azi was considered by medieval times to be the mistress of demonic hordes who ravage humanity beginning with the primeval androgyne Gayo Maretan, or Gayomard, who embodied mortal life. Again, only after the advent of modern scientific knowledge did fear of Azi diminish.

The Zoroastrian story about the first human couple, Mashya, or man, and Mashyana, or woman, who were born from Gayo Maretan's seed, reflects the tension between order and confusion, good and evil, and god and devil. The first couple experience a fall from grace, much as in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic creation story. In Zoroastrianism the fall occurs as a consequence of worshiping evil and from action in which Mashyana is said to have taken the lead: "Mashyana sprang forth, milked a cow, and offered [the milk] toward the north [the direction of hell]" (Bundahishn [Book of primal creation] 14:11-30). In a series of events involving infertility, sexual intercourse, and childbirth that culminate in cannibalism by the parents of their initial offspring, the effects of evil and gender are magnified. Words of admonishment by Ahura Mazda are said to have resulted, aimed at all women: "If I had found another vessel from which to produce man, I would never have created you … because sexual intercourse is for you like the taste of the sweetest food" (Bundahishn 14A:1). So, medieval and premodern Zoroastrian theologians and moralists would urge women to be "chaste, of solid faith, and modest" (Pahlavi Texts 117).

Even Zoroastrian notions of the afterlife were shaped by denunciations of female sexuality and glorification of female physicality. Descriptions of death, judgment, and the hereafter in Zoroastrian scriptures, such as the Hadokht Nask [Extracted section], have the souls of righteous Zoroastrian men led into paradise by a religious daena or din (conscience) in the form of "a beautiful girl, glorious, well-shaped, statuesque, with prominent breasts" (2:9). However, the souls of sinful Zoroastrian men are tossed into hell by a daena resembling the Drukhsh Nasush demoness "in the form of a naked whore … disgusting, with crooked knees, protruding buttocks, and [covered with] numerous spots" (Hadokht Nask 3:9). The faith's theology claims that beauty and sensuality are the heavenly rewards, together with gardens, pavilions, and music for those men who uphold asha while alive, whereas pain and suffering await those men who have committed evil. However, no premodern scriptural or exegetical passages refer to women encountering daenas upon death. Only in modern times, with the transformation of gender-specific notions of the afterlife into more abstract notions of spirituality, has the vision of daenas as sexy or ugly female spirits waned. Zoroastrian women, too, are now believed to have full access to heaven. But until the twentieth century, the image of women as prone to sin led to the feminine gender being suspected of sexual profligacy, sorcery, strife, and, as a result, religious impurity, and viewed as more likely to experience the retribution of hell.

MAJOR CONSEQUENCES OF GENDER AND SEXUALITY ON SOCIETY AND RITES

All Zoroastrian boys and girls undergo initiation into the faith between the ages of seven and fifteen. The initiation ceremony, denoting a spiritual rebirth, is termed navjote, or new birth, and alternately termed the rite of sedrapushun, or donning the holy undershirt. During the ritual, overseen by priests, initiates don a sedra, or sudre, which is a white undershirt symbolizing purity, then tie around their waist a kusti, or koshti, which is a white cord intended in part to separate the sexual portion of the body from the mental part. Upon the conclusion of the ceremony, individuals are regarded as full members of the religious community and are held accountable for their good and bad thoughts, words, and deeds. Yet, despite the seemingly equitable entry into the faith, only men from hereditary ecclesiastic families can undergo training and acceptance into the priesthood. The priests, called mobeds, or magi, oversee most Zoroastrian rites. The magi originally formed a priestly clan among the Medes, an ancient Iranian tribe. They adopted Zoroastrianism after the religion spread widely among the ancient Iranians. Magi entered Christian belief as the wise men from the East who journeyed to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. In the early twenty-first century, the office of priest still passes from father to son. A son who inherits the priesthood begins studying Zoroastrian liturgies and rituals in childhood, followed by a two-stage investiture.

Reasons for the exclusion of most men and all women from the clergy are found in the doctrine, theology, and mythology shaped by beliefs about evil, sex, and gender. One major concern among the clergy is maintenance of ritual purity. Zoroastrians believe that death occurs when a person's body is overwhelmed by evil's onslaught. Moreover, until modern times, they concluded that whenever a human died, his or her corpse was polluted by Drukhsh Nasush, whose presence caused decay (Videvdad 5:28, 35-38). Demons were also believed to turn impure all tissue and fluid severed, discharged, or expelled by living Zoroastrians. So skin, hair, nails, saliva, blood, semen, urine, feces, and even breath could make impure anyone else having contact with it. Contact with these substances was regarded as making a Zoroastrian unfit for rituals and making rituals lose efficacy. Additionally, impure persons could spread their ritual impurity to others through contact. Therefore, purificatory rites developed to ensure socioreligious purity for high rituals and rites of passage, and especially for the magi who conducted such rites.

Because blood discharged from bodies was regarded as unclean, the origin of menstruation was explained through diabology rather than physiology. Menstruation, it had been claimed by the clergy, began when Jahika, or Jeh, the demoness of lust, revived Angra Mainyu in hell after the devil had been initially defeated by Ahura Mazda. The devil "arose from his stupor, kissed her face, and the pollution called menstruation appeared on her" (Bundahishn 4:5). Using lust as a tool Jahika supposedly transferred menstruation to Mashyana and all subsequent generations of women. Consequently, menses became in religious terms a periodic sign of women's affliction by evil, one capable of polluting men who had any physical contact with a menstruating woman. Blood and afterbirth tissue expelled from a woman's body also were feared as falling under Drukhsh Nasush's control and becoming pollutants. To prevent women from having any contact with men or religious places during menstruation and after childbirth, they were isolated in separate buildings or rooms at those times and made to undergo purificatory ablutions thereafter before being reintegrated with their families and the rest of their community. These customs have largely fallen into disuse, but many Zoroastrian women still refrain from visiting fire temples and participating in religious rites during menses and after childbirth until they have undergone ritual purification.

As a result the most dramatic consequence of associating female physiology with demonology was the exclusion of women from all ranks of the magi to remove the potential for pollution of ritual sites and practitioners. The barrier against ordination into the clergy remains firm. Instead, women have been urged to perform domestic duties for parents, husbands, and children with religious fervor. Women's religiosity has been channeled into female-specific rites such as the ever-popular visiting of pirs, or shrines, and making of sofres, or votive offerings, in Iran. Among the Parsis of India, women religious leaders have emerged within mystically oriented sects such as Ilm-e Khshnoom. Other rites that have become mainstream for female devotees include the veneration of Anahita beside oceanfronts, riverbanks, and wells in Iran and India, because water symbolizes both female fertility generally and the fertility conferred by that female yazata upon women specifically.

Sexuality associated with fertility and domesticity continues to serve as a religious motif. One prominent example is the image of the yazata Ashi, or Ard, representing recompense and fortune. Ashi was anthropomorphized as a "slim-waisted, fair-bodied, long-fingered" woman who was so "beautiful in form as to delight beholders" (Ashi Yasht [Hymn to Ashi] 17:11). Male Zoroastrians who met her expectations could reap the benefits of beautiful wives, adorned with jewelry, lying on couches in homes located on large estates. Many contemporary Zoroastrians still set aside one day each month to honor Ashi, praying to her for the benefits of socioeconomic success. Yet, sexuality was linked to evil as well. One feminine spiritual embodiment of lust was the previously mentioned daeva known as Jahika. She was not merely a handmaiden of the devil but the mistress of Angra Mainyu. Sex, created by god for procreation, was thought to have been transformed by her on behalf of the devil into a means of polluting male Zoroastrians who would thereby be unfit for rituals and other duties until purification. So, once more, the magi generated prayers and rites to ensure spiritual safety and physical purification after sex.

Owing to the impurity associated with evil through the demoness Drukhsh Nasush, and because Zoroastrians regard earth, fire, and water as the holy creations of Ahura Mazda, human corpses could not be buried at land or sea nor cremated. Therefore, the magi ensured that corpses would be given final rites, including purification, and then exposed—during antiquity in remote areas and by the Middle Ages (476–1350) in funerary towers open to the sky—until the flesh had been desiccated or consumed by wild animals (as even recorded in the fifth century bce by the Greek historian Herodotus). Exposure was segregated by gender within each funerary tower. The practice of exposure persisted in most Zoroastrian communities until the eighteenth century. By the early twenty-first century, as a consequence of being regarded as based on myth and superstition, exposure had been replaced for the most part by inhumation sans any separation of graves based on the gender of the deceased. Yet, exposure of corpses and segregation in death still persists among orthodox communities of Zoroastrians in major cities of the Indian subcontinent such as Mumbai (Bombay) and Karachi. Inexplicably, this funerary practice contradicts the situation in life when women are neither segregated nor veiled from men (other than among orthodox women who are separated in menses and childbirth as noted previously). Veiling as a social behavior was present among elite men and women during the ancient Iran empires, but as a marker of hierarchy rather than as a symbol of religiosity.

FAITH, GENDER, AND SOCIETAL CHANGE

Women were and, in many Zoroastrian communities, still are expected to remain virgins until marriage. Marriage involved obtaining the consent of a woman's parents and at least technically her own consent; now, each spouse's consent is mandatory. Marriage was and still is regarded by Zoroastrians as both a religious duty and a legal contract. In ancient and medieval times a wife's legal standing within her husband's household depended on her own social class prior to marriage, the stipulations of the marriage contract, and her giving birth to sons. Through marriage, women were expected to follow the positive features of Mashyana and to duplicate the holy attributes of Spenta Armaiti. Having children is encouraged, and so induced abortions are forbidden because children are regarded as new devotees of the faith.

Polygyny as a religiously sanctioned practice was attested among Zoroastrians from ancient times onward. The evidence for polyandry, on the other hand, is very meager. Polygyny was phased out by the faith's leaders during the early twentieth century when they concluded that the practice was not in conformity with modernity. Consanguineous marriage, justified as preserving ethnic, familial, and confessional bonds, was practiced by Zoroastrian royalty in Iran—as it had been among Egyptian pharaohs and their families—from approximately 600 bce to 700 ce. Consanguinity, or incest, does not, however, appear to have been as routine or widespread among Zoroastrian commoners as it was among the general population of Roman Egypt. Its occurrence ended in the Middle Ages when the practice was deemed no longer socially acceptable.

Doctrinal, ritual, and attitudinal changes have occurred within Zoroastrian communities in Iran and India—and in other Asian countries and in the European and North American societies to which some of them immigrated—because of European and North American education and science bringing about secularization. Traditionally, girls had been educated at home by tutors; boys had attended schools. School-level education became widespread for both genders in India by the early twentieth century, then extended to the university level. English became the language of rapidly urbanizing and secularizing Parsi families. By 1931, 73 percent of Parsi women were literate. During the 1980s, 68 percent of Parsi women held university degrees. Educated Parsi women entered the public workforce, alongside Zoroastrians and non-Zoroastrians. Similar processes took place among Iranis during the twentieth century. Women began opting for professional careers, and by the 1980s approximately 25 percent of them were choosing to remain unmarried and childless.

Migration to Europe and North America began from India in the mid-twentieth century and from Iran in the 1980s for economic enhancement and religious freedom, respectively. As an urbane, highly educated, religious minority, Zoroastrian men and women intermingle freely across gender boundaries professionally and personally in the early twenty-first century. In the traditional homelands of Zoroastrianism, that is, Iran and India, and within the new diaspora communities of Europe and North America, studies indicate that women predominate as sustainers and transmitters of religion from one generation to the next. For instance, more Zoroastrian women (75%) practice religious rites daily and teach them to their children than do men (60%). Even though not part of the clergy, women have taken on many prominent roles in the lay leadership of communal centers. Increasingly, women rather than men are directing attention to socioreligious issues impacting on both genders, such as female responsibilities in orthodox devotional settings and the status of children born to Zoroastrian mothers from non-Zoroastrian fathers, and in championing religious reform.

see also Goddess Worship; Jeh; Menstruation; Witchcraft.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bartholomae, Christian. 1924. Die Frau im sasanidischen Recht [Women in Sasanian law]. Heidelberg, Germany: Carl Winter.

Billimoria, H. M. 1991. Attitude of Parsi Women to Marriage. Bombay: Himalaya Publishing House.

Brosius, Maria. 1996. Women in Ancient Persia, 559–331 b.c. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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

Choksy, Jamsheed K. 2002. Evil, Good, and Gender: Facets of the Feminine in Zoroastrian Religious History. New York: Peter Lang.

Culpepper, Emily E. 1974. "Zoroastrian Menstruation Taboos: A Women's Studies Perspective." In Women and Religion: Papers of the Working Group on Women and Religion, 1972–1973, eds. Judith Plaskow and Joan Arnold Romero. Chambersburg, PA: American Academy of Religion.

Hjerrild, Bodil. 1988. "Zoroastrian Divorce." In A Green Leaf: Papers in Honour of Professor Jes P. Asmussen, eds. Werner Sundermann, Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, and Faridun Vahman. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.

Jamzadeh, Laal, and Margaret Mills. 1986. "Iranian Sofreh: From Collective to Female Ritual." In Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, eds. Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell, and Paula Richman. Boston: Beacon Press.

Katrak, Jamshed Cawasji. 1965. Marriage in Ancient Iran. Bombay: Author.

Rose, Jenny. 1989. "The Traditional Role of Women in the Iranian and Indian (Parsi) Zoroastrian Communities from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century." Journal of the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute 56: 1-103.

Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Heleen. 1993. "Exit Atossa: Images of Women in Greek Historiography on Persia." In Images of Women in Antiquity, eds. Averil Cameron and Amélie Kuhrt. Rev. edition. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Stausberg, Michael. 2002–2004. Die Religion Zarathushtras, Vol. 2. Stuttgart, Germany: Kohlhammer.

                                        Jamsheed K. Choksy