Religious reformer, founder of Zoroastrianism, or
Parsiism (India); also known in Old Iranian as Zarathustra or
Zarathushtra. b. 628 BC - Rhages (modern
Tehran). d. 551, site unknown.
His
sect flourished 250 years before
Alexander the Great conquered
Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenids, a dynasty
that ruled
Persia from 559 to 330 BC, in 330 BC. Zoroaster then converted
Vishtaspa, king of Chorasmia (an area south of
the
Aral Sea in Central Asia) in 588 BC. Zoroaster (the Greek rendering of his name) was born into modest family of knights, the Spitama, in Rhages (now Rayy,
a suburb of
Tehran) where he later is assumed to have become a priest.
Rhages and its people led a life based around animal
husbandry and
pastoral occupations. As a result,
nomads (who
frequently raided) were viewed by Zoroaster as aggressive violators of
order. He called them
Followers of the Lie, even
though his outrage later made him unpopular with many. Having received a vision from
Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, who
appointed him to preach the truth, Zoroaster was opposed by civil and religious authorities, largely because he forbade all
sacrifices, since in the prevailing
religious tradition, he found the practice of sacrificing cattle, combined with the
consumption of
intoxicating drinks (
haoma), led to
orgiastic excess.
Zoroaster's teachings centred on
Ahura Mazda,
creator of
heaven and
earth, the source of the alternation of light
and darkness, the
sovereign lawgiver, and the very centre of nature. It is not certain that Zoroaster was the first to
proclaim
Ahura Mazda. This deity appears as the great god of
Darius I (522-486 BC), through it's not known if
Darius heard of him independently or through
Zoroaster's disciples .
Monotheism was still a radical idea at this time, so even his teachings contain the
seeds of
dualism, in as much as the world is split sharply into the struggle of Good
divinity against Evil
demiurges.
Much
heresy and
Gnosticism results from this early conception of the world. Zoroaster was supposed to have instructed
Pythagoras in
Babylon and to have inspired the
Chaldean doctrines of astrological
magic.
After Zoroaster's death his religion slowly spread southward, through what is now
Afghanistan, and westward into the
territory of the
Medes and
Persians. As it did so, it did not remain immune from contamination with the ancient religion,
whose gods and goddesses were again worshipped. With the advent of a new and decidedly national
Persian dynasty, the
Sasanian, in AD 224, Zoroastrianism became the official religion. Here
Herodotus describes their art as being in the hands
of
the Magi, a Median tribe with special customs such as exposing the dead, fighting evil animals and interpreting dreams,
whose chief was referred to as the
shahanshah ('king of kings').
Aristotle also mentions the spread of the dualism
within Zoroaster's teachings long after his passing.
Sources:
- The faiths of the world : a concise history of the great religious systems of the world. (New
York : Scribner, 1882)
- An explanatory commentary on Esther : with four appendices
consisting of the second Targum translated from the Aramaic with notes : Mithra : the winged
bulls of Persepolis : and Zoroaster by Paulus Cassel ; translated by Aaron Bernstein.
(Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark, 1888)
- Media, Babylon and Persia, 606-490
B.C. : including a study of the Zend-Avesta or religion of Zoroaster : from the fall of Nineveh
to the Persian War by Zénaïde A. Ragozin (London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1889)