Zoroaster (628 BCE - 551 BCE) was an ancient Iranian prophet, religious reformer and poet, and the founder of the religion known as Zoroastrianism. [1] He preached the worship of a single supreme god, Ahura Mazda, and framed existence as a struggle between truth and falsehood in which every person must choose. The seventeen hymns known as the Gathas are attributed to him and form the oldest layer of the Avesta, the Zoroastrian scripture. [2]
Dating and sources
Almost nothing about Zoroaster's life can be established with certainty. Later Zoroastrian and Greek traditions place him in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, with birth conventionally given around 628 BCE and death around 551 BCE. [1] Many modern philologists argue from the archaic language of the Gathas, which is close to that of the Rigveda, that he lived considerably earlier, perhaps between 1500 and 1000 BCE. [2] His traditional association with places such as Ray and Balkh likewise reflects later legend rather than contemporary evidence.
The Gathas themselves are the only source that may come from him directly. They are dense, allusive hymns addressed to Ahura Mazda, and although they refer to his difficulties and to a patron, they contain little biography. [3]
Teaching
Zoroaster's reform set him against the sacrificial religion of the Iranian priesthood of his day. He proclaimed Ahura Mazda, the Wise Lord, as the uncreated creator of all that is good, attended by a group of divine aspects later called the Amesha Spentas. [2] Opposed to this order stands the destructive spirit, Angra Mainyu, and the principle of falsehood, druj, against the principle of truth and right order, asha.
Human beings, in this scheme, are not spectators but participants: each person's thoughts, words and deeds strengthen one side or the other, and each is judged individually after death. [1] The tradition developed a well-defined eschatology, including a final renovation of the world in which evil is destroyed and creation restored, ideas that scholars have often compared with later Jewish, Christian and Islamic conceptions of judgement, heaven and hell.
The religion after him
Zoroastrianism became the dominant faith of the Iranian plateau and the state religion of the Sasanian Empire, having earlier been closely associated with the Achaemenid dynasty, whose royal inscriptions invoke Ahura Mazda. [2] Fire, as the emblem of purity and of divine presence, became the focus of its ritual, tended in temples rather than worshipped in itself.
After the Arab conquest of Persia in the seventh century CE the religion declined sharply. Communities of adherents persisted in Iran, and emigrants who settled in western India from around the tenth century became the Parsi community. [4]
Legacy
Zoroaster was known to the Greeks as Zoroastres and was credited by them, largely without foundation, with astrology and occult wisdom, a reputation that persisted in Europe into the Renaissance. [1] Friedrich Nietzsche borrowed his Persian name for Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a work unrelated to his actual teaching.
Zoroastrianism survives today as a small religion, numbering in the low hundreds of thousands, concentrated in India, Iran and a worldwide diaspora. [4] Its historical influence on ideas of dualism, individual moral responsibility and final judgement is widely acknowledged in the study of religion.
